Everyone's left the classroom but me and Huey, still in shock over the whole ordeal. Huey especially seems distraught by the idea of a real life horror movie, which, given he's seen nearly trope and cliché out there, does make sense. I should say something though.
"Are you ok?"
Huey looks as if his thoughts are physically penetrating through his face, "No. Not really. I dunno. It's like… Knowing there's a killer among us is... Well, I don't know. I like watching scary movies, but I don't like starring in one. It's like Halloween, but I'm Laurie Strode. Like Child's Play, but I'm Andy. And like Saw, but I'm Adam. I don't wanna get killed by anyone else."
"Dude. You're having a crisis of conscience or something." Is that the correct saying? I think it is.
Huey chuckles, " I like how that sounds. 'Crisis of conscience'. That's pretty good. It's funny how you can be in this great, scary movie, but you don't wanna die in it."
"You're scared." I say.
"Well, duh." Huey rolls his eyes, appearing to be more relaxed now. That's good, that's really good.
Wrapping my right arm around him, I look him in his eyes and charmingly say, "Well, if you wanna take your time dying, you could always do a lot worse than dying with a cute girl." At least, I think I sounded charming. I probably did - Theater kids are notorious for getting lots of bitches.
"Are you saying you'd die with me?" Huey smirks.
"If you die, then we're all dead," I poke him in the stomach, "Because you're our guide to this shitshow."
"Language!" Huey and I turn out to be Ms. O'Hara. Yeah, we probably shouldn't have forgotten we're still in her classroom, but whatever, you know?
"So, Mr. Horror king, what's our first step to survival?"
"Well," Huey moves his arm to free himself, "The first thing we should do is establish our enemy. We already know it's one of the people in this class, but who?"
"How do we do that?" I ask.
"Spending time with them is one option, and with the two of us involved; it shouldn't be that long of a process." He explains.
That's an interesting idea-! Hey wait! Spend time with our classmates? Then that means... Bubba...! No, no, nooooooooooo!!! Fuck him! Anyone but him.
"Judging by that look on your face, you remember Bubba exists, huh?"
"Yeah."
"It's fine, I mean it was just one idea I had, we don't have to go through with it." He says softly, as if trying to comfort me from the fact that Bubba fucking sucks.
"No," I responded, "No, it's a good plan. Just... Anyone but him, pretty please~?" I say making the most pitiful puppy dog eyes in the whole wide world.
"You want me to do it? Talk to him that is." Huey offers me this option, and while I should take it, let's say for a minute that Bubba was indeed the killer and Huey spoke to him about the murders and he dies; then we just lost our, potentially, most valuable resource. This is the worst option we could be going down. So, I, Marideth Cordelle, have to be the one to speak to Bubba. I'll leave Huey Anna, she seems not all that murderous.
"Don't..." I can't believe I'm really doing this, "I'll do it."
"Huh?" He seems confused, but also reassured that he wouldn't have to talk to Bubba, "You sure?"
"100 percent." I grin and bear this choice I made for myself.
"Um... Ok, I guess... I guess I'll talk to the others then." Huey walks away, but then turns around, "Really?" He asks, still processing it.
"Yep."
"Ok then." And with that he was gone. I leave to search for Bubba. Well, he might be a major asshole, but I might as well not die. I arrived at our school's football field where I was sure to find him. Yep, Bubba is there practicing throwing the ole' pigskin. He's sweating up a storm, which makes his already tight white shirt show off his muscles and abs. I approached him nervously, and while I could approach fine-ish before. His temper, combined with the fact he's a potential murder, makes this more anxiety ridden than it should be.
Bubba spots me, "Beat it nerd!" He demands.
"But-!" I was caught off guard. Like, really, straight away an asshole?
He doubled down, "I said beat it!" Bubba pauses. It looks like he's deep in thought.
"Actually, you know what? How about you want to make yourself useful, and you get me some water." Who does he think he is? Andrew Tate? Because even then, he'd still be an asshole - Maybe worse.
"Bubba, I'm not some kind of robot. I can't just automatically do everything that you tell me to."
Bubba nods slowly and grins, "Okay. Now go fetch me some water. I'm hungry."
"What?" I'm dumbfounded how stupid he is.
"I'm hungry." He explains.
"So?"
"So get me some goddamn water." He motions with his hands to leave.
"That's not how that works Bubba!" He doesn't seem to care.
Bubba scoffs, "So what do you know, Ms. Geek?"
"Please don't call me 'Ms. Geek.'" I would hate it to become my nickname from now on, mostly because it's inaccurate, as I'm more accurately a nerd.
"Go fetch me some water, Ms. Geek!" He demands once more.
"FINE!!" I begrudgingly return with water. Why am I even doing this? He's an asshole. I hand the water to Bubba.
"Thanks, dork. You're still a loser, but a useful loser. Haha! I'm gonna keep calling you dork. That's how you're gonna be useful." God, he's like an exaggerated example of misogynists and dumb jocks in horror movies meant to die second, or first if the black guy's not dead yet! …That's not racist, for some reason a lot of horror movies tend to either have the asshole die first, or the black guy; It's a weird system. Sometimes I wonder why I'm friends with Huey, his horror knowledge is rubbing off on me.
"Bubba…" I say defeated.
"What?" He says as calmly as if he didn't just yell and berate me.
"I don't want to be your dork. I'm gonna be your friend." Bubba stops dead in his tracks. Did I say something to offend him? Suddenly, he gets in my face.
"What did you say, scrub? You've got a lot of balls to think you stand next to me as a friend. You're a loser, I'm popular, that's just how the world works, baby!"
I try and stay calm, challenging him will only provoke him more, "With the recent murders, it would be a good idea for us to trust each other. I'm mean... Come on, it couldn't hurt could it?" Bubba looks at me for a moment. He looks conflicted. Finally, Bubba gives in.
"Fine. ...I don't know. You want to talk about something?" Hmm... It seems as though Bubba is giving me a choice here, but what to say, and what to ask. There are some things I've been curious about, but at this moment two questions come to mind: 'So what's it like having the sheriff as your Dad?', 'Why are you constantly insulting people?', but the safe option is probably 'Why do you enjoy sports?'. I should go with this one to ensure nothing bad happens.
"Why do you enjoy sports?"
Bubba shrugs, "Sports a part of life. From the classics of baseball, to nerd shit like chess, sports are everywhere. So, like, why not compete?"
"Have you had any weird experiences while competing?" I slowly step back to create distance while he doesn't notice.
Bubba seems giddy, "Nothing weird has really happened… I've won a few titles though. Like, for my region, we had an open tournament. I was a little rusty in my opening round. Everyone else was way up there, so it was just another day for me. I was like, 'I'll just play a match and see where I end up.' I made the semi-finals. I still ended up like fifth or something. It was cool to see how others were performing in the final round. Like, 'Oh, I'm not as bad as I thought I was!'"
I'm at a good enough distance now, "Are there any sports you are not interested in?"
"Chess." He says immediately. "I'm just not into it. Plus, the computer is cheating the game. Fucking beta male computers. Why would I be interested in playing a sport where the computer is smarter than me? Chess is all about who is more intelligent, not about who is physically better. I bet you chess was created by some virgin who was tired of people that kept beating him in basketball!" Bubba pauses. "Yeah!"
"Well, what's some of your favorite sports?" Bubba pauses, clearly in thought.
Bubba starts checking things off in the air with his fingers, "Lacrosse, baseball, hockey. Football's fun, but it gets queer after a while. Same with Soccer."
"What?" I don't get it.
"What do you mean?" He asks, confused.
"I just didn't know what you meant."
"I'll clarify." He takes a breath, "I like sports in general, but I like baseball more than the other ones, so I don't know if I have a favorite. Also, baseball is like, so American, and even though it's one of my favorite sports, I don't really know anything about it besides its name and a few players."
"But you play baseball, how do you not know anything about it?"
"I just hit the ball and run. I don't really care about anything else other than that." Interesting. So Bubba prefers contact sports. That's cool, I guess. Anyways, eventually the bell rang for the next period. Thank god! I don't know how much more I could handle.