Part 1

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“I refuse to step inside the dark room again. Not after what happened a couple of days ago. At least not yet” I thought, while sitting in my room with the events still fresh in my mind. Before I begin telling you what happened since, I just want to thank you all for the advice in my last post. I honestly didn’t know how to approach this situation but with your guys’ help, I had somewhere to start.

…

It was the day after the incident. I hadn’t told anyone what happened, but I knew I wanted to talk to Felix. I had so many questions for him. He must know something. While I was at work, I was thinking a lot about the old man that used to live in the house. I realized that this entire time, Felix and I just referred to him as “the guy” or “the old man”. I guess I never cared to know his real name.

I thought that if I knew his name, I could just google him and find some information. Coincidentally, as I was driving home from work, my phone rang. Incoming call from Felix. Just seeing his name on the caller ID screen gave me shivers. The incident in the dark room flashed into my mind and I forgot what I planned on saying to him. I answered one handed and spoke, “hey man, what’s up?”

“Hey John, I’m alright. You doing anything today?”

I replied, “um. No not really. Listen, do you remember that film from the box in the boiler room? I know this is gonna sound crazy but-”

“I need some help at my house again bro. Trying to get this done asap and today’s the only day I’ll be able to work on it until next week”. Felix sounded like he was in a hurry. Before replying, I thought that maybe I could explain the situation better in person. I felt like I’d sound like a lunatic over the phone.

“Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll be there soon. Before you go, I gotta ask you something”.

“Make it fast cause’ I gotta go, man.”

“What’s the name of the guy that used to live in your house?”

“Uh...” Felix paused for a few seconds, “I can’t remember right now. Just be here in an hour or two”.

“WAIT. Wait. Are you at the house right now?” I asked.

“Yes. Why”.

“Can’t you like, check his mailbox for some old mail or something? It’ll say his name there”.

Felix sighed, “Why do you want to know it so bad?”

“I’ll explain it to you later. It’s a long story. Sorry if I’m interrupting you.”

Felix said, “alright, hold on” followed by a loud thud. It sounded like he dropped something.

A moment passed before Felix spoke again. “Okay his name’s Travis Rice. Gotta go now. Let me know when you’re here”.

…

I got home and made myself dinner before going to Felix. While I was eating, I searched “Travis Rice Obituary” on google on my phone. I scrolled through a few Travis Rice’s until I found one that was from my town. The first thing I saw was his picture. A smiling old white man with gray hair and a wrinkly face. Then I read his obituary.

“Travis Rice. May 1931- July 2022. Mr. Travis was an outstanding member of his community, and a true American”. After reading the rest, I gathered that Travis served in the U.S military during the Korean War in the 1950’s. He has three daughter’s and two sons. His wife had passed away 4 years ago. He did volunteer work even at an old age and even was a teacher for a while. I won’t lie, I did not expect his obituary to be so positive. This whole time in my head I assumed he was some maniac cult leader who never threw away any of his junk.

Once I finished reading, I noticed that there isn’t a cause of death anywhere. I guess some obituaries can choose not to include that.

…

I arrived at Felix’s house, and it was almost turning into sunset. The trash container Felix had rented was still outside, but it was nearly empty. I wondered if it would get completely full again. The front door was slightly opened, and I let myself in. I walked around the main floor looking for him. The living room didn’t look too bad now that it was empty.

Once I entered the kitchen, I called Felix’s name. “What! I’m here” he replied as he popped out from behind the old fridge. He scared the sh*t out of me. “Jesus Christ... What are you doing there?” I said with my palm on my chest.

“I’m putting the hand truck behind this old fridge. It has to go. This thing smells like a dead person”. He spoke.

“Well, what if there IS a dead person in there?” I said, “Let’s open it”.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you”, Felix said while placing his hand on the fridge door.

“Why not? I just want to see what our guy Travis kept inside”.

“Alright, but don’t open it until I say”. Felix took his hand off the door and walked to the other side of the house. “Go ahead”. I opened the fridge door slowly and peaked through. No light bulb turned on so I couldn’t see inside. I opened it halfway and an incredibly foul odor hit my nose and I almost threw up. There wasn’t a dead body chopped up into small pieces, but there was a half empty bottle of expired milk, expired steak, cheese, and other stuff that was probably there for at least a year.

As soon as I slammed the door shut Felix started walking back. “Ha! See, I told you I wouldn’t do that. Next time just listen to me. Come on, let’s put this thing outside”.

Felix and I continued to clean the house. I really wanted to explain the dark room incident to him, but the entire time I was thinking, “how do I say this without sounding like I’m insane?” I concluded that there just wasn’t a way to say it without sounding crazy, so I just did it.

“Hold on, Felix. Let’s pause for a minute. I have to tell you something”.

“Okay, what?”

“Remember those two rolls of film that I showed you the last time we were cleaning this house?”

“The ones from the box downstairs?”

“Yeah. Here’s the thing. I really need you to just believe everything I say, okay? Even if it sounds super ridiculous. Everything I am going to tell you is one hundred percent real. I swear I am NOT lying.”

“Okay, okay, John just tell me. Look, I’ll believe it if I believe it-”

“IT’S TRUE... Alright, whatever, I’m just gonna start. So, the day after I found the film, I went to develop it in my university’s dark room. I- I heard and felt something. It wasn’t human. It- it was like some kind of beast-”

“What did it look like?”

“I DON’T KNOW. I was unrolling the film in complete darkness. I didn’t see what it looked like”.

“Why would you do it in the dark, though?” Felix asked. I was getting frustrated because I didn’t feel like explaining the process of developing film.

“BECAUSE- BECAUSE there can’t be any light in the first step, only the rest of the process. I only heard its footsteps. It blew strong blows of air on me anytime I moved. I thought it was going to attack me, but I turned the lights on just in time”.

Felix just stood there looking me dead in the eye, confused as ever. “What the hell are you talking about?” I lowered my head into a face palm and sighed deeply.

“I mean, seriously, what are you on, man? You think you summoned a demon or something?” He said. “So, did you even get to develop the film anyway, or what?”

“No” I said, “I was too freaked out. I just put the film in its canister and left it in a drawer. I swear I’m telling the truth. I just wanted to see if you knew anything about it”.

“Yeah, no, I have no idea what you’re talking about. So, is that it? Are you done with this whole picture's thing?”

I replied, “Well, I don’t want to relive that experience. At the same time though, I really want to know what those pictures look like. If I’m going back to the dark room to finish, I at least want to take someone with me”. We looked at each other for a few seconds.

“...Let me guess, you want me to go with you?” Felix asked. “Yes. I do”. I spoke.

Felix took a breath, “... I mean, I guess since you’re helping me clean this place up I might as well. It’ll have to wait though. I won’t have time until next week”.

“That’s fine” I said, “I can wait”.

…

Fast forward to Monday. Felix and I agreed to meet in front of my university in the morning. We walked together towards the art department. We went up the elevator and walked down the end of the hall to where the dark room was. Being in front of that room again was so unnerving. I almost didn’t even want to step inside anymore.

Noticing my hesitation, Felix moved past me and entered the dark room, and I followed.

I had my phone flash again as I quickly switched the light on. I did not want it to be dark again. Thankfully, the next steps in developing the film could be done with the lights on. Felix was standing with his arms crossed.

“Alright, so now what?” he asked. I replied, “I have to set up all of the chemicals and then take the canister out of the drawer that I left it in”.

“Don’t you want me to help with anything?” he asked.

“No, you’re mainly here so that I’m not alone”.

I set up the chemicals as it said in my notes. Pre-soak, developer, hypo-clear, Photo-Flo etc. They were all lined up in beakers in the sink. Then, I went to the drawer that I left the canister with film in. It was still there. I brought it over the sink where the chemicals were ready.

“Here goes” I said out loud. Felix moved from the corner of the room to a few feet away from me. I poured the first solution in, agitated the canister for its required time, and then poured it out. I repeated this step for each chemical solution. Nothing bad had happened yet. The lights were on, Felix was watching over me, things were good.

“So how do I get this demon to show up? Should I turn the lights off?” Felix chuckled. I shook my head and rolled my eyes. If only he knew what I experienced that day.

Fast forward now to the last step of the process. I just had to take the film out of the hurricane film washer and put it to dry.

 I took it out and unrolled it. As soon as I stretched it out, my eyes went directly onto the film. “FINALLY,” I thought, “I can finally see what these damn PICTURES ARE”. I held the film up to the fluorescent ceiling light and the negatives were visible now. They were tiny, black and white, but I couldn’t tell what the pictures were of. 

The negatives on the film were so unrecognizable. After a few seconds of me trying to figure out what I was looking at, I decided I needed to bring out the light box. A light box is a box that shines white light at the top. Film is placed on top of the light box, and it lets you see the pictures clearly.

"Hold this. Don’t touch the strip of negatives, just hold the top part”. I handed Felix the unrolled film while I looked for the light box.  I found it in a cabinet and grabbed it. I then set it on a station and plugged it to the wall. I flipped it on, and it shined brightly.

“Okay, let me see the film” I said to Felix.

“What the hell am I supposed to be seeing?” I looked over and saw he was trying to look at the negatives using the same ceiling light I was using.

“Dude, just give it to me so we can see them on the light box”. He handed the film to me. This was it.

I placed the beginning of the film on the light box, and it showed the first few pictures clearly.

FIRST PICTURE: The first picture was taken from the inside of a house. You could see out the window where there is nothing but trees.

SECOND PICTURE: A landscape of a small lake. A bird is hovering over the water.

THIRD PICTURE: A blurry unexposed shot of a stack of books.

Half of the pictures were like this. Just normal boring pictures of random stuff. “You made it seem like we’d see something cool or crazy. These are just boring ass pictures, man,” said Felix.

I was pretty disappointed so far. I almost wanted to just stop and start cleaning up. Until about the sixteenth picture.

SIXTEENTH PICTURE: A picture of a forest. Many tall trees were in the picture plane. The trees in the center were a different shade than the rest. Seems like it was taken at night, and the photographer was using a flashlight.

“Hey, what’s that there?” I whispered. “What?” asked Felix. In picture number sixteen there was a figure in between the trees. It was hard to see but I thought I saw a silhouette of something humanoid.

SEVENTEENTH PICTURE: This picture was similar to the last, except now, that figure was closer to the camera. I could see a more distinct shape. It definitely wasn’t human. It had an animal shape with a long neck.

“What is that? A horse?” said Felix. I started sweating.

EIGHTEENTH PICTURE: Now the creature was CLOSER. It was an animal or beast. I’ve never seen a creature like it before. It showed its side profile. Its body still hidden behind the trees. The creature was about 15 feet away from the camera. We could see its face. The head was shaped like a goat and horse at the same time. 

“What is this thing? Do you know what animal that is?” I turned to Felix. He was wide mouthed now. More disturbed and shocked than I was. “Felix?”

“... I uh... I think we should stop looking now,” he said nervously. I was taken aback. Why would we stop now?

“...Are you okay Felix? What’s wrong?”

He didn’t respond. I continued looking. 

NINETEENTH PICTURE: The creature was IN THE AIR. The ENTIRE body was visible, and it took up the whole picture plane. It had claws for hands that were stretched out. Its legs had hooves and its body was long. On each side of its body were long blurry blobs. They looked like wings, but its motion was blurred. It had no pupils in its eyes and its mouth was opened disturbingly wide.

“WH- WHAT IS THIS?” I yelled. Before I could keep moving the film to see the next picture, I felt a hard shove and I fell to the ground. Felix was standing over me with a shocked and worried face. He snatched the film off the light box and started crumpling it.

“FELIX WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR. Wha- what are you DOING!” I yelled at him.

“No one was supposed to know...” he said softly while looking at me dead in the eyes. 

“...Know what??” I questioned. He started walking toward me. I was freaked out and discomforted and I kept scooting back while on the floor. Felix put his hand on the table nearest to him and picked up a pair of scissors. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING???” I screamed.

He was only a foot away from me before all the lights suddenly went out and it was completely dark. I felt like I had just died but I heard a familiar noise.

*HUFF*

“What the hell?” Felix’s voice said in front of me.

*HUFF* *HUFF* 

“No... God. Please, no,” I thought, with tears in my eyes. The ground started to shake rhythmically. 

“WHO'S THERE?” Felix yelled out. I heard things cling and clang as they started to fall to the floor. 

*HUFF*

I was still sitting on the floor. I looked up. The only thing I saw in the void of black darkness was two red dots.

“JOHN. WHERE THE F*CK ARE YOU”. I heard shuffling. “WHAT THE F*CK?!”

The two red dots went up, then swiftly dragged down and I heard a disturbing *CRUNCH*. Felix let out a blood curdling scream. What followed was a mix of crunching, Felix’s crying and screaming, and more things falling to the floor. All I could see was those two red dots moving violently around the darkness.

And then, Felix stopped screaming. All I could hear was the gnashing of teeth. I thought that I was next. My adrenaline kicked in and I made a dash for the light switch. The floor shook as I ran. Thank the stars, I flipped them on. I looked behind me. There wasn’t anyone with me anymore. Felix was nowhere to be seen. On the floor where he was standing was the crumpled up roll of film. 

I stood there in silence for at least a half hour, not knowing what to do. The crumpled up film was in my hand. I uncrumpled the film and put it back on the light box.

NINETEENTH PICTURE: The creature was once again far away from the camera but still in the air.

TWENTIETH PICTURE: A wide shot picture of the forest. Seems like the photographer got out of the forest.

TWENTYFIRST PICTURE: A picture of a house. Likely the same house as the first.

TWENTYSECOND PICTURE: A closer picture of the house. A silhouette was peeking out from the side of the house.

TWENTYTHIRD PICTURE: A zoomed in picture of the silhouette. It’s a person. I can’t see their face.

TWENTYFOURTH PICTURE: A man is standing next to the house. I recognized his face immediately. It was Felix.