Mark’s mind wandered as he stacked the VHS boxes on the new releases shelf. His first Friday shift at Vick’s Video in Seattle’s U District was just beginning.
It was his third week since starting. So far it wasn’t that bad by summer job standards. It sucked being the new guy, but he knew turnover was high in the video rental store business. It was only a matter of time before there would be another hire and he’d escape from the bottom rung of the ladder.
$5 an hour wasn’t much, but at least it was something. He had just finished his sophomore year at the University of Washington. His parents couldn’t afford to pay his tuition and he sure as hell wasn’t getting a scholarship, not with his shitty grades.
He was going to have to find some way to afford to stay enrolled if he wanted to keep working toward an engineering degree.
Mark heard the store’s front door chime. He turned his head and saw his coworker Danielle burst through the door. Her brown ponytail careened back and forth as she hastily made her way into the store. Sweat was running down her forehead.
“Sorry I’m late!” She exclaimed breathlessly.
“It’s okay,” Mark said. He couldn’t decide whether he liked Danielle. She was kind of cute, but her endless energy and constant talking were exhausting.
“Dude! Traffic was freakin’ crazy tonight!” Danielle raised her hands in a “what can you do” gesture.
“Yeah,” Matt said tonelessly. He was already feeling tired and his shift had barely started.
“How long have you been here? Has it been busy?” Danielle asked.
Matt shook his head. “Hardly any customers yet. Just that one old guy who always rents film noir movies. He rented Chinatown for like the seventh time. But the Kindergarten Cop tapes arrived today. I’ve been putting them up in the new releases section.”
Danielle nodded. “Good, I felt bad that you were the only one in here. Especially on a Friday. Reinforcements are coming. Dave will be here later.”
Dave was their manager. He had been running the store for the past four years.
“Yeah. It’s only, uh, 3:12,” Matt said, glancing down at his wristwatch. “I bet it’ll be busy in a couple of hours.”
“Oh shit, I’m a mess,” Danielle said, glancing at her reflection in the mirror that was hanging on the wall beside the front counter.
“I dunno, I think you look pretty good.” Mark said. He cringed internally.
“I gotta go into the bathroom for a sec and freshen up,” Danielle remarked. “Be right back, dude.”
She sauntered over to the employees only bathroom and slammed the door shut.
The store’s front door chimed again. This time it was Brad, a guy that Matt recognized from his mechanical engineering class.
“Hey, what’s up!” Brad exclaimed.
“Hey, Brad. We’ve got Kindergarten Cop in.”
Brad looked confused for a moment and then laughed.
“That movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger?”
“Yeah. Just came out on video.”
“I saw that in the theater. It was pretty good. I was thinking I should rent a horror movie tonight, though. Seems fitting, considering it’s the anniversary and all that.”
Mark had no idea what Brad was talking about, but he didn’t want to seem dumb, so he played along.
“Oh yeah, totally,” Mark agreed. “Ummm…let’s see. I’m not sure what’s new in the horror section. Child’s Play 2 came in a few weeks ago.”
Ah, yeah, Chucky’s rad, but I think I’m looking for something a little spookier tonight. You guys got Poltergeist?”
“Yeah, all three of ‘em are over there.”
“Awesome!”
Brad walked over to the horror section and snatched the Poltergeist movies plus The Amityville Horror. Apparently he was really into hauntings tonight.
“Those are due back on Sunday and, uh, be kind and rewind, okay?”
Brad laughed and nodded in agreement. “See ya in class, man!”
Matt heard water running in the faucet in the bathroom. His erstwhile coworker was finally ready to make her official shift debut.
Danielle swung open the door. “Muuuch better,” she said. “All right, do you want to be at the counter or finish putting up the Kindergarten Cop tapes?”
“Uh, Kindergarten Cop,” Matt replied.
“Cool,” she said, strolling over to the counter.
“Brad was just in here. He said something about renting horror movies because of the anniversary, “ Mark said.
Danielle snickered. “Yeah, that’s Brad. He’s got a dark sense of humor.”
Just stay quiet. Don’t ask, Matt thought. But his curiosity got the best of him.
“What was he talking about?”
Danielle raised her eyebrows and put her hands on her hips. “You don’t know?”
Mark felt his face flush. “I’ve only been attending college here for five months, remember? I had to transfer here in the middle of the school year because of my dad’s new job.”
“I’m just messin’ with you,” Danielle said. She smiled but there was a hint of tension in her voice. She sighed. “Yeah, so we had a little tragedy here last June. The 15th, to be exact.
“So, today,” Mark said.
Danielle nodded. “A year ago today. There was this girl who worked here. Sally Goodman, a senior at Ridgecrest High. She was working the late shift all the way to closing time at ten. She’d been doing that for a few months. Loved the extra pay, and I guess her family really needed the money. That night, a customer came in at around closing time. All the lights were on, but the store was empty. There was no sign of Sally anywhere. The customer called the cops. The detectives figured she had maybe run off somewhere and would show back up soon. But she never did.”
“Did they ever find her?” Matt asked.
Danielle shook her head. “Absolutely no trace. Her parents were totally shook, of course. They told the police that she had been acting strange lately. Sneaking out at night and refusing to tell them where she had been. They wondered if she had a secret boyfriend or something. But the case went cold. At this point, everyone pretty much assumes that she’s dead.”
“Did you know her?”
“Nope. I’ve only been employed here for ten months. Nobody that works here now was around then. Except Dave, of course. I…ummm…” Danielle looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable.
“I was pretty much her replacement, I guess.”
“That’s sketchy,” Matt said.
“Yeah, no shit. But that’s not the end of the story. After she disappeared, weird stuff started happening in the store. Tapes would fly off the shelves. I swear I saw one smack Dave in the head when he was walking through the thriller section. We kind of turned it into a joke. Everyone said Sally had come back to haunt the store. We nicknamed her Spooky Sally.”
She paused for a moment to grab a water bottle out of the cooler in the back behind the counter.
“I also heard strange noises when I was working the night shift. Like, weird moans and stuff like that. And I know what you’re thinking. I checked the porn section, but it was empty. Cross my heart! No customers anywhere.”
Mark’s face reddened.
“After what happened to Sarah, nobody was allowed to work the late shift by themselves anymore,” Danielle explained. Dave has always claimed he hasn’t heard or seen any spooky shit going on in here, but I think he’s full of it. Anyway, he got tired of everybody saying that the store was haunted and threatened to fire anybody who talked about it. So I’ve clammed up. Don’t tell him I told you about this, okay?”
“Oh, sure, sure, no problem.” Matt said. “I know I haven’t been here long, but I haven’t seen anything weird yet.”
“Yeah, it mostly happens during the night shift,” Danielle said, leaning toward him and whispering so the customers wouldn’t hear. “We’ve been having you work days because they’re slower and you won’t get overwhelmed when you’re just starting out.”
“Until tonight,” Matt observed.
“Yeah, it’s a doozy to have today be your first night shift.” Danielle admitted.
The next few hours passed uneventfully. Customers began to trickle in and by 5 pm the store was packed.
“Wasn’t Dave supposed to be here by now?” Mark asked, looking at the long line of impatient customers in front of him.
“Yeah, where the hell is he?” Danielle whispered. “I haven’t heard from him since this morning. He told me he had stopped by before opening to put some of the old merchandise in storage.”
The hours rolled by until it was after 9 pm, less than an hour before closing. Matt glanced out the window. It was finally getting dark. A waxing crescent moon hung in the clear night sky. He supposed it was fitting. Waxing crescents were associated with new beginnings, and this was first night shift at his new job.
There was still no sign of Dave. “He must be sick or something,” Matt remarked.
“Yeah. Well now that it’s finally quiet around here, it’s time to wrap things up. I need to show you how to store and restock the candy we sell up front. Come with me,” Danielle told him.
They walked over to the entrance to the storage area, which was filled with old props that they had used to market new releases – stuff like a life size cardboard cutout of Kevin Costner from Dances With Wolves and a giant poster of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Danielle reached into her pocket and grabbed her key chain. She unlocked the door and her eyes widened. For a moment her mouth moved silently as if she was lip syncing to a song that only she could hear. Then she began to scream.
“What is it?” Mark asked. His heart pounded. Don’t look, he thought. You don’t want to see. But he did look, and he did see.
Dave was lying on his back on the floor of the storage room in a pool of blood. The right side of his skull was caved in. His vacant eyes were frozen in gaping terror. A VHS tape was lodged in his mouth.
Mark heard Danielle’s voice in his head. He said he was going to the storage room this morning, she had told him. Dave had apparently been lying here dead for hours. Who could have done this, and why?
“Ohhh…ohh God,” Danielle said, pointing a shaking finger toward the back wall of the storage room.
Mark looked in the direction she was pointing. A teenage girl with skin the color of chalk stood there, but she wasn’t real. Mark could see right through her. I’m hallucinating, he thought. No, that was stupid. If he was hallucinating, Danielle wouldn’t be able to see her too.
The girl’s dark hair descended down to her shoulders. She was wearing an orange “Vick’s Video” t-shirt, blue jeans that were torn at the knees, and tattered black tennis shoes.
“It’s her,” Danielle said.
“Her,” Mark agreed. It was all he could think to say.
The girl said nothing. She crossed her arms over her chest. Her brown eyes, flickered downward and she titled her head, examining Dave’s battered corpse. She raised her hand toward Mark, as if in greeting, and then raised her eyebrows, as if wondering if he was impressed by her work. A faint smile rose to her lips.
Without thinking, Matt stepped inside the storage room and grabbed the VHS tape lodged in Dave’s bleeding mouth.
“Mark, what the hell are you doing?” Danielle exclaimed.
Mark looked at the tape.
“What is it?”
“Ghost Story,” Mark told her. That movie from like ten years ago about a ghost who takes revenge on her murderer.”
They both stared at the ghost of Spooky Sally.
“P-please don’t hurt us. We didn’t do anything to you,” Matt pleaded.
The ghost smirked at them, pointed skyward, and vanished before their eyes.
