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"Creepypasta - Creepy stories that float around on the Interwebs." - Urban Dictionary.com
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Tom hated the way his life was going right now. His father just died from cancer, his job sucks and his wife just left him. "How could this be any worse?!" He thought to himself. Well, life had an answer for him: having to go through his father's possessions, deciding what to keep and what to sell or give away. Life constantly kicking him in the ass did not do anything to help make him less cynical. He was just happy that his father had willed him the money that was left to him and him alone. That way, his soon-to-be ex-wife couldn't touch it in the divorce proceedings. She'd probably still try, the miserable little witch. However, for once, the law was on his side here.
Most of the unenviable task of 'going through Dad's things' was pretty straight-forward: clothes go to the clothing drop-off next to the local Presbyterian church. Tom would keep his old record collection since no one else in the family seemed interested in old Rock albums from the 1970's and 80's. Tom's mother would keep his daily driver car, a 2009 Chevy Impala. Dad's old classic 1964 Buick Riviera was put up for sale in the paper last week. It quickly sold to a newly rich 21 year old woman who inherited some money from her dead grandmother's estate. She said something about taking it to California for a photo-shoot. She must have been an aspiring model or actress. Tom was sad to see it go but, Mom needed the money. The $20,000 the young woman paid in cash was going to be a lot of help to Tom's mother over the foreseeable future.
While piling his father's clothes into a plastic bin, Tom noticed a small black plastic box in the back of the closet. It was right next to the fireproof safe Mom and Dad used for their important documents. It was locked with a combination lock using tumblers instead of the rotary dial used on most combination locks. "I bet that I already know what the combination is too." Tom thought as he fumbled with the tumblers, inputting what he thought was the combination. He guessed right. The lock opened as soon as he set the tumblers to the right number and then pushed the lock in on the shackle. "1964. Just like the model year of that old car he loved so much..."
Tom opened the box and, for the first time in a week, actually smiled. What he found was an old Atari 2600 that belonged to his dad as a child in the late 1970's and early 1980's. "It was here in the closet all this time? I thought Dad had sold this off years ago..." He thought to himself. He suddenly had a rush of memories of playing this console with his dad as a kid in the late 1990's. His dad wanted him to know what video games were like 'in the old days' long before the N64, which was Tom's childhood console. Such happy memories...
At the end of the day, Tom took the box with the old Atari stuff home with him. He already knew he wasn't going to be able to hook it up to his modern flatscreen HDTV. Not only was it missing that manual RF switch but, this console was made for an interlaced signal, not progressive scan like modern TV sets. After a few minutes of online research, Tom discovered the solution to his problem was remarkably easy. All he'd need was a cheap adapter from Radio Shack for the console's RF cable called a 'F-connector male to RCA (phono) female' Audio Coupler. That would allow the console to screw directly into the coax port that was on the back of the DVD/VCR combo deck that was plugged into his TV.
The next day, he gathered all the parts he'd need and set up this now ancient gaming console to his new TV. It was a rather strange sight seeing an old black and woodgrain box with 6 switches on it next to his far superior PS3 and classic N64. And somehow, it also seemed very right. They all complimented each other very well.
While digging through the cartridges in the box, he sees a lot of old favorites. Asteroids, Missile Command, Battlezone, Solaris, Yars' Revenge. Good times were had with these old games. There were also a few titles that didn't age well or were just plain terrible from the start, like Starship and Pac-Man. Tom did an online search for a few of these games the previous evening to see if the games are worth anything now. He was disappointed with the results. There's no longer much demand for these among collectors, both because they are primitive and also very common. You can find them at virtually any garage sale on any given weekend anywhere in America. "So much for inheriting a potential gold mine...' Tom grumbled.
Missing his father terribly and wanting to feel close to his spirit in the great beyond, he finally puts a cartridge in the system and begins to play. And then another a few minutes later. And then another. And then another. Some of them are as fun as he remembers. Others are so primitive and weird that he can't decipher how they work. Too bad that Dad didn't keep the boxes and instruction manuals. On games this old, that might have helped a LOT. Before he realizes how much time he's spent with the old games, he looks out of the living room window and notices the sun beginning to set. He completely lost track of time because he was enjoying the nostalgia trip and having fun.
He starts putting all the cartridges back into the plastic box where he found them. That's when he noticed something at the bottom of the box underneath a layer of cartridges he still hadn't tried. At the bottom of the box was a small, locked metal box with a key taped to the top. Tom was confused as to what this box was and what could be inside. Is it cash? Documents like a few stocks or savings bonds? Did Dad have a small pistol that Mom didn't know about and wasn't accounted for in his gun collection? Was it a porno stash? And why does it have a sticker saying 'DANGER' on its lid? That was beyond strange...
Tom put the small, locked metal box aside and sold off the old Atari games on eBay. He got $50 for the lot and wondered if he got ripped off. A few days later, he noticed the locked box was still sitting on the desk in his home office. His curiosity got the best of him and he decided to open it and examine the contents. He put the key in the lock and turned it to the right. He could feel the locking mechanism release and then, he opened the lid.
Upon opening the box, he understood why his father had put a DANGER sticker on the lid. He instantly recognized the contents and shrieked in horror at what he saw. It was truly an abomination! "No wonder dad had this locked away!" Tom thought, barely able to remain semi-coherent in even his own mind's inner dialogue. Such was his terror!
What he saw truly was an unholy terror. It was an evil the likes of which should be buried deep in the Earth, so that it might never be seen again by human eyes. Indeed, many examples of this particular object, according to legend, actually were buried in a New Mexico landfill. What was the accursed, unholy object? What could inspire such fear in a man?
Why, it was just an old Atari cartridge.
However, it was not just any old Atari cartridge. It was the cartridge.
It was that one, special cartridge that every gamer knew...
That one cartridge that every gamer feared...
The cartridge containing the most unholy 16kb of 6502 Assembler code to ever exist...
It was...
And Tom was never seen or heard from again...
THE END
For now...
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