Welcome to Crystal Lake (ENG)

Chapter 19 - Area under video surveillance

Stuart gave her directions, and they discovered that the videos were saved for a month, and after 30 days the system automatically deleted them, leaving only those of the last week.

"So there should still be all the videos since when they were turned on, the 30 days aren't over yet."

"In the main menu should be a button that takes you to the video folder, divided by date and camera number."

"Uh... Yes, found it!" Jasmine opened the folder, going straight to the first recorded videos. "The first day there are all eight of them."

"Search directly for the day they disappear, then watch the videos from the previous day."

"...the third day."

"What?"

"On the first and second day there are all eight cameras, but from the third day already there are only four."

"That means they must have stopped working the second."

"The real problem will be understanding why. Stand by while I check." 

Jasmine started watching the camera videos, four of which lasted 24 hours, while the other four only lasted 2. Going directly to the end of those videos, she noticed that they were in night mode, and that before they finished the only strange thing it was a noise that didn't seem to belong to the normal sounds of the forest. She could hear the wind in the trees, the chirping of crickets and the hooting of an owl. And she didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Then, just as the videos stopped, a different kind sound, followed by a second of static, as if something had hit the cameras and knocked them out. The girl told her friend as she watched the videos again.

"I don't like this at all."

"Doesn't promise anything good..."

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I think so. I'll go out for a moment to check."

"Don't leave me here, take the phone with you."

"Yes, don't worry." Jasmine stepped out onto the porch and, for the first time since she'd arrived, she looked at the surveillance cameras. The one to the right of the door worked, while the one to the left didn't. The girl took a closer look at it, and part of her wasn't too surprised to see what she was seeing. That didn't make her any less nervous though.

"Stuart..."

"Jas? What did you see?"

"The porch camera cable is disconnected. It's as if it had been cut.""

But didn't you say the cables were internal?"

"Yes, but a little bit of it remains outside, just the final part to connect it to the camera."

"So they were really tampered with?"

"Wait, I think I see something on the wall." She left the phone down on the bench her mother had put on the porch and, as she had done the night before, but on the opposite side, climbed up onto the railing. On the wall, right in the point where the cable passed, there was a sign: a cut, small but quite visible up close, on the wood that covered the exterior of the house. As if something had been planted there and then detached. She reported this to Stuart after she got down and picked up the phone.

"I have a bad feeling."

"I'll check the others." The same thing she had seen also occurred to the other three cameras that were out of order. Cable cut and hole in the wood.