Dumb Girl In The Scary Movie
- lisa Stathoplos
- May 15
- 5 min read
My spidey sense awakens me. The creep from every horror flick ever made has his face a foot from mine.
Whatthefuck?!
“Bad dream?”
Jesus Christ! Get the fuck out of here! Who the fuck are you?! Get out!
“Heeeeyyy…….chill.”
Are you fucking kidding me?!
His face is expressionless. I’m slap whacking my husband who’s not dead but dead to the world next to me.
Jack! Wake up! What the fuck?!
Creep show murderer leans in even closer.
“Hey, chill, chill.”
His voice is bizarrely modulated, low. His flat affect face is inches from mine. I’m kicking at him now and the F-word is coming firehose fast.
Get the fuck out of here! Are you out of your fucking mind?! Fuckin’ A, Jack, WAKE UP!”
“Where’s Colette?”
What the hell?
I work with Colette on my in-laws’ tour boats. We’re First Mates and Guides. She rents from us.
Wait, what? Colette? Get out of our bedroom! She lives upstairs!
“Hey, hey. Chill, chill, baby.”
He’s backing off some now, inching glacially toward the door. Backwards. Never takes his weird, effed up gaze off of me.
JACK!!!!!
Lest the Reader think Jack IS already dead or a complete asshole, it’s important to note that long-lining twenty five miles out to sea daily — a type of deepwater commercial fishing — makes it easy to sleep like those famous logs. The famous sleeping logs of yore. Jack could sleep through, well, he’s sleeping through this.
Several eternities pass and, mercifully, Michael Myers exits. I hear his footsteps — a pitter patter of bad omens — as each lands on the stairs. Eventually, I drift into a fugue state somewhere between half-awake and begrudgingly comatose, my brain stuck in an addled loop of “what in hell was Colette thinking giving this freak her address?”
Our apartment is on the second floor of an ancient and classic New England seaside abode and, above us, are four bedrooms — two singles and two doubles — that we let to summertime working girls in this world famous Maine tourist town. Six young girls, Jack and I (we are also young!) share a bathroom on our floor, just across a large landing from our bedroom. The only door to the house is always unlocked. We’ve lived this way for ten summers (We take no boarders in cold weather; access to the upstairs is sealed off in winter to save on heat.) It’s also notable that we have two young, scruffy mutts and two cats. Two young, scruffy mutts so accustomed, I guess, to folks coming and going that Norman Bates’ entrance around 1 AM was just another Saturday night. Finally, I sleep, my last cogent thought something involving interrogating Colette: "Who in hell was the loser looking for you?!"
My spidey sense stirs again and my eyes land on the analog clock with the blue face I’ve had since junior high sitting on my bedside table, its orange stickers on each side proclaiming “LISA” in big, block psychedelic letters. 4 AM. I become aware of a weird glow coming through the thin crack of our bedroom door that's barely ajar. I cannot imagine where this strange light is coming from or what is making it. Climbing out of bed and stumbling sleepily to our bedroom door, I officially become “The Dumb Girl In The Scary Movie.” All I’m missing is a close to flickering out candle and a John Carpenter score.
Entering the landing, I see that the light is emanating from our apartment proper — our kitchen/dining room combo that leads to the inner sanctum of the living room. Rubbing my eyes, I still can’t conceive what is creating it. I find out. At the doorway, Jason Voorhees is standing with the refrigerator door swung wide, his right arm slung up over the top of it, and his full attention on its entire contents. In his left hand, he’s got the half-gallon jug of 2% Oakhurst milk. He remains stock still, until, in extreme close-up slow motion, he cocks his creepy head ever so slightly in my direction, and, again, in that dull monotone says, “Hey, hey. What’s up?’ He then lifts the milk jug, sloshes a gulp, and brings it slowly back down, holding it with his arm fully extended to the floor, so the plastic container hangs by his left knee while continuing to hold his deadened gaze at my face.
What’s up??!! You friggin freak, get out of our apartment! JACK, wake up!!!!!!!!! You! Get out, get out!!!!!!!
“Chill. Chill, Baby. Bad dream?”
Does he know any other words? Lines? Jesus Christ. If I was yelling at him earlier, I’m fully screaming at him now, occasionally hollering for Jack to get in here, please! Movie Monster has not moved one inch from the position I described above.
Get out, get out!!!!! I’m going to call the cops! JAAAAACK!!!!!! Okay???! I’m calling the cops right now!!!!!!!!
This is fiction. I cannot call the cops. Well, I cannot call the cops or anyone else unless I first heave this formidably jacked man backwards, slam the fridge door shut, then risk sneaking past him into the dining room where the only phone in the house is located. The phone may as well be on Everest's South Col. I long for it, but there’s no getting past Movie Bad Guy right now. Jack continues, presumably, to slumber, comfortably numb, in our bedroom. I’m on my own.
“Hey. Hey. Relax. Chill, baby. What’s up?”
His vocabulary seems pretty limited. Of course, mine now consists almost entirely of variations on the F-word while I dart back and forth from the entrance to the kitchen and the door to our bedroom attempting to wake Jack. (I know, this part is hard to believe, but, it’s true. Jack could sleep through nuclear detonation in our backyard.)
At last, Hannibal Lecter detaches himself from the fridge, slowly closes the door, then begins in his slo-mo fashion toward the landing and the stairs. I’m backing up toward the bedroom accordingly. The entire time, he keeps his hollow eyes on me while repeating his favorite, now tired, phrases. Making his way down the stairs to the door, he continues to look up at me like some crazed zombie memorizing my facial features for future retribution. He’s still got the milk jug.
Jack finally awakens but, Night of The Living Dead, Eighties Remake, is over. I rush to the kitchen to see if I can find which way Freddy Kruger went, and, if he had a car. He did. It was parked under our kitchen window in the side lot. It’s so dark and we are up so high, that when he pulls out, headed toward town, there is no way to discern much about the make of his car, never mind get a license plate. I relate to Jack what happened. Incredibly, I don’t divorce him.
It was all an evil awful dream.
Turns out, though, there’s more dreams may come…… (continued)
Copyright © 2025 lisa stathoplos/ Slay Me, My Hapless Darlings
