I bought my first house recently after living in apartments for years. Finally, I’d saved up enough for a down payment and searched for months and months until I found a place that I thought was perfect. It sits on a little bit of land, the neighborhood is nice, and there’s no HOA…I thought I’d found my dream home. One story, two bedrooms, one bath, great for a starter.

When I closed on the place, I met the previous owner. He was an older man and explained with glee that he’d built it himself, literally. Eccentric was my first impression of him, as he explained how he’d gotten fed up with paying for city water and decided he’d just dig his own well in the crawl space one year. “I spent a lot of time in that crawl space,” he told me with a forlorn expression. Through the whole process, I got the distinct feeling that he didn’t really want to sell the house, but rather felt that he had to.

The inspection hadn’t turned up any issues, so I assumed that even though this man had built the house himself, he must have known what he was doing. Everything looked to be in order (to my extremely untrained eye) when I moved in and functioned as expected. I had hot water, the furnace was working…what more could a young, single guy ask for.

It wasn’t until I was setting up the living room that I noticed something…odd.

The previous owner had clearly been a movie buff as there were hooks in the ceiling where he’d hung a projection screen, and mounting left over from where the projector itself had been installed. An HDMI cable and speaker wiring were routed through the wall and all around the room to set up what must have been a very nice home theater system. Being I’m a big gamer, I was actually excited he’d left it all behind, as I’d likely be able to make good use of it all for LAN parties. Using a multimeter, I began the tedious process of checking where each wire and cable was routed, labeling them in turn.

It took a couple of hours, but eventually I was able to track everything from origin to terminus except for one cable.

An HDMI cable was routed straight up through the laminate flooring behind where he must have had his entertainment center and I couldn’t find the other end of it anywhere inside. When he’d installed the flooring, he’d managed to cut a perfect circle for the cable diameter, so the head couldn’t just fall through. And, unlike any of the other wiring, it looked like before he moved out, he’d attempted to remove it.

Scratches indicated he’d taken tools to the floor in an effort to cut it out, but for some reason had given up with little progress. There were marks on the cable itself as well, but he’d clearly had no success perforating it. ‘Must have some kind of aircraft grade shrouding.’ I thought. ‘Guess he either thought it just wasn’t worth the effort or didn’t want to leave me with a big hole in the floor.’

Unfortunately, given I couldn’t find the other end in the house, I knew I’d likely need to go down into the crawl space to figure out where it was routed. Wondering if maybe he’d built a secret compartment somewhere in the walls to house his media players, I decided I’d plug it in and see if there was still anything connected on the other end.

I regretted that decision immediately.

When the screen came to life…I saw grainy footage, like from a CCTV camera. In it, a woman was chained by her wrists and ankles to a wall in a dark, cramped space. She was kneeling in pea gravel and there was almost no light, the ceiling above too shallow for her to stand. Her hair was long and matted, clothes soiled and tattered, and she was so emaciated that I scarcely believed she could be alive. When she looked up, I saw the sorrow etched on her face as she wept. “Please help.” She mouthed.

My heart stopped as our gazes met… ‘Can she see me?’ I knew that to be impossible, but her eyes bored straight into mine, begging me to save her. Appalled, I leapt back and powered off the TV…a sickening sensation growing within.

‘What the fuck was this guy into?’ I grew more nauseas imagining him enjoying watching this woman suffer. She was so visceral, my first reaction had been that it was real footage, but as the initial shock wore off, I tried to rationalize what I’d seen. ‘If that was real…why would he have left it behind for me to easily find? Maybe it’s some Indy horror film he really did leave in a DVD player he forgot about hidden in a wall somewhere around here.’ I reasoned.

With as much courage as I could muster…I flipped the power back on, hoping I’d find it was just a DVD menu playing on a loop.

The grainy footage returned, the space was unchanged, camera angle exactly the same, however the woman in the image was…different. Younger, not quite as emaciated…but still shackled to the wall. She too leered straight through the screen, meeting my eye-line perfectly…not just younger, she was a different woman entirely. “Please…help us.” She whispered. There was no audio coming from the TV, yet as her mouth formed the words, I could hear her in my head.

Illusions that this was just an Indy film were fading rapidly.

‘Was that…my crawl space?’ I began to wonder. The previous owner had mentioned he’d spent a lot of time down there… ‘Had he kept women chained below the house and I’m seeing recordings of it?’

‘But then, why do her eyes follow my movements.’

Her expression became more frantic. Tears began to streak down her cheeks as she again said, “Please! Help us!” Louder, her voice reverberated in my skull. She moved to bury her face in her hands and then I heard it beneath me…

Chains. When she moved her arms, I heard the chains under my feet.

‘Jesus Christ, this is live…’ I panicked. ‘She’s below me, right now…he left her down there.’

I dropped the remote and sprinted for the backdoor. The crawl space access was outside, a small hatch on the side of the house. Pulling out my phone, I clicked on the flashlight feature, then removed the hatch, and peered inside. The light was too weak to see very far, all I could make out was the pea gravel floor, the cramped space…it all looked…familiar.

“Hello?!” I yelled, “Where are you? I’m here to help!” But I received no response. ‘She must be too frail to answer.’ I considered. “Hello?!” Still nothing.

For a moment, I thought about calling 911 before going in…she’d need medical attention I was certain, but I didn’t want to leave her alone any longer. I planned to get to her first and let her know that she was safe, then I’d contact help. Brushing spiderwebs out of my path, I slid through the entryway.

Shining the light around the space, I still couldn’t see any sign of her, but I did see a well-worn path in the gravel. ‘Must be his route to where she’s kept…sick bastard.’ I wretched thinking about him joyfully slithering back to visit his captive. On hands and knees, I followed the trail, scanning ahead with my phone, waiting for her to appear in the beam.

However, she never materialized, and as I reached the wall where the path ended, I was dismayed to find the area…empty. No shackles were hanging from the walls…at first glance it appeared to just be a normal crawl space…other than it reeked of bleach. ‘This can’t be right…I heard the chains…I must be right below the living room now…the sound came from right here.’ I pointed my flashlight at the walls and investigated more closely.

Then I saw them…bolt holes. In a perfect square, there were four rusted rectangles imprinted in the concrete, each with four bolt holes. The eyelets for the chains had been installed here...but he must have removed them before he moved out.

I continued to shine my light around the space and found where the HDMI cable came through the living room floor. It ran along the floor joists until it ended in a small, bubble style security camera, still mounted overhead, and pointing right where the woman should have been. ‘Why didn’t he remove that?’ I pondered…but the answer was right in front of me.

He had tried to remove it…tool marks covered the surface. By the looks of it, he’d tried to unscrew it, drill it out…in desperation it appeared at one point he’d tried to simply smash it with a hammer based on the scuffs in the surface of the bubble. I even noticed several reciprocating saw blades laying in the gravel, teeth completely worn down. Scoring in the wood indicated he’d tried to cut the joists…tried again to cut just the cable…all had failed. The scratches on the floor in the living room made sense now.

Inspecting the camera more closely, I saw it had a feature that locked the HDMI and power cable heads in place to prevent tampering, the key for which was snapped off in the lock. Every effort had been made to remove the evidence of his surveillance system, but something had prevented him from doing so.

‘But, if she’s not down here now…then what did I see on the screen…?’ A cold chill ran down my spine as I recalled both of their eyes tracking my movements. A woman definitely had been here, multiple women actually based on what I’d seen upstairs, but they were gone now. ‘The camera must have internal storage…I just was seeing playback of old recordings.’ I grasped for an easy explanation.

Locating the model number with the flashlight, I did a quick search on my phone and found the specs online. It was an older model…direct line HDMI feed…with no internal storage…it needed to be routed to a digital recorder to save anything. ‘That’s not possible…I saw them…’

The blood froze in my veins as I frantically searched for any other cables running from the camera to an external storage device. The power was still plugged into the wall, (also locked in place and displaying signs of a ferocious assault), and that was it. Two cables…power and display, and I knew exactly where the display cable ran above me.

“HELP US!” A cacophony of voices rang in my ears. They came from all around me, but as I spun the light around, still no one appeared. Hysterically, I crawled for the entrance as quickly as hands and knees would carry me until I slid back through the opening and collapsed out onto the lawn. I didn’t even care that I’d lost a shoe at some point in my flight.

“FUCK!” I yelled aloud as I stood up and tried to catch my breath. “What the actual fuck?!” I couldn’t process anything that’d happened in the last thirty minutes, but knew there was something seriously wrong with the house. Fear flowed through every nerve in my body as I contemplated what to do next.

Whatever was happening, I was now too afraid to reenter the house alone and decided it was time that I call for help. With evidence that women had been kept in my crawl space, I thought it was best to start with the police.

As the phone rang, I understood I was about to sound crazy, but I didn’t care.

“911, what’s your emergency.” Came the voice of the operator on the phone.

“Um, hello…hi, I…don’t know exactly how to say this. I guess…I just moved into a new house today and I found evidence that some terrible things happened here.” I said as calmly as possible.

“Okay sir, are you in danger now? Can you get to a safe place?” She replied.

“No, I’m not in danger, I mean…I don’t know…I don’t think so…I’m outside the house now.” I wasn’t sure how to answer that question… ‘Am I in danger?’

“Okay, sir you said you found evidence of a crime in your new house, is that correct?” She asked.

“Yes, yes, I think so…I was tracking cables the previous owner left behind and plugged one in that I found in the living room. When I did, I saw footage of a woman…women chained to a wall. I tracked the cable to a security camera in the crawl space…I think he’s been keeping women captive down there.” I hoped she believed me.

“Okay sir, I’m going to advise you to stay out of the house for now…we’re going to send a unit over to you right away.” She responded.

“Thank you, thank you so much. Yes, I’ll wait outside for them to arrive.” I breathed a small sigh of relief, at least I wouldn’t be alone.

The unit arrived only a few minutes later, I waited on the front lawn. Two officers exited the vehicle and approached me, the first giving introductions before asking, “Are you the homeowner?”

“Yes I am, I made the call. I found some things while moving in today…I think the previous owner did some awful things in there.” I explained.

“Yea, about him…I checked out your address on the way over here and got a flag from a report filed yesterday. Seems the previous owner hadn’t updated his address yet, so this one was put in the file. Not sure how to tell you this, but he committed suicide last night.” He said.

“Committed suicide? Jesus…I…well I only met him when we did the closing…but…Jesus…” I couldn’t think of how to respond. ‘Did he hear the women too? After they were gone…?’

“Yes sir, so we’re very interested in what you found. Might explain what drove him to it. Would you mind recapping what you told the dispatcher?” He queried.

My mind was racing now, but I did my best to compose myself and explain exactly what’d happened since I found the cable. I even gave them the details of the women I’d seen in the footage, hoping they might be able to connect them to open missing person’s cases. They calmly jotted down notes while they listened.

Once I finished, the first asked, “Okay sir, what I think we should do first is start in the house and get a look at that camera feed. That sound okay?”

“Yea, that sounds like a plan.” I replied. Happy that they were taking me seriously.

We entered through the front door and walked towards the living room. I stopped short of entering, but pointed them in the direction; I couldn’t bear to look at either woman’s anguished face again.

“Sir…can you come in here please?” Said the second officer.

I walked into the living room, but still averted my eyes from the screen.

“Care to explain this.” He asked.

I finally looked at the TV and perplexingly saw that neither woman was there. In fact, the chains were gone entirely, the space appeared just as I’d found it when I entered.

“Can you control the playback somehow? You said there was footage of at least two women chained up down there, but all I see is a shoe. Is this the live feed?” He looked down at my bare foot.

All I had done earlier was shut the TV off and turned it back on for it to switch between the women, I didn’t know to do anything else.

“Um…let me try one thing.” I turned it off, then powered it back on again, but the feed just returned to my shoe. “I don’t know how to control it…they just showed up earlier, I swear, maybe we just need to wait and it’ll switch on its own.”

We waited for about five minutes, but nothing happened, my shoe sat undisturbed in the gravel. They watched me apprehensively as we waited, for all they knew I was completely out of my mind. I was starting to feel completely out of my mind at the time.

“Sir, we’re very busy…is this some kind of joke?” The first asked.

“No, no I promise you, something very wrong is going on here. Please, just go check in the crawl space. It’s hard to see in the feed, but you’ll find where eyelets, or brackets, or something were mounted in the walls…and the whole area smells like bleach. Why would he have a camera feed down there in the first place?” I grew more exasperated with each sentence.

The second looked at the first. “You gotta admit, that is weird, who has a security camera in the crawl space?”

“I don’t know, maybe he had a nasty rodent problem or something and he was keeping an eye on it. You’ve seen people do weirder shit than this.” He responded.

“Yea, but we’re already here…might as well go check it out.” Said the second.

“Fine…but you’re going in there, I’ll wait by the entrance and we’ll leave him up here to watch and see if anything changes with the camera feed.” He pointed at me.

They walked outside, while I stayed and watched the TV. Eventually, I saw light bobbing along the wall and then the second officer crawled into frame. I watched him silently search the area with his flashlight, touch the bolt holes with his fingers, investigate the camera. Finally, he grabbed my shoe and made his way back out.

It having never changed, I shut the TV off in frustration, then walked outside to meet him as he pulled himself up out of the hole.

“So, what did you think? Looks like there were chains or something there, right?” I asked.

He handed me back my shoe. “Look, it’s definitely creepy down there, I’ll give you that. It does stink of bleach and it looks like something ‘abnormal’ was going on. But, right now there’s no evidence of a crime. Given the circumstances though, we’ll get the crime scene guys out here and a cadaver dog just to make sure.”

They went back to their squad car and called in what they found. Within thirty minutes, they had a crime scene tech onsite as well as a cadaver dog, and a technical analyst to review the camera. The crime scene tech went in first, photographed the area, and took some samples. However, he informed us that he hadn’t found any hair, blood, or fingerprints. The dog went next, and similarly turned up nothing immediately interesting. Then the technical analyst checked out the camera and reported exactly what I’d found online, it couldn’t record anything and the live feed was all we were ever going to get out of it.

As far as the police were concerned, there wasn’t anything to investigate. Yes, it was strange that he’d mounted a camera in the crawl space, but there was no crime against that. I overheard them talking on their way back to the squad car. They thought I’d watched one too many scary movies and I’d imagined the women chained below the house, or I’d just made it all up as a prank.

Night was falling as they all packed back into their vehicles and left me standing in the front yard. By this point, I was questioning myself. No one else had seen or heard anything like I had earlier, and they had been around for several hours. ‘Maybe I’m losing it.’ I thought.

When I walked back into the living room, I stood in front of the blank TV screen with the remote in my hand. ‘There’s nothing down there. You had five different people confirm that for you today.’ I told myself, and took a deep breath as I turned the power back on.

“HELP US! WHY AREN’T YOU HELPING US?!” A new woman appeared on the screen and she was screaming at me, her torment crushing my eardrums. Her expression was feral and as she fought the chains with all of her strength, I heard them beneath me again, crashing against the concrete.

‘No…no it’s not real.’ I prayed for it not to be real.

She continued to writhe, and every motion matched the vibrations underneath me.

Then, the image changed. A fourth woman came into view, I couldn’t see her face, but her clothes were different. The sounds of the chains ceased immediately…this woman wasn’t moving…she was curled in the fetal position and sobbing into her knees. Rather than hearing it in my head though, I now heard her crying below me.

I shut the TV off again, hoping it’d make it all stop…but the sobbing continued.

“Please…help.” She pleaded between her cries.

I couldn't take it anymore and bolted for the front door. Grabbing my keys on the way out, I dove in my truck and headed for the nearest hotel.

That’s where I am now.

After I checked in…I searched missing person’s reports from my area and found three familiar women, all missing for years. I never saw the face of the fourth woman, but I’m sure she’s on this list too. I know what happened to them, but I don’t know how I’ll make anyone believe me. Besides, their killer is dead…maybe after all these years, he finally couldn’t take their cries anymore either. Or maybe, they finally started to fight back.

I’ve read that some cultures believe you shouldn’t take their picture or film them as you’ll trap their spirit. I think there might be something to that now. These women are trapped in that camera, at least the last imprints of them are. I’m writing here for advice. I want to help them. I want to set them free, but I don’t know how.

Please help.