Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark

Happy, Happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...

"It's real... or was. Did you know that?"

"You're so full of shit."

"Whatever you say, man. But I can prove it."

"Then prove it," I sort of said, sort of yawned, regretting the words even as they were halfway out of my mouth.

"Stay right here," Jimmy said in that sing song voice of his as he heaved his fat ass up the stairs of the basement.

I took in my surroundings. One of those South Philly local comic book store eyesores, the ones that looked pretty bad up top and especially dank and awful down below. An out of town visitor might call it quaint.

A jaded local would just call it what it was: a fucking dump.

The wad of crumpled bills was beginning to get increasingly damp within the confines of my palm and I was getting tired of staring at the same faded 70's horror posters that adorned the walls of the cellar.

"Jimmy! Come on, man, I got shit to do!" I shouted up the steps.

"Just a sec!"

I sighed. First rule of selling pot: don't smoke your own product. Second rule: don't smoke your own product with your lonely customers, even after they already paid.

"I'm comin'!" I heard Jimmy gasp as he heaved and huffed his way back down the ancient looking wooden steps. Each individual foot fall was a game of Russian Roulette with the building's already shaky foundation.

"Check it," Jimmy seemed to breathe rather than actually speak.

The fat man spread his arms and a dozen different VHS tapes clattered across the old ping pong table set up in the center of the basement.

I picked up the two tapes that had landed closest to me. Both were blank with a wide piece of dusty white tape stuck haphazardly to the side:

"VF CRICK IT PROOF" and "PROJECT: DAVE" were scribbled across each respective VHS with what looked like a hurried sharpie.

"Jimmy, I really gotta get goin-"

"Hold on, just hold on!" Jimmy squealed excitedly as he reached within the pile of tapes and pulled out an especially dated looking piece of plastic.

He blew the dust off the top of the nearly faded brown VHS tape before holding it out towards me, grasped in his greasy palm.

I took hold of the tape as I finally pocketed the cash, deciding I was in it for the long haul now. I flipped the thing over in my palm as my eyes settled upon the label adorning the front of the tape.

It simply read "FBI" in large, black, bold letters. Neatly printed letters too, not a sharpie. And underneath it was a strange barcode:

"HIIISotW: TEST 2, D. 9.22.1982," I read it aloud.

"About a month before it came out," Jimmy said, all smiles. "This was the second test screening, actually. You wouldn't believe it unless you saw it for yourself."

"HIIISot... right, Halloween 3," I figured.

"Season of the Witch," Jimmy beamed. "Want some popcorn?"

I sat in a rotted looking bean bag chair in the corner of the basement as Jimmy wrestled with one of those large fuckin' TV stands on wheels every one of your teachers had in elementary school. Below the tube set was a very worn looking VHS player about the size of a Buick.

"You're not gonna believe it," Jimmy repeated for the umpteenth time as he popped in the Halloween 3 cassette and took the busted looking wheel chair that creaked idly next to the bean bag.