Nintendo 64

Well, it’s finally over. I’ve gotten rid of it. Who’d have thought that one object could harbor so much animosity toward its owner? This tale starts out much the same way as any other horror tale – with the purchase of a secondhand item from eBay.

The year was 2005. I was so excited to receive my mint condition Nintendo 64 I could hardly stand it. I’d scored a monster of a deal. I was getting the system, a controller, Starfox, and an expansion pack, all for ten dollars. Little did I know what havoc this would wreak on my life. When it arrived in the mail, I couldn’t wait to hook it up and play. All my games looked great (by N64 standards) and they played even better. I was in hog heaven for about a year. It was the first day of the 2006-07 school year that the first strange occurrence reared its ugly head.

I was sitting around, catching up with old friends when my head began to throb. An intense pain began to consume my head and, to further increase my agony, I was greeted with a vision of an incredibly embarrassing incident from the previous school year. Then, as suddenly as it began, I was back to normal. Nobody seemed to notice my brief excusal to my own personal slice of Hell, granted it only actually lasted about ten seconds. Ever since, I’ve been having these visions and headaches. I’ve seen countless doctors and had x-rays, CT scans, and MRIs of my head, only for the doctor to say all was normal. I knew it wasn’t but I tried to convince myself and everyone around me it was under control.

The strong painkillers the doctors would prescribe worked for a while but they were by no means a permanent solution and as my body got used to them, the headaches began occurring again, despite my medicated state. Finally, I just told my parents they’d gone away and dealt with them as best I could. What started my mind to buzzing was that every time these bouts would occur, my cat would glare at the Nintendo 64 I had proudly sitting atop my TV stand. Finally, over the summer, another frightening symptom sprang up.

This summer, I was the youth intern for my church. I was driving home from church one evening when I came upon a stop sign. I knew the area and knew that it was not heavily trafficked at that time of night, so I turned without coming to a complete stop. As I was turning, I saw a large, black truck come flying around a blind curve. Its horn rang out as the sound of its brakes resonated through the trees. I could tell it wasn’t going to stop in time. As I closed my eyes and braced for the impact, the truck disappeared. I opened my eyes and surveyed the intersection. There were no vehicles in any direction. I had imagined the whole thing. Chalking it up to the long day I’d had, I got home as quickly as possible and never gave it a second thought.

Part of my job was to stay up at the church to answer the phone or assist anyone who came by. As I sat in the church office, doing some research for class, I heard a thud. It was clearly coming from the fellowship hall. I poked my head out the door to see what the commotion was about, but everything was quiet. There was no one in the building and all the tables and chairs were in their proper place. I’m hesitant, however, to say all was well. The air was heavy and dank and I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being watched. As I slowly eased the door closed, the feeling of being followed remained.

When I returned home, I went into my room, closed the door, and flopped onto my bed. After another of my little headache episodes, I looked over to see my N64 on the floor. Now, ordinarily, I would think nothing of this, but where it was sitting, it could not have fallen of its own accord. I asked my dad about it and he said he heard a crash a few hours ago. My stomach instantly sank. I couldn’t prove it, but I knew somehow that was the crash I’d heard.

As time went by and my mental state deteriorated, I began hearing footsteps through the building, then voices accompanying them. I watched as boy began walking across the parking lot and disappear halfway across. Still, it seemed confined to the building for now. I began to work as much as I could from home and to try and be at the building when others were there. I was so relieved when my term was over. It was a week later that It followed me home.

I was sitting watching TV and heard my name. Instinctively, I yelled back asking what whoever was calling wanted. I received no reply. After finishing my show, I walked outside to get the mail. It was on the way back that I noticed something. Mine was the only car in the driveway. I hadn’t noticed as everyone was gone when I woke up. I went back in and called out to see if anyone was home. No one answered, but I saw something out of the corner of my eye. This incident repeated itself many times. Finally, two weeks ago, things came to a head.

My sleep was utterly thrown off for no apparent reason. I was staying up until 5 a.m. every night and having to wake up at 8. Finally, that Saturday, I slept for about 16 hours and just couldn’t get out of bed. This pattern continued into the next week. Also, I’d started reading horror stories from Creepy+Pasta. After reading a few stories, I had another of my incidents but more horrific. People’s faces were blurred, the images darker, and everyone was laughing at me with malice in their voices. I didn’t know what to do anymore. I secluded myself from the world, communicating as little as possible, haunted by what I was experiencing. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that wretched machine was tormenting me.

A week ago, another incident occurred. My dad was in his office (the room on the other side of the wall from me) and I was in my room. We were the only two home when all of a sudden we heard a crash. It sounded like an N64 falling, complete with the vibration in the floor. The thing is, I was looking at the Nintendo the whole time. My dad said something must have fallen upstairs but a cursory glance suggested that nothing was out of the ordinary.

Finally, I’d had enough. This morning, I woke up at 4:30 in the morning. It felt like someone had punched me in the face. I went to the bathroom to take a shower. After, starting the water to warming, I looked in the mirror, seeing a bruise right under my eye, right where I’d felt the pain that woke me up. Forgoing my shower, I went to eBay. They didn’t have the record of my purchase. Then I remembered I had a folder for receipts in my old e-mail. I came up with a username.

eBay didn’t seem to have a record of him so I Googled the username, figuring he probably had a standard username. The only result I came across was a forum. I checked his posts and at one point, he talked about his mom making him sell his N64. Apparently he was quite fond of it. The last post was from his mother. She just wanted to tell people his declining health had gotten the better of him. He’d died. The date on the post was about a year after the eBay receipt.

As soon as Play ‘N Trade (the only store I know that still sells retro games) opened, I packed up the system, controller, and games and traded it all in. I told the guys who worked there my story and they laughed it off. It’s probably just as well they don’t buy into it. The whole way to the store, that feeling of heaviness and of being watched was in the car. I kept feeling like there was somebody in the back seat but the mirror revealed nothing. The feeling was also throughout the store through the trade-in process and as I figured out what to get with the credit. A good sign was that the car ride home felt relaxed. For the first time in years, I felt at ease.

I got home and I wasn’t paranoid and depressed. Everything felt natural. That malevolent spirit is gone. It’s at Play ‘N Trade. Ask Brandon or the newer heavyset guy. We were the only three in the store through the process of trading. Come to think of it, nobody walked in until I was on my way out and the whole way there, every intersection was clear and every light green. Maybe he was tired of my fighting back and wants a new challenge. To be honest, I really don’t care. I’m just glad to be rid of it.

I don’t believe in anything supernatural, and if it hadn’t happened to me, I’d have written it off as someone’s overactive imagination. I know there are those who will think this is funny or a complete fabrication and I don’t care. I know that it’s the unbridled truth. I don’t even know what I hope to accomplish by writing this. I guess I’m just trying to assure myself that it’s really over and that it really happened. I was just too afraid to write about it or tell anyone about it. Whatever it was that attacked me did so unprovoked. I guess I was afraid of what it would do to me.

(This story is credited to a person called Charles Blake. In a followup email I received from him, he had this to say:

"The story didn't come from a forum or anything. It's totally original. Also, I figured I should tell you, it's mostly true. By that I mean I actually had what I believe to be a malevolent spirit follow me around and I encountered all the crazy symptoms I wrote about. I was never able to trace the N64 back to any owner, living or dead but I was able to trace the happenings back to the N64 and i did pawn it off on a Play 'N Trade up here in Virginia.")