Really Strange Stuff

=::= Bailey's PoV =::=

"We go live in thirty seconds girls," I warned my girlfriends as I started the stream with tonight's intro clip.

This time Callie's 'silly calico routine' had her trying to find last month's stream, as if she'd forgotten about the big hacking incident. I wasn't sure I was ready to laugh about that yet, but Serenity thought it might help lighten things up a bit. Especially considering tonight's show was going to get into some heavy stuff, we didn't want to start on a sour note.

And sure enough we were already getting positive comments on the chat, viewers seemed to enjoy Callie's ditzy catgirl act. When the clip came to an end the title card went up and I gave my girlfriends a signal, then pointed to them as I switched to the main camera.

Tonight I had camera one on a wide-angle to cover both of them, while camera two was a close-up of Serenity and number three was close in on Callie.

"Hey, there we are!" the calico exclaimed with a grin. "Welcome back folks, for our April live stream! As always I'm Callie Wilson -"

"And I'm Serenity Varela," the tall ravenette interjected.

I had my foxcam appear as an inset in the corner of the stream as I smiled, "And I'm Bailey Hoffman."

Callie continued, "And this is Really Strange Stuff! Coming at you live as always from the RSS world headquarters, somewhere near Chicago."

"That's right Callie," Serenity took over, "And we've got another great show planned for you folks this evening. Tonight we'll be welcoming another guest on the show, but this time we'll be speaking with someone a lot more down to Earth. In fact tonight's guest is someone a lot of you viewers may well recognize, from the chat and our RSS discord."

Our calico girlfriend made a show of looking past Serenity at the two empty guest chairs, so I zoomed out the main camera a bit to reveal the empty seats on the stream. She was obviously doing her ditzy catgirl act again as she asked in confusion, "Wait what happened to our guest? Is he late?"

"I know he can't be waiting in the green room, because we don't have one," she added as she tilted her head to one side.

Serenity looked like she was trying to keep a straight face as she explained to the camera, "Our guest couldn't make it into the studio with us tonight, due to the harsh realities of distance and geography and the laws of physics. So he'll be joining us via remote video connection."

"So please bear with us in the event of any technical issues," I added as my foxcam popped up briefly in another inset.

"Oh right," Callie smiled. Then she added, "Hey before we get started, let's hear it for our moderators keeping the chat clean and friendly! With us tonight we've got Fluffkat, and I'm told they've just finished sharpening their claws, so don't underestimate this kitty. And we've got a couple new mods to welcome! There's Mei-Maus, the little mouse with the mighty ban hammer! And Dr. Ghost Witch, with the spoopiest of spells!"

Serenity waited until her cohost was finished before adding enthusiastically, "Shout-out Fluffkat! Shout-out Mei-Maus! And shout-out Dr. Ghost Witch!"

I echoed the shout-outs, but didn't bother with my foxcam this time. I was mostly focused on preparing things with our guest, who was waiting patiently in a video call with me. We'd tested everything in a dry run a few hours earlier, but this would be our first time streaming a live video call.

Meanwhile the hot ravenette host was wrapping up that part of the routine, "So in other words folks, let's keep the chat clean and friendly as always. You all know the drill by now, no bigotry no hate, keep it on topic."

At that point I gave both my girlfriends the signal, so Callie moved on to start the next segment.

"All right," the cute calico grinned. "So I know you folks are all wondering about tonight's guest."

Serenity nodded, "Good point Callie. I think that's enough suspense for now. Bailey what do say, can we get our guest on the screen?"

"Sure thing," I replied as I hit the split-screen control on the AV panel. "Let's welcome our very first remote guest, long-time viewer and active participant in the RSS chat and discord, none other than GrumpyDave!"

My girlfriends' images on the stream shrank to the left half of the screen, while our guest appeared on the right half in a head-and-shoulders shot. The quality wasn't great and the lighting wasn't quite bright enough, but all things considered it was acceptable.

He appeared to be a typical middle-aged guy, in his late forties or early fifties. Short messy salt-and-pepper hair and a short slightly-darker beard framed a fair-skinned face. He wore some unremarkable glasses with a thin silver-coloured wire frame, and what looked like a dark rumpled sweater covered his upper body.

Behind him was a large bookcase, that appeared to be overflowing with way too many books. From their size and shape they looked more like reference books or text books, rather than novels. And along with the books there were a few knickknacks and other personal objects arranged on the shelves as well.

"Hello GrumpyDave!" Callie smiled and waved at the cameras.

Serenity added, "Welcome to the show! It's great to have you on the stream tonight."

"Hello Callie and Serenity and Bailey," he responded, with an obvious Irish accent. "Thanks for having me. And you can just call me Dave, I'm not feeling especially grumpy this morning."

"Not yet anyways," he added with a smile.

Our ravenette catgirl asked, "Did you say morning?"

Dave nodded, "I did. It's a little after four o'clock Saturday morning here. So I hope you girls don't mind if I'm sipping coffee while we chat."

"Not at all Dave," I replied. "You and the rest of our viewers all know both our hosts usually have some beverages on the go during the stream."

Then Callie started her ditz thing again, "So wait we're talking to you from the future? Tell me Dave, what's the future like?"

He laughed, "It's not time travel Callie, it's time zones. I'm seven hours east of Chicago, and a little ways north too. Currently living just outside of Bergen in Norway, where I'm teaching at the local university."

"Nice," Serenity smiled. "So I'm sure folks are curious why we've got Dave here on the show tonight? It all started after Callie and Bailey and I spoke with some of our moderators last month. We got the idea to ask around among our viewers, if any of you have had your own personal experiences with the supernatural."

Our calico took over, "We sure did Sere, and we got a fair chunk of feedback. That led to some conversations, and it wasn't long before we agreed that Dave's story was something we think deserved to be shared."

At that point our tall ravenette host addressed tonight's guest, "So Dave I know you've got quite the story to tell. How did you encounter the paranormal?"

"Before I begin I should perhaps preface my story with a bit of a warning," our guest responded, and both his tone and expression were now quite serious. "This isn't a fun or happy story, and it doesn't have a happy ending."

That was something we'd all discussed ahead of time. Dave already shared his story with my girlfriends and I over text chat, so we knew this was going to need some content warnings.

With that in mind I activated my foxcam inset and elaborated, "Viewer and listener discretion is advised tonight. This is real life stuff here people, and may disturb or upset sensitive folks."

"Sorry Dave," I added as I deactivated my inset.

He shook his head, "That's quite alright Bailey."

"So this all took place back in the nineteen eighties," he sighed as he began his story. "When I was nearly eleven years old and my family lived just outside a market town in Ireland. I was the older of two children, my little brother Ben was eight at the time. The two of us got on alright, but not always. I imagine most kids that age have had at least the occasional, shall we say, dispute with their siblings."

"That sounds about right," Callie nodded. "I've got an older brother and older sister, and we definitely had our share of disagreements growing up."

Dave nodded as he paused for a sip of his coffee. Then he continued, "This particular day was during summer break, and I'd been saddled with looking after my little brother when what I really wanted to do was go play with my friends down by the local creek. I was none too happy about that, and maybe wasn't as attentive as I ought to have been. So I didn't really mind at first that he was lagging behind as we cut across some farmers' fields. Eventually though I realized he was no longer with me."

"I looked around in a bit of a panic," our guest stated, and from the tone in his voice and the distant look in his eyes it was clear he was reliving that moment in his mind. He almost sounded relieved as he said, "I spotted him off by the edge of some woods. We'd always been told to stay away from there, for various reasons. Some of the other kids said they were haunted, but most of the grown-ups said the family who owned that land didn't appreciate trespassers. However a few of the much older folks, grandparents and the like, told a very different tale. They said that those woods were claimed by the fair folk, also known as fae."

He let out a little sigh and closed his eyes then nodded, "And that is what I saw, right there before my eyes. She was tall, slender, easily the most beautiful woman I've ever laid eyes on before or since. Hair like spun gold, fair porcelain skin, and dressed in a fine white gossamer gown, this woman seemed to drift out of the darkness of the woods like something out of a dream. It was like she floated rather than walked, until she came to stand before my little brother. I tried to call out to Ben, I tried to tell him to stay away from her. He didn't seem to hear me though, so I started running. I knew I had to try and get my brother away from that woman."

There was another pause, and even though my girlfriends and I already knew the story it felt like we were all holding our breath.

Then Dave sighed once more and shook his head, "I was too late. It was like one of those nightmares, you know? Where no matter how hard you run you just can't move fast enough. And no matter how loud you shout nobody can hear you. I saw Ben talking to the fae woman, and she said something back to him. Then she took his hand in hers, and the two of them drifted away together into those woods before I could reach them. I..."

He closed his eyes and hung his head, "I was too scared to follow. So I turned and ran for home. I told my parents what happened, what I'd seen. My father went to search the woods himself, while mother made some phone calls."

After another sip of his coffee Dave continued, "Those woods seemed like a large scary place to a ten year old lad, but in truth it was no more than a copse on the edge of some estate. It couldn't have been more than a couple hectares? My father spent the rest of the afternoon searching for Ben. By evening he'd rounded up a couple dozen people from work and church, and they scoured the area. By the following day the police were involved."

Dave paused again for a moment, then shook his head. The guilt was clear in his expression and his voice as he stated softly, "I never saw my brother again."

"But," he added, "That's not the end of this story."

Hearing him say what happened in his own voice so we could hear all the emotions he was feeling was a very different experience to reading about it in point-form in a text chat, and it left my girlfriends and I speechless for the next few seconds. I was also surprised to find out there was more to it, since he hadn't shared any additional details in our earlier chats.

Then Serenity broke the silence, "I'm so sorry Dave. That's..."

"It's an awful tragedy," I added when Sere's voice trailed off.

Callie nodded quietly. Then a moment later she asked, "What happened after that?"

It took our guest a couple more seconds before he got on with the second half of his tale, "Three or four days later a man showed up in town. He claimed to be a special inspector, sent from Dublin. He went over the police files, then a constable took him to tour those woods. And they came back out less than an hour later with terrible news. According to this stranger, my brother had been the victim of a serial killer, some foreign man none of us had ever heard of before or since."

Dave's tone got darker and even a bit angrier as he stated, "They even produced a body. It looked nothing like Ben, I'd even go so far as to say it wasn't even real. But somehow this man convinced everyone, even my parents, that my little brother was killed by some random stranger."

"After that the police ignored what I told them, about the woman I'd seen. They stopped looking while my parents gave up hope, they gave up on Ben. They even had a funeral for him, they buried that fake body as if it was their own son," he said with a mix of anger and outrage in his voice.

"And with the case officially solved and closed, nobody wanted to hear any more talk of the fae woman. For the next year my mother kept taking me to some psychologist, while my friends and classmates branded me a liar and a fool for claiming my brother was taken by the fair folk. But I know what I saw, I know what really happened. The only thing I don't know is whether or not Ben's still alive out there somewhere, after all these years."

Then Dave scowled, "Thanks to Really Strange Stuff, I now know what that so-called inspector really was. He must have been one of those damned Council agents, sent to cover up the whole thing. He didn't give a damn about my brother, he was just there to make sure no-one learned the truth."

After another pause our guest stated, "So that's how I found out about the supernatural when I was just a lad. A fae woman stole my little brother away, then the Council came along and covered up the truth. Now as far as I'm concerned the lot of 'em can all burn in hell, supernaturals and Council agents alike."

Once again the three of us were quiet as we processed the rest of the details. And like before it was Serenity who finally broke the silence, "Dave I don't know what to say, apart from I'm sorry. And thank you, for sharing your story with us."

"That can't have been easy to talk about," I added. "If there's anything we can do..."

Then Callie pointed out, "We've got all the Council's case files right here. Dave if you want I could look through them? There might be some information on your brother. Or at least we might be able to find out what really happened to him?"

A thoughtful frown settled on Dave's face for a few moments, before he shook his head. "I might take you up on that another time Callie, but not right now. In fact if you girls don't mind I think I need to be getting off the call."

"Of course," Serenity nodded. "Please Dave, look after yourself. We'll follow up with you later, to see how you're doing."

Callie agreed, "Thanks again for being on the show Dave. And thanks for sharing your story. It was definitely some Really Strange Stuff."

"Take care Dave. We'll be in touch," I told him.

He gave us all a sad smile and a wave, before disconnecting from the call. Then I killed the split-screen and focused on my girlfriends, while Sere suggested we could all use a short break.

And with that, I switched the stream over to a thirty-second promo clip for the RSS merch store.