“You’re... you’re okay?” Evan asked incredulously. 


“Yeah, why the hell wouldn’t | be? Becca just tied the things too 
tight, | couldn’t breathe, so | passed out. How long was | out for 
anyway?” | inquired. Apparently, it had been long enough for them to 
untie the straightjacket, allowing me to rub a hand across my face. 


Another shared look of disbelief. 


“Dude,” Kevin began slowly, “You've been out for like fifteen 
minutes. We were about to call 911. We kept shaking you—Evan 
even tried pinching you so hard he drew blood—but you wouldn't 
wake up.” 


| felt a cold chill run down my spine, and the straightjacket, hanging 
limply from my shoulders, suddenly began to feel a bit tighter. 
Hastening to pull it off, | tried not to look panicked as | threw it toa 
corner of the room. Rebecca just sat there, still shaking and crying a 
little bit, and in spite of the ordeal I’d just gone through, | had enough 
sense to go over and try to comfort her. 


We left that room without a word, geocache be damned, and walked 
back to the car in complete silence (broken only by the occasional 
sniffle from Rebecca). The sun started coming up, and as | dropped 
everyone off at their respective homes, we said quiet goodbyes. 
Rebecca was the last stop before | finally made the trip home 
myself. Being the gentleman that | am, | walked her to her door, but 
she paused at the entry and looked me in the eye. 


In the light of the gray dawn, | could see her eyes were still 
reddened from all the crying. She was very quiet, and she said, “I 
have to ask you something.” 


“Yeah sure, what is it?” | said, half expecting another “You sure 
you’re alright?” like I'd been getting the whole ride home. 


She surprised me by asking, “Do you know how long it took Evan 
and Kevin to get the door open?” Her eyes held a look that | could 
never forget. It was raw fear. Something happened in that fraction of 
time between me blacking out and them getting in there that had 
absolutely terrified her. And seeing that look, | realized. | was 
blacked out for fifteen minutes. How long was she alone in that 
room? 


“No...” | replied slowly, “how long?” 


“Five minutes. They said it took five minutes for them to open that 
stupid door. | was in there and | saw you, and | saw—“ she broke 
off, another sob stopping her midsentence. At that point, | didn’t 
want to know. | still don’t want to know. 


| gripped her by the shoulders and said firmly, “Rebecca. It doesn’t 
matter. No matter what you saw. I’m here, you’re here, we're both 
safe. It doesn’t matter. Nothing bad will happen. | promise.” 


She just nodded numbly, opened her door, and walked inside her 
house. The next time | saw her, she was back to her usual self. But 
whenever | bring up that night to her, she freezes up and turns to 
stone, refusing to discuss it. 


| stand by what | said before. | don’t know what happened in that 
room. And | don’t ever want to know. But | still have nightmares 


about those two glowing red lights in the darkness. And sometimes, 
as | lapse into sleep, | hear faint echoes of shrill laughter following 
me down into the depths of unconsciousness. 


The Little Buck-Toothed Boy: A Fairy Tale 


Once upon a time, there was a little boy, about five and a half years 
old. He had bright blue eyes, and shiny blond hair, and faint freckles 
on his face, and his front teeth protruded slightly over his bottom lip, 
as if they hadn’t quite made it back inside his mouth after he gave 
one of his sweet smiles. And his smiles made his eyes crinkle 
slightly in the corners, and showed one big dimple on his left cheek, 
and a smaller one on his right cheek. 


And he was the nastiest boy you could ever meet. It’s not just that 
he was rude or selfish or unpleasant (which he was), and it’s not just 
that he didn’t care a jot about other people’s feelings (which he 
didn’t) or that he went out of his way to annoy them (which he did); 
the little buck-toothed boy was a full-blown misanthrope. He hated 
other people — it didn’t matter who they were — and he tried his 
hardest to hurt them. And he enjoyed every second of it. 


There was only one thing that troubled the little buck-toothed boy. If 
he was so mean, why did people who met him think that he was 
nice? It worried him so much that he thought about it all day and at 
night he tossed and turned and couldn’t sleep for thinking about it. It 
preyed on his mind in the morning (when he glued a water balloon 
full of urine to his sleeping father’s forehead), at lunchtime (when he 
soaked pieces of paper in alcohol, lit them, and threw them at his 
sister's kitten) and after supper (when he carved offensive words 
backwards into the windows of his room, so that passers-by could 
read them). One day, he could stand it no longer. He set off to find 
the answer, taking only a rolled up handkerchief, stuffed with a 
bread roll and a wad of cash from his mother’s wallet. 


He walked for miles and miles, looking for someone to ask. Finally, 
he saw a huge, grey, concrete block of flats, squat and squalid, with 
dark passages leading up to inconsequential-looking doors. The little 
buck-toothed boy knocked on the first door he came to, and it was 
answered by a stooped, shriveled old man in a singlet and brown 


trousers. 


“Hey old man!” the boy shouted. 

The man's reply was a feeble wheeze. “How can | help you, s-hhz- 
onny?” 

“Do you think I’m nice?” 

“| ghhz- | guess so.” 

“Why?” 

“Wh-hhhg-why you remind me of my son, when he was a little boy. 
Of course, that was years ago, before he pass-hzz-passed awy. He 
was a sweet lad like yourself-ffz.” 

“That can’t be why everyone thinks I’m nice, you senile old goat! Not 
everyone has a dead son — idiot. Anyway, you stink! I’m glad your 
son is dead!” 


And the little buck-toothed boy ran out of the building, hitting the fire 
alarm. The old man was left wheezing in his dim doorway, a single 
tear sliding down his weathered cheek. 


The boy ran until he was out of breath. Suddenly he saw a little field 
of tulips bobbing in the warm summer breeze. 


“Hey, stupid tulips!” yelled the little buck-toothed boy. 

“How can we help you?” said the tulips. 

“| need someone smart. Do you know anyone smart?” 

“Well, we don’t get around much, but we have seen that big 
billboard.” The tulips waved their heads towards a poster further up 
the road, with a serious-looking woman on it. “She’s a psychiatrist, 
and they’re always very intelligent.” 

“| knew that!” said the boy, and he stomped off through the field, 
kicking the tulips over and jumping on them. 


After another long walk, the little buck-toothed boy barged into the 
psychiatrist’s office. She sat behind a mahogany desk, looking over 
her glasses at her patient. 

“... and so ever since then | just have no confidence at all in social 
situations.” 

“Oh boo hoo,” said the little buck-toothed boy. “Why don’t you just 
go kill yourself?” 

“Hey!” the patient soun around, shocked. “Why did you...” 

“Shut up, nut bag,” said the boy, and spat on him. He turned to the 


SCP-610-L3 


The destruction caused by the rapid collapse of the Site C 
exploration attempt during SCP-610-L2 resulted in a series of 
unexpected events in Site A. As the strange spherical formation in 
Site C was burned and destroyed, the SCP-610 infected inhabiting 
Site A were recorded by aerial drones going into seizures and 
convulsions. The immobile SCP-610 infected rapidly shriveled and 
died along with all of the flesh material spread across inanimate 
objects within the village. The mobile SCP-610 infected who were 
able to regain their footing all proceeded to what appears to have 
formerly been an upper class residence and entered the building. As 
the infected entered this dwelling, it suffered a foundational collapse 
revealing the presence of a sink hole beneath it. The size of the hole 
in relation to the structure above it posed an impossibility for an 
entire building to collapse suggesting something within the hole 
applied force directly to the structure with the intent to pull it inside 
and expose the hole. 


The revealed hole is approximately large enough to accommodate 
three grown men standing shoulder to shoulder. Light sources 
applied by remote drones fail to penetrate further than 4m depth into 
the hole. Objects dropped into the hole do not produce an impact 
sound suggesting a bottom potentially more than 1000m down. 


Research of the exterior of the Site A hole was only able to be 
carried out for two hours time. 


Samples of the atmosphere in Site A indicated a complete death of 
SCP-610 related materials. All infectious life that did not evacuate 
into the hole died above ground and quickly became shriveled 
husks. Manned exploration of Site A was approved and commenced 
immediately. In the span of 30 minutes a total of three research 
teams consisting of two to three research staff and four to five 
armed escort each were dispatched and setting up stations within 
the remains of the village. Samples of deceased SCP-610 infected 


psychiatrist. “Are you smart?” 

She looked mildly back at him. “Well, | graduated magna...” 
“Whatever. | have a question, and | need a smart person to work it 
out.” 

“| think | can guess. You’re wondering why you are so badly 
behaved, aren't you? Well, first let’s talk about your parents.” 
“That’s not the question, you dumb bitch! | want to know why 
everyone who meets me thinks I’m going to be good, when I’m not.” 
And he ran up to the psychiatrist and kicked her in the shin, before 
pulling a bookcase over and storming out. 


The little buck-toothed boy didn't stop until he reached the woods. If 
people couldn't help, maybe the animals could. He asked the deer, 
but they ran away as soon as they heard his voice, so he decided to 
tell the wolves where they lived. He asked the wolves, but they just 
howled their foolish songs about love and snow and the moon, so he 
told them the wrong place to look for the deer. The animals were as 
useless as people. It was hopeless. 


Finally, just when the little buck-toothed boy was ready to give up, 
he came across a sun-lit glade, with a sparkling stream burbling 
through it. There was an old, shaggy bear leaning back against a 
mossy tree-trunk, contemplating the world. 


“Excuse me, Mr Bear,” said the little buck-toothed boy. 

“How can | be of assistance?” asked the bear, with a deep, wise- 
sounding voice. 

“I’ve asked everyone, but no-one can help me. I’ve been really mean 
and horrible to everyone, and | like it. But everyone | meet thinks 
that I’m a good little boy. Do you know why?” 

The bear nodded sagely. “That’s a tough question, all right, and I’m 
not sure that my answer is going to please you. Because there’s no 
one reason that people think you'll be nice. They just assume you 
will be. People like putting every new thing they come across into 
boxes, so they can pretend that everything in a box is essentially the 
same. It’s because people are scared of things that are different, 
and by assuming, and using their little boxes, they can pretend that 
they are capable of understanding the world, rather than dealing 
with the terror of knowing that they can’t possibly understand 
anything.” 


“Oh,” said the little buck-toothed boy. 

“For example,” said the bear, “people also assume that just because 
fairy tale animals are anthropomorphic, they’re not still animals.” And 
he ate the little buck-toothed boy up, rending his flesh and gnawing 
on his bones. 


And then, licking the still-warm blood from his snout, the bear looks 
straight out of the screen, and locking his deep brown eyes with 
yours, speaks to you. “Of course, I’m not sure that it was the little 
boy making assumptions about fairy-tale animals. He didn’t know 
that he was in a fairy tale, after all. | guess | was subverting your 
expectations as the reader, rather than his as the character.” 


The bear considers further for a second, shifting his bulk, then looks 
back up at you. “Still, even that may not truly represent the situation. 
Because I’m a character as well, | can’t know your expectations in 
advance. In some ways, we’re actually addressing the author’s 
assumptions about what your expectations will be. So if you 
expected me to eat the little buck-toothed boy, then you would have 
subverted the writer's assumptions, rather than the other way 
around." 


A strand of pink slaver drips from the bear's open maw. "Now, if | 
really wanted to challenge assumptions about fictional characters, 
both yours and the author’s, | could just climb straight out of the 
screen you're looking at and maul you. Your skin tearing, the crack 
of your bones beneath my paws, and the feeling of sinking my teeth 
into your warm, sweet flesh.” 


The bear belches, and you can almost smell the fetid stench of raw 
meat. “But of course, I've just eaten. Still, if you would like to come 
back to this paragraph a little later on, feel free. I’m quite at my 
leisure.” 


And with a wink at you, the bear lies back against the cool moss, 
and turns to watch the brook shimmer in the dappled afternoon 
sunlight. 


The Manistique Broadcast 


There exists a subculture on the internet fascinated by lost media. 
Missing episodes of long-cancelled television shows, unreleased 
photographs of important historical events, suppressed news 
footage of gruesome occurrences, all are sought after, and clues to 
where the next rediscovered curiosity will surface are discussed 
endlessly on web forums and chat channels. 


Among some of the older and more experienced enthusiasts, there 
is an ongoing search for something referred to in lost media circles 
as the Manistique Broadcast, named for the small city in northern 
Michigan in which the original footage was supposedly aired one 
evening in 1982. The first references to the broadcast appear in 
cheaply copied newsletters circulated among pirate broadcasting 
hobbyists in the Great Lakes region, in which the owner of the 
newsletter (a person using the pseudonym "Neal Phreak") asks their 
readership if anyone has a recording of a twelve minute signal 
intrusion on a Schoolcraft County, Michigan NBC affiliate, purported 
to have occurred in the early hours of November 2, 1982. 


Details of what exactly the broadcast is vary from source to source, 
and will likely never be known in full, since no known recordings 
have yet been discovered, and all information recovered thus far 
consists of the memories of several persons residing in Schoolcraft 
County at the time. Records recovered from Manistique television 
station WLUC by an unknown party and posted to the internet image 
board 4chan corroborate, however, that a signal intrusion did in fact 
occur during that night in 1982. 


Most of those searching for the Manistique Broadcast agree, based 
on descriptions of those that claim to have seen the original 
broadcast, that the person depicted in the footage is Elizabeth 
Ekdahl, a woman reported missing to federal authorities in 1975. 
Miss Ekdahl's disappearance was one of several occurring in the 
Midwestern region during the 1970s, believed by the FBI to be the 


work of a single, still-unknown party. Of note is that Miss Ekdahl had 
a distinctive facial scar around her right eye, a consistent detail in all 
known eyewitness accounts of the broadcast. Another point of 
general agreement is the presence of an electronically altered voice 
overlying the broadcast; whether the voice is of the person operating 
the camera, or added to the broadcast by other means is unknown.