Tanner Reeves had always been a collector of the strange. He didn’t care about monetary value—he hunted for the obscure, the banned, and the buried. VHS tapes, especially the forbidden ones, were his specialty. His apartment was a shrine to dead media: shelves lined with dusty black rectangles labeled with hand-scribbled notes, old logos, or nothing at all. That afternoon, deep in a rundown flea market on the outskirts of Los Angeles, he stumbled upon a table covered in water-damaged comics and melted action figures. Beneath them, almost hidden, was a tape in a plain black case. No label, no markings—except one word scrawled in red across the tape’s surface: Bugs.
Tanner asked the old vendor about it. The man’s hands trembled as he muttered, “That ain’t a cartoon. It ain’t right. Leave it alone.” Tanner grinned. This was exactly the kind of thing he lived for. The more ominous the warning, the more irresistible the tape. He paid two dollars and left with the tape buried in his backpack, heart pounding with excitement. That night, with the lights low and snacks in hand, Tanner inserted the tape into his ancient VHS player. Static filled the screen, then the familiar Looney Tunes logo flickered into view—but it was wrong. The colors were dim, the background decayed, and the classic jingle played backwards, distorted like a damaged record. Then the screen cut to black. For several seconds, there was nothing. And then, slowly, Bugs Bunny emerged from the darkness, walking toward the screen.
There was no music, no sound at all. Bugs’ usual bouncy stride was gone, replaced by a twitchy, stuttering shuffle. His fur looked gray and matted, his limbs oddly stiff. Most disturbing were his eyes—black voids with glowing red rings around the edges. He didn’t smile in that charming, mischievous way. Instead, his mouth curled slowly, unnaturally, revealing a row of crooked, human-like teeth. Tanner felt his body tense. This didn’t feel like a parody. It felt… real. Bugs didn’t speak, didn’t joke, didn’t even blink. He just stared, and then the background changed to a dark, decaying forest where he began to stalk Elmer Fudd. But Elmer wasn’t the usual bumbling fool. He looked terrified, stumbling through the woods, face bloodied and desperate. Bugs followed behind silently, dragging a long, rusted carrot-shaped blade behind him, its tip scraping the ground.
Occasionally the screen would cut to close-ups of Elmer’s face, crying and whispering in terror. Bugs moved slowly, deliberately, always in frame, always getting closer. At one point, he turned directly to the screen, as if seeing Tanner through it. Then he whispered, in a deep, guttural voice completely unlike his usual tone, “You’re next, Doc.” The screen went black. Tanner blinked. The VHS player wouldn’t eject the tape. He tried the remote, the buttons, even yanked the power cord—but the buzzing continued. A low, vibrating hum seemed to seep from the walls, crawling into his ears, making his skin crawl. That night, he had a dream—or maybe it wasn’t. He was crawling through a tight, dark tunnel. The walls were made of packed dirt and roots. Something was behind him. A laugh. A whisper. “Eh… what’s up… Doc?” It croaked like something half-dead. He woke up with a start, his fingers caked in dirt. He ran to the mirror. His eyes were red and sunken, and on his neck were two small puncture wounds, like bite marks. Rodent-like. He told himself it was just stress. A bad dream.
But things only got worse. The next morning, the VHS tape was gone. In its place on the desk was a carrot—rotting and black, oozing some thick, sticky liquid. Tanner’s stomach turned. He immediately called Kayla, a fellow VHS collector and longtime friend. He tried to explain, but he sounded insane even to himself. Still, she heard something in his voice and agreed to come over that evening. Kayla brought her video camera. She wanted to document the tape, maybe upload it. But when they tried to play it again, the TV showed only static—until suddenly it changed. It displayed a live feed of the room. But something was off. In the footage, Kayla was smiling eerily, her eyes glassy and wide. Behind her stood a tall, shadowy figure with long ears and a stretched grin. Kayla turned around—nothing there. They both screamed. Tanner ripped the TV cords out, but the screen remained on. The image flickered again, now showing them both sleeping—footage that had never been recorded.
They ran to the door. It was gone. Bricked over. Windows too. The apartment was sealing itself shut. That night, the scratching began. At first, it sounded like rats in the walls. Then it got louder. Faster. Playful. Like someone sprinting through the drywall. Cracks formed along the ceiling, along the floors. They weren’t normal cracks—they looked like burrows, like something had chewed its way through. Tanner pressed his ear to the wall and heard chewing on the other side. Horribly wet, crunchy chewing. They decided to sleep in shifts. Kayla took the first watch. But when Tanner woke for his shift, he found her sitting upright, eyes wide, whispering “What’s up, Doc?” again and again in a high-pitched voice. He shook her until she blinked back to normal. She didn’t remember any of it. That was the final straw.
Tanner started doing research. Online forums, old collector groups, buried subreddits. Eventually, someone pointed him to an address in Arizona—an ex-animator named Melvin Crane. They drove through the desert until they found a trailer surrounded by rusted lawn gnomes and burnt film reels. Melvin refused to open the door until Tanner shouted, “It’s about the black Bugs tape!” The door unlocked. Melvin, gaunt and wild-eyed, let them in and bolted it behind him with four locks. “I hoped no one would ever find it,” he muttered. “We made it in 1979. Just a joke. Bugs turned bad. We animated him hunting. Just to mess around. But something happened. One guy started seeing Bugs in his dreams. Said he was scratching at the door every night. Another animator slit his wrists. A third vanished during the studio fire. We destroyed the footage. I burned my copy. But someone must’ve copied it. I thought it was gone for good.”
Kayla asked the question trembling on both their lips: “What happens if you watch it?” Melvin looked her dead in the eye. “He watches you back.”
Back at Tanner’s apartment, the changes were worse. Deep, twisting tunnels had torn through the closet, the bathroom, the ceiling. Dozens of carrots lay scattered across the floor—half-eaten, rotten, leaking black ooze. That night, Tanner vanished. Kayla found him in the bathtub, curled up and muttering, “I’m not Elmer… I’m not Elmer…” over and over again. The mirror above the sink had new writing scratched into it: CARROTS TASTE BETTER FRESH. She ran for the front door. The hallway was warped, twisted like a funhouse. The floor felt soft, like dirt. The wallpaper peeled back in long strips revealing more tunnels underneath. She turned back—and saw him.
Bugs.
But not Bugs.
This version stood nearly seven feet tall, his limbs grotesquely long and spindly. His ears twitched violently. His mouth stretched impossibly wide, filled with jagged yellow teeth. His eyes glowed red and leaked black tears. He raised a finger, put it to his lips, and whispered, “Shhh.” Then he croaked, “Tag—you’re it.”
Kayla screamed, but the walls were closing in, forming tunnels of their own. The apartment was no longer a home—it was a warren. A maze. A trap. When the police arrived three days later, the apartment was completely empty. No signs of Tanner or Kayla. But the neighbors had reported hearing scratching, giggling, and an old cartoon theme played backward late at night. Officers found the TV still on, playing static. The VHS player buzzed, and then the screen flickered—just for a moment—showing a single image: Kayla’s face, smiling wide, eyes vacant. And behind her, the creature. Bugs.
Rumors began spreading online. If you ever find a black VHS tape labeled “Bugs,” don’t play it. Don’t even touch it. Because the tape isn’t just cursed. It’s alive. It remembers. And if you watch it… he watches you. The scratching in the walls will begin. You’ll find carrots in your bed. You’ll hear laughter from the shadows. And one night, when you turn to run, you’ll hear a voice behind you whisper:
“Eh… what’s up, Doc?”
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