Short Scary Stories

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I had always loved horror movies. In my younger days I may not have realized it, but I was a glutton for the terror that the films would instill in me. I subconsciously loved how they kept me up at night, small fearful eyes scanning my bedroom shadows for whatever sort of creature may be calling the darkness its home. It was to the point where I would wake up in the early hours of the morning, around 1 a.m. or so, to sneak into the living room and watch the late night screamers that would air. Often I would get caught by my mother or father about a half hour into my shenanigans, seated on the couch and wrapped in my ‘blankie’ while clutching a teddy bear with eyes fixated on the television screen. I would be sent to bed immediately, told that my punishment would come in the morning. It never did, my parents too tired at the time to actually remember apprehending me. On a rare occasion though, I’d manage to make it all the way through a film, from the time I’d slipped into the couch to the moment the credits rolled. At that point, the trudge back to my bedroom was a mad dash of fright, trying to evade any and all monsters or buggaboos that, in my impressionable mind, would grab at me and take me away. I was always successful in the return trip. It made me feel like Indiana Jones.

I don’t love horror films anymore. Not after what happened.

I was in college when the event occurred. While most people associate university with wild parties, copious amounts of alcohol, and finding as many people to have anonymous sex with, my version of the experience was more… tame by those standards. The evenings not spent furiously pouring over my projects and class work were spent with my one true love. My Netflix account. From the moment my last class of the day ended, I was wrapped in the sweet embrace the internet had waiting for me. I would return to my dorm, slip into my bedroom and into something more comfortable, and spend until about 4 in the morning watching whatever horrors the streaming site had available to me. And for the price of $7.99 a month, it was the best, and most cheap, addiction I’d ever encountered.

The people I chose to interact with when I wasn’t glued to my laptop were often of the same ilk that I was. Individuals who were just as obsessive over movies. We loved to be scared, and we often spoke of it. We compared reviews, discussed theories, and often got together to partake in these pieces of nightmare fuel, usually once a week on a Saturday in a grand marathon session that was catered by the local pizza place and a large snack trip before hand to prepare for when we were sick of the smell of grease and cheese. Many of us were members of a horror-enthusiast forum, to meet and talk with more people who shared our twisted ideas of entertainment. I’ve since removed myself completely from that site.

Due to the vast duration of time that I’d been with my Netflix account, I’d practically exhausted their selection of movies to stream that were of my tastes. I’d watched the classics, the cult favorites, the flops, the silent, the screamers, the spookers, the slashers, the foreign.. Short of paying extra for a DVD plan, my partner in crime was becoming repetitive. I’d even resorted to watching the 1-stars, the films that were too terrible to even consider horror but still somehow made the list, filled with poorly-crafted CG effects that were more terrifying than the monsters they were trying to scare me with. I lamented this to my forum-mates, complaining of the lack of fresh choices upon the site that filled my browser history. Many of my friends from school were having the same problems, and were voicing their woes within the same thread that I had begun.

Looking back on it, I realize now that this was the worst mistake I could have ever made. Had I not started that thread, some of us might have still remained among the living, finding new ways to garner our thrills.

ScreamQueen69 (her username from the forum, as I won’t refer to anyone by their true name to protect families) had approached us at the meeting grounds the following day. Our usual location of gathering was behind a campus building, an area of concrete that sloped downwards to a door that we all assumed led to the art department basement, the top of the wall that enclosed our cold stone hill blocked off by fence so none could accidentally fall and injure themselves. As our group sat and talked, SQ had arrived, looking a little worse for wear. There were dark circles under her eyes, looking tired, and her face was pale. She often looked so bright and sunkissed, full of energy.