FINGERFAMILY.avi
Prologue
It was a hot summer in northern New Jersey. I was searching for a Finger Family song to burn onto a DVD for my 9-month-old cousin to watch since he loved to listen to nursery rhymes for fun. I searched far and wide for the perfect video: one that didn't have any superheroes or princesses on them. I visited YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, and many other websites for a video, but attempts were never successful because all I found were corny videos that sounded the same and had common characters on them.
After two long hours of boring searches, I came across a website that offered extremely unusual videos. When I typed "finger family song" into the search box, one result came up. It was a video simply called "FINGER FAMILY" that featured all five fingers, the PJ Masks, Spiderman, and Elsa on the thumbnail. But this was no ordinary thumbnail you would normally see on other video websites. Every character featured had black holes for eyes and were missing their mouths and noses. There were short pieces of text that included the following: "SUBSCRIBE OR DIE" next to Spiderman, "WE ARE THE BEST AND FOREVER WILL BE" next to Elsa, "WE ARE THE PJ MASKS. WE KILL ADULTS!" next to Owlette, and "FINGER FAMILY KIDS SONG OBEY OUR EVERY RULE OR ELSE!" next to the brother finger. This image disturbed me, but the video's title was self-explanatory, so I downloaded it.
Preparing the DVD
The file, titled FINGERFAMILY.avi, was approximately three minutes long and four megabites large, and featured only a black screen as its icon. The next day, I went to my local Target store to buy a pack of DVDs for my video so I wouldn't have to worry about the hassle of bringing my laptop to my uncle's house. When I got home, I inserted a blank, blue-colored DVD-R into my laptop so I could start burning FINGERFAMILY.avi onto it. It took five minutes to complete.
The Video Starts
Soon after the burn finished, I drove to my uncle's house and gave the DVD to him. We had to preview the DVD first before showing it to my cousin, so I placed the disc into the DVD player and let it play. When the main menu came up, one option was listed. Of course, it was the video, FINGERFAMILY.avi. My uncle insisted, "Click it." I was a bit too nervous to watch the video since it had a scary thumbnail, but I played it anyway.
The video started with an intro featuring a demonic Elsa zooming in front of us and a piece of "Let it Go" played in a reversed g-major effect. It lasted ten seconds before cutting to the Finger Family song. The song didn't have that extremely catchy beat to it. Instead, we heard a demented version of overused royalty-free music from YouTube, accompanied by the ear-renching laughter and screaming of children in the background. A dancing Minion with only a mouth full of vampire teeth and a dark red outfit was waving his arms in the air for five seconds before a bleeding zombie hand appeared with the same finger puppets I saw on the thumbnail.
The Thumb
The song started off with an eerie female voice that sang, "Bloody thumb, with all the blood, where are you?" It zoomed in to the thumb, who started to seep blood out of his eyes. He answered, "Here I am, here I am, I'm ready to kill you." He pulled out a butcher's knife and threw it at the fourth wall, then it fell onto his head, slicing him in half.
The Index Finger
It faded to the hand again, and the voice sang, "Bleeding mother, who had the kids, where are you?" The index finger started to bleed out of her clothes. Then she said, "Here I am, here I am, my husband is dead." She took out a gun and shot herself in the head.
The Middle Finger
Once again, it faded to the hand. The voice then sang, "Big boy, who hates his parents, where are you?" The middle finger became extremely angry and started growling. He yelled, "Here I am, here I am, I seriously hate you!" Then he grabbed his father's knife, cut himself off the hand, and jumped off, falling to his eventual death.
The Ring Finger
After the middle finger died, it faded back to the hand, now missing three fingers. The voice sounded deeper this time. It sang, "The young girl, with the pigtails, where are you?" The ring finger started to cry, but her tears weren't bloody. They were the usual cartoon tears normally seen in other videos. She wept, "Here I am, here I am, I miss my mommy and daddy." She cried and cried until she lost her breath and passed out.
The Pinky Finger
The screen faded to the hand one last time. The voice sang, "Little baby, little baby, where are you?" The pinky finger kept whining and screaming at us. He cried, "Here I am, here I am, I am done with you!" He choked himself with a noose that dropped down to his neck, eventually killing him. The voice began to cry. It whimpered, "All of the fingers are now dead. But guess what? You're... next..."
The Video Ends
After that, the screen cut to black, and realistic blood splattered all over the fourth wall. I thought that the voice actor just committed suicide without showing anyone what weapon she used. Then it cut to a scene showing all five fingers dead on the ground. Blood puddles surrounded them, along with the knife and gun used during the song. The instrumental version of the song in reverse played in the background. This scene lasted for a minute before ending with a black screen.
Getting Rid Of The DVD
After the video ended, me and my uncle were scared to death that something bad would happen to us and my cousin later. Now that we knew that this video contained disturbing content, my uncle decided to bury the DVD in a deep, dark spot under the trees in his backyard, where it would never be seen or heard of again. I felt much better after he was done burying it.
Epilogue
Later that day, I bought a Little Einsteins DVD for my cousin to watch instead since he loved that show and it was the only one that would keep him quiet. While he was watching the episodes, I thought to myself, "thank God he never saw that demented pile of dust we just buried. He would've been extremely frightened by it!" In fact, I had so many nightmares about the video, I couldn't count them all. But I completely forgot about it after I drove back home. Hopefully, I will never see that video or the website I visited to download it ever again.