#04 Netflix and Kill

I came up with four titles for a horror story. The students voted for the story I would write.

A) Netflix and Kill

B) Death by Doritos

C) CatStein

D) The Exit Ticket

The winner is obviously Netflix and Kill. I tried to write a story that can be read forwards or backwards and still have meaning.

Netflix -n-kill

1

You’ll never be prepared for that first real call. Weapon out, belly in, you walk into the
apartment first so that your partner can’t say shit back at the station. The door is slightly
open: a little girl, three or four years old, is crying in the living room. She’s squeezing a white
Netflix envelope, the kind where they mail you DVDs, in her hand and won’t give it to you.
She tells you her name through sobs.

“It’s ok, Serena,” you lie as your partner moves towards the kitchen. You can read the
title of the movie on the envelope, Murder on the Orient Express, and just under the envelope,
you see a small silvery object.

“Cortez!” your partner is yelling in the kitchen. “You’ve gotta see this. Leave the girl there.”

In the kitchen, first you see red all over the floor, then a man slumped back against
the kitchen cabinets, a DVD jutting half out of his neck like a pizza-cutter on a calzone.
A geyser of blood juts from his neck and rolls down his arms like tiny streams on a mountain,
joining the lake of red on the floor. It’s almost beautiful.

You write 219, the police code for cutting/stabbing in your field notes and sign them,
Officer Cortez. 

2

“Ms. Bundy, I’m sorry to bother you at work,” Principal Custard said between mouthfuls
of pork-n-beans he ate straight from the can.

“Is Serena alright?” her tone was even but she knew. She always knew.

“Uh, Serena’s fine but she sent three boys to the Nurse’s office and when poor Mr.
Ramsey tried to hold her back, she punched him where the sun don’t shine and bit a good inch
out of his leg. I’ve got to tell you. . .” he paused to drink the pink slime from the can of beans.

“I just can’t believe this,” Ms. Bundy played the innocent mom well after Serena was
kicked out of the last three schools. “she is only six-years-old. . .” holding her cellphone with
her shoulder, Marsha Bundy grabbed her purse and the Peace Lilly off the desk as she headed
to her car. 

“I’m afraid we can’t have your daughter at Maurice Sendak Elementary, she is just too
dangerous. Mr. Ramsey got rushed to the hospital and I think he’s getting a tetanus shot--”

“You know that Serena is in a fragile state after what happened to her father,”
Ms. Bundy repeated the lines she told the last principal verbatim but she knew tomorrow
they’d be in a new town at a new school.

3

“Come-on, come-on, come-on!” Laughing, Shay pulled Elijah into the small cabin. Agreeing
to be a camp counselor only so that she could spend the summer with her boyfriend, each
morning Shay practically pushed the brats out for their snorkeling lesson. Ignoring the smells
of wet socks, red Twizzlers, and mildew, Shay pulled Elijah closer.

“Did you miss me?” His breath, so close to her, smelled like waffles and cinnamon gum.

Shay felt weak in her knees but not from the kiss. Instinct forced her to turn around
to see if someone was watching them. Instead, she saw only her green eyes in the mirror and
Elijah behind her, with his shirt already off.

“Come here,” Elijah pulled her onto the twin bed and she tried to ignore tingling on the
back of her neck, sinking into the moment. When he shifted Shay to her side, her elbow fell
onto an old and scratchy stuffed animal from one of the 10-year-old brats. Elijah reached his
hand under Shay’s shirt and she screamed, sitting bolt-upright.

“What the fu-!” Shay was shaking her arm, which was cold and wet. One of the girls
must have peed the bed.

“OMG-that’s disgusting,” Elijah grabbed her arm and they stared in shock as dozens of
maggots oozed on Shay’s skin. 

Jumping off the bed, Elijah pulled back the sheets, revealing the heads of three
dead gray fox.

“Serena Bundy, “ Shay whispered. “You’re a fucking freak.”

4

Picking up guys in the library is easy. The horror section is like a dive bar with board
games. I usually find a semi-good looking guy wearing a black t-shirt, jeans, and nondescript
shoes fondling a Stephen King book. They think they’re semi-sophisticated for reading horror;
it makes them feel cool in a I-may-look-basic-but-I’m-not-like-everyone-else way. What they
don’t realize is that they are basic. And predictable. They listen to bands like Chevelle or
Static-X. Even worse, or more cliche, they like Marilyn Manson. First date dinner is either
Americanized enchiladas with an inch of cheese on top or bland pasta and house wine. 

Today, I’m having urges. After staking out the library for 45 minutes, I see my mark.
Everything happens like it’s been scripted. 
*At the library, we discuss 70s Stephen King verses Now Stephen King. He (Jeff, or Dave, or
Matt, or something that doesn’t matter) enjoys the Now King and hails 11/22/63 as some sort
of revelation.
*Dinner is seashell pasta with Alfredo sauce and a cheap Merlot. Eventually,
Jeff/Dave/Matt puts together my last name and practically chokes on some rugalach when I
explain, “Yeah, I’m a second niece to Ted Bundy. I’m so glad to be out of high school, away
from the sadistic boys” knowing full well he’ll find me that much more appealing.
*Predictably, he asks if we can Netflix and chill. “Sure, I respond. “How about my place?
The mailman just delivered Murder on the Orient Express.”

end