Walking home one day you make an impromptu stop in a video store and there you find an old VHS of a sitcom you've never heard of from the 50's. Curious and a bit of a fan of watching old sitcoms for their surreal nature, you pick it up and get it working.
It's a lot like you expected. The show is called Charlie's Chaos, and features a young boy (named Charly) and the neighbor girl (also named Charlie, that was the sitcom's central gimmik) getting into trouble at home and school in wholesome 50's ways.
It's mostly children acting against adults who are long ago dead. A few of the children didn't make it to their 60's either, drugs and drafts and the general whims of life meaning statistically it was bound to happen to some. Charly and Charlie are both still alive, so scenes between them are preserved perfectly,
And then, in the background, you see a janitor. To still be alive the guy must have been in his late teens, early 20's. Wait, no you think. The 50's were 70 years ago. Sure, a long time, but there are plenty of famous people in their 90's who are still alive. Hell, Dick Van Dyke is close to 100 now and he's still around. How was this the first adult you've seen?
You start googling, curious, as you watch the show. The janitor remains the only adult you see.
What you come across is shocking. No one who was over 20 while this show filmed is alive today. What's more interesting is the dates of their deaths. Spread throughout years, every single person you can find died on the same date as the show's last episode aired, April 23rd, 1955. Sure, the actress to played the mom died on April, 23rd, 1968 and the actress who played the dad died April 23rd, 1972, but it's April 23rd.
And no death was natural causes.
Mysterious illness. Car accident. Home invasion. A tale of death spreading through 70 years that is linked only by a show and a date.
So, of course, you conclude, this janitor was the one behind it. Some drama on the set created a 70 year tale of revenge and you're the first to notice it. Obviously that's why the kids are alive and well. This guy had an axe to grind about something that happened when the show ended, but-
-you look up at the TV to see the janitor strangling the Charlies, one hand for each of them. The show's laugh track tells you that you missed a set up to make this something that was supposed to be funny, but it's not. The young actors are doing incredible jobs seeming truly terrified. If you didn't know that they had to be alive because they were still showing up on the tape, you'd honestly be worried for their safety.
Then the janitor looks over his shoulder and you see his face for the first time.
He's in his 70's. At least. Possibly 80s. There's no way old age makeup was that good in the 50's. But that's also impossible, because he'd have to be well over a hundred now. Still alive. And that's just...not how things work.
Someone disrupt the janitor. He's pulled away from the kids by unseen hands. The audience claps. The episode was a precursor to the Very Special Episodes of the 80's, based on the dialogue between the Charlies, a lesson about trusting strangers.
The rest of the show is as you'd expect for one this old. Creepy for its empty scenes, haunting when the kids act off people who died long ago, and cheesy when it's a scene that's just the Charlies acting off each other. You look it up and found their actors got married and stayed that way. They had successful roles after the show, but when asked about it interviews both of them refused to speak about it. One particular interview, from 1980's, features the male actor asked about this show. He rubs his neck and says to the interviewer - who passed away in the 2010's so isn't there - that he doesn't talk about it. Based on his reaction the interviewer pressed him, and the actor's hand once again goes to his neck and he tells the interviewer to "go fuck a cheese grater."
Colorful. You look back up to the show. It's the last episode. Charley's dad had become mayor, and was giving a speech to a modest crowd. Or he would have been. Instead the scene is empty, save Charley sitting on the stage, Charlie holding an unseen adult's hand...
And the janitor, standing at what would have been the back of the crowd, except plain as day for you to see.
You watch, frozen with terror you can't explain. You're half expecting this impossible man to look up at the camera, or pull out a weapon, or some other terrifying thing to scare you...but no. The scene ends. Charly is lifted into the air with a hug from an unseen figure. Credits roll.
You don't get closure. The Janitor's name isn't in the credits of any episode, he's not listed on the IMDB page. You spend a couple months half convinced that The Janitor is going to pop up behind you, or appear in your windows, but over time the strange event just sort of fades into background memory, a curiosity that you can't do anything with. You consider writing a blog post about it or making a video essay, but honestly people would just think you faked the video, and unless someone has these tapes they won't be able to confirm what you have is real. You make a couple posts asking if people had seen episodes, and learn that it's considered lost media. You have the only copy, but you feel oddly frightened to share it.
Time goes on. Life is normal.
And then, April 23rd, 2024, the actors who played the Charlies were found dead in their home. Cause of death was strangulation. They had hired a security team that day - they'd done so on that date every day for the last twenty years.
None of them saw a thing, and the new CEO - a man who took the role just a day before - of their company issued a press statement assuring people his men would cooperate with investigations and the killer would be brough to justice.
He looked to be 70. Maybe 80.
Same as he'd looked in 1955, strangling two children.