VHS

“ VHS ”

 

 

Creepy Craig pulled out the crusty, faded VHS of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and laid it out on the table in front of him and Lisa.

 

“This might work…” Lisa said.

“Yeah, it’s alright. I mean, it’s not Hitchcock’s best work. Have you seen Vertigo? It’s vastly superior in every way. And personal. My God, you could actually feel Hitchcock in that one. And that’s a rarity. Actually feeling the man. There’s no feeling in Psycho. Just over-staged butchering…” Creepy Craig wheezed.

 

Lisa felt her blue eyes moving down to the black box of the Psycho VHS. The box was simple: stark red and white titles placed boldly on a black background. The corners of the box were worn and shredded. The ghosts of fingerprints from years of use smeared the once pure black background. On the bottom left corner, a sticker advertised VHS Hi-Fi Dolby Surround Sound for those lucky enough to have a linear tracking set-up.

 

“Why VHS, Craig?” Lisa asked as her eyes skimmed the faded box.

“What?” Craig asked back.

“Why not DVD? Or Blu-ray even? Who even has a VHS player anymore?”

“Well, I do obviously. And, besides, I prefer watching horror movies on VHS. It makes them more enjoyable. It’s just something about the medium that makes them feel right. It really suits the low-budget aesthetic that most of the films have.”

“Oh…” Lisa managed.

 

Silence fell on the two. Creepy Craig pushed his glasses up from the bridge of his oily nose, looking only at the tape on the table.

 

“So…” Lisa started, breaking the silence, “do you want to watch this or something else?”

“I mean, it’s alright. It’s just… I don’t know, I’m feeling an early to late 1980’s slasher flick right now. Would you be cool with that?”

“Sure. Whatever you want.”

 

Creepy Craig flashed a small, almost hidden smile. He had never planned on putting Psycho in his old, beaten down VHS player. It was just to show Lisa that he could collect popular, mainstream films too. It was just to show that was wasn’t a complete freak.

             

Quickly, Creepy Craig moved from the couch and jumped into a nearby cabinet that held the rest of his stockpile of horror VHS tapes. He reached in and pulled out a white box. Slowly, he turned and flashed it at Lisa. It was Tobe Hooper’s obscure slasher sequel The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. The box cover featured mass murder Leatherface and other psychotic members of his murderous family posing like the cast of The Breakfast Club in front of a broken Texas home. Under them was the tagline: THE SAW IS FAMILY!

 

Inside, Lisa couldn’t help but squirm a little.

 

“It’s from 1986. It’s a horror comedy. One of my favorites. You might like it,” Creepy Craig said, already moving to put it in the VHS player.

“Alright. Sounds good,” Lisa managed.

 

As he began to put the tape into the player, Lisa begun to wonder how she had even got herself into this situation. And then she remembered— by being nice.

 

----------------------------

 

Creepy Craig often felt like a character you’d find in a Stephen King novel.

 

The guy had no friends to speak of. It felt like it had been that way for a long time now. Lisa could remember seeing him walking alone on the playground during play break in the third grade. He would walk laps around the playground while everyone else would run around and play. After a while, he’d stop, sit in the rocks and begin to draw God knows what in his notebook that he always seemed to carry around with him.

 

By the time he got into junior high and then high school, it only got worse. While kids in grade school could be mean, kids going through puberty were the spawn of Satan. It was around this time that Craig Moore became Creepy Craig. At least, that’s what everyone called him.

 

The first time Lisa heard it was in eight grade Algebra I before the teacher had arrived for class. Craig came in with his thick, black oily hair, fogged up glasses, dark jeans and a Friday the 13th t-shirt. As he walked into the room, as he always did, he kept his eyes glued to the ground and a lack of any expression on his face. Joseph King, a meathead on the junior football team, saw him enter and began to plan his arsenal.

 

“Hey, Creepy Craig, how’s it hanging?” Joseph shot.

 

This got a minor snicker. Craig… now and forever Creepy Craig to Lisa and many others in the class, did not answer verbally or emotionally. He simply walked to his desk and sat down. As he did, something started to burn in Joseph’s eyes. Lisa saw it. During some dreams, she often saw it again. It was something that was hard to forget. It was hate. Unjustified hate.

 

“Craig… man, can you tell me something? There’s something I’ve been dying to know. Please?” Joseph started, his voice dying down a little, as if he had something really important to ask.

 

Craig did not answer him verbally. He only looked up and made eye contact with his poorly cleaned glasses.

 

“Do you whack off to those splatter movies you’re always watching?”

 

The class erupted into laughter and gasps. The other guys on the football team were dying. The girls pretended to be offended but most couldn’t help but laugh. After all, cruelty was addicting.

 

“I mean, you’d have to right? You just see all that blood and gore come flying and it just gives you a good ole’ chubby, doesn’t it? Man, look at you… wearing a shirt with Jason Voorhees on it. I bet you’d do him wouldn’t you? He must be your hero, killing all those slutty girls and those horny jocks. Yeah, I bet if he showed up here, you’d do him in a heartbeat…” Joseph hissed.

 

Lisa could only watch as everyone’s laughter grew uncontrollable. By this time, Mrs. Keeling came in from the hallway, telling everyone to quiet down. As she did, Joseph turned around with a smile on his face. Creepy Craig just kept looking forward, as if in another world. Throughout the class, Lisa found herself constantly looking over to him. And she couldn’t stop thinking. She couldn’t stop thinking what Joseph had done. What the class had done. What she had done.

 

You see, during Joseph’s tirade, she was sickened to know that she had laughed too. Sure, by the end, she had stopped. But, for the span of maybe six seconds, she had laughed. She had laughed at Creepy Craig’s… no, Craig Moore’s pain and humiliation.

 

By the time class ended, she promised herself that she would never let that happen again. She would never laugh at him again. She would never let him get hurt again. Never. Because it wasn’t right. It wasn’t right to let that happen.

 

She also promised to never refer to him as Creepy Craig. This one promise was harder to keep than she originally thought. After all, cruelty is addicting.

 

----------------------------

 

Back in Creepy Craig’s living room, the VHS of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 was beginning. Terrible, organ-fueled music began to fill the darkened room. Moments passed and the opening titles came to an end. Then, the dull, cropped VHS-quality image filled the screen.

 

Deep inside, Creepy Craig knew that the VHS version of the film was very flawed. The quality was incredibly lower than that of a DVD. Most VHS tapes also came in a pan-and-scan format. This meant that the image widescreen image was cropped on the right and left side. When a certain object needed to be the focus of a scene, VHS editors would digitally pan to that object. In a sense, it was a complete butchering of the director’s original vision of the film. Instead of Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 being presented in its original 1:85:1 ratio it was reduced to 1:33 and was full of shoddy, digital scans.

 

Creepy Craig knew about all of these flaws. Still, he couldn’t help but love watching VHS copies of horror films. Something about the grainy, crappy nature of them really boosted the film experience for him. In a way, it was really nostalgic. He, along with all children of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, grew up watching films the wrong way. They had to re-learn to watch films when DVD’s started coming out. While they all jumped ship, praised the era of the DVD and cursed the impracticality of the VHS, it was occasionally nice to go back. It was like being a kid again, even if the picture was shit.

 

Still… it was nice to go back… nice to go back…

 

Lisa sat uncomfortably next to Craig as the movie played. In just the first five minutes, two stereotypical college party boys where killed by Leather face in his crew in a pretty gruesome fashion. One of the boys had the top of his head sliced off with a chainsaw, a fountain of blood erupting from the wound.

 

A giggle escaped from Craig at the moment of this gory moment.

           

“Look at that, just like a fountain. Isn’t that funny?” Creepy Craig laughed.

 

Lisa couldn’t manage a fake laugh but did slip out a smile and a slight nod. To be honest, nothing could have made the situation worse than Creepy Craig’s giggle. The fact that he found this scene of violence the comedy in the genre of “horror comedy” gave her the willies.

 

“You know, Tom Savini did that effect. Savini’s a god in the special effects world. He did the special effects in Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13^th Parts 1 and 4: The Final Chapter and Day of the Dead. The guy practically spawned the slasher genre. He is gore. And not just the fake, flimsy crap. I read this interview with him in Fangoria one time and he talked about how his time in combat in Vietnam actually influenced his special effects work. It was his goal to put that horrific realism that he had seen first hand into the movies. By doing so, he made his horror our horror. You know what I’m saying?”

           

In the dark, Creepy Craig’s eyes were glowing as he spoke his affection for this particular special effects man. In fact, they glowed anytime he spoke about the horror genre. He really truly loved it. And it truly scared Lisa.

           

Deep down, she knew it probably shouldn’t. After all, these were just movies. And everyone should have a hobby or love of some sort. Plus, this was Creepy Craig. What else was he supposed to do? It’s not like he had any friends or anything.

 

Still, she couldn’t help get uncomfortable when he got like this. When he ranted about his love. His only love. In fact, it was practically his life.

 

It was here, in these moments of discomfort, that Lisa often thought that Creepy Craig really brought all of his torment upon himself.

 

----------------------------

 

Creepy Craig had been working at the local video store in town since two summers ago. On paper, it really seemed to be the ideal job for him. The guy obviously loved horror films and now he was going to be surrounded by them on a daily basis. On paper, it should have been heaven. It should have been an elevation of all the tension in his every day life. But, in truth, it only made Creepy Craig more of a town legend and not in a good way.

 

In school, Craig had never said a word. Now, in a position of power, he changed his attitude. Suddenly, he not only spoke but he never shut up. From the moment a customer came into the store, he would berate them. He would ask how they were doing, what they were looking for, if he could help them, if they were interested in the store’s latest discount deal combo, if they knew that Night of the Living Dead was actually about racism and the civil rights movement of the 1960’s, if they were aware of George A. Romero’s underrated film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Half, if they knew that The Ring was the worst thing to happen to the horror genre, etc.

 

When someone would bring up a movie that Creepy Craig disliked, he would be sure to let them know it. One time Cindy Sanders and her boyfriend Matt Freeman brought a copy of the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to the front counter. He asked them if they knew the seriousness of their actions and that they were in fact supporting the utter destruction and bastardization of the horror genre. Details of what happened next vary from source to source. But, the main gist is that Matt and Craig got into a verbal argument. At one point, Craig asked if Matt would like it if someone took Cindy, sucked the personality and intelligence out of her but gave her a boob job as compensation. To Craig, this was the equivalent of remaking a horror classic.

 

Matt’s answer to this had been a fist to the face— not Creepy Craig’s first and certainly not his last. The incident had almost cost Craig his job. In fact, it got so close that Craig got on his knees, crying out of his one non-black, swollen eye, and begged the manager to let him stay. The utter pathetic nature of the scene must have caused the guy to just let it go.

 

Lisa herself had an encounter with Creepy Craig at the video store.

           

She and her friends had got to the store late that night, about an hour before it closed. They were all staying at Mary Hederman’s house for a sleep over. They had spent some time eating dinner and afterward Lana Anderson had the idea of getting a cheap horror flick from the video store, popping some popcorn and getting scared together. Lisa imagined that afterwards they would sneak some ice cream out of Mary’s refrigerator, sit down and gossip about boys.

           

While Lisa usually dreaded this aspect of female sleepovers, this particular sleep over she was looking forward to it. For the past two months, he had been crushing pretty hard on Mike Hartman. Mike sat two seats ahead of Lisa in her AP Government class. He was the athletic type but didn’t play sports aside from ultimate frisbee on occasion with some friends. He was smart and kind. And he had dreamy blue eyes and wavy, dirty blonde hair.

 

To Lisa, he was the perfect package. Because of this, she doubted anything would happen. Then, to her surprise, something did.

 

One day after AP Government, Mike walked beside her on the concrete outside of the classroom. He had asked her if she had thought the latest quiz had been difficult. She agreed that it had been. That was all it took. For the next few days, Mike left class with Lisa, chit-chatting about various subjects. Soon after, he began to actually talk to her in class. Then, the big moment had come. Nonchalantly, he asked Lisa if she had a date to the Homecoming dance. She didn’t. A few moments later, she did.

 

As the group of girls moved through the video store, scouring for the latest horror film on the new release wall, Lisa tried to contain her excitement about breaking the news about Mike. Lisa had never had a boyfriend before. She had only kissed a boy once— during a game of spin the bottle in the seventh grade. Because she wasn’t a cheerleader, dance team member or a drinker of alcohol, she wasn’t really considered a part of the “popular crowd.” Because of this, she didn’t really date. No one besides this crowd really dated at Lisa’s high school. It’s just the way it was.

 

But this all seemed like it could change. In fact, why couldn’t it? Lisa and Mike were both in the same kind of a crowd. What was wrong with them dating?

 

The other girls got ahead of her in the video store. As she lagged behind, she moved her right hand over a few of the movies on the wall. The tapes all felt worn and a tad bit dusty. As she moved her hand over their surface, she found herself thinking about Mike again… his wavy hair, lush, blue eyes, bright smile and kind voice. She thought about him and what he could be. She thought of him and felt her cheeks grow warm and a tingle sprout in her belly. Moments later, it felt as if she were floating through the store, the movies and the sleepover not even mattering anymore.

 

She was floating until she saw Creepy Craig up ahead hovering over her group of friends. All of a sudden, the tingle disappeared and she felt the warmth in her cheeks smudge into a minor headache. By the time she reached them, Creepy Craig was already in mid-rant. He held a copy of a movie called Dead Alive in his right hand, holding it as if it were the Holy Grail itself.

 

“I’m sorry but this is where it’s at, girls. You need to put crap like The Messengers and The Unborn back. Dead Alive is the goriest movie ever made. Did you know that? Plus, it’s Peter freaking Jackson. The guy made this before Lord of the Rings and King Kong. And it’s just so awesome. Get this— there’s one scene where a baby zombie gets inside of a woman and then tears out of her head. How sweet is that?”

 

            Their facial expressions answered his question but still Mary felt the need to speak up.

 

            “That sounds disgusting, Craig.”

 

            For a moment, he just looked hurt.

           

            “Well, you’re looking for a horror movie, right?”

            “Yeah. But not something that’s fodder for a serial killer in training,” she spit.

 

            Creepy Craig’s eye gave a pretty creepy twitch.

 

            “You know, you must think you’re so high and mighty and I’m some kind of freak. Is that right?”

 

            Mary didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.

 

            “But you’re here for a horror movie. That’s what you came here for. And why is that? Why do you want to see a horror movie? Is it because you want to be scared? Is that it? Or is it something else? Maybe it’s something a little morbid. You see, you’re here for a horror movie but you don’t even think about what that means. You try to act like you have morals and higher opinions about your horror but that’s bullshit. The fact is that you watch these movies for the same thing that I do and everyone else on this world does. The difference between you and me is that you… you’re a… a fucking coward. So go ahead. Get your neutered horror. That way, when you go to sleep at night, you can think of yourself as something special and different. Anything to help you sleep I guess…”

 

            On this, Creepy Craig walked away and went into the back office for employees. As he turned to leave, Lisa could have swore she saw tears beginning to flow from his eyes.

 

            “God, what a creep…” Mary said.

            “That guy is going to murder someone one day, I swear,” Lana Anderson added.

           

            The girls then went to the front of the store to get rung out by Creepy Craig’s not so creepy and slightly normal female co-worker. They rented the two movies that Creepy Craig had ranted against. Lisa thought they were pretty bad. As he had said, they were “neutered horror.”

 

            As the female clerk scanned the movies and gave them the due dates for each of them, Lisa thought about the encounter with Creepy Craig. She still felt terrible for him. She really did. But she couldn’t help feel a little angry too. Deep down, it almost seemed like he wanted to be miserable. Like he wanted to be tortured and made fun of.

 

            She struggled with these thoughts as she and girls left the video store to continue with their slumber party.

 

----------------------------

 

            On the television screen before Lisa, Leatherface was chain sawing a bucket of ice directly between the legs of the film’s scream queen heroine. He thrusted back and forth with his hips, making the chainsaw a symbol for the male penis with the subtly of… well, a chainsaw.

 

            Deep down, Lisa was beginning to feel a little sick. She hadn’t enjoyed the movie from the start and now, with this inclusion of penile symbolism, she was beginning to lose her wits.

 

            “I’m gonna go to the bathroom really quick…” she managed.

            “Alright, want me to pause it?”

            “No, it’s fine. I’ll catch up.”

            “Okay then.”

 

            Lisa got up from the couch and took refuge in Creepy Craig’s bathroom. She turned the sink on, let the water run over her hands and then washed her face. The cool of the water on her face made her feel slightly better but it was hard to get that queasy feeling out of her stomach. No, the only remedy for that would be to get out of Creepy Craig’s house and never come back.

           

            But she couldn’t do that. That wouldn’t be right. And it wouldn’t be fair to him.

 

            “What do you owe him?” she asked her self quietly.

           

            As she asked it, she instantly regretted it. This was the least she could do. The least. After all he had been through, this was nothing.

 

            Still, as Lisa stood there, the sound of Leatherface’s undying chainsaw came splitting into bathroom from the living room. As it did, Lisa, for only a moment, wondered once again how she got into this situation.

 

            “You did it by being nice. By doing the right thing, and being nice.”

 

            After saying this, she took a deep breath and went back into the living room.

 

----------------------------

 

            Creepy Craig’s cries had sounded like those of a dying animal when she had found him.

 

            He laid in a massive puddle of mud, his entire body soaked in the filth from head to toe. Blood lay on his lips, coming in bursts out of his mouth along with saliva. His pants had been tugged around his ankles and, even from the distance were Lisa was, she could she that his underwear was torn and yanked up to his mid back. One of his eyes was swollen— the same one that had been blackened by Matt Freeman just a few months ago. His glasses lay nearby, caked in thick mud and shattered. His drawing notebook was thrown off to the far right, soaked in filth along with many of its pages torn out.

 

            Joseph King, the same person that had once started the Creepy Craig moniker, stood over the screaming boy aside Jerry and Jason Smith and Kyle Long. Kyle looked a little queasy over what was happening but the Smith brothers and Joseph were all smiles and horrible laughs.

           

            Lisa had been coming down the path beside Ridgewire Road for the past week because she had recently gone through a faze of riding her bike to school and back. It was becoming spring and the rush of the cool breeze through her hair as she rode her bike had become more appealing than just driving her boring old car to school. Usually the dip behind the Sander’s place was an uneventful yet muddy bypass on her otherwise pleasant bike ride. Today, however, there was nothing uneventful about it.

           

            Joseph had been the first to notice Lisa riding slowly towards them. Her eyes were already filled with horror. Inside, Joseph knew he was going to have a tough time with her. Still, he tried to divert her with a little humor.

           

            “What do you think, Lisa? An upgrade for the creepster or what?” he laughed, flashing a malicious grin.

           

            By this point, Lisa had stopped her bike and was moving on foot towards the boys. Creepy Craig still wailed like a banshee, only stopping to gasp for air and cough blood.

 

            “What are you doing? What in God’s name are you doing?” she said, her voice starting soft and then growing with anger and shock.

           

            Kyle was growing paler. The Smith brothers were starting to reconsider their actions as well. Joseph, however, did not falter.

 

            “Just making sure he knows where he stands…” Joseph said quietly.

 

            Lisa was now face to face with him. All the other boys just stood over the keening Craig, not sure what to do.

           

            “What are you doing?” Lisa repeated.

            “Now… Lisa… you’re not going to make a big thing out of this are you? This isn’t grade school anymore, honey. You’re not gonna go tell the teacher on me, are you?”

           

            For a moment, Lisa didn’t have any words. She couldn’t believe what they were doing. She couldn’t believe this person in front of her.

           

            “I want you to look long and hard at that piece of shit in the mud over there,” Joseph said, turning and pointing at Craig. “Look him and think about what he’s going to become. Think about what he is. He’s a waste. A waste of time, air and space. The kid’s nothing. And he’s only going to get worse. We all know it. He’s just gonna get older, get crazier and then start taking action. Lisa, the kid’s pretty much guaranteed to become a serial killer. We all know it. We all joke about it in the halls and behind closed doors. And why? Because we know it’s true.”

 

            Lisa could feel the tears building up behind her eyes. Deep down, she tried to tell herself to stay strong. She tried to tell herself to not fall apart.

           

            “Were you… were you planning to kill him?” she asked, terror in her voice.

           

            Joseph only laughed.

           

            “Kill? Are you serious? He’s the serial killer, not me. No, baby… I don’t think wedgies and black eyes can kill. But he’s sure gonna be sore. And he sure knows to watch his ass. That’s for sure. And that’s the point.”

 

            For a moment, Lisa felt like she could kill. She felt like she could kill Joseph King. In her mind’s eye, she fantasized about ripping his throat out. Gouging his eyes out. Crushing his testicles. Humiliating him. Torturing him. Murdering him.

 

            Then, reason came in for just a moment. It was all the time she needed.

 

            “Go home.”

            “What?” Joseph asked.

            “I said go home. Do that and I won’t go and call the police,” she said sternly.

            “I don’t think you would do that…” Joseph started.

            “Joseph, come on, man. Let’s get out of here. There’s nothing left to do…” Kyle said, cutting him off.

           

            Joseph turned, giving him what was sure to be a terrible look. As he did, Lisa felt her body starting to shake. She was terrified. Still, she stood her ground.

           

            Joseph turned around.

           

            “Why do you care about the weirdo? What’s your problem?”

            “Joseph… go home. Please.”

 

            In his eyes, she saw temporary defeat. She would remember that look for the rest of her life along with the look of burning hate she had seen in his eyes years before. Only this memory would be a much fonder one.

 

            “Alright, boys. Let’s get out of here. Not much else we can do to the gore hound anyways without getting thrown in jail…”

           

            With that, Joseph turned away from Lisa and walked back to his posse. Before they left, he leaned down to Creepy Craig, who, by this point, was no longer screaming. He had settled down to a steady, low whimpering. To be honest, it was more unsettling then his blood curling shrieks from earlier.

 

            From her distance, Lisa could not hear what Joseph said to Creepy Craig. She could only assume the worst. But she could see Creepy Craig’s reaction. The shift in his face was so sudden and bold that it sent a chill up her spine and broke her arms into gooseflesh.

           

            An animalistic rage entered Creepy Craig’s eyes, replacing the pathetic, child-like fear that had filled them just moments ago. He growled, opening his mouth and bit down on Joseph’s nearby arm. Joseph managed to cry out as Craig ripped at his flesh with his teeth in a savage manner, his eyes boiling. By the time he managed to get his arm out of Craig’s mouth, some loose flesh was hanging from it and it was bleeding pretty strongly.

           

            “You fucking freak!” Joseph cried.

           

            Lisa was running towards them as Joseph brought a strong fist from his uninjured arm down on Creepy Craig’s hate-filled face. The punch sent Craig back into the mud momentarily but, to everyone’s surprise, he was back up and nearly foaming at the mouth a second later.

           

            Joseph held his bleeding arm and backed away, a look of surprise and fear entering his face.

           

            “Lisa, you better get this freak calmed the hell down. You better do it quick. I swear I’ll finish him off if I have to. I’m just about getting to the point where it’s the most logical thing to do, I swear…”

            “Go home, Joseph. Just go home,” she cut him off, trembling as she reached the horrific scene. 

           

            With this, Joseph stepped back, his friends grabbing him and pulling him away. As he left, the look on his face was that of just utter shock. He really couldn’t believe that Creepy Craig had gotten the upper hand in the past minute. And the savage manner in which he did it terrified him.

           

            Lisa approached Creepy Craig as the boys walked away. He was still growling, his eyes wild and crazy. Lisa had never been so scared in her life.

           

            “Hey… hey, Cree… Craig. It’s Lisa. Just calm down. It’s okay now. It’s okay…” she started, leaning down to him.

 

            He fixed his eyes on him. The rage was still swirling in them.

           

            “It’s okay, Craig. It’s okay, now. I promise…” she crooned.

           

            Then it happened. Just as quickly as he had switched when Joseph had whispered terrible words to him, the anger disappeared. The animal vanished. It was all over.

           

            Lisa gasped as Creepy Craig jumped out of the mud hole and latched onto her. Tears were gushing from his eyes and he was gasping between breaths. Slowly, she felt her arms move around his filthy, bloody and brushed body. Slowly, she held him. She held him and they cried together.

           

            After a few minutes had passed, Lisa began to help him clean up. She then asked him if there was anything else she could do for him. Probably still in shock from the whole event, he simply asked if she wouldn’t mind watching a movie with him sometime. She said that she would.

 

----------------------------

 

            The finale of Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 was wild, epic, insane and overblown. While Lisa found most of the movie offensive, boring, disgusting and nearly unwatchable, she suddenly found what Creepy Craig so admired about it in the film’s final ten minutes.

 

            As Leatherface became involved in a chainsaw duel with a one-liner spouting Dennis Hopper in an abandoned amusement park, Lisa found that even she couldn’t help but laugh. The whole situation was so beyond ridiculous that it became entertaining in a strange, sick kind of way.

 

            When the movie came to an end, Creepy Craig stood up and flipped the lights on.

 

            “Well, what’d you think? It was a gas, huh?” Craig said, a smile spreading on his face.

           

            Lisa tried to let the first half of the movie go. She focused on the insane last of it when she gave her answer.

 

            “It was fun, Craig,” she said.

           

            His smile widened.

 

            “Glad you think so. A lot of people hate it. It’s not for everyone. Hell, even I hated it the first time I saw it. But it’ll grow on you. It really will. There’s just something special about it… you know? I mean, you saw that right?” he asked.

            “I think I did.”

            “Good.”

 

            An awkward silence fell on the two. Lisa thought she would have to break it when Creepy Craig spoke up.

           

            “Well, I won’t hold you up. I’m sure you got plans…”

            “Oh, not really. But I should probably get back.”

            “I’ll walk you out.”

           

            As they walked to Creepy Craig’s front door, he began to make conversation.

           

            “So, I heard that you’re dating Mike Hartman?”

            “Yeah. We went to Homecoming together. Kind of hit it off there.”

            “He seems like a nice guy. Doesn’t seem like most of the others.”

            “I know what you mean. He’s really great. It’s been nice so far.”

            “That’s good to hear.”

           

            Creepy Craig put his hand on the door handle and opened it up.

           

            “Well, it’s been nice, Craig. Thank you for having me,” Lisa said as she moved outside.

            “No problem…”

           

            Lisa stood outside of Creepy Craig’s house, looking back at him. He was looking at her, studying her beautiful blue eyes, her light, brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and her angelic face. He was looking at her when he began to speak.

 

            “Lisa…”

            “Yes?”

            “I know what people say about me… you know that, right?”

 

            Lisa felt her stomach drop slightly. For a moment, she didn’t know where Creepy Craig was going with this. And she was nervous where he might go.

           

            “People think I’m dangerous. That I’m going to become a serial killer. That I watch horror films like other people would watch pornography…”

            “Craig…”

            “The horror movies… they calm me. It’s something I don’t know how to explain. It’s just, when I watch them… the pain, the anxiety it all goes away.”

 

            Craig paused, taking a breath.

 

“I can remember the moment it first happened. It was the day that someone put a dead bird in my backpack.”

            “What?” Lisa asked, slightly horrified.

            “I left my backpack outside during lunch and, when I came back, I found a dead bird in it. When I did, it was like a scary calm came over me. I dumped it out and then thought about how the bird had been inside of there, getting all of its feathers, blood and diseases all over my notebooks, notes and books. Slowly, I picked the backpack up and threw the whole thing away in the trash can.”

            “Craig… that’s awful. Really. I’m sorry.”

            “When I got home, I started crying and… I threw up. I just didn’t understand. I couldn’t understand something like that. It just didn’t make sense in my head. How could someone do something like that? How could that even make sense in someone’s head? It… it really messed me up…”

           

            Craig paused here, taking another breath. There were tears in his eyes.

 

            “And, I don’t know. There are some gaps in my memory. But I remember going into the living room and starting The Evil Dead. And something happened. It was just like all that pain and disgust… it just left me. I just don’t know how to describe it. It was like… there was just something about it… the genre as a whole. All the stereotypes, the opening kills, the rules, etc… it was just the formula that put me at ease.”

           

            Craig was struggling now, having trouble with his words.

           

            “In a way, it’s the same reason that I watch the movies on VHS. I know that VHS sucks. It’s terrible. But, in a way, it’s nostalgic. It makes me feel like a kid again. You know, I’ve never really had a lot of friends, even when I was a kid. But damn it, things were a lot better then than they are now. And to go back to all of that… it’s nice. And that’s what the VHS does for me. That’s what horror does for me. All that stuff I said in the video store that night to you and your friends… that was all bullshit. I just wanted to hurt her. I just wanted to scare her. It doesn’t make me wanna hurt people. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I never did… but it’s just like they want me too. It’s like they all want me to go and kill someone, you know? Like, that’s their main goal. I didn’t want to hurt Joseph. I didn’t want to bite him. But that asshole… he just wouldn’t stop. What am I supposed to do? What do they want from me?”

 

            Craig’s words were slurring now and he was shaking. Hot tears were starting to fall down his cheeks, leaving streaks. Like the day she found him screaming and crying in the mud, Lisa once again took him in her arms, holding him.

           

            “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay…” she started.

            “I just don’t know what to do anymore…” Craig managed.

            “I know. I know it’s hard. But it’s almost over. Just one more year and it’s over… It’s almost over…”

            “Yeah… one more year…”

 

            The two broke their hug. Through his always-dirty glasses, Lisa could see his swelling, red eyes. They were bright. They were grateful.

           

            “Thank you. For everything. I mean, you didn’t have to come over and watch this with me. Most people wouldn’t have even helped me that day in the mud. You’ve done more than enough…”

            “It was nothing, Craig. I enjoyed it. Really…”

            “Well, if you say so.”

 

            He looked down, not knowing how to end their conversation and, deep down, wanting it to not end.

           

            “How about we watch Psycho next week? Or does it have too much over-staged butchering for you?” Lisa asked with a smile.

           

            Craig looked up, looking surprised.

           

            “Are you serious?” he almost whispered.

            “I mean… we could watch something else…” she started.

            “No, that’s fine. Really.”

 

            A smile started to form on Craig’s face, the streaks of water on his face beginning to dry.

           

            “I have a date with Mike on Friday but I should be free on Saturday. What do you say, friend?”

            “I’ll be sure to get some popcorn for next week. And, you know I have a DVD player. We can watch it on that if you like…”

            “No, VHS is fine. Besides, it’s more nostalgic.”

            “Yeah…” Craig laughed.

           

            Before they parted, Lisa gave Craig one more hug. As she did she whispered in his ear.

           

            “Just one more year…”

 

            When they parted, Lisa left Craig Moore standing in the doorway of his house. He watched her leave for a moment and then took his glasses off his oily nose and began to clean them on his white undershirt that was beneath the Dawn of the Dead t-shirt he was wearing.

           

            As he did so, he was smiling.

 

 

 

THE END.