We were packed like sardines in Kevin's den, half-buried in couch cushions and oversized sleeping bags that smelled like Doritos and Pepsi. The overhead light had been switched off, and the only glow came from the jittery static of the VCR loading the tape.
Candyman.
Kevin’s older brother rented it from Video Horizons. The kind of R-rated horror we weren’t supposed to watch, the kind you felt in your bones. It started slow with that droning voice, that buzzing, that bathroom mirror chant. Say his name five times and he appears behind you with a hook. We swore we wouldn’t say it more than twice.
By the time Candyman slit his first victim from groin to gullet, we were all screaming and punching each other in the dark like that'd make it less terrifying. It was even worse than that time I hid behind the couch in our family room, peeking through the cushions while my older brother Ryan and his friends watched Pet Sematary. That ghost kid with the scalpel? Bad. But Candyman? Un-fucking-holy.
We were clutching each other, frozen in horror, when Kevin’s older brother slipped behind us with a damn coat hanger he’d bent into a hook. He screamed, “CANDYYYYMAN!” and we went ballistic. Brandon cried.
After the credits rolled and we peeled ourselves off each other, it was late, dark. The group splintered into two. Brandon, Josh, Timmy, and Jake took off down Florence Street together like they were marching into war. I had to go the other direction, alone. Up the dark stretch toward my house. Past the blackberry bushes that grew wild along the edge of Alameda Street.
That’s when I saw him.
Just a shape at first. In the dark. In the brush. Watching. My breath caught. A low voice whispered from the blackness, slithering through the leaves.
“Vince… it’s me. The Candyman.”
I bolted. I didn’t look back. My legs were moving faster than they’d ever moved before. And halfway up the hill to my house, I felt it. The warm spreading down my jeans. I had pissed myself. I got home breathless, crying, drenched in fear and piss. My mom asked what happened. I said nothing.
Because if you talk about him… He comes.