The October Series

October 4th: Movie Night Murder

I and my girlfriends bought into that entire spooky Halloween aesthetic. As little girls, we

would race through the streets having little competitions to see who could get the most candy. We're not little kids though, and adults aren't very excited about the idea of opening the door for a group of high school seniors with poorly made costumes. They are more excited about the little kids in first or second grade who come to their doors and yell,
"Trick or Treat!".
We realized that Halloween was not going to be that fun anymore if we stuck to our old routines, so we decided to adapt. It was 1988, and we lived in the typical middle class, midwest, suburban neighborhood. We'd walk down the streets in our costumes with two errands to run. One was buying more candy

than our stomachs could handle, and the other was renting a scary movie from the local video store. Our old Blockbuster closed down, and a new one had opened down the street. We used to have to drive to the other side of town for movies, but not anymore. We walked in and my friends sped over to the scary movies section while I just looked around. The lady at the counter was staring at me, and I felt uncomfortable. She had static white hair and looked high, so I avoided her until I could no longer ignore that intense stare she gave me.
"Do you have any recommendations?", I asked.
She didn't give me an answer, instead, she simply pointed to a movie behind me. It didn't

have a cover, it was just black. I looked at it and my friends ran over to me.
"We couldn't find a good one", one of them said,
"What's that one about?". She pointed to the video I was holding.
"Oh, the lady here recommended it", I said.
"Is it good?", my other friend asked the old lady.
She slowly but surely nodded her head, and a smile unfurled on her face.
"Great, we'll get it", I said.
We rented the video, went home, and proceeded to scare the little kids who knocked on the door. After a while, the Halloween noise outside died

down, and the night became perfectly still. We decided it was time to watch our mystery movie.
I put it in and we sat down. The image was dark and blurry, and we couldn't see what was happening. It started making noises. At first, I thought it was a malfunction or something, but those were noises I had never heard before from a broken DVD. They were noises of pain.
"It's probably just the DVD", one of my friends insisted.
She stood up and walked over to the TV. She moved some stuff around until a cold, pale white hand reached from the TV, and pulled her in.
"Oh my God!", my friend yelled, "HELP!".

We couldn't help her, there was nothing near. The hand grabbed my other friend and took her too. I was too smart for it and ran away. I was distraught, this thing had just grabbed my friends. I bicycle over to that video store, and the lady stood there. Oh, I wanted to kill her!
"What the hell is wrong with you?", I yelled in disarray.
"I can explain", she slowly said.
"No!", I yelled, "What did we ever do to you!? We didn't do anything! We're normal kids, why would you hurt us this way!".
She then pulled out a shotgun and struck me right through the ribs. I let out a painful shriek, tears ran down my cheeks, and

bloodstains overflowed my blue plaid shirt. The last memory I have is sitting there in indescribable pain, watching her look over me with a smile.