Christmas Nightmare

This morning I woke from a feverish dream.

Off -kiltered I stumbled to the kitchen recalling the events;

It was a stormy Saturday night.  I was at our local mom and pop video store, Video USA. It was much larger than I remembered as a kid. 

The walls were lined with new release DVD's, while the middle of the store had rows and rows of brown wired racks filled with DVD's, VHS tapes, and miscellaneous entertainment memorabilia.

It was hard to find anything, because it was a Saturday night. The store was filled with people mauling anything left to rent. 

I found a clerk who was rocking a dirty Jesus Christ look and asked if they sold any replacement dividers for my vinyl record shelf. I gave him my measurements, while I searched a shelf. 

Other customers pushed, and reached over me to pick up the only remaining copies of a movie left.

This was the kind of video store that had the display of the film faced out and the rental behind it.

I started to notice that all the movies in the store were rip offs of classic films, right down to the artwork.

I saw a replica of the Fright Night artwork, for a completely different movie. 

There was a film entitled Trainwreck 2 that looked like a romantic comedy, but one had just come out.

Jesus, decided that he would have to look up the product I was inquiring about at the front desk.

I followed him down an aisle, and lost him when I became mesmerized by miscellaneous bobble heads and detailed figurines of horror villains.

When I reached the front desk, other patrons rushed to the counter where Jesus had logged in.

He shooed them away, ignoring them and me.

Near the counter I saw a collection of "Holiday Films" displayed on the wall. There was a mix of classics, comedies and horror films.

Jesus yelled out over the crowd "I'm ready to fix your sticky crack!" and waved me over.

I remember feeling embarrassed, even though this didn't make any sense. 

 Two geeks, one with Buddy Holly glasses stopped me on my way to the counter and asked "What ever happened to Fay Wray?" I flashed him my Friday the 13th shirt, and he laughed.

Jesus continued typing and talking, but was drowned out by the overhead TV, playing a particularly gory movie.

Buddy stood next to me laughing at the TV.

On the screen, a girl covered in blood was shooting down a water slide. Instead of water it was slicked in snow that ran red.  As she descended, she would run over sharp edges, etched into the plastic slide. These edges, or bumps cut into her body, causing her to bleed and speed up her momentum. She continued sliding down the plastic tube, screaming. The acting was horrible, but a knot developed in the pit of my stomach.

The further she slid, the worse the traps were. Since this was an 80's film, I dreaded what was at the end of that slide.

The film cut away from this girl, to the top of the slide. A happy go lucky 80's girl, in a beret and tan pea coat was approaching the slide. An electronic Santa Clause stood next to it "ho, ho, hoing" She couldn't help herself and jumped down the slide. As she did, the Santa Clause turned toward the slide, with an evil face and manically laughed.

A man appeared, and Santa turned back to normal. He yelled down to the woman,but she was busy laughing and cheering. He sensed that something wasn't right, and looked around for another way to get her back, but knew he had to slide. He jumped head first down the slide, while Santa turned to scoff at another victim.

Back in the store Buddy kept talking to me as if we were long time friends.

I searched the "Holiday" wall to see what film this was, but the titles were all a blur. 

I asked Jesus, but he continued to ignore me.

I awoke, still hearing the screams of joy and death from the people shooting down the Christmas water slide of death.