The House is on Fire

Jim and Alias: Summer, 1990

Lights were flashing above a sign on a window which advertised a two-for-one offer on DVDs, Jim felt like he had no choice. He had nothing to do with his Friday night so why not treat himself to some new movies until he and his pet fell asleep? It was regular that this man, mid-30s with part-time employment, would have nothing to do with his Friday night apart from this. He hadn't acquired enough money to roam the streets and shop, he hadn't the energy to spend time with friends and he hadn't the location to visit his family who lived miles and miles away.

He swung open the door and walked inside. The air was humid and the entire place was covered in a smoky fog. It wasn't ominous, just disgusting. He knew that this was one of those places where they didn't really rewind the videotapes before giving them back out and so Jim, sighed. He knew he would have to rewind every tape before he could watch the films but he would only take two - he didn't want to fall asleep before he could enjoy them.

Walking out with his two films, he started towards his home. A small affair slightly out of the way of the main town square. He had two bedrooms and one was being used as a storage room for various rubbish he had acquired over the years including spare clothes for events he would never go to. His cat, Alias, sat by the back door which led towards the garden staring out into the night. He was about to ask the cat what was wrong but he jumped and ran into the kitchen expecting food.

Jim got Alias his bowl and poured out the cat food, taking it to the living room. He warmed up some leftover pizza and slumped on to his sofa in front of the television. Sliding the first videotape into the player, he sat back down and pressed play. The video started five minutes into the movie but Jim didn't bother to rewind it. He and Alias weren't very interested and Alias himself kept getting up to look outside, staring back into the night. There was nothing there. Jim didn't bother with the cat and simply put on the next film.

Instead of the movie playing though, something else began.

A video was taped over the film.

A house alight with fire and the video was taken from some 50 feet away. A man spoke on the tape, making Jim's ears prick up and Alias suddenly stop:

Look at what he made me do...

It sounded like a low, deep growling of a madman. He said it again, slower, angrier:

Look at what he made me do...

In the distance: the sirens of a fire engine.

Look! The firefighters are going to come and try to put out the fire! And I laugh at them.

There's a slight pause in the speech and the video turns black, but before Jim can pick the remote up to switch it off, a blurred face holding a lighter up comes into the frame and screams into the void:

Your house is next!

It scared Jim and Alias so much that Jim switched the screen off completely. Alias jumped backwards and hid behind the sofa and Jim - simply sat - jaw agape, eyes wide, with nothing to say.

In the following days, Jim went to the police with the video, informing the video store that the tape was now police property and being held in an evidence locker so that he wouldn't get charged. The police watched the tape and informed Jim that they would do whatever they could to find out who was sending this ridiculous message. Jim wanted to know if everyone was alright though, was there anyone that was hurt in the fire? The police promised to cross reference with the fire department if they had put out any house fires recently because from what they knew, they couldn't find any arson on their books for about twenty years.

Of course, Jim stated, there is no reason this could not be more than twenty years old. But the police begged to differ. If it was on this popular DVD and taped over the movie, someone would have discovered it by now and it would be far more well-known, especially to the police who regularly stake out that very video shack for its shady practices.

Jim looked deflated but in reality, he felt like he was being haunted by what he saw. The house ablaze, the fire engines in the background and this man, standing there with a video camera filming the whole thing without a care of being caught. This man who blurred his face with something, this man who admitted to causing the fire, this man who sounded like the Devil himself.

When he left the station he got the feeling that someone was watching him so instead of going straight home, he decided to drive in circles until he remembered it was time to feed Alias and looked ever so guilty when he arrived back. Alias was lying down looking as though he would cry from hunger. Jim filled up Alias's bowl again and they both sat in front of the TV - Alias again stared out into the night.

This time, Jim became frightened. For the last few days now, Alias had been staring out into the night of his back garden, watching something with intent. He wasn't daydreaming, he wasn't thinking, he was staring. He wasn't staring like a predator either - he was staring like he was the prey. Jim bent his head to look outside at where Alias was staring and saw...nothing. Not a shadow, not a person, not a blade of grass out of place. There was simply nothing there.

Jim went to warm himself up some pizza when he heard Alias scratch at the back door. He ran back and put Alias back on the floor when he also realised that Alias had flicked the door handle so much that the door was now slightly open. He locked the back door completely and went back to the microwave. Alias ran about the house as if he were chasing something. What's got into him? Jim thought by tilting his head and so he filled up another bowl of food for Alias to sit him back down next to the TV.

It crawled into his thoughts that perhaps it wasn't Alias who opened the back door at all...

Over the next week, Jim kept calling the police for updates but they said that nothing could be found out about the video, its maker or the house in question. Jim asked why they don't release it on TV to the public and the police stated that because they don't know when the video was made, it is likely that the person could strike again and it would be dangerous if this arsonist happened to be following someone. Jim slammed down the receiver in a huff and Alias climbed up atop of him. He held his cat there for a moment thinking that they would never find out who did this and in around half an hour or so - he and his cat fell asleep on that sofa.

Jim awoke a few hours later to Alias walking about in the kitchen. He propped himself up to look over at his cat and then slumped back down on to his back. Alias ran up the stairs and Jim heard a creaking sound above him. It was Alias, he thought to himself. But how could that be possible? Alias had just walked up the stairs. This sound was coming from a space above him. The creaking continued as Alias ran back down the stairs as fast as he could and shrunk into Jim's arms. The creaking continued all through the night with both of them too scared to move.

The next morning Jim phoned the police to tell them there was someone in his house but to his surprise instead of sending an officer down, they sent a mental health worker because they honestly thought Jim was experiencing some trauma after seeing the video. Not to mention, he was calling the officers every day to see if they had found anything out.

This he couldn't deny. He had, in fact, looked all over his house and found nothing, nobody, not a trace of a person. And yet he couldn't stop thinking about the video. He couldn't stop thinking about the way Alias had opened the back door by himself. He couldn't stop hearing the creaking which now, the woman in front of him, had convinced him was all in his head. But if it was, then why did Alias run back downstairs? Why did Alias curl up next to him, shivering with fright? If only his cat could talk and explain these strange events for himself, he would at least have someone to back him up. But he had to admit it eventually: the police weren't going to help him.

It would be a few weeks later when the police received a call from a woman who was frantic. She had just seen a house go up in flames and she was sure her neighbour was still inside. The police officer got into his car, phoned the fire department and drove off into the direction of the burning building.

After putting out the fire, the police found Jim dead from smoke inhalation and Alias curled up in his arms. The cat was gone too.

Officer X: Autumn, 1990

"I flicked through my notepad from the incident whilst standing just outside the remains of the building. I recalled the woman was frantic, breathing heavy and the sound of the fire could be heard crackling down the phone when the call first came in. She screamed through the noise of the blaze and we reached the house far too late. Jim and Alias were already long gone. By the time we had actually put out the fire, everything seemed like it was burnt to a crisp and we searched the house for the root cause, finding nothing but pizza boxes and cat food. There was no incendiary device anywhere.

I was assigned to investigate the case and when I entered the house, the charred remains of the television was the first thing we encountered. Everyone thought at first that this guy had a dodgy set up, it went boom and the wire ignited the carpet. But I couldn't help but think that this was a bit of a reductive analysis. You see, the wire wasn't broken, it was just burnt up. There was no break where it would've ignited. I kept my torch looking for the cause whilst the bodies of the two occupants were removed from the property.

As I walked through the house though, there was nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, this guy seemed like he didn't have a life outside his job and his cat. He had no enemies and so at first, I didn't think this was done on purpose. This was most likely, I considered, an accident. I checked the stove but that hadn't been switched on in well over a month. This guy was basically living off pizza and fries from the nearby delivery service and they said he was a regular customer - always buying enough for the next few days.

Christ, I thought to myself, this guy was really not doing well. I went around asking for friends, but there was nobody who had seen him outside of work in days and days. As I took the stairs, I noticed that there were cat paw prints on the walls, where the cat hadn't 'walked', but instead had 'clawed' as if trying to get away from something. They were not anywhere else in the house and so, I thought if the fire came from anywhere - it could have been caused the cat and could've come from the upstairs. Perhaps he had left some matches out or something. But again, I was wrong.

No matches.

No device.

No gasoline.

Nothing.

But then there was a smell. I stood on the landing to his first floor and took a deep breath in. I swear I could smell something like petrol. I had no idea where it was coming from until I looked up at the attic.

Inside the attic were clothes, all burnt up. There were empty food packets and a lamp. I couldn't understand what Jim might have been doing up here because apart from all of this burnt up stuff, it didn't look like anyone had been here for a while. I saw the charred remains of the floorboards and some footprints left in boots.

Boots far too big to belong to Jim."

Chilling Folklore, A Podcast: Spring, 2020

"Today on Chilling Folklore, we bring you the story of Jim and his cat, Alias. This involves a boy in school watching a video on his phone about five or six years' ago. He had downloaded a movie to his cell and in that movie, there was a dodgy break. A man can be heard saying that someone 'made him do it' whilst the viewer can see a house in flames. Inside the house are two occupants: a man named Jim and his cat, Alias. Little is known about them but the video abruptly cuts to black. Only a few seconds later does a fuzzy face come into view with a lit torch of fire. He screams: your house is next!

Nobody knows where the video really originated from or if it is real at all. But here's the weird part - the boy who discovered the video died in a house fire only a few weeks later.

Thankfully he had shared it to his social media though and so, we too have a copy of it...

We have uploaded it ourselves to our YouTube channel but we will be playing the audio here for you.

How much of it do you believe?"