dashcam footage. automatic car wash off the highway, 2:40am. the bay was empty when i pulled in. the cycle hasn't started yet. between the brushes at the back there is something standing upright. he was there too, off to the right. i drove through anyway. i don't know what else i was supposed to do.
Footage is AI generated. The archivist logs what the cameras
catch after everyone's asleep — a figure with a camcorder appears in every
transmission, always in the background, always recording something else.
CASE 086 — CAR WASH BRUSHES WRONG SHAPE
source: Dashcam unit, adhesive-mounted to interior windshield of a 2019 sedan, continuous loop recording across the vehicle's ignition cycle from 02:11 to 02:54 local time.
recovered: Three MP4 segments recovered of four expected; segment 003 truncated at the container level, with a manual delete flag set from the paired mobile application 41 minutes after cycle end.
Intake log indexes the recording to a self-service automatic wash off Route 9, bay 2, during posted overnight unattended hours. Site cameras were not networked; the dashcam is the only surviving optical record for the interval.
Segment 001 covers the approach. The vehicle enters the lot at 02:38:14 and idles at the payment terminal for ninety-one seconds. No other vehicles are logged in the frame. A secondary reflection on the driver-side glass, visible only between 02:39:02 and 02:39:05, resolves under enhancement as a stooped outline near the vacuum stalls at the lot's western edge, one arm raised to shoulder height and cradling a boxy object with a short forward barrel. The outline does not reappear in subsequent segments.
Segment 002 is the clip released to the witness's own archive and quoted above in the intake caption. The archive affirms the frame as recovered: the bay is empty of vehicles, the brush columns are stationary, the service bulb at the rear wall is the only interior source, and between the rear brushes a tall thin upright shape stands with arms at its sides while the guide track begins to engage. No adjustment, stabilization, or interpolation has been applied. The witness's account of driving forward is corroborated by the track engagement audio on the same segment.
Segment 003 begins inside the wash cycle and terminates at 02:47:29, mid-rinse, without a clean closing atom. The final intact frame shows the interior of the bay through soap-occluded glass; the rear service bulb is no longer lit. The vehicle exited the property at 02:53:40 per municipal traffic camera timestamps at the adjacent intersection, wipers active, headlights intact.
Further material pertaining to bay 2 and to the figure logged at the vacuum stalls is held under separate index and is not cleared for distribution at this tier.
on-frame device clocks appear as recovered; the archive does not correct them.
the night log · never runs on the feed