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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/two-hip on 2024-11-04 16:15:26+00:00.
Back over the 4th of July my family all got together at my parent’s house, and while I was over there my mom told me that she and my dad were remodeling their basement and asked me to get the rest of my stuff out. And as a quick side note, I’m going to change or omit my kids’ names for privacy, but didn’t think it much mattered with everyone else for reasons you’ll understand later.
I’m 39, and haven’t lived there in years, but had a handful of old belongings that I’d never bothered to take with me – mostly old things from my childhood that I didn’t have much need for, but held sentimental value, like a few favorite dolls and stuffed animals, old art projects and the like. Thankfully, my mom had had it all in storage containers for years, making it easy to grab a few and take home with me.
My sister, Nat, and her family live out of state and were staying at my parents through the weekend, and my kids had their cousin, Nat’s daughter, Biggsie (it’s a nickname) stay at our house the following night since it was Friday. Looking for something to keep the kids busy that night, and feeling nostalgic, I went digging through the storage bins I’d taken home with me and found some old VHS tapes with haphazardly made labels reading things like “The News with Lizzy at 5”, and “Primetime Update”.
When we were kids, my sisters Nat (the youngest), Stefi (middle) and I (oldest) used to have a blast making home videos, and our favorite subject by a mile was to create news shows with an anchor and then cut to different reporters on scene, covering stories consisting of either sensational events acted with our toys, human interest stories of us showing off our childish talents and hobbies, or ambush interviews and coverage of our parents and their friends. And one time the pizza man, who in hindsight was a pretty good sport about it.
The subject matter, more often than not, was not only ridiculous but also rather morbid, or at least grotesque, since vampire Cabbage Patch kids attacking pet rabbits was much more fun and imaginative than more realistic news.
This seemed like a perfect opportunity to show my kids and my niece what their moms got up to when we their age, while I took a walk down memory lane at the expense of my husband cracking jokes and never letting me live it down.
I randomly grabbed one of the tapes, and gathered everyone in the basement where we still have an old DVD/VHS combo player hooked up for the kids to watch old DVDs on occasion. After a minute or two of messing with the tracking and making sure the component cables where in the right ports, I got the tape playing to see my 8-or-so year old self sitting at a little blue and yellow plastic table with a notebook and pencil in hand, and giant glasses from the ‘70’s on, trying my darndest to look like a serious and sober news anchor.
8-year old me had hardly gotten through saying “Welcome to Lizzy’s News Tonight…” when my husband, oozing sarcasm, said “SOOOO exciting, I better go make popcorn,” and got up to head upstairs before adding, “see kids, mom looked like a lollipop with her giant head on a tiny body too!”
The kids and I watched through the first segment, featuring me reporting on The Amazing Stefi, a magician who was going to saw Nat in half inside a carboard refrigerator box using a plastic toy saw. Nat, wearing her favorite Discovery Channel tee that she would never grow into, climbed inside the box, sticking her head out one end, while what were supposed to be her legs emerged out the other side.
As I watched, it crossed my mind that I had no idea whose legs those were. I know we occasionally would make these movies with friends and other neighborhood kids, but couldn’t remember who would’ve been with us by themselves, since all of our friends would come with their siblings, or whose legs would’ve been close enough to match tiny Nat’s. Looking closely, I also noticed something that initially seemed curious, but came to feel deeply disturbing.
That pair of legs also didn’t seem to look quite right. It was hard to tell since they were only visible below the knee, but they seemed to bend the wrong way, were a bit too greyish for healthy skin tone, and the overall shape and curvature just wasn’t quite right. For the time being, I shrugged it off, chalking it up to poor VHS image fidelity, and made a mental note to go back and show my husband when the kids weren’t watching.
By the time the segment was over, the kids had already began to get distracted with other things, and grown board of the 4 minutes of old video, so I turned it off and we went on with our night.
Later, after the kids were asleep, and my husband was upstairs entranced with his video games and giving me that “do not disturb” on penalty of death vibe, I got the urge to go watch some more.
After another few news segments, of which the only real value is in sentiment to me and my sisters so I won’t bore you by recounting them, my 8-yr old self cut into her own report with “Breaking News” about a tragic accident that had taken place.
The hair on my neck raised a bit as the tone of this segment took a turn, like a dark pall had come over us, and even though we appeared as though we were outwardly having fun making a video, we were emptily going through the motions. Something just felt off.
I was playing the reporter again, on the scene in our room, covering the tragic story of a little girl gone missing. Stefi played the distressed sister, who explained that they missed her so much, and that after everyone and the police had searched for days, they were alerted by a “really, really gross smell” to discover that the girl, played by Nat, had fallen backwards off the top bunk, breaking her neck and getting lodged between the wall and the lower bunk. And while Stefi sat up on the bed holding her nose from the stench, I brought the camera over to show Nat curled up awkwardly upside down between the bed and the wall, pretending to be dead.
This shocked me, to say the least. I certainly don’t remember every little video we made, but I have a vague recollection of a lot of them, and even though we often enacted macabre stories, even involving someone dying, this felt outside our realm.
Having had enough at this point, I turned the TV off and called it a night.
The next morning I heard the kids awake much earlier than I’d have liked, but wasn’t too surprised given the sleepover, and reminded myself to be thankful that at least it was Saturday, and popped my head in to say good morning and see what they wanted me to make for breakfast, since it was a special morning with their cousin here.
I opened the door and said, “Good Morning! Rise and shine!” with my biggest, kid-patronizing, smile, to find my kids horsing around together on the bed, but then immediately noticed something odd.
“Where’s Biggsie?”
“Right here!” my youngest daughter exclaimed, grabbing her pink dinosaur stuffed animal and proudly holding it up.
I played along, “Ohhh, my, you look quite unwell this morning Biggsie, maybe you need some breakfast!” but while the youngest laughed, the older two gave me a confused look.
I closed the door and let them be for a few minutes, figuring it was better to let their game run its course, but when I came back they still seemed to be at it.
“Okay, enough fun, but we need to have some breakfast and get Biggsie back over to Nonna and Nonno’s, and Auntie Nat.”
My youngest laughed again, and said something like “no no, Biggsie lives here,” but the other two seemed suddenly concerned.
“I don’t get it,” said my oldest.
“Get what?” I said, now confused myself.
“Who’s Auntie Nat?”
The whole room went cold, like the curtains had suddenly been drawn, and I immediately switched to serious mom mode.
“Ok, it’s not funny anymore. Where is Biggsie hiding.”
“Right there!” said my oldest, pointing to the stuffed dinosaur, and looking alarmingly earnest.
“Stop it now, or no fireworks tonight.”
“But that’s Biggsie!”
“I’m serious. I will go get your dad,” I said sternly, but was more frightened than angry.
The youngest had started crying, and tears were welling up in the other two.
“That IS, Mom, I swear. I don’t know what you want me to say. What did we do?”
______________
Everyone swore they had no idea who Biggsie was, and I turned the house inside out trying to find her. At first I thought maybe my husband got the kids to play a very unfunny prank on me – because that is totally something he would do – but after angrily arguing with he and the kids for a half our about it, I called Nat, but got no answer, so I tried my mom and dad. They claimed not to remember Biggsie either, and when I got frustrated and asked how on Earth they couldn’t remember Nat’s kid, they hung up on me.
I called Stefi, who I knew wouldn’t ever have participated in this obnoxious joke, and was momentarily relieved to hear her say “of course, I know Biggsie.”
“Oh thank God, I thought I was losing my mind, and then when Nat wouldn’t answer her phone I thought I was going to fall to pieces!”
“Ok, that’s not funny, Liz,” Stefi said, suddenly very serious.
“What?” I responded, confused.
“Don’t ever say something like that again.”
“Like WHAT?” I said, incredulously.
“Yeah, I’m done with this conversation,” Stefi said and hung up.
Ignoring her for the moment, and more than a little annoyed, I walked into the other room to triumphantly gloat to my husband that Stefi confirmed Biggsie, and I’d h…
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