Capture (Novella)

"To capture the essence of life itself, one must first capture the heart."
Leonardo da Vinci



***

You shuffle through the endless shelves of the videotape rental store like a denim-and-flannel-clad Pac-Man gliding smoothly through his neon blue maze.
However, instead of gobbling delicious cookie-shaped dots, you’re simply restocking the rental returns.
Still, there are things to avoid. Pac-Man has his nemeses—ghosts named Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde—each one with its own personality and pattern. You have customers and coworkers who serve that purpose and have named them Nervy, Pervy, Topsy-Turvy, and Dougie. They, too, have their distinctive traits.
Nervy has a pushy attitude, saying things like, “You know, you really shouldn’t be carrying this movie” and “You really ought to carry more copies of…”
Pervy will usually stop you and ask “Is <enter actress name here> really nude in this movie? And for how long?”
Topsy-Turvy is just clueless, usually asking where the Children’s Section is while standing in the middle of the Children’s Section, blind to the brightly colored Disney covers.
And Dougie is your manager, who fancies himself a dead ringer for Rick Springfield on the soap opera General Hospital. You think he bears more of a resemblance to Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane from The Dukes of Hazzard, both in appearance and competence.
It is to Dougie that you ask if you can leave now that your shift is over.
“Right after you take out the trash,” he says, spitting a wad of gum into the plastic bin, just to add to your burden. “Oh, and take this.” He hands you an unlabeled video tape.
“What’s this?” you ask.
“Someone dumped a home tape in the return slot by mistake.” He looks at his Swatch to both indicate that you are officially on your own time and that you’re wasting his. “It’s been back here in the Lost and Found for months. No one’s asked for it, so you might as well throw it out.”
You empty the trash in the rusting metal dumpster behind the store and return the bin behind the counter with the tape still tucked under your arm.
On the bus ride home, you wonder what could be on the tape. Scenes from a family vacation? A graduation or prom? Amateur porn? Probably just a pirated copy of an official Hollywood release. Still, curiosity keeps gnawing away at you like a hungry dog, and you can’t wait to get home to satisfy its desire for an unknown and unexpected treat.
Home is a simple studio apartment in the “shady” side of town. Ever since you graduated high school and moved out of your grandparents’ home, money has been tight. But home is where the miracle device resides along with you: the VCR, the all-seeing, all-knowing videocassette recorder (just add cassette).
When you were in high school, the families of all your friends were getting one. But you were living with your grandparents who grew up during the Great Depression. Who needed this new-fangled VCR when a black-and-white TV worked just fine for Lawrence Welk reruns?
When one of your friends had mentioned the color-change in The Wizard of Oz, you had naively asked, “What color change?” So, she had gotten you a copy of the movie… on VHS tape, of course. Not having a device to play the tape on, you spent hours staring at the colorful cover and using your imagination.
It was never that you didn’t like movies—quite the opposite. You loved movies. All kinds of movies. And, of course, that led to the desire for you to build your own collection.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - "Delightfully creepy! Does video tape capture the soul as well as the image of its subject? The stories in this book explore the horrifying possibilities of the VCR/VHS technology gone wrong.

The opening story, "Taped" by Richard Lau, sets the tone of the book. It places you in the story and starts, with Mr Lau’s signature humor, in a video store where you are employed. Your boss tells you to get rid of a used but unlabeled VHS tape, but you really want to find out what’s on it …

Enjoy all the chills this book has to offer – highly recommended." -J. McCourt (Amazon Review)

⭐⭐⭐⭐ - "Four very entertaining crime-meets-horror stories, just in time for Halloween! Taped, by Richard Lau, is evocative of an Escher print. The Parade, by Dawn DeBraal, uses great descriptions of a small-town tradition to horrifying effect. What Angie Wants, by Beth Gaydon, is a suspenseful mashup of amateur sleuth, horror, and revenge. Play, by C.R.J. Smith, is a dark imagining that turns childhood's innocence upside down. All of them left me thinking...and having a little trouble getting to sleep..." -Jenna (Goodreads Review)

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - "Short but Riveting. Four stories make up this short anthology of '80s video-themed horror. All the stories are terrific, easy reads, no ambiguous or open endings, just straightforward horror tales around video rental stories, VHR tapes and the huge videocameras of that decade ("Taped" by Richard Lau, "The Parade" by Dawn DeBraal), ghosts on VHR ("What Angie Wants" by Beth Gaydon), and possession caught on video ("Play" by C.R.J. Smith, the longest story in the book). This is the perfect Halloween book, short and riveting!" - Milt Theo (Goodreads Review)

⭐⭐⭐⭐ - "A spooky read! Capture contains four short stories:

• “Taped” by Richard Lau perfectly captures the milieu of the 1980s with his description of a videotape rental store and references to Pac-Man and VCRs. Reading this story made me want to turn on all the lights at home and hide under the covers!

• “The Parade” by Dawn Debraal is about a young child being abducted at a parade. The use of a camcorder to get clues about the abductor was good, but I wanted a more hopeful ending to the story.

• “What Angie Wants” by Beth Gaydon is a suspenseful story about a woman trying to bring a murderer to justice. The ending was very satisfying.

• “Play” by C.R.J. Smith is about an entire family threatened by a possessed teenager. The story was definitely scary, but I’m not quite certain what happened.

I enjoyed this anthology, but I wanted more stories to read!" -Bibliophile (Amazon Review)