Margot jolted back from the screen. The gray forms swarmed over the girl’s puppet. The three of them thrashed together, limbs shivering, and then plunged downward, disappearing beneath the base of the screen.

For several seconds the image was empty, with only the static and Margot’s own pulse interrupting the quiet. Then, a fingertip appeared from the screen’s base. It was covered in some kind of dark paint. It smeared the color across the field backdrop, right where the girl had stood, then lowered out of sight.

The lighting grew strong again, simulating daylight, and the streak of paint became clearer. It was a violent red, fresh and glistening across the painted grass.

“The girl’s parents never saw her again.”

Margot bit her tongue, watching the image with sick fascination. A thicker section of the paint dribbled downward, then the curtains closed over it, hiding the images from view.

The camera moved, panning back from the curtains, then the screen cut to black. Margot waited, silent, not willing to turn away in case she missed anything else. The VCR player rattled. It ejected the tape, and the screen returned to a wash of speckled white, too sharp and loud. Margot scrambled to lower the volume again.

What kind of show is this? It’s made for kids. Young kids. What station approved this? Who signed off on it?

She hunched back, arms folded defensively around herself. She’d seen something right at the end, she thought, as the camera panned away from the curtains. It had only been for a fraction of a second. Almost against her better judgment, she dug through the magazines cluttering around the television set to find the VCR’s remote. It was dusty, its keys sticky.

Margot pressed the tape into the player and wound back, then pressed play. The curtains closed over the smear of blood. The camera began to pan backward, a distant mechanical whir barely audible. Just at the last second, the view extended past the edges of the stage. She thought she saw a sliver of the room the video had been filmed in. Then the image cut to black.

She pressed rewind, watching the images twist around one another, then hit play again.

As the camera drew back, Margot waited until she saw just the edge of the space behind the set and hit pause. She was too late. The screen was black.

She rewound again. Pressed play again. Waited, thumb just barely indenting the pause button, and squeezed it down. A fraction too early this time: a line of the background was visible, pencil thin, but it wasn’t enough to reveal the image she thought she’d seen.

Rewind again. Play. Pause. Again: rewind, play, pause. Rewind, play, pause.