Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark

Sid's Video

As best as I can recall, I found the old VHS tape in a cardboard box on someone's front lawn. The yard sale signs had pointed me there, and since I'm big on finding cool old junk without paying extortionate eBay prices... I was game.
The box was marked "25 Cents", but just to show how much of a cheapskate I was, I had to ask...

"Twenty-five cents each, or for the whole box?"

The butch redhead shot me a glare, then her expression softened.

"Well, that's my asshole ex-boyfriend's shit-but I'm not an idiot."

I rummaged around in the moldy-smelling, slightly damp container. Nothing seemed that interesting, there were a few dusty action figures I didn't recognize and a Nintendo controller with its cord stripped and frayed.

Then, my hand found something hard and square, something brick-like at the bottom of it all.

"Sid's Video".

That's what was written in thick, red marker on the VHS tape's stark white label.

"What's this?" I asked the redhead, "Who the hell has a VCR anymore?"

I did, but there was no reason for her to know that.

"I don't know. I told you, that's my Ex's shit."

"Sid?" I asked, not really intending anything by that.

"NO," she replied. "And how is that any of your business?"

"I'll give you a dime," I reached into my pocket and extracted the coin, "just to see what it is."

The redhead got up from the rainbow lawn chair she'd been inhabiting, stormed over to me until we were nearly nose to nose, and took the tape from my hand with a rude yank.

Just as suddenly, she threw the tape to the sidewalk and mashed it in with one hippo-stomp. Black plastic shrapnel shot up a few inches from the pavement.

"It's all yours," she mumbled, storming away once more.

For a few moments, I stood there in a bit of shock. Then slowly, carefully, I retrieved the mashed casing from the ground.

"Thanks a bunch!" I passive-aggressively called out to the yard sale bitch.

Honestly, the thought crossed my mind that "Sid's Video" might somehow, some way, be footage of the girl herself. You know, in a bit of a compromising position. It was a long shot, totally unlikely, but it occurred to me that leaving the tape there would be letting pride overtake my interest in the item.

Besides, even if it wasn't smut, it could've been something strange. I was a big fan of strange at that point.

I put the video aside for a while, thinking that at some point, when I had nothing better to do, I would see if there was any point in trying to save it. There are tons of things around my house... tons of broken, weird things... that I intend to get to someday.

The video fell by the wayside, just another piece of clutter in a hoarder's paradise.

Then came the night I decided to re-watch a film. Jaws.

I popped the VHS tape into the VCR-both of which I'd had since childhood, having taken them (along with other videos) when I left my parents' house long prior. The classic opening scene, the steady build-up, I'd always loved the movie.

It wasn't until the end that I noticed something strange.

You know how it ends. We all know how it ends. Jaws ends up with an oxygen tank in its mouth, then BOOM, a single bullet detonates it along with the evil monster shark.