Scarier Than Fiction (Chapter 2) (Patreon)

“Hey, uh… that was just a rhetorical question,” Chris said, clearing his throat. He noticed more heads turning in the audience, no longer looking back with irritation, but instead with raised eyebrows and semi-boggled eyes. Even without Chris hearing their voices, the mood had definitely turned from combative to anxious, if not a little fearful; ironically, this fit the atmosphere of the horror film perfectly, though the eldritch abomination itself had nothing to do with the shift.

“No, no, it’s cool. I’m into this now,” Delilah reassured him. Indeed she sounded more awake now, her tone engaged and vigorous, more so than she’d been for any of the actual onscreen scenes. She narrowed her eyes, contemplating while staring into the sky rather than the movie so low to the earth from her perspective; the girl puckered her lips and tapped her fingers on her cheeks in thoughtful unison. “God, just look at that thing. Still just waving his tentacles around. What’s he doing, picking up cars and flicking them around? That’s embarrassing. It would be way better if I was there instead, because I wouldn’t just start picking up the cars one at a time and throwing them around like a bratty kid trashing their toys. See, if you want to send a real message to a tiny population that you’re here to wreck their whole city, like really terrorize them, you have to get creative and go BIG. As in, wind up your leg and punt through a big nasty traffic jam. One kick is all you need. Then you can send thirty cars flying at once, like confetti! After that, I’d see if I can catch some of the ones I kicked up in the air, with both hands and my tongue! See, cuz then I’d be challenging myself and having some fun, trying to get some of the cars on my tongue like funny little colorful popcorn kernels, and the ones I miss, I’d just snatch anyway before they landed, and shove them back in. Boom. Nobody would forget seeing that in a scary movie. The people watching the movie, and the movie people stuck in their funny little cars, when they look in their rearview mirror and see my big ol’ boots stomping toward ‘em like a dinosaur. Trust me.”

“Oh, I trust you,” Chris said. Having been friends with the dark-golden-haired leviathan for quite a while now, he’d gotten used to her twisted humor and overinflated bluster, when in reality the girl wouldn’t intentionally harm a fly. Of course, no one else present at the outdoor theater had that luxury. Chris didn’t even have to look up at the audience to read their discomfort. Especially because Delilah was describing in bizarrely knowledgeable detail how she’d turn a crowd of vehicles, much like this one, into kicking practice and airborne snacks. The lot of them had become gravely quiet, except for some nervous whispering. A few moviegoers nonchalantly abandoned their cars, just in case, no longer watching the film, but Delilah herself with antsy reverence.

Again Delilah fell mercifully quiet for a while, to disinterestedly watch and yawn at the filmic horrors unfolding. The audience was quelled to an extent by her silence, though Chris could still detect their palpable wariness of the gargantuan witness just behind them who was not only capable of clobbering a whole city better than a Lovecraftian beast, but had detailed plans on how to do so most effectively. While the abomination worked its way across the fictional city, it wasn’t the thing’s ghastly sound effects and violent tentacles that made the audience sweat, but in fact the condescending and earth-rumbling laughter that echoed from Delilah whenever the creature did a subpar job of demolishing the metropolis.

“Oh, look, here comes their big scary army now. What do itsy bitsy soldiers think they’re gonna do to that thing, huh?” Delilah commented, rolling her eyes. “I’m pretty sure the real military would be smart enough not to do that themselves, and I should know, because they usually ask me to handle it instead. But these movie-soldiers are all so silly, just forming an orderly line by the river and firing at the monster, like that’s going to do anything to hurt him. Now, if it was me they were attacking, I’d just start splashing up water from the river and dumping it on them. They’d all go washing away, and the ones that didn’t, well… do they really think they’d last long if I just took a step on them? I wouldn’t have to press down hard, even on those dinky tanks of theirs. Just lift my foot, one drop, and pop they’d go. One after another, since they’re all lined up for me like dominoes. I mean, really, it’s like they’re just ASKING to get pulverized.”

Chris prepared to debunk this theory, but decided against responding, since challenging Delilah on her army-destroying plans would only inspire her to get more meticulous in her speculative plans. Instead he shrugged, resigned now to the unfortunate mood befalling the area. A hush had fallen over the whole field, though soon after, a collective murmur rustled through. Most of the patrons had left their cars, and chosen to huddle together, some taking cover behind vehicles, while some had outright abandoned the movie and their own vehicles, instead back-pedaling into the night, as if they were anticipating Delilah’s destructive hypotheticals to become reality at any moment. The slightest flinch on the part of the giantess was liable to make them faint. Since so few patrons were still focused on the movie, except for Delilah and Chris, only they noticed the eldritch abomination winning the military battle and carrying right on with its decimation.

“Well, that wasn’t a surprise, was it? Even a monster that lame could take out an army that doofy,” Delilah practically shouted at the screen. She impatiently drummed her fingers in the grass, causing several visitors near the back to gasp and retreat even further away from her, perhaps expecting the giantess now to reach out and scoop them up like the movie popcorn she’d already so hauntingly suggested.