WICKED TALES

NINE

I had a fun childhood, my mother and father were the best. They had their ups and downs but they found a way to never go to bed upset at one another. My mother was a homemaker, she homeschooled me and did everything a loving parent and wife should do. My father was a retired officer and now made a good living as a private investigator. The best thing I loved about my father was that recorded everything in my life. He always told me that it would be an amazing keepsake for his grandchildren. Birthdays, Christmas, recitals, and sports games, he always had his camcorder.

I was in my thirties and living in New York, leaving my parents behind in Michigan. I had to move back home when my mother died in her sleep and my father died from a heart attack the morning he found her. They left me the house but my life was in New York and I wasn't too sure I wanted to live there anyway. I decided to sell whatever I could from the house and sell the house after.

It took a month to get mostly everything sold. The only things I had left were boxes and miscellaneous stuff to go through but I put a stop to that when I saw a box with 'Stephanie' written on it. I was already an emotional wreck from my parents dying and having to sell their stuff and my childhood home. I started to cry when I saw the film from all of my special moments. This was definitely a keepsake to pass down the generations to come.

The film was old but I knew places that'll transfer them to DVD. Late the next evening the DVD was ready and I was more than excited to watch it. I knew this was going to be extremely emotional to walk down memory lane, so I picked up three bottles of wine also. Back at my parent's house, I made a pallet with a blanket on the floor and popped the DVD into a small tv set I found in my old room.

It began with my mother and father singing happy birthday to me when I turned two years old, I was a cute little kid wearing a purple and pink dress. My bangs were atrocious though. The screen went blue and came back on seconds later with a chunky six-year-old me dancing to rock and roll in the same room I was sitting in now. It was funny seeing little me trying to kick my fat leg up. The music stopped and I heard a faint cry that sounded like a baby. The screen cut again then came back on to my mother nursing a baby. My father was behind the camera telling my mother how beautiful she was and how much he loved them both. He leaned in to kiss both of them, letting the camera pan down to catch me glaring at the three of them.

The video went out but quickly came back to a baby lying inside a crib, sleeping peacefully. The time and date were from the same day as the previous video. After ten minutes of nothing, I fast-forwarded the DVD until I saw myself walk into the room. I stood there looking at the baby and holding a pillow for minutes before I went to place it over its face. The baby stood no chance as it took its last breaths while I smothered it. After almost ten minutes, the younger me stood staring directly into the camera with a horrific smile.

I stopped the DVD and started to freak out. I downed the second half-drunken wine and tried to put together pieces of my life I had forgotten. I had a sibling, a brother or a sister, and I killed it. I suffocated it and don't remember doing it. Maybe my father had recorded the answers I needed, I pushed play and watched intently. My mother was distraught and crying, asking me how I could do something like that. My father was trying to calm her until he realized the camcorder was recording. The tape went black and returned to my father convincing my mother that they'll tell authorities that Madeline died in her sleep and that he couldn't lose two children. My mother was just nodding her head and agreeing with him behind sobs and tears. He then told her that he knows someone that can hypnotize people, he could get him to make me forget what I had done. The tv went blue.

Moments later it came back on with me hanging my head butcher over, and an elderly man whispering something into my ear. He kept repeating whatever he was telling me for over three minutes and then he snapped. I lifted my head and yawned like I was in a deep sleep, my parents came over to me and hugged me. My mother took me out of the room while my father shook the man's hand and thanked him. The man told him that I will never remember that I killed my sister. The screen cut yet again but didn't come back on. I was beyond confused and horrified, I couldn't believe I killed my sister and had it wiped from my memory. I started to finish the third bottle when I heard a baby crying from upstairs.