Oct 29, 20213 min read

The Westerly Tapes - Fri 29/10/21

Barely slept last night. I wanted to avoid my nightmares so I tried to stay up. But I must have nodded off at some point because I woke up in a sweat, heart beating a hundred miles an hour and the images of my nightmares flashing in my head, Uncle Phil's pleas for my help echoing in my ears.

I don't know what to do. I want to put a stop to all this, just stop listening to the tapes. But something tells me it won't stop unless I do listen to them all...

It is such a strange feeling. Like I am not in control of what I do. Like some energy is feeding off of mine. It is that same feeling that keeps me to the tapes. It draws me in...

It sounds ridiculous, I know. But it is how it feels. I've always been a sceptic, that what's been making me not scared of the scary storytelling times, and the horror movie marathons... But now... I just don't know...

Anyways... So I listened to the "Oct 29th 1949" tape. It is a very frustrating one, but I am too tired to be actively angry...

When I took it from my desk, I could see it was massively damaged. The tape was torn and tangled in places, and I could see some mould growing on one end. I taped it back together where I could and untangled most of it, which took a while and a lot of my already short patience.

But when I tried to convert it the programme froze and when it caught up, an error message popped up...

That annoyed me massively. I could record it on my dictaphone and just post it on here, but I am just so frustrated, I don't even want to try.. And quite frankly, I don't see the point. There's barely anything going on on it. Just muffled sounds, nothing identifiable.

I know I should get out of the room, spend some time with Dad, go for a walk in the garden, do something else... But I cannot. I just stay in, sitting at my desk and reading the journals and the news clips and my dad's notes, over and over again. I almost know them by heart now...

There's nothing else for me to write, so I am going to sign off for now...

UPDATE - Night.

I had some kind of breakthrough. I spent the whole day in my room. Dad came up twice to bring me food, and I've barely touched it. He's concerned, but I can't bring myself to care that much anymore. This. This is more important.

So, when I first listened to the tape, I could hear pretty much nothing worth mentioning. But it felt like something was on there. So at some point, I plugged the cassette player to my speakers and put the volume to max.

It is still a lot of inaudible muffled sounds. At first I thought it was because of the damages, and they probably play a role in it, but I think Uncle Phil got so flustered that day, that he must have turned it on after thinking he had recorded his entry. So what I can hear is just himself, alone in the room. Mostly silent, but I can discern some movements here and there, and frustrated groans, I think. And right at the end, I swear on everything I hold dearly, I could hear him repeating, almost sobbing:

"God help me. God help me."

This alone chills me to my bones... That was exactly what he said in the mirror in my nightmare... Same tone, some shaking voice... How could I dream about it before I even heard the recording?

Just after he begs for help, there's a weird sound I can not describe, almost like an answer to him. It was definitely not coming from him or his movements. It was... Ok, I know it is going to sound like I'm the one going crazy, but I heard it... It sounded inhuman.

There. I wrote it...

Next instalment October 23rd.

The Westerly Tapes is a Halloween Horror by Julia Mersobian and Nathan Schulz, for The Drama Merchant, based on the short story by Paul Compton.

The voice of Westerly is performed by Kent Lee