3 Blockbuster Horror Stories

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Story 1. The Curst rental. I'm standing behind the counter, joking around with Macy, when the entry-door chime sounds. Hello. I say without turning around.

Welcome in.

Macy says with genuine excitement, it's how she always greets Blockbuster customers, and

it's one of the reasons I'm crushing on her so bad. Before we can resume what I hope is flirting, something hits me in the middle of my back. Ow! I spin around in time to see a raven-haired woman with tattoos all over her arms rushing

back out through the store's entrance door. At my feet lies a clamshell rental case, blue, white, and yellow with the Blockbuster logo. Before I glance away, I notice something odd. The first B in Blockbuster isn't yellow like the rest of the letters. It's a deep crimson.

What the heck was that about? Macy asks, her bubbly energy down to a low sizzle. Do you know her? I shake my head, watching through the store windows as the woman stops directly in front of a silver camera parked in the lot, which I assume belongs to her.

She freezes, seeming to stare out at nothing. A late afternoon breeze stirs the leaves, birds, peckets seeds, or insects on the grassy verge bordering the road. The tattooed woman throws herself onto the camera's hood, and slams her forehead into the windshield.

I suck in a shocked breath, as I hear the muffled thought. She slams her head into the glass repeatedly, weakening it with each head. Then she changes tactics, and jams her head into the middle of the weakened glass, creating a hole as if she's trying to warm her way into the car. Once her head is halfway through the glass, she starts whipping it, side to side, up and

down, like she's trying to do ultimate damage with the jagged edges of the hole.

“The scene is so insane, I'm paralyzed with shock, trying to remember if I've ever interacted”

with this woman before. But that paralysis breaks, and I leap over the returns counter, racing outside. As I approach the woman, the damage she's done to her face is sickeningly clear. Skin hangs from her cheeks and ragged flaps. Her eyes are completely ruined, leaking their delicate fluids and gels, along with their

precious blood, which is splattered all over the windshield now. Before I can grab her, she shubs her head all the way through the hole, and resumes her thrashing. But this time, the violet movements slam her neck into the edges of the jagged hole. Blood spews out from several wounds in her throat as I grip her ankles.

The canvas of her chup-tailer high tops somehow hot under my hands. The yanker out of the hole, doing even more damage to her throat, and my attempt to save her. I drag her off the car and onto the concrete. By then it's too late. Her blood is everywhere but where it needs to be.

She thrashes, rolling onto her back, her ruined eyes pointlessly staring at the afternoon sky, then she goes still.

reporters, strongman detectives, and barking acquaintances.

All of them asking the same questions over and over again. Eventually, the circus leaves town, at least temporarily. It's nearly a week later, and I've all but forgotten about the VHS tape that woman threw it me, until I see it again. They see an eye are working together, but there's no friendly banter, no flirting.

She seems to think the woman knew me, that it was somehow my fault.

“But try as I might, I can't ever remember seeing the woman in the store.”

That doesn't mean much. She could have patronized the place when I wasn't on shift. I'm manning the checkout desk while Macy works on restocking shelves, when I hear the familiar clatter of a video being pushed through the quick drop return slot. I turn around in time to see a tall, balding man straightening on the other side of the

return slot.

He glares through the window, his look so rage filled, I take an involuntary step back.

It takes me a moment to realize he's not looking at me, I glance over my shoulder, trying to see what he's staring at, but I see nothing out of the ordinary. When I turn back, I'm sure he's going to start slamming his head into the window, but he doesn't. Instead, he drops two his knees in front of the return slot, which is like a male slot in

a front door, only bigger, and without the hinge to metal flap. I can't see him because the slot is built into the wall below the window, but I can see through the return slot as he places his right ear against it, as if he's trying to

“listen to something happening inside the store.”

Sir? I ask. Are you okay? There's no answer.

My eyes flick down to the video he's just returned.

My throat thickens when I see that the case has two dark crimson letters on it, the B and the L at the beginning of blockbuster. I rush over to the window, slightly to the side of the padded crate that catches the returns. I peered down, seeing that the man has put a pistol to the side of his head.

No! My screen is obliterated by the sound of the gunshot. A mixture of blood, brains and skull bits, erupts through the return slot, creating a fan of gore on the floor and the crate. I stumbled back as Macy comes running up and starts screaming.

My legs go numb.

“I hit the counter and slide down, staring at the blood-covered rental case with the”

two red letters. The circus comes back to town. This time, it's worse. The cops tried to pin it on me, but they have no proof. I don't tell them about the video.

They'll just think I'm crazy if I tell them. They let me go with the warning not to leave town. I returned to the store for my last shift the next day, before they open again. Macy has outright quit. She refuses to step foot in the place again.

And she refuses to come near me. I'm tempted to quit without notice as well, but I need to now. I find the tape waiting on a cart, ready to go back onto the floor. It has been cleaned, along with the rest of the blood and brains that had once been in a man's head.

There is no title on the case, which is odd. I open it, no title on the tape either, just a plain black VHS. If there is a barcode on the cover, I scan it and pull up the tape's history. The police identified both victims. The woman was lorry to solve.

The man was Brian Creed. Their names both come up in the computer system, the last two renters, the only two. Where the title is supposed to come up in the system, there's only a blank spot. I throw the tape on the floor and smash it with my heel, feeling the satisfying crunch of plastic breaking.

What the hell are you doing? My manager, Ramiro, shouts as he rushes over. I pause, glaring at him. He holds his hands up and backs away. Two minutes later, the VHS is in pieces.

The tape ribbon ripped apart. Its pieces, along with the case, are in the trash, which I tie up and take out the back, tossing it in the dumpster. I don't bother going back inside. I walk around the building, get into my car, and leave.

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“I did this for a year before I stopped, confident, destroying the tape worked.”

More years past, I moved away, met a girl, got married. I tried to put the horrific incidents behind me, and for the most part, I do.

But I never set foot in a blockbuster again.

Shortly after our son is born, the three of us traveled back to my hometown, some my aging parents can meet the little guy, whose name is Tyler. One night, after dinner and putting Tyler to bed, the four of us are sitting in the living room, chatting. I'm so engrossed in a conversation with my mom and my wife, that I almost miss my dad

putting a VHS tape into the VCR. The device swallows the tape, and the TV screen comes to life. He still haven't switched to DVDs. I asked, amazed. My dad answers, something along the lines of, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

But I barely hear his words, because I'm so focused on the open clamshell case that now sits by the VCR. It's a blockbuster case, blue, white, and yellow, but there's something odd about it.

The first three letters in blockbuster are a deep crimson.

"Dad?" I asked, staring at the case, my throat dry. "Where did you get this movie?" At the blockbuster up the road, they were having a going out of business sale. I bought a bunch of movies for cheap. Footage comes on this screen, taken outside of a familiar blockbuster video.

In it, a dark-haired woman with tattoos steps out of the store and freezes in front of a Toyota, staring straight at the camera for several long moments. I know what happens next, but I can't stop watching. Without looking, I can tell my parents and my wife are also watching. When the bloody scene ends, a new one starts.

One of a man standing outside the returns slide at the same blockbuster. He stares through the window into a camera. On the TV screen, I see a younger version of myself turn and look. But there was no camera there, I would have seen it. I know what happens next, but I can't stop watching.

When the bloody scene ends, a new one starts. This one is familiar too, but in a different, more immediate way. It's a four people sitting in a living room, staring directly into the camera. Right where my parents TV is. On the screen, one of the men gets up.

It's me. Getting up, on the screen, I disappear out of frame. A few moments later, I come back with a sledgehammer in my hands. On the screen, I stand behind the couch, raising the sledgehammer and taking aim at the top of my wife's head.

As I slam the hammer down, I realize it's not only happening on the screen.

Allow me to ruin the mood for just a second.

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Welcome in! The man behind the counter said, has Dylan and I stepped into the air-conditioned interior

I had been in my own little world until I heard those two words.

“With them, a bucket of anxiety poured over my head, as I realized I would have to interact”

with people I didn't know.

When Dylan had first suggested getting high and going to run a movie, I thought it was

a fantastic plan. Now, I suddenly felt that I had a blinking neon sign hanging around my neck that said, "Stone!" with an arrow pointing at my face. Finally, my bloodshot half closed eyes, and the stupid vacant look I was surely wearing. Yo!

Dylan said with a jaunty wave, heading into the rows of shelves lined with DVD cases, baggy, JNCO jeans swishing. I made the mistake of looking over at the man who'd welcomed us into the store. He wore the obligatory navy blue polo shirt with the Blockbuster logo on the breast. We made eye contact, and his average white 30-something features seemed to warp as he smiled.

I faced forward and hurried after my friend. Wondering why I had agreed to go out into public, Stone out of my mind. It was only the third time I'd gotten high.

I was still getting a handle on it.

“I rushed through the store, which smelled sweetly of plastic and freshly vacuumed industrial”

carpet with a faint tinge of ozone from the several TVs placed around, playing movies on mute. The place was empty except for me, Dylan and the employee. It was nearly 11, closing time for the store on weeknights. Since it was summer vacation, and I was crashing at Dylan's house, we had free reign.

Dylan's parents were away celebrating their anniversary. Dude! I whispered to my friend. It was perusing the new release wall. "I think that guy knows we're high."

So? Dylan asked, selecting a display case from the shelf, and reading the back. Feeling as if the man's eyes were on me, I had to fight not to look. I thrust my hands into my pockets, feeling my can of Banaka mouth spray, all the rage these days, and Dylan's lighter, which I had absent-mindedly pocketed after caching out the

bowl in Dylan's car. In a frenzy, I pulled both items out, thrusting the lighter at Dylan, as if it was damning evidence of a heinous crime. "Jesus!" Dylan said, taking the lighter.

"Shill!" I took the little plastic cap off the Banaka, and sprayed three squirts of the minty stuff into my mouth. Then, sure that I wreaked of weed, I also sprayed my shirt. Dylan titted nervously, making me feel ashamed that I was freaking out.

"What are you doing, dude?" Before I could answer, my itchy eyes went wide, as the employee came walking over. His fat white sneakers, making hardly a sound on the thin carpet. His face was still doing that thing, like it was made of silly buddy, and someone kept stretching it in all directions.

I shoved the Banaka in my pocket, and yanked the display case off the shelf, pretending to read it, even though the words jumbled in co-herently. "Can I help you boys find anything?" "Uh, no, I think we're good." Dylan paused to read the man's name tag.

"Jimmy?" "Thanks, though." Jimmy remained where he was. I could tell in my peripheral vision that he at his hands clasped behind his back, as he leaned

“to conspiratorally toward Dylan, "Would you like to see the secret Reynolds?"”

"What?" "Like porn?"

Dylan asked, never wanted to beat around the bush.

"Not exactly," Jimmy said. "Like underground movies, the most violent, heinous, hardcore stuff you've ever seen. Some of it real." "Like snow films?" Dylan asked, voice high with unabashed interest.

I snuck a glance at Jimmy. One green eye seemed to stretch toward me as if on a stock. His lips wavered and stretched as he smiled, revealing not only all his teeth, but the entirety of his gums as well. I muttered, "No thanks," and went back to pretending I could read in my current state.

"Seriously?" Dylan asked me. "Don't put sound on me, man." "I shook my head." "Well, I want to see."

"Follow me." The melted-faced man said. Dylan put the display case back and followed Jimmy to a door in the far corner. "I watched them go, wondering if the horrible feeling in my gut was because of my altered state, or if something else was going on here."

Jimmy took a ring of keys from a pocket of his khaki pants and unlocked the door.

This time, black, insect-like legs broke through his stretched and unjulating facial skin,

“like some massive bug was working its way out.”

He stepped through the door, leaving it open. Given my angle, I couldn't see inside the room. I glanced around the empty store, heart beating hard enough to make me sick. I'm sure what to do. I eased away from the new release wall and toward the front doors, display case still

held absolutely in my hand. Before I could step foot in the horror section, Dylan shrieked in pain from the back room. His spine-curving cryc became muffled and then overpowered by a sense of wet rips and crunches. I froze in place, staring toward the open doorway, hoping this was some kind of joke. The sounds died away, replaced by the thud thud of my heart in my ears, and the faint

hum of recycled air whispering through the vents.

Jimmy appeared, stepping through the doorway, covered in blood.

His face was no longer morphing, and it was no longer an approximation of a human face. Three black appendages sprouted from each side of the monstrous visage. A vertical mouthlined with translucent teeth took up the lower portion, gray black muscles and sinew exposed from the lack of anything resembling skin. A line of three insect-style eyes, shiny brown and lacking irises or pupils occupied the

upper portion of the face. The rest of his head was either crawling with small, roach-like organisms, where the moving things were part of it, like hundreds of additional appendages. Dylan's blood dripped from this monstrous face as his eyes fixed on me. I ducked down in the horror section on instinct, sure this was no hallucination.

"I know you see my face," Jimmy called out. The words seemingly formed from the clicking of a dozen chit-ness body parts.

"There will be no leaving here."

"I bolted toward the door, dodging around the shelves of candy and popcorn, dropping the display case I'd been holding. I crashed into the glass and metal portal, but it didn't open. It was locked." Scrambleing to find the deadbolt, my fingers touched, smooth metal.

“The door could only be unlocked with a key.”

"If you hadn't ingested any metal wanted tonight, none of this wouldn't have happened." Jimmy said closing in "When some humans can see past our disguises with the help of THC, we're not sure why yet, but we will know soon." "I do myself over the blue counter, landing on a foam footpad behind the registers. I'm able to think of what else to do.

I grabbed one of the computer monitors, yanking its cords out as I lifted it above my head. I was thinking of throwing it through one of the front windows. But when I saw Jimmy rushing at me, vertical mouth opening and anticipation, I knew. I only had one option. I threw the monitor at him.

The leg-like appendages sprouting from either side of his face caught the monitor and snapped it in half. I scrambled over the opposite side of the counter and tried the entrance door. Locked. I dodged away. The creature followed as I backed through the family section, knowing I was about to die.

Dylan, I thought, "Oh, man, Dylan, implacable sadness swept over me as I thought about my friend. Hoping the und hope that he was somehow still alive." Her last interaction played in my head. The way he laughed nervously as I sprayed myself with. Banaka!

With that thought, a desperate plan came to mind. I darted around a shelf and pushed it over into the creature on the other side. A hundred plastic cases fell to the floor as the thing shouted and flipped the shelf back toward me. But I was already moving, sprinting into the back room and slamming the door shut.

“I locked it, knowing Jimmy still had to key.”

But it would buy me time to do what I had to do. Spitting around. I nearly vomited when I saw Dylan's body on the floor. His head had been twisted completely around and his face was like a butcher's pile of bloody, cast-off parts.

I dropped to my knees next to him, blood soaking through my jeans as I dug into his pocket, finding what I needed. Lurching back up. I heard the key sliding into the door knob on the other side. I positioned myself next to the door, lighter in one hand, and Banaka in the other.

The mouth spray had been banned at my school because it was highly flammable. Plus, more than one kid had been sprayed in the eyes with the stuff. As the door opened, I flipped the lighter, birthing of flame. I positioned the Banaka behind it until game. Jimmy walked in.

I jerked my hands forward, getting as close to his face as I dared before spraying the Banaka through the flame. With those strange appendages grabbed across the backs of my hands, gouging deep rivets in my flesh as Jimmy screamed and jerked backward, the flaming liquid down his face. Despite my pain, I kept after him, spraying as fast as my finger would go, setting fire

In his pained flight, he tripped over his own thick sneakers and fell next to a drama shelf.

“I dodged around the shelf and shoved it over, sending it crashing down on his upper body.”

I leaped onto the overturned shelf and jumped on it like a trampoline. I felt and heard his bones crunch as he struggled, but I kept jumping until he stopped moving.

When I finally climbed off the uneven shelf, both ankles hurting from twisting them as I jumped.

I was shivering with fright. Somehow, I still limped over to the store's phone and called the police. When they arrived, I was sitting against the wall, staring at Jimmy's lower body, which stuck out from below the toppled shelf. I was sure that when the cops lifted it, there would be a normal man underneath.

The horrific face having been a figment of my imagination. Maybe the weed was laced with PCP I thought, but when two cops lifted the shelf, they dropped it back down after seeing what was underneath.

“I caught enough of a glimpse to know I was wrong.”

The face was still there, although broken and distorted from all my jumping.

A lot of people think that Netflix put blockbuster out of business, but that's not true. That was just the story the public was told. In reality, a special wing of the US government found that blockbuster had been infiltrated by an extraterrestrial species who were putting subliminal messages into the movies to prepare for when the invasion of Earth started.

Two guys and dark suits found the necessary equipment in the back room. The messages were supposed to make us humans docile and appreciative when the invading force showed up. Over the next several years, a clandestine operation took place to hunt down each and every interloper who worked at Blockbuster.

“When they found the last one, the government forced the business to declare bankruptcy.”

The store's closed. Well, all but one. The last remaining Blockbuster video is in Bend, Oregon. You can see it for yourself if you want, but if you do, don't go in there stoned. No matter what. Story three, rewind, or die.

Oh my gosh! The man carrying a stack of rental tapes says when he sees me. Guard it! I didn't know you worked here. My throat clicks as I swallow. But I force myself to meet his gaze. It's my second day.

He sets the stack of tapes and their blue and white blockbuster cases on the counter between us. "Well, that's just great! Growing up, taking on responsibilities! How exciting!" His name is Todd, and his mom used to babysit me and my sister when we were younger. Although in his early 20s at the time, he lived at home and was often around when we were there after school. Sometimes even filling in for his mother.

The unwavering gaze from his narrow, light blue eyes brings back a rush of memories. Most of them bad. Gale-force winds whip at me as a recall one afternoon in particular. My skin goes tacky, and a cold sweat springs up in my armpits.

"He were always such a good kid!" Todd says, "Wistfully. His smile revealing

unnaturally white and straight teeth. He still dresses the same. With the pastel polo shirt tucked into khaki slacks with a brown belt. I can tell he's waiting for a response. My manager havers behind me, included in the stilted interaction by his close proximity. I only stare at Todd, trying to fight off the memories of that afternoon when I was nine, and my sister 12. When it's clear I'm not going to say anything more. Todd's smile fades. He taps the top

VHS tape on the stack and says, "Well, I'm going to find some other stuff to rent. Great seeing you, Jordan!" He shoots a finger gun at me with a wink and a click of his tongue before heading into the store. I stare after him. The hurricane of long buried emotions keeping me both tethered to the spot on the outside and thrashing on the inside. "You okay?" Liam, my manager asks, as he moves past me to grab the stack of return tapes.

"Yeah. Fine." I say. Still watching Todd, as he peruses the family section. "You sure?" I nod. Liam seems like a good guy, considering I've only known him for a few days. He's in his late 20s, with shoulder-length dirty blonde hair that mostly stays tucked behind his larger than average years. He wears holy jeans with pajama pants underneath, and he has an olive-green carting in over his blockbuster shirt. From far away, he looks a lot like Kurt Cobain,

the top one, popping the clam shell case open. "Some of the bitch?" he mutters.

"What is it?" Liam shakes his head. "Dude never reminds his tapes, not ever. There's a special

place in hell for people who don't rewind their rentals. I mean, it says it right on the fucking front."

“He points at the white label with the blue lettering on the VHS. "Please remember to rewind!"”

Liam's outrage over this minor issue gives me the push I need, serving to enraged me further. "Justice surprise me, the guy is a creep." Liam pauses before opening the next clam shell case. "What do you mean?" I shake my head, unwilling to say the words. "Nothing. He's just a creep, that's all." Liam stares at me. "Round eyes sparkling in a way I've never seen before. The moment stretches, and I look away, feeling like he's just been rooting around inside my head. He shifts his

gaze out across the store. Eyes settling on Todd. But he continues speaking to me. "You know,

you can tell a lot about a person by how they treat rental tapes and DVDs. I've been working here for a long time, and that's something I've found to be true. If someone consistently brings back

“tapes that aren't rewound or DVDs that are scratched just shit, you can bet they're in ass”

whole in other ways. I laugh. "Yeah, I'm sure. I'm serious." Liam says, "And he is. I can see it in his face." "I'm going to go stalk some more." As I walk away from the front counter, I glance back to see Liam opening another of Todd's returned tapes. His face contorting in rage at what he sees. For the next five minutes, I busy myself with stalking the shelves, trying to avoid Todd. But just as closing time hits, he comes over to me. "So, as your sister, I haven't seen her

in a long time." I can't help myself. The words just come out. "Don't fucking talk about my sister!" Todd takes a step back, looking genuinely shocked. "What? Why? Come on, man. I saw you too, come out of the bathroom that afternoon when your mom wasn't around. I saw the look of my sister's

“face. And the surprise on your face. She was fucking 12 years old. And you know what? She hasn't been”

the same since. You wouldn't know why that is. Would you, Todd?" Todd chuckles nervously and looks around. His face flushing. "Are you serious? What do you think happened?" "Don't play dumb. You know what happened. How many little girls did your mom babysit over the years? How many of them did you take to the bathroom? "That's ridiculous. Ask your sister what happened. She'll tell you. I didn't do anything." "Oh, I asked her. She refused to talk about it. Whatever you said to scare her

worked. You fucking sicko. Jordan, I swear." A baseball bat whips into my vision from my right. The sound of the aluminum connecting with Todd's skull makes my bowels go watery. I flinch, as blood splatters my face. Todd falls to the floor. His rental case is scattering across the industrial carpet. I stared down at him. At the flap of bloody scalp dangling from his head. Before I can take another breath, Liam drops the bat and kicks Todd onto his back. Straddling him.

He grabs one of the clam shells from the floor and rips it open, yanking the tape out. With one hand, he leathers Todd's mouth open. He jams the tape in with the other, but it won't fit. So Liam smacks it with one hand, ripping the corners of Todd's lips and breaking some teeth to get the VHS in. Hammering the hard black plastic with the side of his fist, Liam drives the tape farther in. He screams punctuating each syllable with the hammer of his fist.

Be. Swack. Kind. Swack. Re. Swack. Wind. Swack. Todd, who had been dazed from the hit to the head, suddenly regains control of his faculties. He gags, choking on his own blood, and the tape jammed into the back of his mouth. His hands come up, grabbing Liam's wrists. Memories flash across my mind. The horrified, far away look on Jenny's face as she came out of the bathroom. The way she grew solid and erratic in the months and years after that day.

The way Todd smiled at me when he came in, not even ten minutes ago. Driven by an overpowering rage, I stomped on the edge of the VHS tape sticking out of Todd's mouth. I can't tell if it's the tape breaking, or the back of Todd's throat collapsing.

But the sound is a million times worse than when the bat hit his head.

Todd's hands let go of Liam. They fumbled bonelessly at the tape.

ruined mouth, spasms, spews more blood from his nostrils, and then goes still.

“I sit down hard on the floor, panting, fighting the urge to puke.”

Liam lets go of the tape jammed down Todd's gullet and leans back. Harized meat. He smiles. A week later, Jenny and I are watching TV when we see a report about how police are still searching for information on the whereabouts of one Todd lips come. Holy crap, Jenny says, Todd's missing, I hope he's okay.

I whip my head to look at her. You hope he's okay, didn't he? Jenny looks at me, expectantly. Didn't he what? Come on, you don't have to do that. I was there, remember? I saw you too come out of the bathroom.

Jenny's brows come together over her deep brown eyes. Are you serious? You still think something happened? I saw the look on your face when Jesus Christ Jordan. I got my period and sharded in my pants that day. Todd helped me get cleaned up. There. Are you happy now?

I didn't want to tell you because I was embarrassed. All this time you thought he did something to me? I stare at her, searching for the lie and not seeing it. Bioclimbs up my throat.

“That's it? That's why you were in the bathroom together?”

Yes, I was so embarrassed I started crying about it, and Todd helped me. He got me a pair of his mother's underwear that barely fit, but he was better than nothing. He turned away when I changed, then he took my soil down to wear and washed them. He even told his mom about it, and she talked to our mom about it. I was dying of embarrassment the whole time.

I mean, getting your first period is bad enough.

But combined that with shitting your pants, it was so messed up. But what about you changed after that? You got all hormonal. Is that the word you're looking for? I was a girl going through puberty.

No shit, I changed genius. Oh my.

“What's wrong with you, Jordan? You look like you're going to puke.”

I stare at the TV, mind-reeling. The next news segment comes on. About a robbery at a pizza hut. I barely hear it. I'm searching for something to cling on to, and then it comes.

He never rewound his tapes, I tell myself nodding.

He got what he deserved. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed this story, be sure to follow or subscribe. And share the show with a fellow horror fan. I'll see you in the next one.

But what I wanted to tell you, when I didn't come to the studio. The master-by-tark lab copied the soft indie internet. It's a master's real name. Ah, you can tell that you can't get back to it.

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