Chapter Text
Evelin Merrick-Miller hadn’t planned to spend part of her summer in Alabama, and yet here she was, peering out of the windshield of her car as she navigated through a southern cityscape, the setting rays of sun refracting across structures and greenery like great curious fingers.
“Here it is,” she murmured to herself, turning right onto a narrower street lined with short trees. Just a couple hundred meters down the street was a parking lot next to an apartment building, and with it the end of her two-day journey south. She pulled into the lot, into a free space, turned off the car, and just let herself breathe for a moment. Without thinking, she hummed a few bars of the last song she’d been listening to.
After finishing the song’s chorus, she emerged from her car. Her disused muscles complained as she briefly stretched, cat-like, the day’s heat clouding around her, radiating from the pavement.
She leaned up against the side of the car and took out her cellphone from a pocket. A notification blinked. One new text message. Her heart thudded fiercely as she opened it.
Hi sweetie. Just checking if you’ve arrived safely. -Mom
She sighed in disappointment and, not replying, went instead to her contacts. A familiar voice picked up nearly as soon as she dialed.
“Evelin? Are you here?”
“Yup. Just pulled into the parking lot.”
“Cool. I’ll be down in a minute!”
“See you then.”
The caller hung up and she sighed again, this time in relief, closing her eyes and letting herself relax in just knowing she was here. Far away from all her problems back home in Wisconsin.
Evelin was taking a duffel out of the trunk when a slight figure appeared, striding across the parking lot. A smile spread across her face, and she half-charged the boy as soon as he was in range. “Jay!”
Her brother grunted with her impact. She embraced him, pulling back after a moment. “Hey Evie,” he said, readjusting his hat, which she had knocked slightly askew. “Glad to see you made it here all in one piece.”
“Yup, I’m all in one piece. But my luggage is not. You mind grabbing this?”
Jay took the proffered bag and swung it over his shoulder. “Alright. C’mon, let me show you up to my place.”
The entryway of her brother’s apartment building was flanked by overgrown hibiscus bushes, wicker deck chairs scattered on the balconies above. Inside, the lobby was tiled with industrial black and white tiles, scuffed from years of use. But the somewhat dated look of the building didn’t dampen Jay’s beaming face as he led her upstairs.
“...and the rent’s really reasonable too,” He said as they stopped in front of his door. Evelin shook her head, trying to focus.
“Sorry, might have missed some of that. I’m exhausted.”
“Oh, yeah, no worries. Honestly I’ve been so excited to have you here, I’m probably rambling a bit anyway.” He turned the key in the door (had he locked it when he went down just so he could do a dramatic reveal?) and turned the knob. “And…here it is!”
The front door opened beside the kitchen, which itself led into what Jay had made into a combined living room and dining room area. Early evening peered through the windows, bordered by curtains and blinds not yet drawn. Down a hallway on the left was the guest room, which clearly doubled as an office (desktop computer and accompanying desk in the corner) and storage room (piles of clutter).
“I’ve, uh, got to move a few more things out of here so you’ll be comfortable, but trust me, it looked so much worse this morning.” Jay set down the bag he was carrying beside a stack of milk crates doubling as a bookshelf. Evelin put down her duffel beside the bed, pushing aside a box of tools with her foot in the process.
“I also need to grab some clean sheets for the bed. But feel free to unpack in here, the dresser is cleaned out. I was cooking some pasta for us, so I can finish that if you’d like? And feel free to move some stuff around or out into the hallway, I’ll deal with it after dinner.”
“That sounds good. I’m starving.”
Jay nodded at her with an unsure smile and disappeared back into the hallway. Evelin smiled. He was trying so hard to be a good host. She flung herself lightly onto the bed and sent off a quick text to her mom, finally replying to let her know she had arrived safely. Then she slipped off the bed to begin unpacking her duffel, the fan in the window humming idly all the while.
After she pulled out some of her clothes and transferred them to the dresser, she opened the closet to hang up a couple jackets. Yes, it was summer, but she didn’t want to be caught unawares if she needed a second layer.
The closet was, for lack of a better word, a disaster. She tugged out one perilous pile, pulling it to the foot of her bed. She shuffled some of the hanging clothes around, struggling to imagine her brother wearing some of the pieces. With a bit of maneuvering, she finally fit her jackets next to a collection of various backpacks and string bags threatening to jump off the hooks on the back of the closet.
She set her hands on her hips and surveyed the remaining stacks of clutter on the closet floor. After a moment or two of consideration, she went ahead and began to pull more of the pile out of the closet. I don’t want it in danger of falling over every time I open the door.
Under the bins of seasonal decor, old college mementos, and various odds and ends was a slightly caved in cardboard box. Well, that doesn’t make for a very good foundation. She tugged that box out too. It was unlabeled, but whatever was in it should probably be transferred to a more structurally stable container. Evelin pulled open the box flaps and paused, frowning.
“Jay,” she said, tone leading as she stepped back into the kitchen.
“Hey Evie,” he said from a spot at the stove, where he was staring intently at a small pot of tomato sauce. “You settled in?”
“Quick question.” She paused under the kitchen’s arched entry, hand brushing against the chipped paint on the trim.
“Quick answer.”
“What’s with all the tapes in your closet?”
“Tapes?” Jay looked away from the sauce to his sister, a blank expression on his face. It cleared after a moment. “Ohh. Oh yeah, I forgot about those. They’re from my friend, Alex.” He turned back to the pot and continued stirring, as if that explained everything.
“Could you possibly elaborate…?”
“Uh, yeah, Alex was one of my friends back in college. He was working on this student film, back in…2006? But then he dropped it before he finished filming. I ended up with the tapes.”
“Oh.” Evelin said. “Was it any good?”
“Hmm?”
“The movie. Was it any good?”
“Uh, I remember the script being…decent? I was the script supervisor. But I bet it’s worse than I remember.” He chuckled.
“And the actual filmed segments?”
“Oh. I don’t know. I never watched the tapes.”
“Why not?”
“It was…” Jay paused for a moment from his stirring, staring off into space, “...Alex was acting weird at the time. I just…felt uncomfortable watching them when I got them.”
“What do you mean by acting weird?” She frowned, leaning against the wall.
“He said he was planning to burn the tapes.”
Evelin raised her eyebrows. “That seems like a bit much.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought when he first told me. But he was stressed out and not in a good place…” He shrugged. “I didn’t want his hard work to go to waste, so I convinced him to hand them over. Figured I could find a way to reuse the footage for some future project. Hey, this is done, why don’t you come grab a plate?”
A few minutes later, the two were settled at the small table between the kitchen and the living room proper. Jay had gone, in Evelin’s opinion, all out, with a nice blue tablecloth, his fanciest plates (thrifted, slightly chipped, and decorated with an ivy pattern on the edges), and cans of pop poured into frosted glasses. His kitchen radio played music faintly.
Jay reached out his glass, and she raised hers in a small toast. “To your first summer out of high school,” he declared, before taking a deep, sugary sip.
The spaghetti was slightly overdone, the sauce slightly over-salted, and the previously frozen meatballs were slightly dry. The garlic bread was plain toast, the butter flavored with garlic powder. It was the most delicious meal she had ever tasted.
“You really were hungry,” he said as she began inhaling the food on her plate.
“Two days of driving takes it out of you,” Evelin said, mouth half full.
“Yeah, I’d imagine it does. So, how’s your summer been? You’re still dating that guy, Adam, right?”
Evelin suddenly lost her appetite. She stuck her fork back into the spaghetti, twirling it half-heartedly. “I guess, yeah.”
“You guess?” Jay raised his eyebrows.
“I don’t know, technically, but…he’s just been…acting weird.”
“Weird how?” He paused, before continuing tentatively, “Do you think he’s cheating or something?”
“No. I don’t think he’s cheating, just…he says weird things sometimes. And he gets way too into these paranormal investigations he does with his friends…”
“Paranormal investigations? Like, ghost hunting?” Jay slipped a large forkful of pasta into his mouth.
“Yeah. Ghosts or whatever else they can find,” Evelin said, slightly hesitant.
“And have they found any ghosts?”
She shrugged. “You know I don’t really believe in ghosts.”
“Have you gone on any investigations with them?”
“Not really,” she said, shrugging again and burying her face in her glass.
“Huh. I would have figured you’d be all about that, even if you don’t believe in ghosts. Merricks are curious people, as Dad always says.”
“It just doesn’t seem like a fun time. There’s a lot of sitting around and listening to static and seeing if you can hear words in it. Not really my scene.”
(All of that wasn’t a lie, at least.)
“If you say so. Y’know, I really should find the time to come up and visit you and Mom. Maybe while I’m up there I can shake some sense into Adam or anyone else who needs it.”
“You wouldn’t like Wisconsin,” Evelin said, her words heavy in a way she knew her brother wouldn’t pick up on. “Plus,” and she smiled as she imagined this, “no offense, but I can’t imagine you picking a fight with someone and winning.”
“Hey!” He pointed his fork, speared with a meatball, across the table at her, “for your information, I could totally win a fight. Or, worst comes to worst and I lose that fight, I could win the war.”
“Speaking of success,” Evelin said, ready to steer the conversation even further away from home, “this place is great, but I sorta figured you would splurge on something fancy once you got the funds from Uncle Rob.”
“Yeah, I mean, I could have…but I wanted to finance this place myself. It feels satisfying. I’m saving those funds for if I ever have an emergency or something…or, y’know, if I have a younger sister I think really deserves some money…” He smiled mischievously over the table at her.
“Ah, so I may be able to get some gas money out of you yet.”
“If I think you’re worth it.”
Evelin rolled her eyes. She had missed this.
Once they had finished eating and Jay started on the dishes, Evelin wandered back to the guest room. The box full of tapes sat under the ceiling light, almost spotlighted by it when she flicked the light switch. She knelt down next to the box and rested her hand on its top for a moment, letting her fingers rap gently on one of its flaps. And then she opened the box again. The tapes inside were totally disorganized - maybe at one point they had been stacked neatly in some sort of order, but now they were just as thrown together as the spaghetti she had just eaten.
Evelin reached inside, cardboard squeaking gently against her intrusion, and pulled out one of the tapes on top. As she held it gently in her palm, a sense of unease fell over her, and she flicked her gaze towards the windows before realizing how ridiculous she was acting. It’s not like it’s alcohol or drugs or something. It’s just a tape.
She jumped as Jay stuck his head in the room, and he laughed lightly at her reaction.
“You’re staring at that like it’s an alien specimen or something.”
“I don’t usually see tapes a lot, that’s all,” she said, trying to bring a friendly smile to her face.
“Don’t you literally work at an electronics store?”
“Yeah, and these things are outdated as hell,” she said, placing the tape back in the box gently.
“I wouldn’t call them outdated,”
“Well, they’re not very popular back home.”
“So, are you just gonna look at the tape? Or do you want to actually watch the tape?”
Evelin stiffened. “You want to watch the tape?”
“If you want to,” he shrugged. “Now that I’ve remembered I have these, I’m curious.”
“I mean, don’t we need a camera or something to watch them?”
Jay leaned against the door frame with a smirk. “Evie, I was a film student. I’ve got a camera. That said,” he pushed off the frame and walked past her to the desktop, “it would be easier to just watch them on here. Kill two birds with one stone, because then I could back them up to the hard drive as well.”
“Yeah, okay,” Evelin said, shoulders relaxing slightly, “Let’s watch it on the computer.”
Jay brought in one of the dining room chairs to the office. Evelin settled into the spinning desk chair, which he insisted she take, as he worked to connect a cord from the computer to his camera. “It’ll probably just be all outtakes,” he said with a grunt as he awkwardly threaded the cord around the monitor.
“Fine with me,” she said, crossing her arms and putting on her best movie critic impression.
“That should do it,” he said, sitting down on the other chair. He opened a few menus on the computer and adjusted some settings. Then he opened the movie software and pressed a button on his camera. The two leaned in to watch the screen.
The tape opened with shaky footage, the camera facing an outdoor patio area in front of a cafe. The shaking stilled, and a boy with sandy blonde hair slipped in front of the camera and narrowed his eyes, considering.
“That’s Seth,” Jay said, “he was the cameraman for most of the production.”
A minute later, a slightly taller boy with glasses and shaggy brown hair stepped into frame.
“And that’s the man himself, Alex.”
“Are you good with this framing?” Seth asked from offscreen. Alex stepped back out of frame.
“Yeah, this looks good. Hey, Brian! Get over here!”
A third boy - this one slightly taller than Alex, with shorter brown hair and a playful smile - appeared, carrying a stapled script in one hand. Alex stepped back into frame, directing Brian as to how he wanted him to sit at the patio table.
“Are you gonna show up in this?” Evelin asked. “Because if so I will make fun of your haircut.”
“My hair isn’t all that different from how it was two years ago,” he said with a frown.
She smirked. “Exactly.”
He shoved her affectionately.
“And…action,” Alex intoned on the monitor. The two directed their attention back to the screen.
Brian, sitting in a chair at the patio table, looked slightly worried as he glanced around. He checked his watch and sighed, running a hand over his head. “If she doesn’t show up in the next ten minutes…I mean…wait, line?”
“I mean, she was never punctual when we were in high school either,” Alex said from offscreen. “Love what you’re doing with this though. Let’s take it again.”
Brian nodded, took a breath, and settled back into his worry.
“Actually, I think this was the week I was sick with a cold,” Jay said, “Because I don’t remember this shoot.”
The scene continued to unfold. Brian was joined by a girl with long hair - whom Jay quickly identified as Sarah Reid - and the two actors worked through several takes of an awkward conversation, ending with Sarah storming away out of frame.
“Cut! I think that take was perfect,” Alex said. Brian gazed past the camera and smiled, eyes crinkling with warmth.
“Really?”
“Yeah, let me just rewind and check the footage.”
The tape cut for a moment, before resuming back on the patio. Seth moved the camera, and Brian and Sarah acted through a few takes of the conversation from another angle. Eventually Alex said something about being satisfied. Brian and Sarah high-fived each other affectionately, and Seth turned off the camera shortly afterwards.
“Y’know, it wasn’t the most enthralling, but that was somewhat entertaining,” Evelin said.
“Looks like there’s still a bit more left on the tape,” Jay said, still focused on the screen. The monitor was showing shaky footage of a dark room. A few moments later the footage stabilized slightly, as the camera was aimed towards a window pane, the darkness outside cut through by a beaming porch light. The angle shifted, showing more of the porch -
“What the hell is that?” Evelin yelped.
Jay jabbed the pause button on the screen, leaning in closer. “This definitely was not part of the film.”
The footage was grainy and blurry, but the two could make out a humanoid figure with a dark body and pale blank head standing on the porch. It seemed to turn to look at the window - at the camera - before whoever was filming pulled the camera away, seemingly in panic. Jay began clicking through the footage, frame by frame.
Evelin stood up from the chair and began pacing, as if she could catch her body up to her racing heartbeat.
“It’s probably just someone in a costume,” Jay murmured, more to himself than to her.
“You think this was a prank or something?”
“I mean, that would make the most sense…but I don’t remember Alex ever mentioning anything like this,” he muttered, eyes glued to the screen as if that would bring all the answers into focus.
Evelin ran a hand over her head. It’s fine. It’s nothing.
Jay glanced up, finally noticing the look on his sister’s face. “Evie, you good? You seem really freaked out.”
“I - yeah, I’m fine. Of course it’s some sort of prank,” she said, sitting down on the floor, pressing her knees together. Jay watched her from his perch on the chair, concern on his face. “Y’know,” she continued, not quite looking at him, “I think I’m just exhausted. My brain is being weird.”
Jay turned back to the screen and exited out of the movie software. “Yeah, it might be good for you to head to bed.”
“Yeah, yeah it would.”
“Let me go grab some clean sheets for you,” he said, ruffling her hair slightly as he passed by her. Evelin pulled herself up from the carpet and began stripping the bed of its old sheets.
Jay returned bearing a set of plaid sheets, which he set on top of the bed. “I totally forgot. I got dessert to celebrate you getting here. If you’re up for it tonight?”
Evelin looked up at him, blinking. “What did you get?”
He grinned. “Freshly store-bought apple pie.”
She smiled back. “Hell yeah.”
“Alright, let’s make this bed and get you some pie then,” he said, unfolding the fitted sheet and handing her a corner.
Evelin didn’t immediately get into bed after she ate a slice of pie, brushed her teeth, and Jay wished her a good night. Instead, she slumped down on the floor by her bed and looked at her phone. The disappointment of Adam not texting her all day, even to check that she had arrived safely, had faded with the pie and the confusion of what exactly had been on that tape.
She maneuvered to a different number, and, after some typing and backspacing, finally sent a message:
arrived safely, if adam asks
Whether Adam would ask or not, she had no idea. And she didn’t expect a response right away. So there was nothing else to be done tonight. She plugged her phone in to charge, pushed the box of tapes back into the closet, and was fast asleep within five minutes of her head hitting the pillow.
If anyone had looked through the window that night, they would have seen her curled up on top of the sheets, dead to the world as the breeze from the window fan softly ruffled wisps of her dark hair.
But no one looked in the window that night.