(C) 2021 CHRIS TONEY – All Rights Reserved

Written By Chris Toney

RATED R – For Language

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It was May of 2019, and the time had finally come to clock out as Willie finished his last day of work at Big Mart. He was about to graduate from high school and he was SO ready to move on to greater things. He had a head full of dreams and nothing but opportunities on the road ahead. He went to the office and picked up his next to last paystub, then kept up a steady stride down the employee hallway, across the store, out the front door, and across the lot until he was close enough to his car to hit the remote unlock on his keyring. He drove a black 1998 Pontiac Sunfire GT. His only priority this evening was to celebrate the start of a better job and college acceptance. But first, he had to pick up his girlfriend from work.

Willie’s girlfriend, Liza, worked at a thrift store. She was scanning items at her register and heard the bells jingling on the doors, so she looked up to see her boyfriend Willie walking in. “Hey,” said Willie as he walked up behind her and put his arms around her waist. Liza could see her supervisor eyeing her uncomfortably through the open door of his office so she smiled and pushed Willie’s hands back.

   “I’ve still got, like, 23 minutes,” she said. “Go look around for a while. You never know what you might find.” She kissed him on the cheek. Willie sighed and walked over toward the electronics section. He had never been to a thrift store before. He always assumed it had something to do with sewing because “thrift” made him think of the word “thread”. He wasn’t going to college to be an English teacher, his interest was sports and business. He browsed through various stereos and telephones and outdated satellite TV receivers and so on, until he happened upon something he had never seen before. It looked like a player of some sort but the slot was huge, bigger than an 8-track. “Did you find something?” asked Liza. It was a small town store, small enough that she could talk to him from her register.

   “Yeah, I’ve never seen one of these before. It says ‘Hi-Fi, 4-Head, Digital Tracking’ and then ‘VHS’. I’ve never heard of any of this before.” A voice came from the supervisor’s office.

   “You never heard-uh VHS?” The supervisor walked out and over to where Willie was standing. He had a slight southern accent. “We used to watch movies on them. It plays a VHS tape. That’s how everybody watched movies back in the 80’s and 90’s. Fuckers were damn expensive too, at one time.”

   “Does it still work?” asked Willie.

   “Should,” said the supervisor. “I don’t sell broken bits and pieces like stupid-ass Shelby does over on Beal Street. I don’t try to resell it if it don’t work.”

   “Huh. Where can you buy movies at?” asked Willie.

   “I got a few over here by the DVDs and Blu Rays. Actually, somebody just dropped a whole box of em off earlier today. Hold on.” The supervisor walked into the back room and came out carrying a cardboard box. He sat it down on a table that was for sale. “I haven’t had a chance to go through ’em yet but you can take a look. Just make sure they’re not moldy. Never know what-cher gonna find.” Willie rummaged through the box of tapes looking at each one. The supervisor explained how to look for mold, how the tape went in the player, the difference between VHS and Beta, and so on. “Now that we got HDTV, it’s hard to believe the prices we paid for these, but it was the best we had back then. You play a video one time and it’s already got wear and tear.” He smiled. “We didn’t care though. We’d watch the crappiest tapes with the worst movies you’ve ever seen and we’d have a BALL.” He laughed. The phone in his office rang. “Ope, I better get that.” He disappeared. Willie continued to look through the box, but nothing really caught his interest, until a tape seemed to appear out of nowhere, down at the very bottom. Willie picked it up, the cover really stood out. It had a picture of an ugly creature just looking at you, and there were big pinkish red letters that spelled the word “Demons”. Above that in smaller letters it read “A Film By Lomberto Bava”. For some reason this intrigued Willie. For just a second it almost looked like the creature moved or was breathing or something. He felt a little creeped out but blew it off.

   Willie took the video tape and VCR to the cash register to check out. Liza rang everything up and took Willie’s cash, then shut the register, took off her work vest, grabbed her purse from under the counter, and went to the office to clock out. She walked out of the office and over to Willie and put her arms around his neck, leaning her head in for a kiss. They smooched, then Willie picked up his purchase, and together they walked out the door, unaware of the fate that await them both…

TO BE CONTINUED