"It's real... or was. Did you know that?"

"You're so full of shit."

"Whatever you say, man. But I can prove it."

"Then prove it," I sort of said, sort of yawned, regretting the words even as they were halfway out of my mouth.

"Stay right here," Jimmy said in that sing song voice of his as he heaved his fat ass up the stairs of the basement.

I took in my surroundings. One of those South Philly local comic book store eyesores, the ones that looked pretty bad up top and especially dank and awful down below. An out of town visitor might call it quaint.

A jaded local would just call it what it was: a fucking dump.

The wad of crumpled bills was beginning to get increasingly damp within the confines of my palm and I was getting tired of staring at the same faded 70's horror posters that adorned the walls of the cellar.

"Jimmy! Come on, man, I got shit to do!" I shouted up the steps.

"Just a sec!"

I sighed. First rule of selling pot: don't smoke your own product. Second rule: don't smoke your own product with your lonely customers, even after they already paid.

"I'm comin'!" I heard Jimmy gasp as he heaved and huffed his way back down the ancient looking wooden steps. Each individual foot fall was a game of Russian Roulette with the building's already shaky foundation.

"Check it," Jimmy seemed to breathe rather than actually speak.

The fat man spread his arms and a dozen different VHS tapes clattered across the old ping pong table set up in the center of the basement.

I picked up the two tapes that had landed closest to me. Both were blank with a wide piece of dusty white tape stuck haphazardly to the side:

"VF CRICK IT PROOF" and "PROJECT: DAVE" were scribbled across each respective VHS with what looked like a hurried sharpie.

"Jimmy, I really gotta get goin-"

"Hold on, just hold on!" Jimmy squealed excitedly as he reached within the pile of tapes and pulled out an especially dated looking piece of plastic.

He blew the dust off the top of the nearly faded brown VHS tape before holding it out towards me, grasped in his greasy palm.

I took hold of the tape as I finally pocketed the cash, deciding I was in it for the long haul now. I flipped the thing over in my palm as my eyes settled upon the label adorning the front of the tape.

It simply read "FBI" in large, black, bold letters. Neatly printed letters too, not a sharpie. And underneath it was a strange barcode:

"HIIISotW: TEST 2, D. 9.22.1982," I read it aloud.

"About a month before it came out," Jimmy said, all smiles. "This was the second test screening, actually. You wouldn't believe it unless you saw it for yourself."

"HIIISot... right, Halloween 3," I figured.

"Season of the Witch," Jimmy beamed. "Want some popcorn?"

I sat in a rotted looking bean bag chair in the corner of the basement as Jimmy wrestled with one of those large fuckin' TV stands on wheels every one of your teachers had in elementary school. Below the tube set was a very worn looking VHS player about the size of a Buick.

"You're not gonna believe it," Jimmy repeated for the umpteenth time as he popped in the Halloween 3 cassette and took the busted looking wheel chair that creaked idly next to the bean bag.

My eyes began to flutter the moment the title screen appeared: a shoddily digitized pumpkin accompanied by a crappy 80's synthesized version of Carpenter's theme song. To this day, it remains the absolute standing definition of just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

"This really is the shittiest one," I found myself saying out loud.

"Shut up," Jimmy boomed with authentic disappointment in his voice as he rolled a joint between his fat fingers. "Like I sad earlier, it's just unappreciated is all. God for-fuckin'-bid they tried to do somethin' different.

"Besides," he continued, "you've clearly never seen Resurrection."

"Yeah, sure," I said with a reluctant smile, "just get to the head crushing scene. Everybody knows that's the only reason to watch this."

"Well, funny you should bring that up again..."

Jimmy's voice faded in a way I didn't entirely like as he reached for the brick sized remote, a nasty sneer running across his face.

The fat man began to fast forward through the movie as we started to pass the joint back and forth.

As I puffed away, something odd began to strike me as I watched the images speed by upon the TV. Every so often, the corners of the screen would begin to shake or distort. And at least twice, the perspective shifted, zooming in and out quickly as if we were watching a copy of a copy, a bootleg filmed within a theater.

And then somebody actually stood up, a distinct silhouette that wandered from one end of the screen to the other.

"Whoa, hold up," I half shouted, half laughed as Jimmy paused the screen. "This is like... this is like an actual fucking test screening? I thought you meant it was a, I dunno, director's cut or something!"

"It is. Sort of," Jimmy replied, all smiles again. "It's sort of... both."

"Jesus dude," I smirked as I took another long drag. "Don't they sell the fuckin' DVD's of this in like every Wal-Mart for like 5 bucks like every Halloween? Are you that hard up for cash?"

"Just watch," Jimmy said, his smile becoming increasingly wider.

He pressed play.

The bootleg was immediately apparent as I could now clearly hear some sort of commotion occurring off-screen. As the doomed family of 3 was led into the Silver Shamrock test chamber within the movie, I could hear what sounded like a scuffle within the audience itself.

Clearer than the scuffle was some sort of radio chatter that intermittently would block out even the audio coming from the screen.

"Subject 14. Agent Reeves got 'em."

"Roger that. And the rest?"

"They're not goin' anywhere."

The radio chatter now dead, that tune () began to fill the room, the ancient TV's mono speakers adding a crusty, sickening electronic shell to the already irritating melody.

Happy, Happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...

"Could you turn it down a little?" I asked.

But Jimmy wasn't listening.

"Just watch."

There was a bass tone I didn't remember the last time I watched the flick reverberating through the speakers and I could actually begin to feel my ears pound in time with the melody.

Happy, Happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...

As the bass tone grew increasingly louder by the second, I could hear a second line of audio, just beneath the first.

Sounded like moans. Moans and groans of pure agony.

"What is that?" I asked.

As if to answer my question, the camera angle abruptly shifted, now showing a different side of the theater, from the movie screen's point of view.

As the music continued to swell, I nearly vomited right there at the sight of the audience... the test subjects.

Happy, Happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...

The ones that weren't already dead screamed (shrieked really) in agonizing pain as what looked like something was pushing its way out from the inside of their skull. Eyes, ears, noses and teeth all bulged outwards in unnatural angles as those still moving attempted to escape the chain shackles that kept them in their seats.

Happy, Happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...

As for the ones that no longer lived... their heads looked less like a human's and more like a sock puppet without a hand. Deflated and elongated, slumped forward over their unmoving chests. Blood steadily poured like a faucet out of every orifice.

Happy, Happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...

The off-screen radio chirped to life once more:

"Uh, Dr. Wallace requested some close-ups, can we get in there before they're all... done?"

"Roger."

"And make sure we collect all of the 'pets' this time. We lost a few during the first run through."

"Roger, over."

An unseen hand lifted up the camera and began moving towards the closest subject still squeaking and squealing in his place.

Happy, Happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...

I turned away just as a gloved hand appeared and forced the shrieking, deformed head to stare directly at the lens.

"Oh god..." was all I could muster as I turned away from the screen. I realized too late how dizzy I suddenly felt.

I looked upwards, towards Jimmy. He smiled widely. The crooked teeth hanging out of his small, dumb mouth seemed especially prominent due to the large pair of headphones that engulfed his skull.

Happy, Happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...

"Never saw it work before," he laughed as I tried to stand. My legs felt weak and the music from the screen seemed only to intensify in pitch.

"Wha... what is this?"

The weed, something he maybe sprinkled in as he rolled the joint.

I touched my ears as I felt something warm and wet roll down my neck.

I wasn't even surprised at what I saw when my pulled my hand away. My fingers were covered in the red stuff.

Happy, Happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...

"Jimmy..."

The fat man only laughed as I turned my way weakly towards the TV stand and VCR.

Happy, Happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...

The fat man struggled to rise from his wheel chair, a look of red hot anger crossing his sweat covered face as he realized my plan.

I dropped to the floor, my hands firmly perched on the bottom of the TV shelf. As Jimmy heaved his way up behind me, I shoved as hard as I could.

The shelf smacked into the wall behind it, shaking the TV and the VCR as one piece.

Happy, Happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...

"Knock it off!" Jimmy bellowed from behind me, now just inches away.

Happy, Happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...

I shoved a second time, this time pushing all of my weight into the device. My legs (luckily) gave out as the large shelf smashed into the wall and the old tube TV slid forward towards the hard, cement ground.

Happy, Happy Halloween, Hallo-

I didn't hear the hard crash I had expected. Just a noise like glass breaking followed by something like a ripe tomato being squashed followed by the squeal a stuck pig would make.

Then I heard the crash.

I rolled over lazily. My legs were almost completely numb as they sloshed about in the pool of blood now forming just inches from my feet.

The screen from the TV firmly fastened to the entirety of his crushed head, the rest of Jimmy's body spasmed violently with every puff of smoke and golden spark that shot out of the broken bulk of the tube set.

I sat there for a long time before finally finding the strength to inch my way out of the basement and out of the shop and into the cool autumn air that greeted me on the empty sidewalk.

That was last night. Now I sit writing this in my shitty Conshy apartment. I haven't seen or heard anything on the news and, frankly, I don't want to.

My head is still pounding.

And every so often I feel... something... something moving around between my ears.

Moving. Slithering.

From within.

And just thinking of that fucking song literally makes my ears bleed.

Happy, Happy Halloween, Halloween, Halloween...