Creepy - Day 6 - I Bought A Used TV That Can Show Me The Future
Episode Date: October 6, 2020Too much screen time is bad for you...***Written by CarlB1961***See your donation rewards podcast at patreon.com/creepypod***You can also subscribe to us on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ...3SrH_3fsROXFAjomKcUtw***Music by Steve Blizin***Title music by Alex Aldea***Intro/Outro Narration by Joe Stofko Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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Creepy Presents
The 31 Days of Horror.
Day 6.
I bought a used TV that can show me the future.
Written by Carl B. 1961.
I'm a 34-year-old ex-Stoner high school dropout.
I spent most of my formative years goofing off, screwing around, and coasting through life without a care for the future,
like I thought the world was going to end the next day.
When it became apparent, that wasn't going to happen.
When I finally matured somewhat and started taking things more seriously, it was already too late.
And I was woefully unprepared for facing life in the real world.
My parents finally got fed up with my shenanigans and kicked me out of 26, giving me a thousand bucks in cash to get started and leaving me to fend for myself.
I can't say I blame them.
Who wants to spend the rest of their life supporting a freeloading slack without any direction in life?
I got a job in the city, owned a relatively cheap apartment, began taking online classes, eventually earning a GED.
I work as an after-hour security guard and an office building in the city.
I'm not going to tell you where exactly I live.
The job's relatively easy.
I sit in a small room for 12 hours a day looking at a bank of CCTV monitors,
do a sweep of the building once every hour during my shift,
and report any unusual activity on the phone to my supervisor at the district HQ.
The job gives me a lot of downtime.
Mostly I just sit on my ass watching YouTube videos on my phone
and listening to music.
Sounds like a great setup, right?
Basically, I get paid to do nothing.
Did I mention I was a security guard?
The trade-off is I get paid shit.
It's not like there's a lot of room for career advancement in my line of work.
Plus, living in this city isn't cheap.
Between rent, utilities, groceries, and bus fare,
I usually have about $20 in disposable income at the end of the month.
So, and the old piece of shit,
At RCA Box TV I brought to my apartment from home finally went toes up, it's not like I could
afford to buy a new one.
I decided to go to local Goodwill and see what they had to offer.
Goodwill is a crazy place, and you never know what you'll find there.
What deals you might score.
My luck was in that day, and I immediately found a nearly brand new Samsung 7-series
Ultra HD flat screen with a 43-inch screen.
Normally it costs worth 300 bucks, but I was able to get it from the front of the same.
60, which was still a bit more than I felt comfortable spending.
I took my new purchase home and set it up, marveling at the crystal clear high definition
picture.
It was easily the best 60 bucks I ever spent.
It didn't take me long to realize that there was something odd about my new TV, though.
That night, my night off, I watched a new episode of a current hit network series.
I didn't think much of it at the time, but the next morning, when I was on Facebook discussing the episode with a few friends I'd made there,
they had no idea what I was talking about when I described the plot.
They told me last night's episode had been nothing like what I was describing.
They told me I was nuts and suggested that maybe I've been watching a different show by mistake.
We argued about it for a while, then I signed out.
I didn't really know or care about these people.
I figured they were probably trolling me for some kind of joke.
Except that when I went to Wikipedia and read the synopsis for the episode in question,
I was surprised to see they were right.
Last night's episode had been the one they claimed to have seen,
not the one I distinctly remembered seeing myself.
I tried to explain it to myself by reasoning that maybe what I had seen had been a rerun of a show I hadn't seen before.
Maybe I'd been on the wrong channel or fallen asleep, I'd realize,
it and dream the entire thing.
I even thought that perhaps
have been a DVR the previous owners
that left in the TV's programming or something.
I shrugged it off
and had pretty much forgotten about the entire
incident by the time I had to leave for work.
I worked my shift,
got off at 4 a.m. the next morning,
took the bus home and went straight to bed.
Late the next morning,
while eating a breakfast of cold pop tarts
and some reheated leftover coffee
from the previous morning.
Yeah, I admit,
I'm a bit of a slob, but hey, I'm a 30-something bachelor.
Give me a break.
I flipped on my new TV and watched the news.
The female newscaster had a solemn expression.
Tragedy this morning downtown when the number C subway train derailed at 8.42 a.m.
leaving a dozen people dead and 20 more critically injured.
I changed the channel.
Not wanting to hear that depressing bullshit.
I channel surf or about an hour not really paying much attention to any.
anything I was seeing.
It wasn't much interesting on, so I turned on Netflix and watched the Big Lebowski, one
of my all-time favorites.
I followed the less than spectacular adventures of the dude, Walter, and Donnie for the
next couple hours, and by then it was close to noon, so I turned off the TV and went to get
some lunch and do some shopping before I had to leave for work later that afternoon.
Later that day of work, I was down in the parking garage on my break, having a cigarette and
shooting the shit with a garage attendant.
I've got a gray-haired older guy named Carl, who I kind of made buddies with.
In passing, I mentioned the subway accident earlier that morning, and he gave me a puzzled look.
He said he hadn't heard anything about any subway derailment that day.
He asked me which train to derail, and I told him it had been the number C at 842 that morning.
You're crazy, he replied with a snort.
I took that train to work this morning at 8.30, and everything was just fine.
I took out my phone to prove it to him and looked up that morning's news, but could find no mention of any subway derailments in the city.
I got home early the next morning, feeling deeply troubled by what had happened.
First, I'd seen an episode of a TV show and no one else claimed it aired.
Then I'd heard a news broadcast about a subway accident that apparently had never happened.
What the fuck was going on?
Was I seeing things?
Had I imagined it all?
Maybe it wasn't getting enough sleep or something.
Or maybe there was some kind of glitch in that TV.
Maybe it was showing me old programming or something,
and that subway derailment had actually happened in the past.
I had some trouble getting to sleep that morning,
feeling distinctly unsettled by what was going on.
Nothing unusual happened for the next five days,
mostly because I mainly watched movies and old syndicated shows on Netflix
instead of current programming.
I followed my usual weekly routine
and had pretty much forgotten
about the bizarre events of earlier that week
by the time it was my night off,
and time for me to watch the same current TV series
I had watched a week before.
It was another new episode.
A follow-up to the plot of the previous weeks.
I watched it nonchalantly and then went to bed.
I woke the next morning to find my phone
was packed with Facebook messages
from people in the group I belong to,
some of them were amazed, some of them curious, some of them seemed downright disturbed,
maybe even a little frightened.
All the messages boiled down to basically the same thing.
How the fuck had I known what the next episode was going to be about a week in advance?
I was confused at first, then slowly it dawned on me.
I did a quick search for the synopsis the last night's episode.
It wasn't the episode I'd seen the previous evening.
It was the episode I'd seen the week before.
The episode they all argued hadn't aired.
I felt a chill crawl up my spine.
I didn't answer any of their messages.
In fact, I deleted my Facebook account right then and there.
I sat there in bed for over an hour.
Even then, I still tried to rationalize what had happened.
None of the people I knew on Facebook lived in the same city I did.
I knew most TV shows filmed all the new seasons episodes well in advance.
Maybe the satellite that provided the network feed of the people who lived in my area had screwed up and skipped an episode, showing me the one that was both there after it.
It actually kind of made sense.
To an extent, even still, I didn't really feel in the mood for watching any TV that morning.
I listened to music instead, while I did some much overdue chores, cleaning my apartment, doing my laundry, washing my dishes, then went downtown to run a few personal errands.
Then I went to work and did my usual 12-hour routine of sitting on my ass and security office, goofing off on my phone and occasionally checking the monitors to make sure there weren't any fires, burglars, or zombie serial killers in the building.
I went down on my break to the parking garage and my usual cigarette and made chit-chat with Carl.
We sit around for about ten minutes, smoking, making small talk.
Not really talking about anything important.
I casually asked him if you'd watch a TV series I did, and he just grunted and shook his head.
I can't stay in TV shows about a bunch of privilege yuppie assholes whining about their problems.
I can't relate to that shit.
I just shrugged, and that was pretty much that.
A few minutes later, my break was nearly up, and I put out my smoke, and we said goodbye.
I finished the rest of my shift, then once in the rest of my shift, then once I was pretty much that.
went home and went to sleep.
I spent most in the next morning and early afternoon playing video games.
When I came into the building around four, the manager was waiting for me with a grim expression.
What's up?
I asked him, concerned.
You didn't hear?
He asked me.
No, hear what?
Carl, the parking garage attendant's dead.
I was shocked.
How?
Didn't you see the news?
He was killed in that subway train to rail him in this morning.
I felt a sense of unreality wash over me, a feeling of deja vu.
I felt like I was having a dream.
What time did it happen?
I asked the manager, my voice sounding far away.
This morning, at 8.42, he was on his way to work.
Which train was it?
I asked him, already knowing the answer.
The sea train.
For a second I felt lightheaded.
I thought I was going to faint, willing myself to clear my head and get a grip.
I thanked the manager for telling me, expressing sadness of Carl's death.
I clocked in at four, then went in the security room and sat there in front of the monitors.
My mind was reeling.
It was apparent what was happening.
Had been for some time.
But I've been in denial before then.
And now, in the face of Carl's death, I had to acknowledge the truth of it to myself.
The TV I had bought secondhand from a Goodwill store for $60 could somehow, some way,
received broadcasts from a week in the future.
Could, in effect, predict the future?
I didn't know how, I didn't know why, and frankly, I didn't care.
I sat there dwelling on this, considering the ramifications of it all.
I felt a kernel of wild excitement building up within me as I thought of the possibilities.
I had to force it down and keep myself in check.
I could tell everything that was going to happen a week before it actually did.
Sports scores, the weather, politics, natural disasters, crimes, accidents.
The list went on and on.
I felt a sense of guilt in there as well, that I had a chance of preventing Carl's death
but had enacted on it while I had the opportunity, but told myself that he had.
even if I had accepted what was going on before the subway accident and tried to warn him.
He wouldn't have believed me anyway.
I thought of the good I could do with my new phone power to foresee future events.
I could prevent crimes, save lives.
I could learn the outcome of the next presidential election a week before everyone else did.
I could even...
A wild idea suddenly occurred to me and I bolted upright,
galvanized with excitement at the tempting plausibility of it.
The Powerball lottery drawing was tonight at 11.
The jackpot was currently over $500 million.
I debated it briefly in my mind, the morality and ethics of it.
Then said fuck it, the morality and ethics.
I called my supervisor and told him in no uncertain terms where he could insert my job.
Then left the office building for the last time.
Feeling giddy, almost whimsical.
I took the bus back home, knowing I wouldn't have to rely on shitty public transportation for much longer.
In a couple more weeks, I'd be driving myself around in a new Rolls-Royce.
I raced up to my apartment, turned on my miraculous new TV,
winning anxiously with a pad and pen as the hours passed and 11 o'clock slowly crept around.
I watched eagerly as the little plastic balls bounced around in their machine,
jotting each of the lucky six on my pad, and they rolled down the shoot,
one by one into the clear glass tube.
I stared in awe at the six numbers I'd written down.
In a week, I was going to be $500 million richer.
I had finally discovered a way to rig the lottery
that not only worked both perfectly legal.
No one would ever know.
I was rich.
Could finally start living the life I'd always dreamed of.
Could...
On TV, there was a sudden interruption.
A special news report.
A grim-faced newscaster sat at the anchor desk.
He spoke solemnly, trying to remain composed on air.
But his voice broke with an edge of panic several times as he spoke.
This is a special Channel 13 news report.
The White House has just released a statement.
At approximately 927 Eastern Standard Time this morning,
NASA detected, NASA detected an asteroid with a 100,
mile diameter on a direct collision course with Earth.
Scientists predict it will enter our atmosphere within the next week
and will impact with a velocity of 60 miles a second,
causing worldwide extinction.
And there's nothing that can be done about it.
The end of the world is upon us.
I stared at the TV in shock.
This couldn't really be happening.
I changed the channels rapidly.
It was the same on all the other networks.
One newscaster said that rioting and looting was already breaking out in all to major cities
his panic took hold of the streets.
They then cut to the Pope at the Vatican leading the world in prayer, speaking in Italian,
with an interpreter translating in English.
Oh, our God, we are hardly sorry for having offended thee.
I turned off the TV, feeling numb.
I looked down at the now useless winning powerball numbers I'd written down.
I tore up the piece of paper.
I went to the window and looked out at the Com City Street below,
then up at the night sky above.
I stood there for a while, lost and thought.
Then I sighed, got out my phone,
and called up an old buddy of mine who used to score for me and also lived in the city.
I told him I wanted to announce a dank weed and he said he could hook me up the next day.
Why the fuck not?
I thought to myself as I ended the call.
Now is as good a time as any to fall back into my old habits.
I used to coast through life without a care for the future.
Like I thought the world was going to end soon.
Now I have an excuse.
From the Patreon Vault.
Creepy Presents
shut that damn door
credited to writer Josh
My parents died in a car crash when I was 14
Don't feel bad for me or anything
I've made my peace with that years ago
Life with them was never great
But I do miss them
It's just that if they tell me one thing
It's to not sit around wallowing and self-pity
I just wish they hadn't sent me to live with my Aunt Louise
Anyone have that one family member that's just a little strange, a little cut off from the rest of the family?
Aunt Louise was ours.
She was also our closest living relative.
Dad's family lived on the other side of the continent.
Mom's parents were both dead and she was an only child.
Aunt Louise, her mother's sister, actually, so my great-aunt, lived just an hour from where we did.
When my folks were alive, we rarely visited Aunt Louise, and to be perfectly honest, I have expected
her to refuse to take me in.
I was full prepared to become a ward of the state or move across the country.
As soon as I heard that children and family services have contacted her about taking me in.
But she accepted.
I'm not sure how willingly, or graciously, because I wasn't privy to the phone conversation
where she agreed to take me.
I was surprised, though, and how nice she was to me the first three days I was there.
I want to make something clear.
Aunt Louise was cranky, old, eccentric, uncouth, and several other less than flattering adjectives.
She wasn't a complete bitch.
She had a rather abrupt, even abrasive way of speaking.
But she wasn't cruel.
I'd never taken the time to really get to know her during my initial 14 years, but I could tell that she mostly kept to herself.
and didn't particularly like people.
So, naturally, I assume that she was a reclusive, crumagny bitch.
Really, what surprised me most when I first moved in.
It was how normal everything seemed.
At least at first.
Aunt Louise Cook, cleaned, watch TV, talk to the neighbors on the phone, etc.,
just like anyone else would.
And she told me right away that she had little in the way of expectations from me,
or at least, than that my parents wouldn't have.
Don't stay out too late, let her know if you're going to be late coming home, finish your homework
before you watch TV, clean up after yourself, etc.
There was one rule, however, that was strange.
And it stood out from the other rules and how strange it was.
At first I tried not to worry about it, while people sometimes have peculiarities.
I initially thought that was all it was.
That was wrong.
She insisted that any time I entered or left a room, I was to shut the door behind me,
away. It didn't matter if I was only going to be in the room for a few seconds. If I entered
the room I was expected to immediately shut the door, and the same was true if I left it.
I often forgot this rule in my first week or so there. She never failed to remind me of it.
Shut that damn door! She would yell anytime I forgot. It never seemed to matter where she was
in the house. She could always tell when I'd not shut the door just after her.
opening it. Her house was old and my understanding is that she was not its first owner. She'd lived in it
since mom was a girl. I had no idea how old it was, could have easily been over a hundred,
judging by its design and layout. It had two floors, a basement and a sub-basement. That last floor
threw me for a bit of a loop when I discovered it existed. I was washing a load of my clothes
when I noticed the door, closed, naturally, and the far wall of the utility run. I was watching a load of the
utility room. The basement was unfinished with mostly dirt flooring and bits and bob stacked
or piled or shelved everywhere. The only room you could really walk through without fear of stepping
on something or knocking over a stack or pile was this laundry room, which was also the only tiled
floor down there. The door I found in the basement had a board laid across that easily movable.
It was as if Aunt Louise wanted a boarder there, but not one that she couldn't get past if need be.
My curiosity overtook me the second time I saw it, and I slid the board away from the door and tried it.
It was locked.
This didn't strike me as anything strange right away.
That is, until I realized that this was the only room in the house other than the doors leading outside, that Aunt Louise kept locked.
I asked her about it one day.
She was cooking.
The door in the basement?
She answered.
That's a sub-basement.
not much down there.
I mainly keep my preserves down there.
It's cool enough for them to keep.
Right, I answered.
This didn't really explain what she kept it locked.
So if I ever wanted to take a look down there,
for the love of Christ, boy, why would you want to do that?
I noticed with that response at her face had changed.
Aunt Louise mostly wore the same expression.
The scowl like someone just tracked mud onto her front.
freshly shampooed carpet. Again, she wasn't as nasty as her expression indicated, but it was the
expression she was most used to making, apparently. But when she responded to my desire to see what
was behind the door, her eyebrows raised and her mouth quivered for just a second before answering.
It was so slight others might not have noticed. But by that time, I knew enough about Aunt Louise
to equate that with a scream of horror.
I knew then that I had to see what was behind that door.
I've always been the curious type, you see.
I've never been able to step away from something that aroused my curiosity,
even if my good sense told me better.
I wanted nothing more after that than to see what was in that sub-basement.
But how was I going to get around the lock?
That was going to be an issue.
Aunt Louise kept all her keys on a single ring.
There weren't that many of them, but I figured if the door to that sub-basement was anywhere, it was there.
I just had to find a way to take it from her.
This turned out not to be so simple.
For one thing, it was not possible to get around the house without being heard.
I couldn't sneak from my bedroom to hers in order to sneak the keys without opening and closing all doors in between us.
Mine, the door in the far part of the hallway, and hers.
Believe me, even if I simply left to her.
all the doors open, she somehow knew.
I once had to go to the bathroom at night and I forgot to close the hallway door.
I just made it to the bathroom when I heard her yell, even while asleep.
Set that damn door!
I hurriedly turned back and went to close the hallway door forgetting to close the bathroom door, and I heard it again.
Shut that damn door!
For that matter, Aunt Louise's room had a squeaky door that also had a catch to it.
So when she opened it, it sounded like a...
There was no opening of her door without her noticing.
So I forgot about the sub-basement door for a while.
I placed my curiosity on the back burner and just tried to get along with the taciturn old woman for a while.
Life got a bit easier.
As long as I remember to keep all the doors shut at all times, the two of us got along famously.
She didn't get in my face about things and I didn't get in hers.
It was a pretty silent house, but one that I got used to living.
in. I didn't even think it's strange anymore that every part of the house that one access
through the door always had its door shut. It would have struck me as more odd if any doors were
ever left open. Which brings me to the day Aunt Louise fell asleep while watching the price is right.
It was a summer day and pretty hot. Louise was slightly less worried about windows being open than doors,
but she still tended to only open one at a time, and today she had just one open.
one that wasn't doing much at all to cool down a boxed-in house that had a zero room for airflow thanks to Aunt Louise's chief eccentricity.
So naturally, she fell asleep, and I saw my chance.
Her purse was at her feet.
I was sitting in the chair directly besides her, reading an Avengers comic book and trying to ignore repeated calls of,
Come on down, from the TV.
I looked over at her and saw that she was in a deep doze.
Her hearing wasn't the greatest even when she was awake, though.
She was far from death.
But I figured in her snooze there would be a little chance she would hear the tiny noise of me rifling through her purse.
I found her keys almost immediately and headed for the stairwell.
If she woke up when I opened the door, I would just claim that I was doing a load of laundry.
But she was unlikely to wake up unless I forgot to close the door, which by now I never did.
did. I headed down the stairs. For some reason, tiptoeing even though I wasn't yet at the place I
had been shut out from, I felt absurdly guilty, despite the fact that Aunt Louise had never
expressly forbid me from doing what I was now doing. The door to the basement was closed, of course,
but unlocked as always. I ducked through and closed it, waiting a few minutes, listening for a
shifting of Aunt Louise's frame in her chair, indicating she was getting up.
Or perhaps her voice calling to ask why I was in the basement.
Quietly I crept for the laundry door,
opened the door, and closed it just as quickly slipping inside.
I felt for the chain pull for the light and pulled it.
Low, eerie light flickered through the room.
I'd never thought of the lighting and hears eerie before, but I did now.
There was something about this eerie endeavor that felt wrong.
But my curiosity overrode my sensation of caution.
I crept toward the door and slid the board away from it.
Al-Louise had apparently put it back in place after the last time I'd done this.
The question of why she had done so played in my brain for a moment.
But I ignored it and brought out the key ring.
I found the right key on the third try and heard a loud,
of the lock sliding away.
I froze, heart beating in my chest, waiting to hear a cry from upstairs.
Nothing.
The door opened.
silently as a ghost.
There wasn't any light to illuminate the staircase beyond.
I didn't even see a chain pull for a light on the stairs.
My brain was screaming at the rest of my body to turn around and forget this little adventure.
But I paid in no heat and crept down the stairs, feeling along the wall for guidance.
It turned out there was a tiny amount of light coming through the vents and the ceiling.
It wasn't much, but I could see there was a pulstering light just a few feet from the foot at the stairs.
A stupid place to put it
Should be right at the landing
But I walked down
What appeared to be a fairly compact hallway
And pulled the string
If possible
The light that flickered on
Was lower than the light from the laundry room
I could barely tell I'd turned it on
I looked around and saw that
Indeed Aunt Louise did have Rosa preserves down here
I was somewhat disappointed
At the mundane answer for my mystery
For a moment it seemed that the secret sub-basement was exactly what it was supposed to be,
except I could feel a puff of warmish breeze that should not be possible down in the hard-packed earth and walls and cooler subterranean air.
The sense of wrongness was still there and still strong,
and I realized that the long row of shelves holding jars ended in a doorway at the end.
A doorway that didn't have a door.
I crept forward, arms in front of me, stepping carefully.
The room beyond the door was dark and smelled musty.
I couldn't feel a source of the slightly warm air that was brushing against my skin.
But I noticed that the closer I got to that room, the warmer the air became, by the time I was at the mouth of the tunnel.
Somehow I just started thinking this place as a tunnel by this time.
The air wasn't just warm.
It was humid.
Fetted. The smell went from musty to moldy to something even worse. I was assailed by that sense
of wrongness stronger than ever. I had to get out of here. Why was I walking even closer?
There wasn't much light, but I could see the outline of another door on the other side of the room.
It was a char. Seeing a door a jar in Aunt Louise's house was like seeing a shattered window
in anyone else's. It was wrong. It was not.
meant to be. But then, I wasn't precisely in Aunt Louise's house anymore, was I? This tunnel
was not built for this house. I knew that in my soul. It was here before, long before. This
was a place that had only become attached to Aunt Louise's house by short-sighted builders,
unaware of what they'd unearthed, what they should have left buried. It took me a moment to realize
I set the room beyond.
The very room I was about to step into was moving.
The light was too dimmed to really see what was happening,
but there was motion beyond it.
Unceasing, slow, lazy motion.
All along the walls, the floor.
I could hear a slight squelching noise from its every corner.
Things were crawling,
expanding their pulpous flesh,
and looking at me,
daring me to cross the floor and shut the door on the far side,
forever closing out what might be coming through it.
I heard sucking sounds.
Some formless gelatinous presence stretched and flexed in the darkness.
In that moment, a sense of understanding came to me.
I was not the first person to stand at this door.
this door that could not be closed.
Not the first person to see that other door.
The one that was not meant to be standing open on the other side and knowing that it always would.
Until someone worked up the courage to cross the threshold and close it.
Aunt Louise had not had that courage so she fled and kept every door in her house closed at all times,
hoping against hope that keeping her doors closed at all times would alert her when whatever was beyond that damn door finally came for her.
I didn't have the courage either.
I turned in fled and never looked back.
When I was 16, I moved out of Aunt Louise's and into a halfway house.
Once I was 18, I got a job upstate and moved there.
I never went back to Aunt Louise's and never called her.
Tried hard to not even think about her.
But I haven't been successful.
I still think back to the day I stood in that doorway.
I'm about the squelching.
wriggling things that waited in the dark.
And I wonder if Aunt Louise ever found the strength across the room
and shut that damn door.
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