I hadn’t been in Barbara’s driveway for about 20 years, but everything was exactly the same. Raised double-wide with brown and tan paint and a wooden deck raised up off the ground level and a big tool shed. I almost felt like I had traveled back in time just going to the place.

It took some coaxing to get Mandy to join me at the door when we knocked, but she eventually did it. We stood there together as we heard someone approach.

Barbara gave us a frazzled look when she saw us standing on her porch. She followed it up with one of those looks someone gives when they pretend to be excited to randomly bump into someone, but are actually horrified about it. You could see the breath get sucked out of her in an instant.

“Oh hi,” Barbara finally spoke after a few frenzied seconds. “Do you want to come in?”

“No,” I answered flatly. “Here’s fine.”

I whipped the VHS tape out of my jacket pocket and pushed it in her face.

“What is this?”

Barbara squinted at the tape for a few moments.

“That’s the tape we made for the paranormal help show.”

“Why did you stick it in our mailbox?” I cut off Barbara.

“I didn’t put that in your mailbox,” Barbara said defensively.

The gears started to turn in my head. She was telling the truth. Barbara was behind me in line at the store when I bumped into her and I went directly to my truck and raced to my parents’ right after that. There are ways she could have gotten that tape in there before, but they were all pretty elaborate.

“I admit,” Barbara going on broke me out of my thought process. “I took that video, but I gave it to your grandmother years ago, both tapes.”