Classified Information for New Agents
Authorized Personnel ONLY
“Regarding the Disappearance of Peter Davis”
The following is a transcript of the contents of the mysterious videotape enclosed herein. It was found by Gertrude Nova at 77 Sequoia Drive, on the night of October 5th, 2022, the night where she famously saved August Raphael and ███ █████ from █████ ████.
It appears as an ordinary VCR tape, unmarked aside from a label with the letters “MER” written in an unidentifiable type of black ink. The significance of the letters are unknown.
The contents of the tape depict a young boy trapped inside the house, observing various anomalous occurrences. Gertrude identified the boy on the tape as Peter Davis, a friend who accompanied her to the house that night. The boy has not been seen since the tape was found.
The voices heard in the tape were identified by Gertrude as classmates – Samuel ████, Norris █████, and Theo ██. The three young men showed up expecting to meet with Peter and Gertrude to help them search the house, which is reputed to be haunted. When they found Peter outside of the house and Gertrude missing, the three men grabbed him and locked him inside.
The three men were brought in and questioned individually. They confirmed the boy on the tape is Peter Davis. They explained their actions were partially a prank, and partially a misunderstanding over Gertrude’s whereabouts. They had mistakenly assumed that Peter had abandoned her, when he was specifically ordered by Gertrude to wait for her outside as she explored the basement.
The three men were released, and there are no currently no suspects in the disappearance of Peter Davis.
Begin Transcript
The videotape begins with a dimly lit shot of the living room, where the entrances to the kitchen and the main hallway are both visible.
A small, frail figure can be seen entering from the hallway into the living room. When he approaches the window, his features become visible. He looks to be a young man no older than 18. He is wringing his hands and looking around nervously, though there is hardly any light beyond the windows. After a moment he begins banging on them, and you can hear the laughter of his friends outside.
“Help, let me out!” The young boy screams at the sealed windows and into the darkness. The snickering of his friends continue, and they do not respond to his cries. He paces around the unlit living room, occasionally bumping into furniture, as he attempts to open every window he finds.
After he leaves the room, the tape inexplicably cuts to a new angle in the kitchen, where he struggles to open the window above the sink. [ It should be noted that no cameras were ever found during our thorough investigations of that house. – Ed. ]
He returns to the living room, and the tape cuts back to its original angle. You can still hear his classmates laughing outside.
The sounds of their laughter die down, and after a moment, a considerable thump can be heard on the tape. The boy looks up at the ceiling with a disturbed look on his face. [ Gertrude was busy exploring the basement, and they had assumed they were alone in the house. – Ed. ]
At this point in the video, the boy begins sobbing quietly. He remains standing in the middle of the room. About a minute later, another thump can be heard – this time much louder – and the boy ceases to make any sound. The thumping noise can now be heard repeatedly, along with the sound of something being dragged. The sounds seem to be traveling along the ceiling, and the boy follows them through the kitchen.
He leaves the kitchen and disappears out of frame for a moment, before the tape switches to a view of the stairwell. The boy is standing with his hand on the rail and one foot on the first step, seemingly frozen in place.
At this point, it becomes clear that the sounds are footsteps. The sounds continue creaking slowly, more loudly, before the boy finally dashes away from the stairwell and out of frame. Before the tape cuts back to the living room, you can briefly see someone’s foot appearing at the top of the stairwell.
Now in the living room, the boy is banging on the windows hard enough to break the glass, screaming “help, someone’s coming to get me!” as loud as he can. The laughter of his classmates can no longer be heard, and according to their testimonies, they had returned to their car by this time.
As the boy continues to bang on the window just barely out of frame, a figure appears behind him in the entrance to the kitchen. No features can be discerned beyond the indistinct outline. The figure is shaped like a human, but with a strangely bulbous head. The boy continues to bang on the window as the figure moves closer. The boy seems unaware of their presence.
Then, just before the figure’s features become clear in the window’s light, they spring onto the boy in a startlingly swift motion, and the tape cuts to black.
[ We’ve tried every possible post-production technique on the digital copy, but the figure remains unidentifiably vague. We’ve also experienced a host of corruption issues anytime we attempt to edit any digital copy. – Ed. ]
After about 30 minutes, the tape then cuts to static, and the boy’s voice can faintly be heard yelling “Help, let me out!”
After about 10 more minutes, the tape cuts to a view of the living room with the boy still inside. The room is now fully lit and he is standing in the middle, looking directly at the unknown recording device. His eyes are white, with deep black lines underneath them. His face is expressionless. His clothes are torn. He does not move or make a sound for the remainder of the video.
The tape runs out of footage after another 17 minutes.
End of Transcript
Gertrude’s Testimony
“Peter had accompanied me during my investigation of 77 Sequoia Drive. When I last saw him, we were in the basement of the house. He was telling me to be careful as I descended down the ladder, further into the basement. This was around 10 p.m.
I emerged from the depths of the basement around midnight that night, accompanied by August and ███. I immediately noticed Peter was missing and began to look for him.
I found the boys hiding in their car outside. They admitted to having pulled a prank on Peter, but insisted he was fine. They all said they had last seen him inside the house. None of them seemed eager to leave the car and accompany me in my search though. I left them there and returned to the house, where I continued to look for Peter, with August and ███ both at my side.
I attempted to check upstairs, but the door was locked. After about an hour of fruitlessly searching the first floor and basement, the boys were now at the door offering to help us search. They now seemed to be genuinely worried about the prospect that Peter was missing.
I ruled out the possibility that Peter took the tunnel in the basement down to ████ ██ – he seemed too afraid to ever go down there, and had begged me not to explore that place. In hindsight, I wish I had not left him alone when I descended down into that tunnel.
After about an hour of us exploring the dark confines of the house with our flashlights, it was almost 2 a.m. and the boys were ready to give up and look elsewhere. They seemed to know more than they were letting on, at least in the sense that they appeared to be incredibly guilty for whatever prank they pulled.
That’s when we all heard a thump from the second floor. It sounded like someone had fallen. We all paused and listened. After a moment we heard another thump, then another, then another, as something was slowly moving from the front of the house to the back stairwell. It sounded like something was being dragged behind them.
I moved to the stairwell with August and ███, and the boys followed hesitantly. We figured whatever was in the house, the six of us could easily outnumber them. I’m not sure what we were expecting, but when the door to the second floor unlocked, we heard footsteps descend the staircase and saw Peter, with an innocent smile on his face.
He was unusually cordial given the circumstances, and seemed to have lost all fear of the house from earlier. His mannerisms were unusually extroverted, but outside of that nothing seemed unusual. He greeted all of us and then casually headed for the front door, with two of the boys following him.
However, Theo stayed behind, and made a point to indicate that Peter was now wearing different clothes than when they had first saw him. He insisted we continue to search the house, and the four of us headed up to the second floor.
On the second floor were two bedrooms and a small bathroom. At first nothing seemed unusual, and nothing could account for the object that we heard being dragged across the floor.
However, when we entered the master bedroom, we saw the television was on, despite the house having no power. The static from the screen illuminated the room. I investigated the VCR sitting beneath the television, and found a tape labeled “MER” inside.
As I reinserted the tape into the VCR, Theo pointed out a pile of clothes in the corner of the room. We both identified them as the clothing Peter wore when he accompanied me that night. They were torn to shreds.
I played the tape, and to mine and everyone’s horror, we could see Peter wandering around the dim house in the footage, screaming for help as a shadowy figure pursued him. The tape seemed to be playing the same scenario over and over again, but from different angles.
We watched the footage in mesmerized horror until we heard a very loud sound coming from the basement, like a great weight being dropped. The four of us began to panic. I ejected the videotape. We ran downstairs and out of the house before we could find out whatever made that sound in the basement.
When we made it outside, we discovered Samuel and Norris in the back of Theo’s car. They said they had seen lights turning on and off in several rooms of the house, and assumed we had found the breaker box when we were inside.
At one point, “Peter” had offered to return to the house for them, and left the car. They both emphasized that he was acting strange. They said he seemed uncharacteristically charming and talkative, and showed no fear at the prospect of exploring the house again. He insisted he had no ill will toward them for their earlier prank.
“Peter” disappeared from everyone’s sight after re-entering the house. I suspect he may have made that sound in the basement to chase us out.
I declined to mention the videotape to them, and after discussing it with Theo and August later, I decided to turn it over to you guys. I’m not sure what happened to Peter, or his apparent doppelganger. But I have a grave suspicion that the boy we’re seeing on this videotape is the real Peter, and not only that, but somehow he seems to be trapped inside there.”
End of Testimony