The Clown in the Corner of your Eye

The clown never leaves. Everywhere you go you can see him. Just in the corner of your eye, just for a moment. You start to think that he must be following you. He must be following you. You call in sick for work, you drive an hour out of town. You step into a random mall. There he is. He is always following you.

You get nervous. You must be paranoid, right? No one else is noticing this, right? That’s when you hear about the murders. All over town people are being killed. Randomly. Brutally. You’re not an idiot, you can connect the dots. It’s the clown. You do research. The killings all happen in areas you frequent. The clown is hunting you. Targeting you. You hate the clown. You despise the clown.

One day, you are walking down the street. It’s at night. The convenience store was a reprieve; no clown in sight. You turn a corner. There he is. The clown is standing right there. He’s not in the corner of your eye anymore, he’s right in front of you. The clown. The murderer. You reach into your pocket. You have a knife. As soon as you pull it out, the clown runs. You’re faster. He turns a corner and winds up in a lonely back alley. You follow him there. He falls down and tries to say something. You know better. You plunge the knife in deep. You do it again. You do it again. You’re out of breath. You walk home. You shower. You sleep.

You wake up. You had a crazy dream about a clown. You get dressed. You go to work. A couple weeks go by. Suddenly, out of the corner of your eye, you see something strange. Is that a clown?

The clown never leaves. Everywhere you go you can see him. Just in the corner of your eye, just for a moment. You start to think that he must be following you. He must be following you. You call in sick for work, you drive an hour out of town, the radio talks about the child murdered in an alley two weeks ago. You step into a random mall. There he is. He is always following you.

I'm Terrified of Meeting My Girlfriend's Dad

This night has been the most disturbing of my life. I guess I’m posting this just to know what to do next, but I’m really scared to do anything. Any advice would be appreciated though.

First some background. I met my girlfriend, Faith, back in our sophomore year of high school, about two years ago. Me and her hit things off instantly and I developed a huge crush on her. Unfortunately, she had a bf already. I did my best to move on from her and dated a girl for a little bit until that fell apart, but eventually I found myself being the shoulder Faith cried on when her boyfriend went missing. It was really disturbing, they went on a date and he dropped her off and then just fell off the face of the earth. Now I’m not the type to exploit someones grief, so I made sure to keep a bit of distance while she worked through her emotions. However, after a few months she invited me out and one thing led to another and we started dating.

Things have been going well lately, and she’s been over to my place and met my parents, but I haven’t met her dad yet. Her mom passed away when she was young so it was just the two of them after that. I guess he’s pretty overprotective sometimes so Faith doesn’t want us to meet until she thinks he’s ready. Regardless, he’s been out of town this weekend, so Faith invited me over to keep her company.

At first it was pretty chill, me and her just relaxed and watched some cheesy horror movies. After a while though we got into a pretty deep conversation. She told me that she had really bad nightmares sometimes, of her mother. She would dream that she was walking down a hallway, and she could hear her mother sobbing in another room. Part of her would want to run towards her, another part would want to run away. Before she could do something she would hear a sickening cracking sound and a guttural scream. She said it sounded like baseball being hit but louder. After that she would wake up in a cold sweat.

She also told me that she was scared of me leaving when we went out. She said that her old boyfriend disappearing really freaked her out. The way he just got in his car and never came back. She started to shudder a bit and I could tell that she needed comfort. We cuddled for a bit and I offered to grab her a blanket. She told me they kept some in a closet down the hall upstairs.

I walked up and looked for the closet. When I found it I noticed that one of the bedroom doors was slightly open beside it. I figured it must have been her Dad’s room because of the décor, and I decided to just quickly poke my head in. Maybe I’d see what his interests were and impress him when we actually met.

The room turned out to be pretty barren. Save for the Boomer rock posters I saw when I first peeked in. Just when my curiosity was satisfied I heard a door pop open. I looked over and saw that her dad’s closet had opened on its own. Now, I didn’t want him to suspect someone was in there so I went to close the door and stopped.

I stared at the contents of the closet in a quiet shock for a moment. There was a bizarre collage of sorts plastered onto the back wall. The first third was dedicated to Faith’s mom. Pictures of her, accompanied by newspaper clippings of her death. I never realized she was murdered. Below that was a picture of her ex-boyfriend, handwritten notes about his address, and newspaper clippings of his disappearance. Circled in one of the clippings was a passage about the one piece of evidence the police found, his lucky baseball bat, wiped completely clean but left in the woods. The bottom third was empty, aside from a picture of me, and a note about where I lived.

I stared at that… thing, for so long that I could hear Faith start climbing the stairs. She was asking how long it was going to take me to find a blanket. I quickly and quietly shut the closet door and slipped out of her dad’s room. I pretended like there was an emergency at home and I needed to slip out. Faith looked worried, but I told her everything would be alright, even though my heart told me otherwise.

My hands trembled the whole drive home.

I wanted to ask my parents for help, but they were out on their date night, so the whole house was empty. When I pulled up to the driveway I heard a loud crashing sound. Just in the corner of my headlights a humanoid shadow sprinted away from my house. My whole body ached in fear. I took a deep breath and walked out of my car to the front door. When I reached the doorstep I felt like I wanted to puke. The doorknob was heavily scratched, like someone was trying to pick it, though that wasn’t the scariest part. On the ground was an old baseball bat, dropped in a hurry.

What do I do?

What do They See?

Robert and Vlad looked at each other in excitement. How many years, how much money had it took? The two of them had poured their hearts and souls into the project. Ever since he was a kid Robert had dreamt of meeting aliens, other intelligent lifeforms, and hearing what they had to say. What their view of life and the universe was. Now, dolphins weren’t quite aliens, but they are intelligent, and the prototype him and Vlad had created would allow them to see just what they were saying to each other.

The device was a modified VR headset that would interpret dolphin communication. Robert and Vlad had discovered that the clicks and whistles of dolphins was, in a sense, a more sophisticated form of data encoding compared to human language. Dolphins didn’t communicate ideas so much as they transmitted images to each other. It was like if human language, art, and writing were all mixed together as one. It took years for the two to come to that conclusion, and now they stared at the culmination of even more years on top of that. The two looked at the device and then at each other, Vlad smiled, and gestured for Robert to try it first.

Robert put it on, and after carefully calibrating the different settings, was able to tune into the thoughts of the dolphins kept in the aquarium area the room over. Slowly the images started to pour in, images of food, of the ocean, the trainers at the aquarium, nothing all that abstract to be honest. Robert moved his head around, allowing him to better explore the images and scenes the dolphins were transmitting each other. Out of the corner of his periphery he saw something strange, a formless black blob. Slowly he rotated his head to get a better look at it, but it just looked like a blurry mess. Robert sighed and pulled off the helmet,

“It looks like we messed something up, some image is not coming in right,”

“Oh yeah?” Vlad noted, “Let me try it, I’ll see if I can’t re-calibrate it.”

Robert handed the headset to Vlad. For the first few moments Vlad seemed to simply take in the imagery, exploring it like Robert, until he paused:

“I think I see it Bob, a black blob?”

“Yes, do you think you can get it to focus,”

“I think so,” Vlad started adjusting the buttons and dials on the headset, slowly trying to give the blob shape. Suddenly Vlad stopped, his knees started to shake, his hands trembled. Robert stared in shock as tears slowly poured down Vlad’s face, until he fell to his knees, ripped off the headset, and crawled into the fetal position.

“What happened Vlad?” Robert said, his voice filled with worry, Vlad remained silent, completely silent.

Robert stared at the headset, what could possibly have done this to Vlad? He knew he should get help but he had to know, he had to understand. He picked up the headset and set it back up. He wandered the myriad images until he found the black blob once more. This time he focused in on it, watching it intently. The blob got bigger, expanding over the entire viewpoint of the device like ink spreading across a piece of paper. The dread started to take over Robert. Every primal urge in his body told him to take off the headset, but something was starting to resolve in the darkness. He had to know what it was. He had to know what it was. The image got clearer and clearer, over the headset he could hear the dolphins in the other room panic and cry. Finally the image appeared fully before him and Robert screamed. It was all he could do, as every bit of his sanity left him.

If a Mirror Tries to Talk to You, Don't Listen

“Hey,” the voice took me by surprise, as far as I knew I was all alone in the house. My parents had gone out, like they usually did on weekends when I was a teen so I shouldn’t have been hearing any voices at all. The voice itself was strange, it sounded kind of like mine, but not, like if you heard a recording of yourself talking.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror. We had just gotten it, from an estate sale my Dad went too. It was beautiful and ornate, with a black carved exterior of plants and flowers all around it, while inside sat my reflection. Long blonde hair, blue eyes, thin lips and a crooked nose. Yep, my reflection alright, so when it’s mouth moved and I heard “Hey,” again, I froze in fear. My reflections mouth may have moved, but I certainly could not feel mine do the same.

“Hey,” my reflection called out again,

“H… hey,” I replied sheepishly,

“Guess what,” the reflection smiled,

“What?”

“I know what you’ll look like in ten years, do you wanna see?”

Now, obviously I can understand that talking to my reflection was crazy enough, and that letting it show me my future was just asking for bad news, but I was a teenage girl back then. A self-conscious one at that. Would I be really hot? Would I be just as gangly and awkward as I was back then? I really wanted to know, so I asked the mirror to show me.

The whole mirror turned black, like an ink slowly spread over and consumed it. Seconds later the ink dissolved and I saw myself, beautiful, a long, black, dress. My lips were full and luscious, my crooked nose fixed. My hair had so much body to it. My eyebrows and makeup looked so perfect, far better then my amateur attempts and beauty. I looked incredible. Like I always wanted to look. Like I always dreamed I would look.

“Touch me,” the reflection smiled. I reached my arm out, slowly bringing it towards the mirror. There was so much wrong with this, all of this. My heart was pounding and I was desperately trying to break the urge to do what the reflection asked. My arm stopped right before the mirror’s glass and I sighed. Just as I was about to pull arm away the reflection reached out of the mirror and grabbed it. I instinctively screamed, and it must have been loud, because the startled reflection loosened its grip on my arm and I pulled it away before it could be pulled in.

The mirror became inky again. When the image returned it was me, but with missing teeth, an even more crooked nose, and severely overweight. My hair was thin and poorly maintained, while facial hair seemed to sprout from all sorts of unsightly places on my face. Deep down it was an image of everything I didn’t like about myself. The reflection started to scream and I screamed too, screams of pure horror, until finally I grabbed a nearby vase and threw it with all my strength into the mirror. It smashed into a million pieces, and I stared at the remains in shock and terror for some time. They say that breaking a mirror gives seven years of bad luck, but after meeting that demon... I think my bad luck started before then.

What I Saw on the Beach That Day Will Stick with Me Forever

This all happened when I was 12 years old, I kept trying not to think about it but recent events in my life has brought it back into my conscious, and I guess by writing about it and sharing it online I hope I can work through some of the emotions it gives me.

I didn’t exactly grow up in the best environment, I know these days everyone thinks that parents watch over their kids too much but for me and my best friend it was the opposite. Our parents didn’t care about us at all. Me and him were neighbours and we would leave at the crack of dawn and not come back until sunset, a lot of the time even later. Neither of our moms would ever say a word, and frankly most of the time they were too drunk or high to say much of anything at all.

So, for a while there, me and him would go and hangout by the river. Not far from our house was the bridge that you’d drive over to get to the river bank, and that spot was where you’d normally go to fish or raft, however, the bank on the other side was normally unoccupied and that was where me and him would go and explore. There was a very rough hiking trail that me and him would take that allowed us to get pretty far downstream. After a couple of weekends we had managed to hear the traffic from the next town over and decided that hiking all the way there was going to be our goal.

The next weekend we set out even earlier then normal and spent several hours just marching straight to our goal. Nothing really remarkable happened, we had been exploring the area so often that we knew exactly where to go, and our adventures had even started to smooth out the hiking path. Eventually the sounds of nature started to give way to that of traffic and we hardened ourselves to keep going. The traffic got louder and louder and we started to get excited, and our excitement continued to grow until we hit a roadblock.

We hiked through a wooded area just beside the riverbank for about half an hour until we came to a clearing blocked by a rusted chain-link fence. The bolts on the “No Trespassing” sign seemed to stain it with tears of rust. Me and my friend looked out onto the other side. The clearing was more like a strip cut out of the woods, which continued on the other side of it. To our left we could see the riverbank, it was sandy, with strange lumps all over. To our right was a hill that eventually reached a few buildings, all of which looked dilapidated.

Now, me and my friend had gone lots of places we weren’t supposed to be by that point, so I shouldn’t have had any misgivings about climbing the fence and going forward, but something about the whole situation just seemed off and I couldn’t help but want to turn around and go home. My friend teased me a bit and said nothing would happen, but eventually I convinced him and we got back home very late at night.

Throughout the next week he kept bothering me about that clearing. Trying to convince me to keep going. Eventually he wore me down, and despite my gut feeling, we set out again the next Saturday.

Like before, everything went smoothly and when we got to the rusty fence my friend climbed up and over to the other side and beckoned me to join. As soon as I touched the fence my fear came over me once again but I did my best to hide it. With a deep breath I vaulted myself over and we started making our way to the woods on the other side.

We stopped halfway across, down at the point where the riverbank met the river there was a man standing around, beckoning us to see him. I didn’t want to get near him but my friend walked over to him and I followed a few paces back.

The man seemed out of place. We lived in a very blue collar area so the fact that he was wearing a black business suit made him really stand out, especially out here in the middle of nowhere. Not to mention that he was wearing a matching black fedora, a choice that almost made him seem like a figure from a different era. At the same time, something about the way he stood and presented himself gave off an aura of authority, I felt like me and my friend were bound to get into a lot trouble just due to how important this man looked.

While him and my friend talked I looked around the riverbank and my eyes zeroed in on the mounds I had seen earlier. They were sand sculptures… of faces. Each and every one a different face. On the one hand they were creepy, yet at the same time I couldn’t help but marvel at the attention to detail. Each one was so real it almost looked like it was made from a mold of some sort. More than anything they really disturbed me. Between them, the man out of time, and even the way the beach seemed so perfectly cut out against the landscape, sent danger signals to my brain.

Soon my friend came back and told me that the strange man had told us to come with him. My friend looked really excited at the prospect, like he had been offered something for it. That creeped me even more. I pulled my friend in close and told him we had to book it. He looked disappointed in me but I guess the look of terror on my face swayed him. I watched until the man turned away for a second and me and my friend bolted.

The next few days I was on edge, fearing that that strange man would come and find us somehow. Me and my friend didn’t talk about it until one day after school. He started walking in the opposite direction of our houses. I asked him where he was going and he told me he was going to the beach. My heart sank, I rushed towards him to try and stop him. My friend just turned around and sucker punched me in the stomach. I fell to the ground and watched him walk away, my whole body shaking with anxiety over him.

He never came back to school.

After a few days of him being absent I started to get extremely worried. I had never really paid attention to any boring adult things before, but I started combing through the newspaper and the evening news, trying to see if there was anything about a missing child. I would wait by his house to see if he came by. Nothing. It was like he never existed. Eventually my anxiety reached a point where I knew I couldn’t go on if I didn’t check the beach.

That Saturday I set out. The walk was maddening, going down the familiar trails without my partner in crime. Eventually I made it to that cursed spot. Mustering up my courage I hopped the fence. I walked to the beach, terrified that I would find his body. I heard a footstep behind and turned around. The strange man was right behind me, as if he materialized. I bolted across the beach. Suddenly I lost my footing and fell in sand. I looked beside me and screamed the loudest scream of my life. The adrenaline my body produced forced me up and away just before the man could grab me. I leapt over the fence on the other side of the beach and sprinted all the way to the neighboring town. I knew someone who lived there and I got his parents to drive me home. The entire drive I was silent, the thing that I saw seared into my brain. I don’t think I’ve had a good nights sleep since, as every dream turns into a nightmare when I see it:

My friends face, alongside all the others, in the sand of the beach.

My Last Confession

Ever since my wife fell ill I have kept a journal. I wanted to catalog our journey as I supported her and helped her recover. Instead I ended up recording a laundry list of sins and regrets. I don’t know if God exists, and after all that’s happened I honestly doubt it, but, if he does, I hope that by posting these journal entries and sharing them with the world, he will accept my confession, and grant me mercy.

---

The emptiness of the country roads at night is my greatest comfort these days. Ever since Beth had gotten sick I found that the best way to clear my mind is to cruise down the lonely roads. I had heard of men who abandoned their wives when they fell ill, and I always thought I would never be like that. But… its hard, so hard sometimes. I’ve had to learn how to cook, how to clean, thank god we don’t have any kids… I never realized how useless a husband can be in a marriage until Beth became bedridden, and though I’m trying so hard, the temptation is there, and I hate myself for it.

I guess the reason I was on the road was because of this woman at work: Sue. Me and her have gotten along great, we just seem to click, I don’t know why, but I haven’t bothered bringing up Beth much, let alone her condition. I know when Beth first started losing her mobility me and her had talked about my… needs, and yet the idea of getting a lover is so much more nauseating when it becomes real. No matter how many blessings Beth gives I can’t help but feel like I’m betraying her, but at the same time, if I don’t find an outlet I feel like I’ll be betraying myself.

These thoughts played around in my mind and I suppose that’s why I didn’t notice what was laying in the road until I heard a loud thump. I stopped my truck and walked out to see what it was. A person. By the looks of it they had been strung out on something for some time before I showed up.

I looked at them in shock for some time, slowly forcing myself to accept that they were dead. My heart raced and I tried to force deep breaths to calm it. It didn’t help. I knew I had to phone the police, confess, do the right thing. At the same time a disquieting thought crept into my head. What about Beth? Who would take care of her if I was in jail?

I shook my head and pulled out my phone. I opened up the keypad and paused, a text popped up from Beth, asking when I would be home. Almost without thought I closed the app and turned on my flashlight instead. No damage to the truck. No one around for miles. I motioned towards the side of the road and saw a thick, overgrown woods. A body in there could rot away for years without being noticed. I should’ve at least been more ashamed of what I did, but I dragged the corpse into the woods and sped off.

---

A lot has happened since my last entry. A lot. That night I came home, my brain mired in fog, barely remembering what happened and desperately trying to deny it. Beth was fast asleep. I sat down on the couch and watched TV until my mind was so distracted that it would allow me to doze off as well.

The next day was incredible, I woke up to the sound of singing. I walked into Beth’s room and she was upright and smiling, the first time I’d seen her sit upright without my help in months. As she looked at me I could feel tears roll down my eyes. She was still weak and fragile but I could finally see some of her old self come back.

She stayed that way for a couple days and when we brought her to the doctor she was just as shocked as we were. As she examined Beth she couldn’t help but well with tears too. She told us not to get our hopes up, but at the same time she admitted she had never seen a patient that far gone recover to this point.

Seeing Beth recover filled me with joy, and took so much stress off my chest. Though I immediately replaced it with some from somewhere else. At the same time all this was happening I was still going to work, and one day Sue invited me over to her place for drinks. On the one hand, Beth’s recovery made me feel a lot of guilt for saying yes, but at the same time, I needed some sort of release, and if Beth were to recover further it would still take months. So I lied to Beth about having to work late and found myself in bed with Sue less then an hour later. On the drive home I told myself it had to be a one time thing, I had gotten what I needed out of my system and now I had to stay loyal to Beth. It didn’t matter. Soon I was working late once or twice a week, taking Sue out to all the places I had wanted to take Beth and spending all my pent up energy and then some.

However, that is not the guilt that motivates me to write today. That guilt comes from last night. It was just me and Beth, I cuddled with her as we watched TV. Even that was a level of intimacy that we hadn’t had in a long time. As we watched TV though, I could smell something in the air. Smoke. I got up and checked the room. Then I opened the curtains to see if it was coming from outside. To my shock smoke and flames were billowing out of my neighbors house. I rushed to my phone as I told Beth what was happening. As I unlocked my phone Beth put her hand on my arm and squeezed, “Don’t phone the fire department honey,”

“What?” I replied in shock,

“Don’t phone them, please, I’m sure someone else has and I don’t want you to be play hero, okay? I just want to spend more time with you,” her voice cracked a little, “just like we used to…”

I stared deep into Beth’s eyes, shocked and disturbed at what she was saying. At the same time, her grip on my arm had become iron tight, and I knew that she wasn’t going to make my life easy if I didn’t go along with her. I swallowed. I sighed. I sat back down beside her.

We laid beside each other in silence for an hour. My heart racing until the sound of sirens finally reached my ears. For a second I felt a bit of ease, until, drowning out the sirens, the firemen, and the TV show we were watching, a woman wailed. It was a sound I had never heard before, and one I couldn’t describe. The sheer intensity and weight of my neighbor’s cry was soul crushing. It tore deep into me. The next day I learned that her two kids were asleep inside when the fire broke out. By the time the firemen came there was next to nothing left of them.

---

Another miracle occurred, Beth is up and moving again! The doc is as shocked as I am, and its just been overwhelming. She’s still weak, and at first she could barely get up at all, but slowly we’ve been working on it. For the past month me and her have been going on walks. At first just down the block, but lately we’ve been going further and further. I haven’t seen Beth this happy in such a long time, maybe ever. She loves that she finally has a bit of independence. At first I was just as thrilled as her, but this week has changed things a bit. I feel like I’m making some insane jumps, but here’s the deal:

I’ve still been seeing Sue. I keep telling myself that I need to break it off, especially now that Beth is recovering, but… there are some days I think about Sue more then Beth, and as much as I despise the thoughts, the fantasy of making my thing with Sue more serious keep popping up.

The other day, Sue texted me. She wanted me over, badly. I don’t know that Eve was tempted as much as Sue was tempting me. I had to go. I started throwing some presentable clothes on when Beth approached me and asked me if we could go for a walk. I told her that work had asked me to come in, that it was urgent, we would have to do it a different time. Beth pouted, and, after a pause, asked if she could go alone. I always accompanied Beth just in case she fell or got in trouble, but that day, with Sue pulling me from across town towards her, I told her it was okay. I helped Beth out the door and told her to call me if anything happened. As soon as she cleared the driveway I sped off towards Sue’s longing embrace.

I came back a few hours later, Beth was back, singing to herself in her room. Everything seemed good. That feeling continued for a couple days, magnifying further as Beth seemed to recover even more. She was more energetic, lifting and moving things on her own. Instead of staying in her room she started moving all around the house. It seemed like we were turning another corner, and something about that bothered me. I didn’t know why until we were watching the news one night, and the reporter brought up a missing child, who was last seen the night of Beth’s solo walk.

It sounds absurd, I know. But the pattern was starting to form in my mind. Why did Beth’s recovery always seem to coincide with tragedy? It must’ve been a coincidence. I must be a bad husband, Beth was alone and vulnerable, and whoever abducted that child could have harmed her. But…

But…

---

It’s all gone to shit. I’ve fucked it all up. Everything.

Sue called me a few weeks ago, told me to come see her. She’s pregnant. It broke my heart to see the joy in her eyes and know that I couldn’t match it. I faked the best I could and tried to figure out a way out of my mess.

Me and her kept texting about it the coming weeks, it was clear she was keeping it. I started thinking things. Thoughts I never thought I would have. Beth was starting to get healthy, she still had a long way to go but maybe she didn’t need me anymore. I could go and be happy with Sue and maybe I would be so happy the guilt would go away. I just wanted the guilt to go away. Maybe that’s why I started being careless, leaving my phone open. Maybe I wanted to be caught, to purge the guilt. Two days ago I walked back from the bathroom and saw Beth quickly place my phone down out of the corner of my eye. She didn’t say anything, and neither did I, but the anger in her eyes… it broke me.

Fast forward to earlier tonight. I needed to lift the weight off my shoulders, I needed comfort, I needed Sue. I didn’t even bother texting Beth and coming up with some half-assed excuse. I just sped over to Sue’s place.

The two of us cuddled up and watched a movie together. I placed my hand on her stomach and for a moment felt like I had done something right in the world. Just as I started to feel at ease I heard the sound of breaking glass. Me and Sue both froze until the sound of the front door being unlocked sprang us to action. I rushed over to find Beth stumbling through the door. She was carrying a knife. My heart pounded. I told her to put the knife down, that we could talk about it. She looked at me with sadness in her eyes. Sue found me and as soon as she saw Beth screamed. Beth lunged at her with the knife and caught Sue in the arm, Sue screamed and ran as fast as she could, leaving a trail of blood behind her. Beth chased after her, and I could hear Sue cry in pain. I could hear her cry for me. I was paralyzed from shock and fear. Sue continued to cry my name, the cries getting weaker and weaker until they finally stopped… I could hear Beth start coughing, which finally triggered my legs to move. I could hear the sound of someone falling to the ground. The coughing turned to sobbing. I walked in to Beth on the floor, Sue beside her, her lifeless eyes gazing into my soul. Her hands resting on her stomach. Beth looked to me, tears welling in her eyes:

“I’m so sorry… I had to do this… for me… for us… for you…” Beth’s hands started to shake, “One… more… only one more… then I’ll be better… all better… that’s what she said, that’s what she said.

My body trembled with fear. What had Beth done? What mess had she gotten herself into? And all over a man who just an hour ago was thinking of leaving her. The words… “one more life” echoed in my head. I told Beth to leave, to run home and shower and throw out her blood-stained clothes.

As soon as she left I walked to my car and grabbed my laptop. When I returned I stared at Sue, and started writing this, my confession. I just want Beth to be happy. Something I failed to provide. As I wrap this up I look at the other thing I brought from my car. A long piece of rope. I’m so sorry Beth, Sue, everyone.

One more life.

For Two Decades I Investigated Paranormal Reports Online for the Government, Now I'm Ready to Share What I Found [Part 4]

Hey guys, Frank Kennedy here. I’ve shared a few of my cases now and I am thrilled with the response they have gotten. Your enthusiasm and comments have been awesome. One thing many of you have been inquiring about is whether I was involved in any big “conspiracy”, beyond just trawling the internet for the paranormal. The short answer is no, after all, misleading and misinforming the American public was a different department ;). The long answer, however, is a bit more complicated. While I was not directly involved in anything like that, there have been times when some of the more “interesting” parts of the intelligence apparatus have unearthed things relevant to what it is that I did. This case that I’m going to share with you might be a bit different from past ones; a bit more technical, a bit more involved. However, I think it will help all of you understand the forces at work both with the powers that be, and perhaps with the powers that may or may not be.

So it starts with one of the few more covert actions of our government that I am privy too. In 2008 there was a leak to a UFO forum of a document known as the “16Hz Report”. The document was the result of highly classified research, done by two scientists whose very existence was kept under wraps. As we all know, the US government was not afraid of letting scientists from Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan to live free from the consequences of their horrific actions so long as their results were useful to American interests. However, in the case of these two scientists, while their research was of incredible importance, the way they gathered their results was so horrific that the US could not publicly admit that they were alive, and thus they continued their research covertly, on American military bases.

You see, there is a phenomenon of this planet known as the Schumann Resonance. Electromagnetic resonances that cover the earth. They are observed as peaks at around 8Hz in the electromagnetic spectrum. In Nazi Germany, one Dr. Heinrich Leitner discovered another resonance at 16Hz. This discovery was also made independently in Japan by a Dr. Hide Ikeda. After the war the two would be paired together and the resonance would be dubbed the Leitner-Ikeda Resonance for the few people who knew of it. This resonance emerged from animals with a significant number of neurons in their brain. Thus, Leitner and Ikeda had discovered a frequency that connected all sufficiently sophisticated life on earth. Furthermore, and what caused them to be wiped from the history books, they found that when an advanced organism – a dog, a cat, a human being, was killed, the resonance would not fully disappear, but rather slowly drop down to 8Hz, returning to the Schumann Resonance. The report that was leaked described all this, and then suggested that this resonance could be used to detect extraterrestrial life, assuming that all sufficiently complex beings have it.

So, this document was leaked to a UFO forum. The powers that be decided to scrub it clean from the internet. They succeeded, and the man who leaked it was dealt with. Where I come in is a series of videos they found on YouTube at the time. Though the footage was graphic, the lax moderation and sheer insanity of what was depicted meant that until the government found them, they were left up by the site. Unfortunately the actual copies of the videos did not survive my involuntary retirement. Fortunately, I have descriptions of them from my personal notes, which I will now share:

Video 1

A young man looks into the camera, he has curly black hair and his face is pockmarked with acne and scarring. He seems erratic as he speaks. He describes the Leitner-Ikeda Resonance and how it is connected with the Schumann Resonance. He produces a device and shows it to the camera. It consists of a display and a type of probe. When he turns it on we can see on a small LCD screen display a measurement of 8Hz, the Schumann Resonance. The man leaves the camera for a moment and then returns with a cat and a gun. He places the probe near the cat and the LCD screen shows the measurement jump to 16Hz. The man describes more details about the two resonances as he aims the gun. The device remains in frame. With a loud pop the gun goes off. The cat screams loudly. The measurement slowly drops from 16Hz to 8. The man in the video seems pleased.

Video 2

The young man appears again, this time with an elderly man in a wheelchair beside him. The elderly man looks glassy-eyed and confused. The young man asks “How are you Grandpa?” to no response. The man then holds up his instrument to the elderly man and shows the 16Hz reading. He then proceeds to produce a pillow and slowly smothers the old man, who puts up no real fight. Eventually the old mans stomach stops moving and the instrument shows the 16Hz reading drop down to 8. The young man observes these results and seems elated.

Video 3

The young man talks to the camera. He discusses how his “experiments” have confirmed what the leaked report said. He seems euphoric, almost to the point of mania. The device is in frame, showing an 8Hz reading. At one point the man gets up and leaves frame for a moment. As the man leaves the device shoots up to a 16Hz reading and the audible sound of a cat meowing can be heard. The young man starts walking back into frame and the meowing turns to a growl before suddenly stopping. The reading returns to 8Hz.

Video 4

The young man makes note of the strange happenings of the last video and resolves to leave the camera running to see if he can catch anything similar. He leaves the frame and a short time-lapse occurs before the footage shows the device reading 16Hz again, and a nearby chair starts to move on its own.

Video 5

The young man appears shirtless. He describes how he woke up that morning in pain. He then directs the audience toward the severe scratches covering his abdomen. They appear like cat scratches but deeper. As he shows the scratches to the camera, the device, with its probe far away from the man, shows a reading of 16Hz, but only for a few, non-consecutive, frames.

Video 6

The young man is teary eyed and looking into the camera. He says he feels something is after him. He apologizes to the camera. He apologizes again. He turns his head and a very deep cut can be seen on the back of his neck. He begs the camera for forgiveness. The device shows nothing unusual.

Final Video (Recovered from camera at scene)

The young man appears again. He has heavy bags under his eyes as if he hasn’t slept. His words are so slurred and disoriented they can barely be made out. He appears to be muttering “I’m sorry” over and over again. The device is still in frame. It shoots up to 16Hz. The man is pushed out of his chair, a book flies across the room at him. He yells “I’M SORRY!” at the top of his lungs. The gun used to kill the cat floats into frame, hovering in the air. The man yells “I’M SO FUCKING SORRY!” the gun tilts up and fires in the air. The young man begs “PLEASE, DON’T DO THIS!” the gun slowly tilts downward towards the young man. The man shouts “GRANDPA PLEASE!” before the gun goes off, once, twice, three times. The gun falls to the ground. The device’s reading returns to 8Hz. The video goes on in silence for several minutes before the young man crawls up to where the camera and device are. As he places his bloodied hand near the probe it measures 16Hz again. The man’s breathing is strained, and as it starts to weaken the devices reading starts to decline slowly. Suddenly the man’s breath stops and the measurement declines to 8Hz, but then it continues to decline until it hits 0. It stays at 0 for the rest of the video, which ends when the camera runs out of memory.

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The final video was recovered by an intelligence team who found the YouTube videos and tracked down the posters location. I wasn’t there. I was only made aware of all this when it was decided that these events should be referred to me for further investigation. One of the members of the investigation team joined me on this endeavor. After reviewing the footage I chuckled a little to myself. The agent asked me why. I explained that despite all the terrible things this guy had done to prove this crazy theory, in the end he actually disproved it. After all, when he died, his resonance didn’t return to 8Hz, it completely disappeared. The agent looked at me gravely and told me something that left a chill down my spine. He said that when they recovered the body they found a book on the ground, a bible, it was laying there open, and the pages were stained with blood, except for one verse: Matthew 10:28 “Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell”.