It was dark here on Elburry Lane, so dark that I couldn't see right in front of me, I needed a flashlight just to see the ground below my feet. That was normal here on Elburry Lane, the 19th street in my little sect of town. We had nothing famous to our name here in Elburry Lane, no fame and very little achievements. Our football team, the Fightin' Lions, was average at best. Never won a big game but didn't lose the little ones. The nights were cold here. Sometimes in mid-fall, we'd have snow on the ground that would melt away into the grass mid-afternoon.
While strolling around Elburry Lane I had come upon a strange DVD today, it wasn't scratched, wasn't harmed in anyway. There was no name or picture on it, just a pure black and basic disk. Mint condition, too, it seemed. It was laying in the ground and didn't have any labels on it. I thought about taking it home and seeing what it was, curiosity won over me and I put it in my pocket. Now, I'm kind of a video freak, there isn't a movie that I don't own or will own. Good or bad, I have them somewhere around my house on one of the many bookcases that keep them. I haven't seen any pornographic movies yet, but I'll own all of those two. Probably won't watch 'em, but I'm on a quest to own every DVD based movie because I felt like they'd come to a close soon. Maybe smaller disks will be used and mine will be obsolete, but a collectors item worth millions or billions. I'd also found a lot of the movies I own on the street, usually tossed out by people who weren't satisfied with their new buy, or maybe just thrown out to make room, hell I don't know and frankly I don't care. A movie is a movie and to me it shines like gold.
I walked home, eager to see my new find and the dreadful thought came into my head: What if I already own it? Well, it was in mint condition so it might be new. Might even be just a home movie of a family Christmas. I walked to my DVD player and opened the tray. It beeped once and I dropped the disk into it. I turned the TV on and it was blank, just blank. Confused, I turned the DVD player off and on, maybe a glitch or some shit. It was old after all.
I sat down in my couch in my living room and leaned back This time, there was a picture, but it was blurry. What of, I don't know but it looked like a girl in a dress. She was smiling a crooked smile with rows of crooked teeth that gleamed yellow. Her pupils were jet black and very, very large. Her dress was a dim yellow, some black spots here and there. Dirt was on her tiny knees, scrapes and scratches, too. Nothing too unsettling, I thought. And then, I grinned. A horror movie! It was a horror movie! Yes! And I hadn't seen it! I felt like I had just hit the goddamn jackpot! Action movies were easy, but horror movies... people just didn't want to part with them it seemed. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and watched closely, waiting for the scare. For a full minute there was no movement, and my eager grin was gone, replaced with pure boredom. I walked toward the DVD player, watching the little girls eyes stare at me like some optical illusion painting. I eased my hand to the turn off button, still watching the little girl, and when my hand leaned against it, she winked at me. I fell onto my ass and laughed. I grabbed the remote and rewound it to the part where she winked.
...Only this time she didn't. She just kept the same uneasy stare, the crooked smile, and wide opened eyes. I sighed, just my eyes playing tricks on me. I turned the DVD player off and turned it back on. This time, there was black then picture. And I almost screamed when I saw the girl this time.
She was almost touching the screen, she had one pale white hand on the glass with a finger pointed and touching it, she was tapping on it. I could even dimly hear it. Slow and it sounded like it was behind... well glass. Her grin was wider this time and I could see the rows of crooked golden teeth perfectly if I got up in front of the screen, that I wasn't going to do. I noticed that her dress didn't have black splotches from dirt, upon closer inspection, it looked more like blood. I shuddered and looked for the remote. I wanted to skip past this shit, this was just too creepy. Get to the end where the evil girl was stabbed in the heart of some cliche shit.
I found the remote and clicked the forward arrow.
She winked again.
And DVD player turned off.
"Sonuvabitch!" I swore and tried to turn it back on, but to no avail. All it did was chime like normal, say in capital digital words READING... and shutting off. I tried three more times before I clicked the EJECT button. The DVD player functioned without flaw, as if saying: "Yeah, get her outta me and good riddance!" I fit my index finger into the central hole and plucked it right out. For the first time since picking it up I glanced at the disk and the girl was there, and she was winking. This time, though, her mouth had blood around it. Where the fuck did she come from?! Was she there when I picked it up and just didn't notice? Am I losing it? I decided to pack the put the disk into an empty video game box and put it on the shelf. I got some pen and paper and wrote:
"THE WINKING GIRL."
Why the name came to me so easily was beyond me, but I didn't give a shit. I just wanted to get away from this thing. It was certainly a horror movie, that's for damn sure.
