The ongoing adventures of the last three twenty-year-olds on Earth paying for movies.
Alan: Blackula 2000.
Byron: The Cretin from The Black Lagoon.
Cammy: Ex-bride of Frankenstein.
Others rotate in and out.
It’s a dark and stormy cliché. Alan, Byron, and Cammy stand together in a clearing in the woods. Everyone holds a shovel, and has a costume stained by a mixture of mud and Popov’s vodka. Byron and Cammy dig energetically, while Alan picks half-heartedly at the ground whenever the others look his way.
ALAN
(Detached)
I’m going to need a bigger shovel.
BYRON
(Exhausted)
It’s the best I could do, man. I don’t exactly keep these lying around.
CAMMY
(Panicked)
Let’s focus on digging. You never know when someone’s going to pass by.
ALAN
This dirt is ruining my costume.
CAMMY
What are you supposed to be? A pirate at a fashion show?
ALAN
Nick Fury.
CAMMY
And you?
BYRON
(Proudly)
Slutty Pennywise.
CAMMY
Why would you be a half-naked evil clown? You look like a festive rapist.
BYRON
Do I look like a slutty festive rapist?
ALAN
Before you go off on him, he’s not trying to be funny. He’s just dense.
BYRON
Dense? I’m not the one that put us in this situation.
ALAN
There goes our Halloween tradition.
CAMMY
(Defensively)
It’s not my fault! He insisted on joining in! It was the only way he’d pay for this hockey mask, I had no choice.
BYRON
Why didn’t you buy one yourself?
CAMMY
I don’t understand the question.
ALAN
The hole’s as deep as its getting. Let’s stick a fork in this guy and move on.
The trio set down their shovels, and turn to face the wooden casket behind them. Cammy’s brother Dominic lies motionless inside.
CAMMY
Seriously, we watch Freddy vs. Jason every year for a laugh. How was I supposed to know it would kill him?
ALAN
It was bound to happen to one of us sooner or later. The film is dumb enough to give you a stroke.
BYRON
One: you’ve forgotten what fun is. Two: I’m not lifting that alone.
CAMMY
You wouldn’t make a lady exert herself, would you?
ALAN
You’re dressed as a serial killer, not an aristocrat. Now help us toss your brother in this hole before the sirens get here.
CAMMY
I’ll kind of miss him.
ALAN
I won’t.
Dominic sits up, stretches, and yawns.
DOMINIC
God, that movie sucked riotous amounts of– where the hell am I?!
CAMMY
Please lie down. I was about to become an only child.
DOMINIC
I fall asleep and you dipshits try to bury me in the woods?!
CAMMY
Dipshits? I’d say we’re closer to asshats.
ALAN
Jackasses would be the most precise.
BYRON
(Nonplussed)
Wait, you’re not dead?
DOMINIC
No!
BYRON
You had flies swarming around you!
CAMMY
That would be the stale food in his pockets. He’s also got the body odor of the dead.
DOMINIC
(Haughtily)
Man-musk! I have the man-musk of the dead, cretins.
ALAN
See that? That’s why I signed on for this plan.
DOMINIC
This is what happens when you hang out with fake people. I’m going back to my real friends, who appreciate the finer things in life.
CAMMY
(Dryly)
We never pretended to be your friend.
ALAN
Not even for a second.
BYRON
Didn’t you try to rob us the last time we met? I’m pretty sure you tried to rob us.
DOMINIC
(Sternly)
That brilliant plan will be a pleasant memory after what happens next, I promise you that.
ALAN
(Smugly)
Who makes threats when they’re outnumbered in the woods?
CAMMY
It’s not like we’ll actually kill him. I just thought we’d leave him down there for a few hours. It’s the classic “pretend to bury your sibling alive” prank.
ALAN
(Disconcerted)
Right. Of course we wouldn’t. Why would we do that? Ha. Ha ha. Ha!
BYRON
You’re fucked up.
Dominic scurries into the woods, cursing the trio as he disappears in the brush. He returns a few seconds later for his glasses, flips the trio off, and runs back into the darkness.
BYRON
Hmm. We normally talk more about the movie.
ALAN
It fucking sucks.
CAMMY
It’s fantastic.
The three return to Cammy’s home, where they suffer no consequences for their actions.
I’m half-disappointed this wasn’t a piece extolling the many virtues of Freddy vs. Jason, with the other half being thoroughly entertained by the entire thing.
I’m glad to be of half-service.