Final Cut by T.S. Worthington

not expected to find.
    It was probably just wishful thinking on his part after all of the exhausted effort he’d put into getting up here. If he had not found anything out at all he would have been incredibly frustrated with himself.
    Bill somehow staggered to his feet and began looking around at the empty room. His eyes moved from corner to corner as if there was something hidden in plain sight that was going to leap out at him. He was impressed by the way the wood of the walls seemed to speak to him, but he did not understand what they were saying. It was just a feeling, an impression that they gave off. He felt like he was shut off from the whole world up here and he supposed that was the way the attic had been designed to make one feel. It was not a storage attic necessarily; it was in fact a place to hide out. It reminded him of the forts he had built when he was a kid. He wished to hell he’d had a place like this to come and hide away from everything when life got too damn tough to deal with, but he’d had no real place like this.
    There were several boxes in the corner that held various books and things from his childhood that he had brought with him when he moved into the place. He had not actually looked at most of the items for years, but he decided that now was as good a time as any.
    Bill opened up the first box and thumbed through all of the comic books he’d spent his youth collecting. It was a hobby that he wished he had never outgrown, but now he felt he was too old to resume. If he’d never stopped doing this then he would perhaps have a much more extensive collection and he would feel that he was pursuing a lifelong passion and not a passing fancy or some man trying to relive his youth.
    He perused the box for a good half hour leafing through old comics and wondering if any of them might actually be worth something nowadays. He didn’t really think so, but it was possible. He had a good mind to take them down to Joe’s comics on 49th street and ask Joe what he thought. Joe was a pretty standup guy and might cut him a fair deal if any of them happened to be worth any damn thing.
    Bill opened up the second box. It was full of books mostly. He had become an avid horror novel fan when he was about twelve and started reading everything that he could get his hands on, building up a huge collection of Stephen King and Dean Koontz novels. They were a great escape from the turbulence of his home life when he needed it most. He had gotten away from it a bit in recent years, but it was something that he really wanted to get back into. He found that he missed the lazy and quiet evenings caught up in a great book.
    He realized the time was running away from him and he needed to shower and get ready for his date with Teri. As he started to close the box he noticed something near the bottom that he did not recognize. Reaching his hand deep in the bottom his fingers clasped around a small box. His heart just sank like a stone as he relived the terror that he had felt the first time he’d seen the box falling out of the linen closet.
    As he pulled the box out of the cardboard box of books he noticed that this was not a jewelry box. It was actually not a box at all; it was a small plastic case that blank DVD’s came in. Inside the case were three DVD’s with writing on them.
    Bill was not sure what was on these DVD’s but he was almost afraid to look. He had to pop them on the DVD player and he had to do it now. But he had no time. Not if he was going to be ready for his dinner date with Teri. His first impulse was to cancel the plans that he had with her. This was much more important. He had to get to the bottom of it. But if he found something terrifying on there he might not fully recover.
    A thought popped into his head right then. It was a thought he realized had been moving around in the back of his mind since the moment he had received his special surprise in the linen closet that morning. But the thought