Lights!
Camera!
Cache!!
I had moved back to the area from Portland, Oregon. My grandmother passed away shortly after I got back. I was helping my mom and aunties sort through everything in the house. I came across one particular item that spoke to me in a whispered voice, "If you place it, they will come." I thought about it for a moment and placed it aside. A while later I was getting a glass of water in the kitchen and felt something brush up against my leg. It was my cat, Patches, who had snuck in the door. I bent over to pet him when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. It was the same item laying in the middle of the dining room floor. I walked up to it, and wondered how it got here from the other room. I then placed it on the dining table. "Maybe Patches carried it in here?" I pondered.
I heard a knock on the door and walked over to see who it was. My neighbor had come over to see if we would like some help. I accepted her offer and opened the door for her. As she entered, she said, "What is THAT?" I looked down at the door mat and saw the Thing halfway under the door mat. I bent over and picked it up, again, and walked into the dining room with my neighbor behind me. I looked at the now empty table in front of me. I turned to my neighbor. "I left this thing here a minute ago. How in the world did it get by the door?" I looked down at Patches, sitting on the chair. "Maybe he put it under the mat? He does like to play and bat things around," my neighbor asked. I stood there for a moment dumbfounded. My mom came into the room and greeted my neighbor as I told her, "I think I'm going to go home and lay down for a bit, Mom. I'm not feeling real well right now."
I said my goodbyes and walked back over to my house. I closed the blinds, turned the fan on and crawled under the covers. "Maybe I'm just exhausted," I thought. "Perhaps the stress of everything is finally getting to me?" I eventually drifted off and a few hours later, I was startled by a strange whirring noise and whispered voice that said, "Cache me." I sat straight up in bed and looked about the darkened room. I grabbed a flashlight that I keep on my nightstand and shined it throughout the room. The lid of my newest cache project laid askew on the floor. I could see the box moving! I approached the box cautiously and peered inside. The Thing leapt from the box at me. I shrieked at the top of my lungs, dropped my flashlight, ran from the room in nothing but my underwear, out of the house and back over to Grandma's.
Right before I got to the door of Grandma's house, I woke up to Patches licking my forehead. It had all been a dream. I got up carefully and flicked on the light. I rubbed my eyes and tried to shake the dream from my mind. Patches nuzzled up against my leg and walked over to the cache box on the floor. He sniffed at the box, then hissed and growled at it. I unlatched the lid of the container and slowly pulled the lid away. Everything seemed in place, the swag, the travel bug, but where was the log book? It was then that I saw it. The Thing! It was nestled at the bottom of the cache. Its black silhouette, its blank eyes staring at me. I threw the lid back onto the container, clamped the latches down as I heard it say, "Be kind, please rewind."
I tossed the cache box into my car, found this spot and left it here. Please do not let the Thing escape! Before I closed up the cache, I did see a sign that showed how to find the logbook. I did manage to slip in a turn key to keep it from being wound too tight. Keep the turn key attached to the Thing and place it to the right of its black slitted eyes to rotate it. I hope this cache won't leave you with nightmares.
Please do not post pictures of the Thing.