Please Mind The Gap #1

30: Please mind the parents

30: Please mind the parents

--- depressed Teddy in the media section ---

"Tada!" Teddy announced, brandishing the bunch of DVDs that she had rented to a petrified Nathan. "I got the best ones," she began, throwing the cases at him one by one. "To prepare yourself, you can read the summaries at the back of the cases and look at the pictures."

"To be honest, I don't want to look at the pictures," Nathan said, his voice wavering. "In fact, I don't want to look at anything at all."

"We can start with Ouija," Teddy said, smiling creepily, her eyes going very round. "It's not as scary, honestly. Just get used to the jump scares and stuff. Think of it as the beginner section, if you like."

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"Smile at me like that. You look creepy."

"That's... the...point..." she breathed out mystically. Nathan stared at her. A blanket of strange silence rested upon them. Then her hand snaked out quickly and hit the switch, turning all the lights off and plunging them in semi-darkness.

Nathan gave a loud shout of shock and shot to his feet. Teddy flipped the lights back on, sinking to the floor and clutching her stomach while laughing hard. She blinked back tears of laughter, guffawing at Nathan's terrified expression. "That...that was priceless," she managed, still laughing breathlessly in between her words. "Not scared... honestly."

"Ted!" Nathan collapsed back on the couch, breathing hard. "You scared the crap out of me!"

"Just wait for tonight."

And so they waited for the binge-watch night of horror movies. Nathan wasn't talking to Teddy but was pale-faced and always jumping at small noises and glancing warily around. He refused to go around the house without any of the lights on, and always opened the door just a bit before going into any room. Finally, after lunch, he lost it, stood up and departed for the rooftop where he stayed until six o' clock that evening.

"Ready, Brownie?" Teddy asked when he emerged from his room, glaring daggers at her.

He blanched and headed for the couch. "Just get this over with."

They started the film with all the lights off except for the flickering light coming from the TV. Nathan was gripping the arm of the couch so hard that his knuckles were turning as white and pale as his face.

"Why are they playing that stupid board game anyway?" he muttered to himself. "Where's the Harry Potter DVD? Let's just watch that instead."

He didn't shout at the jump scare scenes. He merely gave a nearly inaudible whimper and backed into the pillows on the couch and continued to clutch the arm of the couch as if he wanted to rip it off the poor couch.

Teddy watched him, amused. Girlfriends were meant to scare the crap out of their boyfriends, weren't they?

As the credits rolled on the screen, Nathan seemed to wilt onto the couch. He grabbed a pillow and buried his face in it. "You evil evil girlfriend."

"Sorry, didn't hear you," Teddy said. "The pillow was in the way." She stood up to put The Ring in the DVD player. "Next one!"

Nathan was cowering like a man behind his fluffy magenta pillow as the Sadako came crawling out of the TV screen in the movie with all her black hair covering her face.

"Look," Teddy said, smirking inwardly at his fluffy magenta pillow. "Hold my hand." He glared at her as Sadako started crawling and moaning all over the floor on the screen. "Come out from that beautiful pillow and just hold my hand."