Eyewitnesses
Off camera, a voice
sings. “Guess who’s back… back again!
Nicky’s back… tell a friend!
Guess who’s back, guess who’s back, guess who’s back, guess who’s back,
guess who’s back, guess who’s back, guess who’s back… na na
na!”
Slowly, a face rises into
view, grinning cheesily, the blue eyes wide.
A thumb accompanies it, pointed up, while the other hand presumably
holds the camera. Nick Carter holds this
winning pose for a second, then announces, “That’s right, ladies! The Nick Cam is back!”
“Alright!” sings a
high-pitched voice, off-camera. A rapid
blur, as the camera abruptly turns, then zooms in to focus on Brian Littrell,
who’s also sporting a toothy smile.
“Yeah!” cheers Nick,
behind the camera now. “See, someone
else is excited! Brian’s excited! Now it’s time for y’all to get excited!” The camera pans across the faces of Howard
Dorough, AJ McLean, and Kevin Richardson, who are equally deadpan. “No?
No? Y’all ain’t excited the Nick
Cam is back? Well, screw you guys! You know who’s gonna be really excited the
Nick Cam’s back?” A pause, another blur,
as Nick turns the camera back onto himself.
“You are,” he says, smirking
at the camera. “The fans. Y’all been begging me for new episodes of
Nick’s Corner for, like, three years, and finally, I’m ‘bout to deliver.”
He rotates the camera
again, filming out the window of the bus.
“So, as you probably can tell, I’m on tour, with my four bestest buddies
in the whole wide world!” He turns the
camera on each of them as he says their names.
“Brian… Howie… AJ… and KEVIN!!!” Kevin
Richardson cracks a smile as he comes into view. “OHMYGOD, it’s KEVIN RICHARDSON!!! KEVIN’S BACK!!!” Nick squeals in a wispy,
high-pitched voice. Kevin rolls his
eyes. “You’re so glad to be back on the
bus with me, aren’t you, Kevy-Kev? Old
buddy, old pal?”
Nick turns the camera back
to himself again and grins mischievously, waggling his eyebrows. “Kevin won’t admit it, but he loves me. He loves being trapped on the tour bus with me. That’s why he came back – he couldn’t stand
to be apart from me. He missed me too
much. Me and the bus.”
“That’s exactly right,
Nick,” drawls Kevin sarcastically in the background. “You’re onto me. It was all because of you.”
“It’s always because of
Nick,” adds the voice of AJ McLean.
“Yeah… when in doubt, BLAME
NICK!” yells Brian.
“It’s always Nick’s
fault,” Howie Dorough chimes in.
Nick just grins,
scrunching up his whole face. It’s clear
he loves to be the center of attention.
“So, yeah… like I was saying… we’re on tour. It’s like… two in the morning. I should
be sleeping right now, but I’m not… ‘cause I can’t… ‘cause it’s freakin’ hard
to sleep on a moving bus with four other guys!
So, yeah… why the hell did we do this again??”
He turns the camera back
to the other guys, who are grinning back at him. “You heard us!” says Kevin. “It was allllllll because of you!”
“And it’s all because of
you we’re not sleeping right now either,” adds a disgruntled Howie.
“BLAME NICK!” Brian
screams again.
Nick’s face finds its way
back into the camera’s lens. “So, yeah…
anyway… it’s two in the morning. We’re
the only ones awake right now, by the looks of things.” He points the camera back out the dark
window. “See that? Empty road.
Zero traffic. Nada. We’re in the middle of freakin’ nowhere. Where are we, anyway? Kevin?”
“How do you expect me to
know?”
“‘Cause you know
everything. Where are we?”
“Are we there yet?” Brian
mocks him childishly.
“I think we’re in Oregon
now,” suggests Howie.
“Really? We crossed the state line already?” asks
Kevin, sounding suddenly interested.
“Already? We’ve only been
driving all freakin’ day!”
“Yeah, we crossed it
awhile back,” says Howie, answering Kevin’s question and ignoring AJ.
“Well, thank you, Mr.
Mapquest,” Nick teases Howie happily.
“Glad someone knows. So, I guess
we’re in Oregon… heading to Seattle. Hey
guys, maybe we can all get up early and go bungee jump from the Space Needle or
something!”
A chorus of groans
resounds throughout the bus.
“Or not.” Nick twists the camera around again and makes
a face at it. “You see what I gotta put
up with? These old farts never wanna do
anything fun. Kevin’s idea of
sightseeing would be dragging our asses on some boring hike up a mountain or
something, and Brian always wants to go to museums. Museums!”
“I heard the National
Redwood Museum was riveting,” pipes up Brian immediately. “We can learn how to count tree rings and get
our pictures taken standing on the stumps!”
Nick rolls his eyes. “Brian, you’ve turned into a lame, lame,
little man.”
“I’m kidding!” Brian
protests. “I don’t even know if there is a National Redwood Museum.”
“Oh, I’m sure there
is. Just save it for when your wife and
kid are with you, okay?”
“And make sure you all
dress alike when you go there,” AJ adds, snickering. This comment cracks Nick up, and the camera
shakes as he laughs hysterically.
“Y’all suck,” says Brian,
but when the camera finally focuses on his face, it reveals a good-natured
smile.
“Whatever. You know we’re-” Nick abruptly stops speaking,
mid-sentence. “Dude – did you guys see
that?” In a blur, the camera shifts to
the bus window again.
“See what?”
“I dunno… something in the
sky.” Nick’s hand appears in the frame,
pointing out the window, but the glare obstructs anything on the other side of
the glass. “There!” he shouts suddenly,
his hand waving about wildly. “You see
it? The light?”
“What the fuck is that?”
AJ asks.
“Chill out, you guys. It’s probably just an airplane.”
“An airplane? You ever seen a plane that looks like that in
the sky, Howie?”
“A helicopter then.”
“I think it’s a UFO!” Nick
announces. Before anyone can argue, he
shouts, “Stop the bus!” The camera
shakes violently again as he jumps up and jogs to the front of the bus. “Stop the bus! We gotta go check this out!”
“Nick, come on,” Howie
protests, but the screech of brakes suggests the bus is already slowing
down. The camera wobbles as Nick
apparently lurches sideways. When the
bus pulls to a stop on the side of the road, he hurries out, carrying the
camera haphazardly in his hand. Shaky
shots of the bus steps are followed by a stretch of road, then gravel, and
finally, grass. The image is blurry, the
lens struggling to bring anything into focus.
At first, all that can be
heard is Nick’s heavy breathing, accompanied by the rustling sound of his
footsteps, but soon, the other Boys’ voices ring out. “Nick!
What are you doing? Get back to
the bus!”
“I wanna get a better
look!” Nick insists stubbornly, his voice much louder than the others.
Their volume increases as
they catch up. “I swear, Carter, you are
such a freaking idiot,” AJ pants.
Nick has stopped. He aims the camera at the sky, and finally,
the image focuses some. A strange light shines
above the trees. The clouds seem to
diffuse it, or perhaps it is simply too bright for the camera to capture
clearly. In any case, it appears oddly
blurry, with gradually fading rings surrounding it in a halo effect, like a
stoplight gleaming through a windshield on a rainy night. The haze makes it impossible to identify the
light’s source. Whatever it is, it’s
moving. The light flickers in and out of
the clouds as it floats slowly across the sky.
“You gonna tell me that
ain’t a UFO?” says Nick, after a few seconds of silence. The camera, still shooting the sky, doesn’t
capture his or any of the other boys’ expressions, but his tone is smug.
“I still think it’s a
helicopter,” Howie insists stubbornly, but he’s the only one. Closer inspection of the strange light in the
sky seems to have made believers out of the other boys. Their silence suggests they have sided with
Nick.
“Whatever it is, it’s
coming closer,” Kevin says quietly, a minute later.
He’s right. The light is growing bigger and
brighter. The object appears to be
descending. On camera, it’s impossible
to tell how far away it is, especially with the cloud cover, but it must be
closer than it appears because, all of a sudden, a breeze picks up, rustling
audibly through the trees.
“Holy shit,” Nick curses,
and the camera wobbles. “It’s gonna
land.”
Shaky shots of trembling
tree branches and fast-moving feet follow, as the boys retreat out of the
clearing in which they’ve been standing.
Once they have taken their new position amid the trees, the camera
refocuses, shooting into the clearing.
Through the trees, it tracks the progress of the light as it sinks lower
and lower in the sky, turning to shadow as it’s blocked by the base of the
massive object that plunges through the clouds.
“Holy shit!” Nick swears
again, the camera quivering in his shaking hands. “Are you guys seeing this?”
“This is fucking unreal,”
murmurs AJ.
The wind whips through the
treetops, wobbling the camera, as the towering UFO descends into the
clearing. At first, it appears oblong, a
tall and narrow cylinder, but as it nears the ground, the base widens with four
curved “legs” that project outward, poised to touch down first. The spaceship, it seems, comes equipped with
its own form of landing gear.
The roar of its engine
renders the boys’ reactions indecipherable on camera, but while the audio is
reduced to deafening static, the video captures everything that happens
next. With a gust of steam, a panel
slides into the curved side of the ship, revealing a door-like opening. A shadowy figure appears on the threshold.
Even on a screenshot that
captures this split second in time, it’s impossible to gauge the size of the
creature, not knowing the relative size of the UFO or distance from which it
was filmed. However, the figure appears
hulking, with a large head and broad shoulders that taper down to narrow hips
and disproportionately short legs. At
first sight, it seems bipedal, for it stands on two feet in the doorway. As it moves out onto one of the arched
landing attachments, however, it is found to walk hunched over, its long arms
dragging to the ground. This is
knuckle-walking characteristic of earthborn primates, but although the creature
bears a resemblance to a chimpanzee, closer examination of the footage reveals
notable differences. Among them are the
bulbous cranium; large, luminous eyes; and reduced body hair, a shade darker
than the green skin showing underneath it.
Of course, these physical
features are only observable when the footage is slowed, zoomed, brightened,
and clarified. In the dark, and in their
shock, it is doubtful the eyewitnesses would have had much of a chance to note
them. In real time, the events that
follow unfold quickly.
The chimp-like creature
slides down the curved leg to the ground, where it stands for a few seconds,
its head tilted back, two slits in the center of its face widening as it sniffs
the air. It turns its head this way and
that, then freezes, its eyes locked on the camera.
“Shit…” Nick Carter’s voice can barely be made out in
the background. He is still filming, but
the video gets shakier by the second.
Whether it’s able to see
the glow of the electronic device through the trees or not, the creature has
caught the earthlings’ scent.
Immediately, it throws its head back again and issues a series of short,
barking screeches. Almost instantly,
more of the ape-like aliens appear in the opening of their spacecraft. For a moment, they just stand there, upright
on their hind legs, like a mob of meerkats.
Then, all at once, they
attack.
Chaos erupts on camera, as
the creatures charge. Before the boys
know what hit them, the apes are on top of them. The camera captures one slamming AJ to the
ground, sinking its teeth into his jugular, before Nick drops it and rushes to
his aid. The camera lands face-up on the
ground and continues to record the attack taking place just above it. Howie twists and flails, shrieking as he
tries to pry off the creature that has attached itself to his face, its limbs
wrapped around the back of his head like a piggyback ride in reverse. Kevin appears, armed with a fallen tree
branch, which he swings like a baseball bat, beating the creature off of
him. At one point, Brian appears at the
edge of the frame, also wielding a branch, and together, they manage to fend
off the pack of creatures, who appear to retreat back into the clearing.
“Are they gone?” Nick’s voice sounds weak.
“For now. Let’s get back to the bus, before they come
back. Howie’s hurt, bad.”
“Can you walk, D?” Brian
can be heard asking, off camera. If
Howie replies, it’s inaudible. “Lemme
see,” Brian adds gently, but seconds later, his voice erupts with alarm. “Nick, where’s your phone? We need to call 911, now.”
“I think I dropped it…
somewhere… over there,” Nick answers vaguely.
Kevin’s face appears on
camera again, as he bends over to pick up Nick’s phone, which is still
recording. “I got it. Let’s just get back to the bus first; then
we’ll call.”
“We can’t go-” Nick starts
to say, but is interrupted by Brian’s frantic shout.
“Kev, I don’t know what to
do; there’s too much blood!”
“Give him your shirt!”
Kevin barks. “Tie it around his face if
you have to!”
The world spins as he
turns to Brian and Howie, the phone clutched in his hand. The camera bounces, filming his footsteps as
he strides toward them. Then it’s suddenly
flung upwards, as his hands go to his mouth in shock. At an angle, the camera manages to capture
the horrifying sight that has caused this reaction. His shirt in his hand, Brian stands next to
Howie, whose blood-soaked hands are covering what’s left of his face. Brian gently pries them away to reveal a mess
of mangled flesh that better resembles raw ground beef than a human face. Howie’s eyes are gone; tears of blood and
jellied vitreous humor weep from their empty sockets. His nose has been bitten off, leaving a
gaping hole through which the bones of his nasal cavity are visible. Shredded skin hangs in sheets from his
mutilated cheeks. The camera sways in
Kevin’s unsteady hand, finally turning upside down again, as Kevin doubles over
to vomit. When he rights himself again,
Brian has swaddled Howie’s ruined face in his t-shirt, which is already
starting to sop up the blood.
“Put your arms around our
shoulders, D,” Brian tells Howie, frantically motioning for Kevin to position
himself on Howie’s other side. “We’ll
guide you back to the bus.”
“Guys…” Nick, who has been quietly off camera for
some time, speaks up again. “How are we
gonna get AJ back to the bus?”
“What do you mean?” Kevin
asks sharply, and the phone is raised until its camera captures Nick slumped on
the ground, a few yards away. His back
is to the camera, but the glow of the spaceship in the clearing behind them
provides just enough light to make out the shape of the motionless body lying in
front of him.
Nick’s voice answers hollowly. “AJ’s dead.”
“No… no!” Kevin rushes over, the camera bouncing around
his hand again, and skids to a stop at Nick’s side. AJ’s face appears on camera, ghostly pale in
the artificial light. His eyes are
closed; his mouth hangs open. All the
blood has drained through a gaping wound in his neck, where one of the
creatures tore out his throat. The sight
is enough confirmation for Kevin, who sighs, sounding defeated as he says,
“C’mon… we’ll just have to leave him, for now.”
“We can’t leave him!” Nick
protests indignantly, childlike in his insistence. “What if they take his body? What if they… what if they eat him?”
“There’s nothing we can do
for him now.” Kevin’s voice seems to get
calmer as Nick’s grows more frantic. “We
have to help Howie. We have get out of
here before they come back.”
Finally, Nick agrees, but
snatches the phone from Kevin’s hand as he gets up, saying, “Fine, but at least
let me call 911 on the way.”
With that, the footage
ends on a black screen.
The next video begins with
the boys trekking through the woods.
Nick is apparently leading, the phone in his hand, while the others can
be heard crunching through the brush behind him. “Are you filming again?” Brian asks.
“Yeah,” says Nick
sullenly.
“Why?”
“Because. If there’s no damn cell phone service out
here, I might as well use this piece of shit phone for something!” The camera convulses wildly as he flails his
hand for emphasis. “Someone’s gotta
document what we saw back there.”
“You’re just gonna drain
the battery.”
“So what? When we get back to the bus, we’ll use one of
yours. If we get back to the bus,” Nick adds, muttering the last part
under his breath.
“Don’t say that. We’re almost there.”
“Yeah, and we’re also out
in the middle of nowhere with no fucking cell service, AJ’s dead, Howie’s hurt,
and there could be killer monkeys from outer space sneaking up behind us as we
speak!”
“So stop talking.”
“Shh! Both of you!” Kevin hisses suddenly, cutting
off both Nick and Brian. “Did you hear
that?”
“Stop trying to scare us,
Kev; we’re freaking scared enough already.”
“No… I heard something in
the trees. Listen.”
Nick stops, turns. He holds up the camera. Brian and Kevin stand on either side of
Howie, supporting most of his weight as he sags between them, seeming on the
verge of collapse. Their faces are
scared, their eyes darting around, ears pricked, all senses on high alert for
signs of danger. No one speaks. The camera picks up the faint rustle of
leaves, the creak of a branch.
Then, with an earsplitting
scream, all hell breaks loose.
One of the alien apes
springs out of a nearby tree and lands on top of Brian, who brings Howie down
with him as he falls to the ground, fighting with his attacker. But the creature is not alone. The surprise attack turns into a full-out
ambush, as the rest of the pack crashes through the trees.
“RUN!” Kevin bellows at
Nick, rushing to defend Brian and Howie as the apes close in on them.
“No!” Nick shouts back, though he already appears to be backing up.
“You’re faster than the
rest of us, GO!” Kevin orders. “Get back
to the bus; get help!”
Nick hesitates another
second. In his frozen hand, the camera
catches a shot of the ape that attacked Brian sitting on his chest, its face
buried in his belly. It raises its head
and looks directly into the camera, flashing teeth that are stained with
Brian’s blood. It has ripped Brian’s abdomen
wide open with those teeth, and now it feasts on his entrails. A length of intestine hangs from its mouth
like sausage. The creature gives it a
tug, trying to tear it free from Brian’s insides. Still conscious, Brian screams in agony.
This scream, it seems, is
what finally triggers Nick’s fight or flight response. While Kevin stays back to fight, Nick flees,
the phone bouncing around in his hand as he tears through the woods. It’s impossible to tell if the sounds of
cracking twigs and rustling leaves are all from his own pounding footsteps, or
if he’s being pursued. Suddenly, the
world seems to turn upside down, as Nick apparently trips, sending the phone
flying. “Oh no… oh God, no,” his voice
can be heard whimpering in the background.
When he finally picks up the phone again, he uses it to silently film
his grim discovery: the lifeless body of
a man, later identified as the tour bus driver, lying in a pool of blood on the
ground.
Nick turns in a slow
circle, panning across the endless trees that surround him. Then he turns the camera onto himself. For a few seconds, he just looks into
it. He tries to blink back the tears
that fill his blue eyes, but they just keep refilling. He takes a few shaky breaths, but the air
keeps hitching in his throat. He clears
it, then whispers, “I’m Nick Carter.
I’ve just been attacked by…” He
shakes his head, closing his eyes briefly before he continues, “…God knows
what. My friend AJ is dead. Brian and Howie are probably dead. Kevin might be dead too. Our driver’s dead. I’m gonna try to get out of here and find
some help, but if I die too-”
“NICK!”
Nick’s head jerks upward,
his eyes alighting with hope. The
distant shout sounds like Kevin’s voice.
“NICK, BEHIND YOU!”
Nick doesn’t have time to
react before a dark shadow springs out of the trees and lands on his
shoulders. The camera captures a
close-up of the creature, so apelike and yet alien, as it bares its
blood-stained teeth. Then it sinks them
into the side of Nick’s neck, quickly stifling his single scream.
For a split second, the
world seems to spin, as the phone freefalls from his hand. Then, with a dull thud, the camera cuts to
black.
Video footage recovered from an iPhone discovered
in the forest, less than a mile from Interstate 5 in Douglas County, Oregon, 11
July 2013
***