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Fear and Misery in Seattle

It's taken me a while to get over what happened in Seattle. No, that's not right, I'll never get over it. I still have nightmares about what I saw...about that face staring back at me from the darkness. But after a month the nightmares come less frequently and I can look at the video and fool myself into believing that it didn't happen to me. The videotape is just a false memory. Monsters don't really exist....do they?

Maybe I should start from the beginning.

While I was in LA last month I met up with some Japanese businessmen who left me a lot of cash and a cryptic note about "going under" in Seattle.

When I got to Seattle the first thing I did was check out a list of "go under" themed businesses that Freakylinks reader John Knight had e-mailed to me.

But no dice, these places were all on the straight and narrow path as far as I could figure.

Undeterred I decided to take the Seattle Underground Tour It was interesting but I didn't see hide nor hair or anything paranormal lurking under Seattle's streets. Coming back out, I was ready to admit defeat. That's when I met this guy.

He was leaning against my car and asked if I was Derek Barnes.

"Yea, who are you and how'd you find me?"

"I'm Timmerson. It knew it had to be you. Who else would be in town with a trashed out Galaxie 500 with California plates?"

His next words caught me off guard.

"I know what 'go under' means."

I told him to fess up but he said it was going to cost $100 bucks for him to set up a meeting. I tried arguing the price but he didn't come down a cent. Feeling like a fool I forked over the money and he wrote down my cel phone number on his palm. Said he would call me in a couple of hours.

....Sure he would.

I wasted some time, walking around, drinking coffee. I even drove up town to see that giant phallic needle thing. Finally after it got dark and I had a lousy piece of pizza, a miracle happened: Timmerson called back. Said they were waiting for me but it was gonna cost another $200 bucks.

"Wonderful," I told him. "Did you tell all of your friends that I was handing out free money?"

"These aren't my friends," said Timmerson. "These ain't friends at all. But they do have something you wanna see." He gave me an address on 5th street and hung up.

This is the part of the story where things start to go wrong.

First I suited up in my favorite Hawaiian shirt with the hole cut out for my hidden camera. I checked to make sure it was working but for some reason I couldn't get any sound. I fiddled with it for half an hour but something must have broken internally. I finally decided that hidden cam footage with no sound was better than no hidden cam footage at all and drove over to the place.

This store hadn't appeared on John Knight's list but I don't think it would have shown up on any lists. It was full of arcane food items I have never heard of and looked like it hadn't been cleaned since the Nixon administration.

What happened next is all on the Quicktime.

Here's what happened in Seattle
Click here to see the movie (4MB).

Download QuickTime (movie not working for you? you probably need to download the QuickTime software)
Was it my fault? Maybe. Watching that guy use a cattle prod on that thing in the cooler pissed me off. When he went to use it again I tried to stop him and ended up grabbing the wrong end of that thing. Then they shoved me in there and closed the door.

After it had thrown my lighter away I pushed it off of me and screamed at them to open the door.... I could hear the creature making grunting noises behind me as it tried to grab my leg or arm in the dark. I kept kicking it and I kept screaming until I was hoarse. Finally I gave up and sat there in that broken cooler with the stench of the creature around me. I kicked it whenever I could feel it trying to touch me. I tried using my cel phone but it wouldn't connect through the steel of the cooler walls.

So I just waited there in the dark, crying, and wishing I was anywhere but there.

Finally after 2 hours the door opened. The old man pointed at the back door and the younger one just stood there with a big grin, holding the cattle prod. They kicked me out the back door and I never looked back.

I drove all night, getting as far away from Seattle as I could. I didn't call the police cause I never wanted to see those people again...I never wanted to see that creature again. Whatever it was, a monster, or just some deformed human they had driven insane, it didn't matter to me. The experience pushed me to an edge I had never even seen before. Up till then the website was just an enjoyable game, meeting freaky people and investigating silly things that might or might not have been true.

But after Seattle I know different. I know there are real things out there that I don't understand, things that defy any kind of rational explanation. I tried to hide this from myself by refusing to talk about it, by refusing to even think about it. But after Gunter hacked us I came to the realization that maybe the website can be something more than just harmless entertainment. Maybe it can serve a greater purpose. If I bring these dark things up and force them into the light, then maybe, just maybe, I can force people to face the truth that they deny.

Two weeks ago when I decided to run this piece I called the Seattle police department and told them what happened. The next day they called back and said the place was deserted. I was too late to save whatever it was in that cooler. But the next time I won't be.

That's a promise I'm making not only to you, but also to myself.



sources

A bad time in Seattle August 7th, 2000



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