Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreigning. I'm Ben and welcome to the show where you and I gather around this campfire to hear some of our fellow campers scariest experiences. Whether you're a new or returning one, I'm glad you're here. There was nothing quite like the video store. While only a few exist anymore, the chokehold they had on anyone who grew up between 1980 and, let's say, 2000 is unfathomable. I think we all have a collective memory of what they looked like, what they felt like. While the exact store you went to varied by your location, the layout, the vibes were all somewhat unanimous.
[00:00:44] So when I came across a story sent in by camper Elizabeth Price, a frequent submitter, I knew I had to share it. Tonight we hear about Bob's video rental. Now, without further ado, do you want to hear a ghost story?
[00:01:02] I grew up in a small town in the late 1980s. Nestled in the foothills on the way up the mountain to the ski resorts, it was a sleepy place where time moved a little slower.
[00:01:15] Not much ever changed.
[00:01:17] For most of the year, life was quiet. The most exciting part of the day was walking to the elementary school just to play in the playground for a few hours. The town's only shopping center was hardly that at all. It consisted of a single strip of stores, a grocery store, a pizza joint, and most importantly, the video rental store. That little store was the beating heart of our community, especially on Friday nights.
[00:01:45] It was where everyone gathered whether they meant to or not. The aisles bustled with kids begging for one more movie, parents browsing the latest releases, and the occasional teenager flipping through the R and X rated section, hoping the cashier wouldn't notice. The video store had stood tucked into this cozy corner for years with its handwritten signs and walls of worn VHS covers. But everything changed when the owner of the shopping center announced plans to expand not long after the giant chain video store opened just a few doors down.
[00:02:23] The front of the store was bathed in fluorescent lights, its shelves packed with the latest blockbusters and promotional posters the size of billboards.
[00:02:33] It seemed inevitable that the old mom and Pop shop would be driven out. Everyone expected it. Everyone except the loyal customers who refused to give up on the place they loved. For over a year, the two video stores battled for business. It was quite a war, fought through word of mouth, customer loyalty, and the occasional rental deal. The larger chain had the flashy appeal. The original store had something far more valuable. History, charm, and a deep rooted connection to the people who lived in the town then, seemingly out of Nowhere, the chain store closed its doors for good. The town buzzed with rumors, whispers of financial trouble, corporate mismanagement, or even sabotage.
[00:03:21] After a while, the adults in the town stopped talking about what happened altogether. It became a taboo subject, one that was met with silence and side eyes. As a teenager, I was told more than once to drop it when I asked too many questions. Six months later, new signs appeared on the darkened windows. The closed chain store. People stopped in their tracks to read them. To everyone's amazement, the owners from the original mom and pop store had purchased the entire inventory of the new place and taken over its lease. In a town that rarely had anything exciting happen, it felt like a victory for us against corporate America.
[00:04:02] The little video store had managed to outlast the giant.
[00:04:06] Around that time, I just earned my driver's license. I carried it everywhere, flipping it in my hand, dreaming of the open road and the car I didn't yet have. Naturally, my goal was clear. Buy my first car. Having practically grown up inside the walls of the video store, the owners knew me well. He offered me a part time job, mostly to help out on weekends, starting Friday nights. It wasn't glamorous work, mainly stocking shelves, rewinding tapes and sweeping up spilled popcorn, but to me it was a dream come true, a step closer to independence.
[00:04:41] However, there was one small problem.
[00:04:44] Like many video stores of the era, this one had a back room, a sectioned cordoned off for titles that weren't exactly family friendly. Officially, employees had to be 18 or older to work there. I wasn't two more years. But the owner, in his usual laid back way, waved it off with a shrug. Just tell anyone who asked you're 18, he said, as if you'd done the same thing a hundred times before. No one's going to check unless you give them a reason to. So I played along. As long as I kept my head down and didn't draw attention, it was all fine. Well, fine as long as I didn't get caught.
[00:05:24] My first night on the job was pure chaos. I was trying to make sense of the store's numbering system, and after five straight hours of shelving and reshelving tapes, the numbers started to blur in my head. My hands, though, moved on. Autopilot, pickup, file, repeat. Then, a few hours before closing time, a woman approached the counter with two young daughters in tow. I smiled and handed her the movie she'd asked for, Winnie the Pooh, and went back to organizing the kids section.
[00:05:54] Less than 10 minutes later, she came storming through the front door, her face red and furious, her children trailing behind her, she slammed the VHS down onto the counter. What kind of sick joke is this? I asked. For Winnie the Pooh. Not this, she said. My heart was pounding. I opened the case. Nestled inside, where the image of a cheerful bear should have been, was a tape that absolutely did not belong in the children's section. I stammered an apology and was about to go search the back room, thinking maybe the tapes had been switched by mistake. Before I could move, the older manager working alongside me snatched the video out of my hands, shoved it under the counter, and casually handed the customer two vouchers for free rentals.
[00:06:43] Watching the woman and her kids walk out, she looked at me. Don't ask.
[00:06:47] Just keep that tape down there, she said, emotionless. Don't talk about it. Don't ask about it, she continued. And so I didn't.
[00:06:58] The next weekend, rain pounded against the glass storefront, casting creepy shadows across the aisles. The store, usually buzzing with customers, was eerily quiet. I spent the first hour restocking, trying to keep busy in the silence.
[00:07:13] When I came across the tape again, picking it up, I muttered to myself, must be a popular video. Making my way back to the R restricted section to put it back where I thought it was supposed to go. The moment I opened the door, I felt a chill creep up my spine. There was a man standing in there, flipping through the titles. He was tall, a little too pale, dressed in a black T shirt. He looked up at me, locked eyes, and gave me this disgusting wink. At that exact moment, a flash of lighting lit up the store from outside. The overhead lights flickered, buzzing faintly, and when I looked back, the man was gone. Trying to shake it off, I hurried back to the front, where my older boss was waiting for me, slouched behind the register, thumbing through a teen magazine like nothing in the world could possibly matter less. Heya. Did you see a guy come out of the back room just now? I said. She didn't even look up. The back room? No, that's just Bob, she said. Bob? Yeah. Bob? I asked. Yeah, yeah. No, he shows up now and then. That's why the bosses got this place so cheap, I guess they found a guy back here during construction. Stabbed like 19 times. Wait, what? I never heard about that, I said. Yeah, well, it's not something the police wanted to get around. You know, panic and all. We just call him Bob. There was a rumor going around, but nobody really knows what happened. Well, she grabbed a pair of scissors out of the counter and made a sharp snip sound in the air. Let's just say from the rumors I heard, he didn't die quickly.
[00:09:01] Huh. I guess that's why my parents never wanted me to talk about it, I said, my stomach now churning.
[00:09:07] Yeah, and, well, I guess that's why the other store closed down and our bosses bought it. Weird stuff's been happening, but hey, you get used to it, she said. Was anyone arrested? I asked. Not that I know, she said.
[00:09:22] Just then I felt an undeniable sensation of someone standing behind me. I turned fast. There was no one there. But sitting on the counter was the same video. I just walked back to the adult section, and this time there was what looked like a fingerprint on the corner.
[00:09:41] I worked there until I graduated high school, and I saw Bob several times, usually just a flicker in the mirror or a shadow slipping between aisles. I guess he just liked playing pranks. Lights would go out when I walked past, tapes would vanish from the shelves and reappear in places they shouldn't be, and that one tape would always found its way into the hands of customers who weren't looking for it. And while I always had this feeling Bob was watching me, I never felt like he was out to get me. They still don't know who killed Bob or who Bob was, but if you ask me, he probably deserved it. Thank you, Elizabeth, for allowing me to share your story. I liked this one. It had everything for a good campfire story. The nostalgia, a good mystery, and a pesky ghost lingering long after he's supposed to. I have no show announcements this week, but if you'd like a shout at the end of an episode or access to our camp's monthly bonus episodes, head over to patreon.com do you want to hear a ghost story? As always, I am just glad to have you all as campers on this journey. Please keep sharing the show with anyone you think might like these stories or someone you're just trying to scare. If you are enjoying the show, please leave a review. I would love to hear from you. Until next time.
