Page 10 of Scaredy Cat
Thetop commentbanner shines like a beacon over one in particular, and my eyes scan the familiar words, making my heart sink low in my chest. This has to be a joke. I’ve never seen a comment get this many reactions or responses before, and all I can do is tap my fingers rhythmically against the top of my desk as I read it once, then again.
You’re really pretty when you’re trying to be nice. I bet you’d be prettier when you aren’t nice. And no, that’s not a good enough prize for me successfully scaring you. Sorry, babe.
How do I even respond to that?
Curiously, I click to see the replies, dismayed to find my followers clearly amused and entertained by the comment. It has over two hundred likes—which is just ridiculous—with people suggesting prizes for the commenter if they really can scare me.
You can’t scare her. That’s her whole thing.
Okay but I want to see you try! Can we get it on stream?
You should set something up with Persy.
Stalkerrrr.
The last one is the only one I can really agree with, and I fight not to like the reply. But I do stare at the page for a few more seconds before a subtle glance at my other screen shocks me back to reality.
“Fuck,” I mumble, closing my browser window. The countdown sits blinking at 0:00, promising the stream is about to start. I swear again, scrambling, and it takes me an extra minute to finish setting up everything and checking six times that my headphones are on. Finally, I hit the button, and my stream starts as I settle back in my chair with the usual last-minute anxiety that I’m terrible at this, my hair looks awful, or I somehow have drool running down my chin and don’t know it. As always, it’s hard not to reach up and touch my face to soothe that anxiety, but it helps to tap the desk as I bring my other leg up under me in the chair to sit cross-legged.
“What’s up, friends? Welcome to my channel, or welcome back for most of you. I’m Persy, but you know me as the creator ofScaredy Cat. AKA, the world’s most ironic blog name for someone with a horror obsession, or so I’ve been told.” I ease up a little as I talk and see my chat filling up with messages from my viewers.
I read a few of them, feeling like I’m on autopilot as I greet a few of my longtime subscribers and make casual conversation for the first few minutes of my stream, just like I always do. It’s not my favorite part of the stream, and the part I struggle with the most, but after spending months studying other streamers like I was being graded on it, I learned it’s a necessary evil. Apparently, people like being talkedtoinstead of being talkedat.
Who knew?
“It was an interesting place. Super creepy house,” I reply to someone asking about theSquad Ghoulslivestream from last night. “After today’s stream, I’m going to take, like, a five-daynap. I never appear on camera two days in a row.” I grin at the jokes about how I’m allergic to this much social interaction.
“Don’t you know? Being on camera takes years off my immortal life.” I snicker. “Plus, if I stream too much, you guys will get bored of seeing my face. You’ll go find someone else with a weird affinity for scary shit who makes inappropriate jokes about it.”
My eyes flick to the next comment, a surprisingly long one, and I hesitate. “Uh, yeah,” I answer finally, fingers drumming on the desk again. “Yeah, I read that comment on my blog. I resent how they thought I wastryingto be nice when I was clearlysucceeding.”I try to draw attention away from the main point of the comment, but I know I didn’t succeed when a few more people start piling on, their excitement clear as they talk about the person wanting to scare me.
“Hear me out…” I sit back, trying to look more comfortable in my chair. “While I think it’s an interesting idea to let people try to scare me, I think we’re edging toward unsafe territory. Movies, haunts, and games are one thing. But I’m not so sure that letting someone havecarte blancheaccess to trying to terrify me—and yes, I will keep sayingtry—is the smartest option. I’m actually rather delicate when it comes to, you know, real life.” I grin, the expression full of dry humor, and tuck my dark hair behind my ear. I can see the flash of my hazel eyes in my monitor, enough to know I’m starting to look slightly unamused.
I should probably fix that.
“Yeah, I am going to a haunt this weekend,” I say in response to a viewer’s question. “But anyway, give me just a second to pull up the game…” With a few clicks, I get the screen switched from my bedroom streaming setup to theSilent Hilltitle screen and pull myself closer to my desk. “Okay, so! This weekend I’m going to Nightmare Ridge.It’s a bit closer to me than Chicago, and forthose of you who’ve been following me for a while, you know it’s one of my absolute favorite haunts. I actually first went there when I was in high school.”
Reading the comments that follow, I snort lightly. “That was six years ago, in fact. I’m almost twenty-four,” I tell the viewer who questioned just how long ago that had been. “I hear this year they’re doing aTexas Chainsaw Massacretheme, which of course is my absolute favorite franchise.” The game screen switches, bringing me back to where I saved my last game, and I take a breath, trying to focus so I don’t just die to the first creature that limps my way.
“Oh, right. We’re out of bullets. Great.” I forgot just how bad a situation I left myself in. “Hmm?” I look at a comment that had been split into two in my chat, reading over it a few times with my attention fully on the chat box instead of my game.
“Do Iwantto be scared?” I blink, surprised at the question. “Well, yeah. Of course. That’s sort of the point, isn’t it?” I wonder if this person is new, because I’ve always been pretty clear about my goals with the wholeScaredy Catbrand.
“Yeah, okay, so things used to scare me when I was a kid, but then I started watching horror movies and got kind of immune to it, I guess? So now nothing bothers me at all, and I hate that for me. I love horror, obviously, but I haven’t been scared of anything in a long time. I really want to be able to call myself a Scaredy Cat unironically,” I admit with a small, dry smile. “But I’m not holding my breath. Maybe I’m just un-scare-able?” I hold that thought for a moment, then I snort.
“You know, barring real-life situations where my life is in danger. That’s cheating, though, so no one should get any ideas.” The chat continues, with a few more viewers pouring in to say hi or ask about the livestream, and I fall into my familiar pattern of chatting and gaming. I work to push away the uncomfortable way my heart sits heavy in my chest over last night’s stream andmy morbid curiosity about who in the world wants a prize for scaring me.
Not that it’ll ever happen.
6
The very firstthing I do at Nightmare Ridge is use my phone to take a picture of the banner over the main entrance. Quickly I duck out of the stream of foot traffic on their way into the haunt and post it on my socials, barely needing a filter to make it pop perfectly creepily against tonight’s cloudy sky.
Excitement and anticipation build in my stomach until I can practically taste it when I swallow back a grin. I don’t mean to look like a psycho coming in, but I do really love this place. Every year they have something a little different, and this year feels like it’ll be the best year yet.
From further inside the haunt, screams follow the loud, mechanical sounds of chainsaws revving, seeming to prove my prediction correct. That only makes me pick up my pace, as my anticipation grows. God, I just know Nightmare Ridge is going to be one of my absolute favorite haunts this year. If it’s good enough, I’ll drag Madison and Brynn here to see it, even though they don’t enjoy haunts nearly as much as I do and only put up with them out of obligation.
But it’s not my fault I don’t know anyone who wants to do something scary every weekend. Someone who also gets a rush out of being jump-scared and thencravesthat rush.
