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“We can watch something else if you want,” Daniel said, hesitating by the DVD player. He’d seen Jeepers Creepers before, but not for a while.
“N-no, I - it’s okay, I want to see it,” Ralph insisted, with a slightly strained smile.
“Okay…” Daniel put the disc in and went to sit on the couch with Ralph. They both picked from the bowl of popcorn, and Ralph relaxed gradually as the movie started. He frowned a bit and stopped eating when the truck showed up behind the college students’ car. When they passed the man pushing bodies into a pipe and escaped from the truck again, he shook his head.
“Why - why did they go back? Why not call the police, why? They - they know what they’ll see, they know it’s bad, they know they could die too!”
“That’s what people do in horror movies,” Daniel said with a shrug. “I guess it’s a good reminder not to take that kind of shit into your own hands.”
“No! I - who would d-do that, who would be that stupid!?”
Daniel chuckled, leaning into Ralph. “Hopefully no one, but you know there are some people out there who would.”
Ralph tensed up more and more, jumping at every jumpscare and scene change, every shadow that passed behind a character.
“Let’s turn it off,” Daniel suggested softly after the main characters ran over the Creeper with their car and his true form was revealed. “It’s a dumb movie, I only wanted to see the beginning.”
Ralph was clutching Daniel’s sleeve for dear life, and shook his head. “Nnnnn… n-n-no, we have to finish.”
“We don’t -”
“We do, it’s not done, it’s still out there, we have to!” Ralph’s voice rose as he squinted at the screen.
“Okay… It’s all fake, though. You’re right, nobody would do the shit those kids are doing.”
“You said people would,” Ralph whispered.
“You know I say dumb shit all the time and I think everybody’s an idiot.” He slipped an arm around Ralph.
Worse than any of the gore or jumpscares, though, was the reveal that the Creeper tracked people by smelling their fear. Ralph whimpered and pressed into Daniel.
“You know I’d punch that freak in the teeth if I saw it, right?”
Ralph hid his face in Daniel’s arm, then turned his head so he could see.
The movie came to an end finally, and Daniel turned it off as the last shot of the main character’s eyeless face cut to the credits. “…So we’ll watch something better next time. That was awful, sorry.”
Ralph buried his face in Daniel’s sleeve and shook his head.
“Hey,” Daniel said. “One, that was Florida. We’re safe here in Detroit, shit like that wouldn’t even make it up here. Two, it shows up every twenty-three years, right? That was 2001, we’ve got a while. And three, it’s not real.”
“I know,” Ralph snapped, then shivered. He continued more softly. “I know it’s not real. I know it’s stupid, I know it’s not here. It’s… stupid that it was a monster. Monsters aren’t scary. It acted like a person. M-monsters don’t act like that.”
“…What?”
“It… it wanted to scare them, it wanted to hide what it did, it wanted revenge and… and it wasn’t scared. Of them, of police, of anything.” He shivered. “It… it made them pick one person to punish, it took its trophy, and it won. And it gets to do it again in twenty-three years. Why? Just… just to scare people, so it can win again.”
“That - huh. I mean, you’re right,” Daniel mused. “It’s supposed to be based on the Jersey Devil, but it’s nothing like the legend. I guess the writers just wanted it to… look more scary.”
“They… they wanted a reason that it’s always stronger and can’t be killed,” Ralph muttered, scratching the scarred side of his face. “It’s a human, though. It should be a human.”
“It’s a pretty bad movie,” Daniel said softly. “They were definitely trying too hard.” He paused. “…And I’d still punch him in the teeth. In his stupid human teeth.”
Ralph snorted and hugged Daniel tightly. “What if you saw the… the skin cave, with all the parts of people?”
“I mean, they’re sewed together on the wall, what’re they gonna do to me? And if the guy’s human, I could cut them free.”
“No.” Ralph pushed away with a sharp glare. “No, that takes time, and he would sneak up and kill you. You’re being stupid like horror movies.”
“But if he’s just a human -”
“No,” Ralph insisted. “Even if they’re alive, they won’t be soon. They can’t get better, not fast enough. You should run.”
Daniel sighed. “…Okay, so I at least tell ‘em I’m sending help. Then I call the police.”
“Fast. As soon as you can.”
“You’d be a pro in a horror movie, Ralph. If we ever get in a tight spot, I’m sticking with you.”
“You’d better,” Ralph grumbled, pressing close again. “Better not try to do everything yourself, that’s how people die.”
“You’re right,” Daniel acquiesced, leaning into Ralph. “…We’re watching a Disney movie next. Something happy. You pick.”
“Mary Poppins,” Ralph said decisively. “It’s calm, nothing really bad.”
“Good choice.”
Halfway through the movie Daniel was asleep on Ralph’s shoulder, and Ralph’s heartbeat had calmed to a normal rate. Ralph smiled a little. Daniel was good, even if he was impulsive enough to die in a horror movie.