"Undead Format" Short fiction by Uly Ochoa

     Rob Juarez pulled up to the shinning monument of physical media, Videolopolis. The chrome and glass gargantuan of a super store was a treasure trove of all things Blu ray, DVD, laserdisk, CD, cassette, and of course VHS. Rob was a fanatic for all things physical and heard that Videolopolis' selection was second to none. He spent about an hour wandering the labyrinth of shelves and floors. Still, Rob felt like he had only seen a quarter of what Videolopolis had to offer. All in all he had gathered a good haul: the complete Street Fighter 2V series on video, the dual Blu-ray release of Joe D'Amato's Anthropophagous and Absurd, and lastly cassettes of Death's "The Sound of Perseverance" and "Leprosy."

   Rob was happy with what he found, but felt a pang of dissatisfaction as he wanted something completely new. Rob just had to be patient and wait until he had more time to explore the store.

      "Hey man, you wanna see something really worth your while? Trust me, this flick will really suck you in."

     The answer to Rob's prayers took on the form of a stranger who looked like he stepped straight out of an eighties new wave band. The inky black lenses of his sunglasses betrayed no hint of his eyes. The stranger was holding a blank VHS clamshell case. Rob cautiously took the case and opened it to reveal the tape's label: Deadly Abyss, a film by Markos Montefiori. Rob loved some of Montefiori's films, such as the surreal murder mystery Five Banshees Crying by the Sea and the trashy, practical-effects-laden creature feature Wolf Killer. The director mysteriously disappeared sometime in the early nineties and Dark Abyss was not among his known filmography.

     "Uh, thanks. How much for the-"

     Looking up from the tape, Rob saw the stranger was gone.

     Back home, Rob sat back as the film started on his lovingly refurbished VHS player. The film opened on a group of young men digging around on a construction site late at night. Rob could have sworn one of the men looked like the person who handed him the tape, but he chalked it up to his imagination. The tempo of shovels moving earth ceased and the men pulled an ancient locked chest. At that moment the power in Rob's apartment went out, and in the darkness was warped to a freshly dug hole. He felt the dirt he was lying in was as cold as ice. Crawling to the surface, Rob found himself in the same construction site in the film. The ancient chest burst open and the undead corpses of the actors started to pull Rob in. His screams were answered by a familiar face, who without sunglasses had a sickly green snake threaded between his eye sockets. A low distorted voice slithered from the ghoul's throat.

     "I told you man, this flick will suck you in."

     In the empty apartment, the VHS case of Dark Abyss changed to feature Rob's final moments on the cover.