After about a week, I saved up enough money to go and buy the VHS player from the pawn shop. Jedd was curious at why a "youngster" like me would want such an old device, and I told him that my mom had found some old home videos she wanted to watch. He seemed to buy the story. Why wouldn't he?
I go into my room and lock the door. It takes me almost fifteen minutes to get the VHS player plugged into my TV and working. Reaching under my bed, I retrieve the bag with the tapes, dumping them onto the floor. Two tapes clatter out of the bag. After a moment of investigation, I realize that the third tape is gone. I shake the sudden feeling of paranoia as I grab the two remaining tapes. I have to focus on one problem at a time. I decide to look for the lost tape after watching whatever is on the other two.
"Alright… here goes…" I mutter to myself, popping the first tape into the VHS player.
The first couple minutes are nothing but static and fuzz, so I fast-forward until a picture comes up. My eyes widen as I immediately recognize the setting. It's my school. In the hallway where Missy fell down the stairs and died. Where I saw Him.
The camera appears to be pointing in through the window at the top of the stairs, and the picture wiggles occasionally as if someone is holding it. After a few minutes of nothing happening, I watch in shock as I enter the hallway, clutching the so-called love note in my hand. The camera angle shifts to get a better view of the hall. The event plays out exactly as I remember it. My heart pounds. I know what comes next.
"I'd rather be a bitch than a freak like you!" Missy jeers at me, her perfect voice seeming hollow and distorted through the speakers of the television.
I watch myself double over, clutching my head at the sudden wave of dizziness, when the volume of the video suddenly cuts out. The voices are replaced with a horrifying sound that resembles feedback from a microphone, and I pound the volume button on the remote with shaking fingers. The video distorts, twisting and flashing, blurring and going fuzzy, and through the chaos I can make out the clear figure of Him, standing at the top of the stairs.
The video freezes, the picture stuck, unmoving. The feedback noise continues, however, and I can hear the sound of Missy's body tumbling down the stairs accompanied by the bloodcurdling screams of her companion.
The picture advances again, only enough for me to see Him turn his head towards the position of the camera. Whoever is holding the camera apparently sees this and turns the camera away from the window. At this point, the video cuts out, and I am staring at a blue screen.
I sit there on my floor, my hand holding the remote in a death grip. I finally pull myself together and hit the fast-forward button to see if there's anything more on the tape. The tape ejects automatically when it gets to the end, and it pops out onto the floor. Only then do I see what is scratched into the black plastic on the front of the tape. A circle with an "X" through the middle.
His symbol.