Good evening, it’s Spooky Boo coming to you from the KSND lighthouse radio station in Sandcastle, California. As usual, it’s foggy outside with a light crisp wind in the 60s. The weather is perfect if you love the fog as I do. We get a bit more fog here than in the other coastal towns. I hear just up the coast and a little further south it’s clear enough to even see the stars. But we know why Sandcastle is often covered in fog–it’s to hide the evil things. The werewolves, vampires, cryptids, zombies, and whatever else haunts this forsaken town. I’m safe up here in the lighthouse. I had bulletproof windows installed over the regular windows. The door is bolted from the inside and hard to find along the concrete and steel wall. The stairs to the studio are inside the wall and you must know how to get inside of the wall to get in and even then, the door into the studio is impenetrable. You can’t get in, don’t even try. Not only that, I’m a card-carrying member of the 2nd Amendment and I have cameras that cover the coves and the beaches down to the bottom of my tower. One day I’ll show you those pictures. They’re quite beautiful.
Tonight I have for you four very creepy short stories about the internet and computers. These stories are from the internet itself so who knows if they’re true or not. They’ll make you question that next unknown link you’re about to visit from your inbox.
In October I will be coming out with my first print copy of the first official Sandcastle anthology. A signed copy will be available at certain Patreon levels. The book and the Kindle copy will also be available at Amazon. Stay tuned for more information or visit my patreon page at www.patreon.com/spookybooscarystorytime. More information will be available at www.scarystorytime.com soon.
Now let’s begin…
Hey guys, I have a story to tell. You probably won’t believe me, and frankly, I’m done trying to convince people.
It was about three weeks ago. I was on Google looking for some funny sites to look at, and I found my way to an imageboard. Everyone on the board spoke in extremely cryptic nonsense, They said things like, “Hiel I saw them tonight. Holdings hand we are up in high 99924028 THE KING COME DOWN.”
That was one phrase that was used repeatedly. “The king come down.” At first, I thought it was spam because of the number strings that preceded it, but its use was way too frequent and erratic to be spam. There would be typos, and the numbers didn’t appear to be random.
I decided, “Fuck it,” I’ll see what’s going on with this site. I posted in what appeared to be a random board, much like /b/ as there was no discernible theme amongst the images and posts. I said, “Hello, I’m new, and was looking to start a funny thread.” I then asked them to post their funniest pictures.
That was the first time it started. I remember the first reply very clearly. It said, “Good to see. U join the HELP! HELP!” From there it got strange. I was told to ignore the “grafts”. I assumed this was some sort of in-joke. From there, they began to speak like crazy people. Posting seemingly random numbers and letters, characters from many languages. A few seemed Russian and Middle-Eastern, as well as possibly Chinese and Korean characters.
I had no idea what was going on.
Then I saw the phrase again. Numbers followed by, “The king come down.”
Following that, my power cut off. It was a complete black out. It freaked me out. I checked the fuses and the switches had just flipped. Flicking them back up, the power went back on. When I returned to my PC, there was an image on the screen of a young boy. He was Caucasian, no older than ten.
I sat down, creeped out, but feeling curious. The boy smiled and appeared to speak, but I couldn’t hear anything. My speakers were on, so I turned up the volume. I could only just barely hear what he was saying, it was a hushed whisper. I turned the volume up full, and it was still only a faint whisper. His lips moved slowly.
I pushed my head closer to try and figure out what he said. Then he shouted loudly, a booming and terrifying voice screaming at me like a demonic god. The image had changed, the boy was crying, his eyes bleeding heavily as white arms tore the skin from his face.
The power cut out again.
Again it was the fuses. When I got my power back, everything was normal. My PC booted up normally, and nothing creepy happened.
Then I started receiving the e-mails. They were extremely cryptic and filled with random numbers, much like the imageboard posts. I got an e-mail that was in regular English, too. It said this, “JUST PASS IT ON. JUST FUCKING PASS IT ON.”
I didn’t know what it meant.
I got up to get a drink and froze in fear. From my ceiling hung a man, his body swinging gently. On my wall, written in dry blood were the words, “THE KING COME DOWN.” I blinked, and the sight was gone.
For weeks this continued.
I went back to the imageboard, I was sure I was going out of my mind. I was just about ready to commit myself to a fucking asylum, I read a post in coherent English that said something like, “Pass on the king, pass on the king.”
The thread 404’d before I could even get to it. I went to make a new thread, and when I began typing, the words in my mind were not what appeared in the box. My fingers typed words by their own volition. I typed two things. “HGHSUTHS” and “4918484 THE KING COME DOWN.”
Then somehow I realized. I was passing it on. The crazy hallucinations stopped. I learned how to be safe.
I’m sorry…
HAKKSITMS 44919174 THE KING COME DOWN
The Addiction
He had found the website by chance. All it seemed like was a little flash game someone had made for the public to enjoy. The boy, whose name was Alex, was getting bored, so he Google searched “free online game”. The first suggestion was the website mentioned above, though that made no sense since the website wasn’t very closely related to the search in its title, URL, or otherwise. However, Alex being young, just clicked on the first link.
What popped up was a simple game. You had to blow up some constantly falling blocks to get points. When the blocks hit the bottom of the screen, they disappeared and the player would lose some points. There were some impressive scores on the leaderboard, and since the game never ended, they just kept going up. There were upgrades that the player could buy, like a heat seeking bomb upgrade that curved toward nearby blocks, or a turret that would automatically shoot a block every few seconds. There wasn’t too much depth to the game, just some raw gameplay that seemed really fun. Alex played for a few minutes, then got called to go to bed. He slept soundly that night, dreaming of playing the game more. He hadn’t even got any upgrades yet…
The next day, the boy woke up earlier than usual. He got out of bed, got on his computer, and began playing this online game again. He played for a full hour this time, until his mother yelled at him for not getting ready when he was supposed to. Reluctantly, Alex turned off the game to get ready for school. As soon as he got home, he jumped right on his computer and started playing again. His score was becoming impressive, but nowhere near the leader’s scores. The boy kept playing and playing, even skipping dinner to keep playing. Finally his mother slapped him on the hand, as he was ignoring her yelling at him. Alex refused to get off his computer, until his mother unplugged it from the wall and carried the screaming child to his room, locking him in so he wouldn’t just leave and start playing again.
The next day, Alex’s mother went to retrieve Alex from his room, only to find his window open and the family laptop missing. Alex had run away to go play the game without being interrupted. Alex’s parents contacted the police, and they went out searching for the boy. They found him at an internet cafe a few miles from his house. He had reached the top 1,000 players, but he was desperately trying to maintain that position as the other players attempted to surpass his score. When the police confiscated his laptop and took him back to his parents, he was bawling and doing his best to harm the police officer carrying him. His parents were worried for their child’s well being.
The next day, Alex did not go to school. He instead visited a psychologist specializing in addiction. Though he usually worked with people who abused substances, he took on this boy’s case for the sake of the child’s well being.
Four days later, the boy seemed much improved. He asked the doctor if he had ever heard of the game, and the doctor replied with “No, but from what you describe it as, I think I may enjoy it.” The boy had made it sound as appealing as possible without seeming suspicious over the past few sessions, he had been planning it from the start. “How about you give it a try? You could give it five minutes, and tell me if I’m insane for playing it so much.” The doctor agreed, and began playing. When Alex’s parents returned to pick up their son from his session, the boy and the doctor were gone, run off to play this game without interruption.
This “game” was part of an experiment developed by the United States Military. The idea was that they could spread a game to millions of people in a country they were currently at war with, completely consume their lives with it, and force the enemy to surrender, or else their entire population would be consumed with their new addiction. What they hadn’t realized, was that people might spread the word. Now that I’m done telling you about this experiment, I’ll just go back to getting on top of the leaderboard.
Have you ever met that one kid who always brings his laptop wherever he goes? Like to classes, to the library, into bed, and even into the bathroom? Yeah, that kid was me. I say was because now I’m almost too afraid to look at a computer screen.
It all started maybe three months ago when I bought myself a brand new laptop. I didn’t buy it from resale, didn’t find it on the side of the road with a “DO NOT USE” sign taped to it. I just walked into a store, plunked down my cash and bought the sucker. It worked just fine, no strange files, no flashing pop-ups, nothing was out of the ordinary. Hell, even if it had been, I wiped the entire hard drive within a few days to change the operating system. I’ve never been a fan of the… for lack of a better word, tablet-y feel that Windows 8 has. So I swapped it out for some good old fashioned Windows 7. Again, I got the Windows 7 copy from a reliable source. An old family friend of mine did the whole installation for me. He’s always been my go-to guy for computer work and he didn’t let me down this time either. My copy of Windows 7 ran perfectly. I had the full Microsoft Office set, got my internet set up with Chrome, and set about using my laptop.
Nothing about it seemed strange, until one day about two or three weeks ago. As I was surfing the web, I got a pop-up. As someone who stored a lot of important files on my laptop (school projects, some fiction writing I had done, and my iTunes library to name a few) I kinda freaked out. It wasn’t one of those, “You are our millionth visitor, click to claim your free iPad!” kind of pop-ups. It was the worst kind of pop-up. A talking one.
“Your computer is infected with malware!” A rather upbeat voice told me. My blood immediately froze. Great. Just fucking great. Now I get to deal with this stupid scare-ware virus. To get rid of it would probably require another hard drive wipe, and even if it didn’t, my files had already been corrupted. But then, the voice continued. “That’s right! This computer has been infected by some of the shittiest comedy known to man!”
I wasn’t really sure how to react. Was this virus messing with me? I watched in fascination as the fake “malware report” faded away to a white screen. In dark blue block letters, the words, “Jason and Dan’s Comedy Hour” popped up. Slowly my fears were alleviated. This wasn’t a virus, so much as viral marketing for some new comedy show. Out of curiosity, I stuck around and watched it. To be perfectly honest, it was pretty funny. The set up was that these two guys, Jason and Dan, ran a goofy talk show. The first sketch I ever saw was them interviewing Batman, who in true Dark Knight Rises form, was almost completely incomprehensible. Of course, here he was also chomping on a cigar, and constantly changing the topic back to smoking. I got sucked into it. And before I knew it, I had finished the entire episode. It concluded with a link to a website that would be hosting a new episode every week.
I was hooked. Every Friday, a new episode was posted for download, and I was immediately there to watch and save the file. They all followed a similar formula, with them poking fun at movies, celebrities, and pop culture. Both of the characters were interesting as well and really played off of each other. Jason was a fast talker. His motor mouth prompted him to spout off wisecracks and one line zingers almost non-stop. Dan on the other hand, was more laid back and quiet. But was always ready with a snarky comment whenever the time came. It was funny, often off the wall absurd and all-round fun to watch.
Then came the episode that got me where I am today. I got home from classes for the day, grabbed my laptop, and logged in. I made a virtual beeline for Jason and Dan’s website, and found their latest episode. I started the download and it saved to my computer as Keep_Em_Laughing.wmv. I clicked to start the video, and treated myself to yet another great episode. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, they cracked a few jokes, did a few interviews, but something just felt… wrong with this episode. Then it dawned on me. Dan hadn’t said a word.
In the middle of their current sketch, which had been them just poking fun at Michael Bay’s movies. Dan just walked out. Jason seemed to be a bit confused by this and kept calling for him to come back. Suddenly, he too walked off screen, still calling after Dan. Then I heard the sound that I have since been trying to wipe from my memory. Jason screamed. It didn’t sound forced or faked, though. This was the real deal. When we saw him next, he was running at a full sprint and paused in front of the camera. His shoulder was oozing red through his shirt. He began to cry, to beg, and above all, scream. He fell to his knees blubbering like a baby, as Dan suddenly strode back onto the screen. In his hand was what appeared to be a small knife, the same sort one would use to whittle at wood or skin apples.
Without a word, Dan grabbed his partner by the hair taking a firm grip on it. He then began to repeatedly stab Jason, his blows fast and rapid. Jason’s screams had risen to a blood curdling shriek as the knife descended again and again. Streams of crimson began to streak down his face, mixing with the sweat of his brow and the tears of his cheeks. Finally, with a low gurgle, Jason’s body fell to the ground. I was in such shock I couldn’t tear my gaze from the screen. I had at first thought this was all some sort of sick joke, a twisted scene of dark comedy gone horribly awry. I simply stared at the screen in awed silence.
Dan turned his face to the camera, and I felt a chill run down my spine. His eyes. His eyes were so… wrong. They weren’t glowing red, or black soulless voids, they were perfectly calm and normal. That was what terrified me. These weren’t the eyes of a monster. They were the eyes of a fellow human being. One who had become a worse monster than my mind could conjure.
Dan stared into the camera and spoke two words, “Cody Stuart.”
He knew my name. My jaw dropped in shock. I frantically tried to close the video, but to no avail. My mouse cursor was frozen and motionless.
“I’m going to ask you a question.” He continued, “What do you know about magic tricks?”
I didn’t reply.
“Not much of a talker? Well, let me tell you a little something. Magic is all about misdirection. You’ve been staring at this screen for weeks, Cody. Why don’t you take a look above it?”
My heart skipped a beat. Just above my laptop screen, the little green LED light beside my webcam was on. How long had it been on? Had it been recording this whole time? How did it even get turned on anyways?
Those thoughts were pushed from my mind as Dan’s voice went on.
“Your name is Cody Stuart. You’re roughly five feet six inches. You have thick black hair and brown eyes. You live at the street address of 15829 Palm Drive.”
I threw the laptop to the floor and slammed it shut. Dan’s voice still came from it.
“I know where you live Cody. Expect me soon.”
At that point, I did the only thing I could think of doing. I grabbed that laptop and began slamming it repeatedly against my desk. I kept smashing it long after the screen and plastic casing had cracked. No, I beat that thing until it split in half. I snatched my phone, called up Dale, an old friend of mine. Practically screaming into the phone, I tried to explain my plight. I don’t think he actually knew what was happening, but he let me stay with him nonetheless. I’ve never gone back to that house. I don’t think I can.
Needless to say, I don’t use computers much anymore either. I very rarely can even be convinced to use a desktop, much less a laptop or tablet. When I’m forced to use those, I always ensure that I have a piece of tape over the webcam. He’s still out there. He’s still looking for me. And for all I know, he’s still watching me.
As drops of rain were pouring on my window, I was browsing the internet and watching videos. The storm outside was getting heavier, and the sound of rain kinda freaked me out. As the thunder began to boom, the Wi-Fi connection died. I had no internet now. Terrible night.
“Fuck, this is going to be one boring night,” I told myself.
While I was searching for old photos in my computer, activity which seemed the only way to have fun, my laptop just shut down. The screen went fucking black and that was it.
Later on, I managed to turn it on again, after I removed the hard disk and saw there was no problem with it. Windows started as normal, then the desktop popped up. I remembered having all sorts of games and folders on my desktop, but now they were ALL gone. I thought the problem that caused it to shut down had also damaged my files and memory.
I was just in a rage now, because I had lots of important work for school in that piece of shit laptop. I did a final check to see if everything had really been deleted. As I was browsing through folders, I found a strange file named:
‘Kevin’s Clip.’
I have never saved that into my computer, I thought it was some kind of prank. But I clicked on it and it opened. Weird.
Now there was this opening scene with a close shot of a field, with coloured flowers on it. Then the camera zoomed out and I could see a kid, about eight or something. Long dark hair, blue eyes. I was so confused I couldn’t say he was cute or creepy anymore. He ran on the field and he kept smiling. He wasn’t even blinking, for 30 seconds or so he just smiled and ran forward. Then he suddenly stopped.
The scene cut out to a place in front of the child, like a small wooden deck. There were four chairs, on each of them there was a person. I could see their faces. They were smiling, with the same absent look as the child before. I didn’t get this until the camera zoomed out on each of them and I could see their entire bodies. The first one, a woman, was shot. A bullet in the head, blood was flowing down on her face. The other ones were also dead, but the last one caught my attention. He had the same blue eyes as the child on the field. He had the same dark hair. He had to be related with the child. Then the shot switched to their feet.
Next to each there was a cardboard sign on which was written Mom , Brother, Sister, and the last one was Daddy, as I expected. I jumped of fear. That son of a bitch killed his family. Then I heard a voice behind the camera, laughing. It was a sick man’s laugh, a twisted mix of sobbing and crooked laughing.
I was terrified now, the video was just sick.
The final frames were of the child, staring at me and smiling, of course. The camera was shaking and then the kid stabbed the person who was filming with a kitchen knife or something. Blood started to flow and the camera dropped, but it was still filming.
There was another chair on the wooden deck. The kid sat on it and a distorted reversed violin started to play. He smiled at the camera on the ground and then slit his own throat with the knife, giggling.
Blood covered the camera and the music stopped. Then this strange non-sense text ended the clip:
As little Kevin completed his mission, he looked to Him and smiled.
Then the video ended.
Who the fuck is ‘He’ ? What was the whole purpose of that video? Was it real?
I threw my hard disk away in the rain through the window and replaced it the next day.
I do not want anyone to see that video. If you ever find it, delete it immediately. It took me months to get over the horrible feeling of that smiling monster on the screen.
Image
Image by ParallelVision from Pixabay
https://pixabay.com/illustrations/hacker-mask-laptop-computer-it-5842975/
