Freddy vs. Jason
2003-08-21, 6:08 p.m.

"Ummm, hello, I'd like my therapist to phone in a refill on my Xanax, please."

I suffer from The Fright. It's my brother's fault, really, though he claims otherwise. (Keep in mind, my brother also does not acknowledge that he frequently made me carry him up and down the stairs on my back. Nor does he own up to tying a rope around my neck, leading me around the house, saying, "What's your name?" My reply was supposed to be, "Kunte Kinte!" so then he could whip me and say, "NO! It's Toby! What's your name?!" But then, that's his way.)

So, I had just turned 10, which made my brother 14, and he was sooooo cool. He and his friend, Sean Farmer, had decided to go to the opening of Friday the 13th, on...yes, you know, Friday the 13th. The problem was that Mom and Pop were going to a party that night and Tommy was forced to watch his little sister. Somehow, Tommy managed to get my mother to agree, not only to let her 14 year old son see the movie, but also her 10 year old daughter. (Please note that this is also the woman I convinced to buy me 4 cases of beer when I was 19 for a long weekend by rationalizing that it was less than a beer per person per hour. Ha.)

Anyway, we get dropped off at the movies and as we enter, Tommy says to me in a hush through gritted teeth, "If you squeak once, I'm leaving you here." That was enough for me to scream wildly, inwardly for the next 2 hours. The horror! The horror! I hadn't been this frightened since my parents took us to see Jaws when I was 6.

I cannot begin to describe my sheer terror on the walk home in the dark along a country road. Every cricket was Jasongonnakillmeeeee, every car passing, Jasongonnakillmeeee, every rock skidding across the road, Jasongonnakillmeeeee. It didn't help that in any silence my brother would whisper, KillKillKillKill DieDieDieDie, even though I would hit him and beg him to stop.

We get home to a dark house, Mom and Pop still trippin' the Light Fantastic. I don't wanna go to bed, but my parents will holler if I'm awake when they get home, and Tommy and his friend have already shut the door to his room, making it clear that he was done "watching" me. So, after turning on every light upstairs, I went to the bathroom and proceeded to my bed.

In my bed, with the dim light of the hallway streaming into my room, I start reliving every horrid scene--that chick's neck slit with a hunting knife or how about the ax to that other one's face. Oh wait, the scariest, the arrow through the bottom of the bed--and just then, a hand comes from under my bed and pins my forehead. I screech like, I don't know what, Mariah Carey in Glitter. If I didn't piss my pants, I'm sure I wanted to. And my brother, gets up, laughing.

If thoughts could kill, my brother would have spontaneously burst into flames that night, a la Firestarter. But that, my friends, is where The Fright began and it has run rampant since.

Nightmare on Elm Street, The Shining, The Omen, Evil Dead, et al, yeah, I'm haunted by them all. Even once in a Haunted House, this dude came at me that looked just like the guy from Serpent and the Rainbow. I burst into tears and cried, "Will. somebody. please. help. me?" I was 28. But, that shit cud rilly hap-pen.

So, Freddy vs. Jason. I mean, pleece. Though the thought of some mangiac fucking with my sleep is alarming (i.e. take Vivarin for a week), nothing, and I mean Nothing, can kill Jason. He's lived through TEN movies, how many has Freddy lived through? Hmmm? C'mon. KillKillKillKill DieDieDieDie is gonna make Freddy tear his own eyes out with that Edward Scissorhands action he's got going on. By the end, Freddy will be all Jasongonnakillmeeee. I'm sure of it.

Meepow. That's the sound of a scaredy cat.