Signs & Omens

The first video wasn’t much to look at. Wes had filmed it on his phone with a tripod his wife Rachel bought for twenty dollars. He spent most of the video talking about where the superstition came from, or at least where people thought it came from. There were several explanations, which Wes would eventually learn was true of most superstitions. One involved the triangle formed by a ladder leaning against a wall and the idea that walking through it profaned something sacred. Another claimed the association came from ladders used at executions. Wes didn’t pretend to know which explanation was right. What he did know was that millions of people still avoided walking under ladders even when there was no practical reason not to.

Wes Clines called bullshit.

He doubled down on that call by sourcing thirteen ladders from family, friends, and neighbors. He leaned them up against the long brick wall behind his brother-in-law’s auto body shop and walked beneath every single one of them while the camera rolled.

Nothing happened.

That video got just under two thousand views, which was about nineteen hundred more than Wes expected.

Salt came next. He bought twenty-six containers of it, arranged them in two rows of thirteen like dominoes on either side of him across his kitchen counter and the folding table he’d hauled in from his garage, then explained to the camera why spilling something that most people kept next to the pepper had once been taken very seriously. He told the audience that salt had once been a precious commodity, valuable in ways that were difficult to appreciate when you could buy a container of it for less than two dollars. Salt preserved food, was used in religious ceremonies, and had been associated with purification and protection for centuries.

Somewhere along the way, spilling it became bad luck, and throwing a pinch of it over your left shoulder became one of several ways to undo whatever damage you’d supposedly done. Wes had no intention of undoing anything. He reached out to the nearest containers and started the cascade, spilling salt across the counter, the table, down to the tile, and onto his shoes. Rachel walked into the kitchen while the camera was still recording, took one look at the mess and asked him who exactly he thought was going to clean all that shit up.

That clip got shared more than the original video did, but his subscriber count grew, and his audience started sending Wes suggestions. He took the four most popular suggestions and created a poll on his channel, Signs & Omens. With a whopping seventy-nine percent, black cats won. He could have gone to a shelter and held a black cat for ten minutes and called it a day, but that wasn’t how Wes did things. So Wes adopted three black cats.

Rachel named the one in the pink collar Salem before they had even made it out of the shelter. She named the one in the purple collar Sabbath during the drive home, at which point Wes complained she was leaning pretty heavily into the exact superstition he was trying to debunk. Rachel told him he could name the one in the green collar himself if he had a problem with it.

He named him Pickles.

Salem was aloof and generally wanted nothing to do with Wes unless he had food. Sabbath had an unfortunate habit of planting herself directly in front of the camera whenever Wes was trying to film. Pickles was an idiot. He fell off furniture, got his head stuck in a tissue box once, and during the black cat video itself, he attempted to jump from the back of the couch to the bookshelf and missed badly enough that Wes couldn’t stop laughing.

That video changed everything. Within a month his channel received more than half a million views, and subscriptions to the channel had quadrupled. Wes made a follow-up video introducing the cats properly and pointed out that adopting three supposed harbingers of misfortune had been the luckiest thing he’d done since starting the channel. That video did even better, and Rachel chalked it up to one irrefutable truism: The internet loved cats.

The mirrors came after that. By then Wes had enough money coming in from views to put some of it back into the videos. He bought an actual camera, better microphones, and good lighting. He also convinced a friend named Noah to help with editing. The production got cleaner, and the history portions began to look more like short documentaries than a guy talking into a camera, but the premise never changed. Wes would take something people were afraid to do, and then do that thing in the most egregious way possible.

Seven years of bad luck for breaking a mirror was one of those things that almost everyone knew, even if very few people could explain why. Wes spent the first part of the video going through the different explanations, from the ancient idea that reflections contained some part of the person to later beliefs surrounding mirrors and the soul. Then he put on safety goggles, a full jumpsuit, and gloves, picked up a baseball bat, and broke forty mirrors in a row. By the time he was delivering his final lines, he was rather winded.

“That’s two hundred and eighty years of bad luck. So if anything happens to me between now and 2306, you know who’s to blame.”

Nothing happened. Nothing ever happened.

Wes filled every room of his house with open umbrellas, put dozens of pairs of shoes on every surface that could reasonably be called a table, stepped on cracks while Rachel filmed his mother watching him do it over FaceTime, put enough hats on a bed to stock a Lids in a mall, and spent an entire Friday the thirteenth seeing how many different superstitions he could violate before midnight.

Bloody Mary was the first one that made him nervous. He never said that in the video, and when people accused him of being scared in the comments afterward, Wes denied it. The hesitation they kept pointing out had been exaggerated in editing. But he did hesitate, and there was one simple reason for that. Standing alone in a dark bathroom and saying Bloody Mary into a mirror was fucking creepy.

Before he turned the lights off, he explained that the legend itself had changed over time, and even the number of times you had to say her name varied depending on who had terrified you with it at a sleepover when you were twelve. Wes talked about the older divination rituals involving mirrors and candlelight, then about the way the human brain handled faces in dimly lit reflections. Stare at yourself long enough under the right conditions and your own face could begin to distort. Features disappeared. Others seemed to shift. Your brain tried to fill in information your eyes weren’t giving it, and if somebody had already told you there was a dead woman waiting inside the mirror, your brain had a pretty good idea what to put there.

Knowing all of that didn’t make saying her name any easier.

One candle burned beside the sink. The mirror was old and spotted around the edges where the silver was foxing. Noah had found the house specifically for the video, striving for authenticity, and settled on a Gilded Age mansion. Wes was alone with a tripod when he killed the lights, and he was left staring at his own face floating in the glass.

“Bloody Mary.”

He waited.

“Bloody Mary.”

Wes knew nothing would happen, but his grip still tightened on the edge of the sink.

“Bloody Mary.”

For a few seconds, there was only candlelight and his own reflection looking back at him. Then Wes laughed, turned on the lights and opened the door.

“See.”

The relief that washed over him in his rush to open the door embarrassed him more than the momentary fear had. But when that video passed ten million views, feeling embarrassed was the farthest thing from his mind.

The channel had grown large enough that suggestions came in faster than anyone could read them, and Noah suggested they hire some help. Soon after, Wes hired his cousin Megan to handle submissions, and Erin, a local history buff and fan of the show, to help with research. They also had enough sponsorship money to rent locations when a video called for it. And Salem, Sabbath, and Pickles always received a cameo.

Most of what people sent to the Signs & Omens email were repeat requests from people who had not bothered to look at his past videos or were things that were interesting but had no historical evidence to back them up. Wes loved the concept of the Backrooms as much as the next guy, but the earliest mention of them he could find was on 4chan in 2019. The whole point was to take something people had actually believed and show that there had never been anything to fear.

The next email that managed to survive the filters had no source attached and no long explanation of why Wes needed to take it seriously. It was just two sentences from a guy named Colin in Vermont.

My grandfather always said you never set a place at the table for a dead person and then forget to invite them by name. Otherwise you don’t know who might answer.

Megan forwarded it to Erin to see what she could dig up. As it turned out, providing a place for the dead to eat wasn’t unusual at all. There were many cultures that played this tradition out as a way for a family to honor those who had given them life. But October had just begun, which meant they were looking for something big to do for Halloween, and Erin’s research kept circling back to Samhain, a night associated with a thinning of the barrier between this world and the one beyond it. The dead could return, but naming a person grounded the invitation in the family and made it clear exactly who was being welcomed before their hearth.

“And what exactly does one feed to the dead?” Wes asked after Erin had finished her initial pitch.

“I’m so glad you asked.”

Soul cakes came from a different tradition entirely, one that had ties to the emergence of trick-or-treaters. They belonged to later Christian observances surrounding Allhallowtide rather than ancient Samhain, and Wes intended to make that clear in the video. The small cakes were given to soulers who went door to door offering prayers for the dead. Wes didn’t need all of the traditions to fit neatly together. What he needed was a way to take Colin’s grandfather’s warning and go astoundingly overboard.

They decided to livestream it.

Noah rented the banquet hall. Ring lights and candles set the ambiance. They had placed thirteen tables in the center of the room with thirteen chairs at each and surrounded them with cameras. Erin made sure every setting received a plate, silverware, a glass of wine, and a soul cake from a local bakery that was more than happy to take her money once they were convinced she was actually serious. One hundred and sixty-nine places for one hundred and sixty-nine dead people whose names he did not know.

By eleven-thirty on Halloween night, 142,000 people were watching. By eleven-fifty, that number had passed 170,000.

Wes walked between the tables while the cameras followed, explaining Samhain, separating what historians actually knew from what had been added over centuries. He explained the spoken invitation and why the names mattered. He explained the email that had started this whole thing.

“If Colin’s grandfather was right, this is a terrible idea.”

At the stroke of midnight, 181,003 people were watching.

Wes stood in the center of the banquet hall. The live chat flew on the monitors. He cupped his hands and filled the room with his voice.

“SPIRITS WHOSE NAMES ARE LOST TO TIME, THE BARRIER IS THIN AND YOU ARE WELCOME HERE. THERE IS A PLACE SET FOR YOU AT OUR TABLE. COME AND EAT WITH US TONIGHT.”

For several seconds, nobody said anything.

Wes spread his arms out wide and turned his head as though listening for a response.

Nothing.

Erin and Noah laughed. Wes bowed.

The chat became a wall of laughing emojis punctuated by the jeering of trolls.

Noah was the first to stop laughing. His eyes were glued to the livestream.

“Wes…”

“What?” Wes said, turning away from the camera.

Noah had gone pale. He kept looking past Wes at one of the tables behind him, then back at the monitor. Finally, he raised a finger to point at a chair, then at the monitor.

“You need to come look at this right now, Wes.”

Wes stepped out of view and joined Noah behind the production table where Erin had also moved to.

She wore a dark dress buttoned to her throat, her gray hair pinned behind her head. Both hands rested on the table. She wasn’t transparent. She wasn’t otherworldly. If Wes had seen her anywhere else tonight, he’d have complimented her on her costume design. It looked like she had stepped out of a daguerreotype from the 1800s.

The chat noticed her too.

Wes walked toward her. The woman watched him approach on the monitor. There was nobody in the chair when he reached it.

“You still see her?” Wes asked, looking back at Noah.

“Yeah,” Noah said numbly. “She’s looking right at you.”

The chat exploded.

Then someone typed:

THERES A KID ONE TABLE BACK

“Wes,” Noah said. “Get the fuck back here now please.”

A little boy sat with his legs dangling beneath the chair. At another table, a man had appeared in a suit Wes guessed had gone out of fashion before the turn of the last century. Then there was another woman. Another man. A girl with ribbons in her hair.

Wes stood in front of the monitor and watched the banquet room fill on screen with a growing sense of dread that was falling short of panic due to one easily observable fact.

They all looked happy.

The old woman picked up her soul cake and took a bite.

“Oh my God,” Erin whispered.

Every seat was taken. Some appeared to speak to one another, though the microphones picked up nothing. One man lifted his wine glass and appeared to offer a toast to the only living occupants in the room before taking a drink. A woman at the table closest to them was laughing at something the man beside her had said.

When Wes looked up from the monitor, it was an empty banquet hall. The soul cakes and wine were undisturbed and the cutlery unused. When he looked back down at the stream, the nameless dead were contentedly feasting. He had no words for what he was seeing.

The chat had plenty.

MY KITCHEN CABINET JUST OPENED ON ITS OWN

Wes my fucking chair moved

Something just knocked a picture off my wall

Okay whoever is doing this shit STOP

The comments scrolled past almost as quickly as Wes could read them, and they just kept coming.

MY BEDROOM DOOR JUST SLAMMED

Something threw a glass

My dog is freaking the fuck out yall

Then another:

Its fake af they got actors LOL

Nothin happnin here

Same. headphones?

Airpods.

Me too headphones nothing

Then:

TV SPEAKERS. MY FUCKING TABLE JUST MOVED.

The pattern took less than a minute to establish once someone noticed it.

HEADPHONES SAFE

IM ON SPEAKERS AND SOMETHING IS IN MY HOUSE!!!

Muted with captions. Nothing

Phone speaker and my cabinets are opening

Wes stared at the comments, the pieces sliding into place.

“Oh, fuck me.”

His voice had filled the banquet hall, but it had also come through televisions, laptops, phones, and soundbars in thousands upon thousands of homes.

Noah opened another window on his laptop and clicked on someone’s live reaction feed. A woman screamed off camera as what appeared to be a kitchen chair flew past the screen, followed moments later by the visage of a very pissed-off man wearing a tuxedo.

Wes looked around the banquet hall. All was calm. On the monitor, the dead sat peacefully at the tables.

“The cakes,” Erin said.

Wes looked at her.

She pointed toward the tables.

Another comment appeared.

SOMETHING JUST TOSSED A PICTURE FRAME THROUGH THE WINDOW

Wes ran for the camera.

“If you heard the invitation through speakers, listen to me. Put food out. Doesn’t matter what it is. Bread. Crackers. A fucking Pop-Tart. Put it on a plate and leave it somewhere with a seat. Do it now.”

Thirty seconds passed. Then:

IT STOPPED.

Another.

HOLY SHIT MINE TOO

Then another.

Slice of pizza from the fridge. Everything stopped.

Wes closed his eyes as relief not born of embarrassment flooded his system while behind him, invisible except through the cameras, one hundred and sixty-nine forgotten people ate together.

“Rachel. Megan. Call me and let me know you’re alright. I’m so sorry. I didn’t…” Wes’s throat clicked and he forced a swallow. “Everyone listening right now. I’m so—”

“Wes,” Noah said softly.

Noah was on his laptop. He waved Wes over and pointed to a new video that had just been uploaded. The thumbnail showed Wes standing between the tables.

SIGNS & OMENS ACTUALLY SUMMONS THE DEAD — NOT FAKE

The clip had been online for four minutes. It already had over 38,000 views.

Wes looked at Noah as the video began to autoplay.

From the laptop speaker, he heard his own voice as it began to shout.

“SPIRITS WHOSE NAMES ARE LOST TO TIME—”

“Turn it off.”

Noah slammed the laptop closed. Not that it mattered much.

The internet loved to share.