The contents of the closet spilled out over the floor. Decades of his life packed into boxes, shoved out of sight for convenience now strewn across his childhood bedroom. As he stared at the mess of once precious mementos he wished he had not put this off for so long. He was tempted to just abandon all of it, let his parents put it on the curb with the rest of the trash but something stopped him. Not all of it was garbage. Some of it had to be worth holding on to.
His resolve wavered as he opened box after box of old toys he had once loved intensely then forgotten in the dark depths of the closet. He set a few boxes to the side full of report cards, academic achievements and trophies. All worthless to him now but still potentially held value for his parents. Mementos of their vicarious, parental triumphs.
The pile of discarded history destined for the trash grew. He had found nothing worth saving. He took one last look in the closet, empty except for dust bunnies scampering to the safety of the shadows. That was when he saw a lone box shoved into the darkest, back corner of the closet. Shadows clung to it, as if protecting it, preserving it. He awkwardly crouched and stumbled toward it. He dragged the box into the light outside the closet and dropped to the floor next to the last piece of his past, ready to be sifted through and discarded.
One look at the box in the light of his bedroom and he knew something was off. The box had been sealed with what appeared to be an entire roll of packing tape, wrapped and layered like a crime scene victim from a horror movie. The words “DO NOT OPEN!” were scrawled on every side of the box in red marker in his shaky handwriting.
Against his better judgement, he grabbed the knife he had been using to gut the other boxes and stabbed it into the layers of tape that sealed the top of the box. He had no memory of what was inside. Surely it was some long forgotten inside joke from high school. He laughed to himself as the possibilities rolled through his mind.
He sliced through the tape and peeled back each layer, careful not to damage the contents. The manic fashion in which the box was sealed could only be described as obsessive and it took several minutes of slicing and cutting before he felt the tape give way under his blade and the tip of the knife poke through to the box’s interior. With a creak and a groan, the tape snapped as he peeled back the top flaps of the box. He peered inside at the mysterious contents awaiting him.
Within the depths of the box was an old stereo and a cassette tape. He reached inside and grabbed the tape. On the insert inside the case in red ink was his shaky handwriting: “SUMMER 2009”.
The tape slipped from his grasp and fell back into the box with a thud belonging to a much heavier object. He just stared into the box, unable to move. He wanted to look away but felt compelled to continue staring, as if the tape was staring back at him, whispering to him, demanding his attention. He heard a voice inside his head like the echo of a distant memory, inviting him to pick up the cassette tape.
With a shaky hand, he reached back into the box and grabbed the tape. He lifted it to his face and stared at it, still sitting on the floor of his childhood bedroom. He remembered making it. That summer was supposed to their last adventure before splitting up for college. It was. Just not in the way they had planned.
Tears welled in his eyes as the memories came crashing back on him. Then the distant voice echoed inside his mind. He needed to play the tape. One last serenade in honor of the memories the tape contained before leaving it on the curb for the dump, left behind forever.
He pulled the stereo from the box and placed it on the floor. It whirred to life the instant he plugged it in as if it had been waiting for this moment. He punched the button on the stereo’s face and the tape deck creaked open in anxious anticipation. The cassette case flicked open like a knife cutting the silence and he dropped the tape into the waiting mouth of the stereo. The deck slammed shut and the sound of gears and servos groaning to life filled the room.
Track one began. A syncopated dance beat spilled from the stereo’s speakers. Tears filled his eyes as lyrics about being young and living forever echoed around the room. He remembered the first time he heard this song. They had been driving around the city, no plans, no destination in mind, just the night, the music and each other’s company. He couldn’t do this. It was too much. He reached for the stereo but stopped short. That voice again. He needed to do this. He had to listen one last time. He pulled his hand back and let the tears flow from his eyes, down his face and crash to the floor, taking his memories with them.
Track two started and filled the air with an up-tempo melody. That was when he heard a noise from downstairs. Probably his parents coming home from the storage unit. He listened for their footsteps coming up the stairs to check on him, to ensure he was actually cleaning his room and not procrastinating. He listened but no footsteps came. He pushed himself to his feet and opened the door to his bedroom. The song spilled through the cracked doorway and reverberated around the empty upstairs hallway. He stepped out of his room and looked over the railing to the empty downstairs. His parents had been much better at clearing things out than him, determined to start this next chapter of their lives and he, admittedly, had not wanted to come back and clear out boxes he had abandoned when he moved out. He had a new life now and if he had his way, he would have just dropped every box on the curb if his mom had not insisted that he may want to take one last look so something did not get thrown out he would later regret losing. He called out for his parents but no one answered. The only sound filling the house was the song from the stereo that echoed off the empty walls in answer to his voice, smothering everything in its sickly-sweet lyrics.
Track three started as he closed the door to his room again. He must have been hearing things. Just the house settling, strange creaks previously muffled by the weight of the accumulated life inside the home. Just unfamiliar sounds filling once familiar spaces.
The cassette crackled. Static filled the air. Then another noise. He spun and jumped at the sight of someone staring back at him. His heart leapt into his throat. Then he laughed. It was just his reflection. He walked toward the mirror that hung from the wall and stared at himself, barely recognizing the face staring back at him. He looked tired, hair greasy and disheveled, eyes bloodshot from crying. He forced a smile and let his focus drift to the pictures that lined the frame of the mirror. Everyone all smiles in the moment the camera captured. Old memories that had soured in his mind long ago. He stared and out of the corner of his eye he swore he saw movement behind him in the mirror. He spun but there was no one there. He really needed to get some sleep and he really needed to stop listening to this tape. It was bringing back too many unpleasant memories that he had buried deep in the shadows of his memory. It was messing with his head. The music felt heavy, carrying the weight of ghosts he left in the darkness of his past.
That was when track four started playing. The bright lyrics hit him like a knife. He froze. He remembered this song. He had been listening to it when he got that phone call. The one that changed his life and tainted this mixtape, cursing it. He remembered the conversation vividly. The one memory he wished he could forget, forever burned into his mind. It haunted him. Sometimes people got sick. Sometimes people died. There was no stopping it. The song rang in his head, screeching like a banshee, ripping through any sense of sanity he had. He fell to his knees, pressed to the ground by the weight of the oppressively optimistic lyrics. Tears streaked his face as he lost all control. He told himself he would be okay. It would not be like last time. The voice whispered to him. It knew how to make it stop. That distant voice now closer, more familiar. He remembered it now. His blood ran cold as every buried emotion resurfaced. The voice now right in his ear, exhuming his past and playing it back through bright bubblegum ballads. He screamed to drown out the voice, to drown out the music. He would not be pulled back to that moment. He would not allow it to come back. The moment there was almost two funerals that summer instead of one.
Track five blasted from the speakers, a raucous anthem to life. He screamed and jumped to his feet, kicking the stereo. It hit the wall with a crack. The music stopped. Silence spilled across the room as he stood there breathing heavily, trying to regain his composure. He felt a shadow lift from his mind as the voice crawled back into the depths of his darkened memories. He took a cleansing breath and turned back to the mirror. He was completely disheveled. He tried to wipe the tear tracks from his face but it was no use.
That was when the stereo flickered back to life. The gears turned slowly and grinded against its crushed innards. An unintelligible, warped melody bled from the speakers as track four started again but this time it sounded different. Through the distortion, he noticed it was somehow being played backward. He turned to stare at the stereo lying on the floor. There was no way it could be playing yet here it was, sputtering its death rattle, mocking him as it clung to life by playing the very song he had tried to end his life to so many years ago.
He crept toward the stereo and kicked it with his foot. The cassette lurched and crackled continuing its backwards replay of his most haunting memory. That was when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He spun and found himself staring at his reflection again. He walked toward the mirror. Something felt off, although he could not place it. The closer he got, the more he felt it. The wrongness of it.
A shadow flashed across the mirror, blood-red eyes stared back at him. His face distorted, melting. He screamed and smashed the mirror with his fist. Shards rained on to the floor, slicing his hand. He cried out in pain and cradled his injured hand. He could see his broken reflection staring up at him from the shattered mirror pieces scattered across the floor.
The music continued its unnatural playback, filling the room with its distorted scream. He screamed back. The voice inside his head screamed along. Everything in the room seemed to join the cacophony. Then the voice pierced through it all so clearly. There was only one way to stop it. Blood could stop the memories. It could end this haunting and allow him to move on. To find peace.
The stereo whined as the voice continued its incessant whisper, echoing around his mind. Blood was the only sufficient sacrifice to end it. He grabbed a mirror shard from the floor and stared at himself for a brief moment. His bloodshot eyes stared back at him.
He grit his teeth and gripped the shard tightly as he dragged it across his arms. Blood poured from the open wounds. He smiled. Endorphins flooding his system. This would be enough to stop it for good. Not like last time. There had not been enough blood last time. This time he would make sure there was enough.
He continued cutting as he walked back to the stereo and collapsed to the floor. He could already feel himself growing weak from blood loss. The voice was growing more distant. It was retreating back into the recesses of his memory never to return.
He ripped the tape from the stereo and held it in his blood-soaked hands. With one movement, he snapped it in half, the tape inside spilling from its broken encasement and down his arms, clinging to the blood dripping and pooling from the deep, jagged cuts.
The music stopped. He lay back and listened to the silence. The voice was gone. He smiled as he felt peace wash over his body and everything fell quiet.