The Present Upstairs
Austin never met his brother; to him, he is only someone who was. Not will. Not is. Was. For his whole life, he was only the boy in the pictures, leaving him only the stories in his imagination to remember him by. Before Austin could even remember, his brother left, gone, nowhere to be seen. All the questions and speculations that he would ask his mother would only be met with teary eyes and faint whispers asking him not to talk about him. When his father was sober enough to ask Austin, he would be met with hostile screaming matches telling him that it wasn’t his place. But Austin wanted a brother; he wanted to play with his brother, he wanted to talk to him, get to know him, and be friends with the boy from the pictures. On cold nights when things would go bump in the dark, he wished he could have had someone to run to. Over the years, on his bike rides from school, he saw the boys out and about with their brothers, and he felt a gaping hole in his childhood.
Eventually, Austin grew into a fine young man, moved past the screaming and yelling at home, and went to a nice out-of-state college, where he could pursue his passion for film. But it was while he was packing up his old stuff and moving it up to the attic that he found a present that had been left there for decades. Several large boxes labeled “Erik” lay behind the numerous amounts of antiques and old photo albums stuffed up there. But the name didn’t call his attention; unlike every other object there, one box had no dust. Was it recently placed there? Opening the box, he saw the boy from the pictures, more photos of him, much older than the ones his parents hung on the wall. But besides all of that, he found several tapes labeled 1-20. Seeing them, he immediately began looking for something to play them, and eventually he found the old family TV. Putting the first tape into the old VCR showed nothing but grainy black footage, interrupted by the occasional burst of static running through the screen.
This greatly disappointed Austin. For a second, he believed that maybe he would learn a little bit more about who his brother was. But years of isolation must have distorted the footage; with no more hope in his heart, he began to clean up. But it was while he began to put the box away that he heard a young feminine voice ask through the TV, “Are you recording?” Austin turned to face the black screen, unsure if he indeed heard it from the TV.
“Yeah,” a young man’s voice could be heard through the darkness.
“Ok, make sure you have the Lens cap off,” said the woman
“Oh shit,” the teen said. For a moment, the screen became blinding white as the camera adjusted to the new light. And in the center of the frame were 2 teenagers, both wearing cheap bargain-bin costumes.
“Action,” the girl said, and so the teenagers both looked at one another and began reciting lines from an unknown script. And as the camera got closer and closer, the two teens shared a small kiss before awkwardly recoiling in embarrassment. “Cut!” the girl yelled before having a quiet conversation with the actors. But while they were out of earshot, the young man turned the camera towards himself, and for an instant a jolt of recognition surged through Austin’s mind. His brother was the man behind the camera.
Austin’s eyes became glossy; for the first time, the boy in the pictures was moving and breathing. “You probably don’t know this, viewer, but she really wants me,” Erik said with a smirk. A faint chuckle escaped Austin’s lungs. For the rest of the tape, Austin was impressed by the care and love Erik put into minute details, from angles to how the light would hit the actors and catch the camera.
Excited to learn more about his brother, he continues to go through the many tapes, seeing the various home movies with him and his friends, until he got to the 5^(th) tape, seeing instead a scene where they are in a hospital. The camera centered on someone who struck a familiar chord in Austin’s mind. A much cleaner, younger, healthier-looking version of his father sat down waiting for some announcement. “Are you nervous or excited, Dad?” But before he had had a chance to answer, a small nurse came through the door telling him that his wife was ready to push. And just as he appeared, his father rushed into the room of the screaming woman.
With nothing to do but wait, Erik went into the restroom and filmed a short message just for him and his brother. “Alright, bud, before you come and wreck our lives forever, I need to let you know about some ground rules; first: I’m Mom and Dad’s favorite, and nothin’s gonna change that; second: your stuff is my stuff, but my stuff is not your stuff; third and most important of all, if anyone ever gives you any shit, just let me know, and I'll kick their ass.” The thought of a 14-year-old child going out of his way to defend the 18-year-old Austin made him chuckle. After this, the video cut to a shot of Erik holding his new baby brother in his arms, transfixed on something so small and so fragile. It was here that something caused the floorboards to give a whining cry, startling Austin and causing him to stare out into the empty darkness. And so unnerved by whatever made that noise, Austin continued to play as the collage of early childhood memories of Erik playing with Austin went through birthday parties and family reunions, watching both him and his brother play together like he'd always wanted.
“Austin, come down for dinner!” he heard his mother demand, and so Austin rushed downstairs with the old camera. Now he had a new piece of evidence to ask his parents about.
So he did, asking them about who his brother was, and after several years, his family finally gave him the tearful answer that he had been asking for all these years. How, a week after his sixteenth birthday, he had disappeared; his family spent weeks trying to find him; how, when they eventually did, his parents couldn’t recognize him- not his shredded face, not his mangled hands; nothing was left of Erik. At this moment, his parents took a breath to think about what to say next. “We thought it was some bear or wolf or some sort of animal… but the cops told us… it was a man who did this.”
“Who?”
“They didn’t catch him,” his father said, tears running down his eyes.
Afterwards, Austin returned to the attic, wanting to hear his brother’s voice now more than ever. Starting again with tape eleven, this time Erik had Austin in a low-quality lizard costume. Running rampant around his makeshift city of toys and LEGO people. He would record as baby Austin would put the small toys in his mouth, take them apart, and smash them together, before cutting to the title card with the words ‘Babyzilla by Erik Johnson’ written in red ink.
The dusty and damp attic was starting to take a stronger hold on Austin's mind. It began to fill his memories with ideas of what could have been. By this point in the tapes, Austin had grown up a bit, not enough to remember, but enough to crawl around the house and even begin to stand on his own two feet. One thing stayed the same, however: each time that Austin saw Erik’s face, he began to laugh and smile, cheering as his big brother hugged and picked him up. Austin wanted to see more
Then tape fifteen, a video journal Erik made for himself, talking about his future goals and aspirations, and how he wants to go to school and study film. That hit a chord with Austin, wishing that he could have also started his dream; he imagined how they could have worked together, but unfortunately these dreams were cut short. This realization broke Austin’s heart. And then Erik turned the camera over to baby Austin, who, no matter how much Erik called Austin, stayed transfixed with the small cracks in the walls. Soon Erik flipped the camera, calling his brother a weirdo, before continuing with the journal.
Austin began to weep, listening to what could have been, before some monster took that away from his whole family. Now all he wanted was that moment, to be back with that person ripped away from his life. And so he continued to watch the tapes. Getting all the way up to tape seventeen, another family reunion: aunts and uncles, grandparents who had passed away years ago, all surrounding one person, Erik, with a big brown chocolate cake in the middle and big colorful candles with the number 16 lit for all to see. Dread filled Austin's heart; now he could only count down the days before Erik was gone. Before something awful happened to him. His tears rolled down his cheeks; his heart dropped to his stomach. For the longest time, Austin prided himself on not being an emotional kid, but today all those years of frustration boiled up and released all at once. He hugged that TV, hoping that its warmth would replace Erik’s, but it didn’t work. So, he continued watching the birthday, watched him open gifts full of clothes, cash, and the occasional last-minute toy from Uncle Miguel, the tape ending, freezing on a frame of Erik with Austin in his arms, both laughing and smiling together one last time, before he became the boy in the pictures.
Instinctively, Austin put in the next tape. Number eighteen. This one was black, from start to finish; for several minutes, nothing could be seen. Did Erik leave the cap on again? Austin could only hear the muffled clanging of pots and pans from one of his parents washing the dishes. Before a door could be heard opening and closing, Erik’s voice asked his parents if they had seen his camera anywhere. This struck Austin as odd, since who else would be using the camera?
The floorboards cried once again. Austin quickly jerked his head around, trying to get a good look into the darkness; nothing. He shook his head, trying to wake himself from this paranoia. Now he played the nineteenth tape. This one also started off in the darkness, but it wasn’t pitch black; instead, it was just some dark and empty room. Slowly, the camera moved, walking down some stairs and into a hallway. His hallway, just outside his and the guest rooms, slowly, the camera moved, swaying from side to side, as each step made the floor creak. And then the camera stopped right outside the guest room. Moving inside, it saw a big lump on the bed, one that Austin had never seen anyone sleep in. And as it moved to the top of the bed, it saw the dark silhouette of a hand slowly pull back the covers and reveal Erik, sleeping soundly. The hand traced Erik’s jaw and played with his hair before the tape ended.
Austin gagged; for a moment, the only thing that he could do was look at his surroundings as he felt imaginary bugs crawl up his arm and down his back. Fear had gripped Austin, but he wanted to continue. He thought maybe this could help him figure out who did it; maybe just maybe, he could help his brother. When he played the last tape, Austin began to shake with fear.
It started with snippets of his brother’s journal, rearranged and mangled to say a new message. “FoR… AusTiN… I… Love… YoU… weirdo," then it faded to black, before revealing a boy walking home from school. And while the tape hadn’t shown the boy’s face, Austin knew it was his brother. Slowly, the recording would fade to black, then appear closer and closer to Erik. Until eventually it was only a few feet away from Erik. But Austin couldn’t keep watching; he felt sick. Quickly running down the stairs. And under his covers. And for hours he couldn’t sleep. When he woke up, he chose to believe that it wasn't real, and he didn’t return to the attic until he returned for college.
One day, Austin was house-sitting for his parents. He became determined to finish that last tape. So slowly he moved up the stairs, this time undeterred by the contents of the video; no matter how disgusting or dreadful it may be, he needed to know that he could turn this in to the police, that this would solve the case once and for all. But when Austin opened that now dusty box. He saw a brand-new label on tape twenty, instead of being covered by one that read twenty-one. Did he count wrong the first time? No, twenty is now missing, and peeling the label off of twenty-one reveals the old tape. Who tampered with it? As Austin inserted the recording into the VCR, dread filled his heart as fear gripped the back of his neck, sending chills down his spine.
The tape began once again with that same message for Austin. But instead of following Erik on his way home from school, the footage was from within the attic. Peeping in on Austin while he watched Erik’s tapes, peeping as he rushed downstairs for dinner, peeping as he cried and wept for Erik, and lastly peeping as he ran out of the attic. Slowly, Austin stood up and turned around, staring once again into the darkness. This time, a small red light stared back at him.