"The Strangest Security Tape I've Ever Seen" is a Creepypasta written by redditor powerhawkmash, originally posted to the Nosleep subreddit in May 2012.
An unnamed convenience store worker is given the store's security tapes by his boss and told to watch them to determine if his co-worker Jeremy is stealing motor oil. After seeing things start to repeat themselves and finding that Jeremy doesn't show up to work the next day he and his boss make plans to call the police...again and again and again. And things only get worse from there.
You can read it here
or listen to a narration of it here.
This story provides examples of:
- Ambiguously Human: He certainly looks human, but his godlike power over time itself makes one wonder about Jeremy. Not helped at all by what the FBI has to say about him...Oh Christ, we've got another one on our hands.
- Big Bad: Jeremy is the story's antagonist and the reason the protagonist ends up in a "Groundhog Day" Loop.
- Caught on Tape: The narrator's boss gives him the surveillance tapes in hopes that he'll catch Jeremy stealing. Instead he sees...something entirely different.
- First-Person Perspective:
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: The narrator gets stuck in a few of these throughout the story.
- Here We Go Again!: The story ends with the protagonist complaining about a weird new coworker named Jeremy, meaning that he has succeeded in trapping the protagonist in a time loop.
Then you wonder how many times he's done this to him... - Mundane Utility: Jeremy uses his control of time and space to... steal motor oil.
- No Name Given: The narrator and his boss.
- Oh, No... Not Again!: The response from one of the FBI agents the narrator is interviewed by, implying that the feds have dealt with someone (or something) like Jeremy before.
- Police Are Useless: The police seem to be more concerned with the stolen goods than Jeremy himself.
- Self-Made Orphan: Jeremy is implied to have murdered his family by setting their house on fire.
- Slasher Smile: Jeremy gives a pretty unsettling one when he realizes he's being filmed by the security camera.
- Time Master: Jeremy.
- Time Stands Still: Happened to everyone except for the narrator, who wondered about the gas station before heading home. When he was halfway home, time started back up again.
- Useless Security Camera: Considering that Jeremy is a Time Master, anything involving him and security cameras becomes this.
- Wham Line:
- "No sign of Jeremy. Tried calling him, but his phone has been disconnected. We're calling the police." Or rather, more to the point, the fact that it begins to repeat.
- After the narrator explains the situation to the FBI agents interviewing him, one of them says, "Oh Christ, we've got another one on our hands."
- The note the story ends on?I have some errands to run today, and then I have to go in to work to pick up some tapes. My boss and I think this new guy Jeremy (he's a complete creep) is stealing motor oil and I have to watch the security footage to see if I can catch him doing it.
