Alexithymia | STRANGER THINGS [ON HOLD UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE]

twenty six | vecna's curse

After seeing Valerie shake her head at him, Matthew said, "Oh, come on, Val. You've got to admit that The Shining, Cujo and Children of the Corn are easily some of the best adaptations of Stephen King's books. I mean, what is there to not like about 'em? Besides, they're nothing to be scared of. They're just movies based on books that Stephen King wrote." When she only sighed to herself, he asked her, "And what, you mean to tell me that you're not scared of that Carrie movie you had me watch just last year and you just so happen to love so much?"

Valerie replied, "No. I'm not."

With a scoff, Matthew asked her, "And why the hell not? I mean, come on, Val. In Carrie, people died there, just like they died in The Shining, Cujo and Children of the Corn. In the movie The Shining, the main character– Jack Torrance– tried to kill his own wife and son because of some evil spirits that drove him insane, which is me just simplifying it, okay? In Cujo, the killer was Cujo– a dog– that only went around killing people after he got rabies from getting bitten by a fucking bat. And in Children of the Corn, Isaac Chroner basically brainwashed other kids into killing all of the adults in town as human sacrifices. The only difference between those three movies and the movie Carrie was that in Carrie, Carrie White was a girl that had these powers of hers– powers that are arguably pretty close to the ones that El had before what happened over the summer– and basically ended the movie using those very same powers to go after all of the assholes in her school and then did the same exact shit to her own mother. And you're telling me that you're not scared to watch Carrie– a movie where some girl with telekinetic powers takes her revenge against anyone that's wronged her– and yet you're scared of watching The Shining, Cujo and Children of the Corn? Are you fucking serious, Val?"

When she only nodded her head, he simply blankly stared at her before he grabbed her by the arm and carried the three movies in one hand as he quickly dragged her over towards the counter to the Family Video store and put the movies on the counter.

While still holding onto Valerie's arm, Matthew let out a sigh before he asked, "Buckley, Harrington, can one of you please knock some sense into Valerie here and tell her that's nothing scary about watching The Shining, Cujo and Children of the Corn?"

When neither Steve or Robin had responded to him, Matthew went to say something to them, only to stop when Valerie had elbowed him in his side and pointed at the television that they were staring at, which got him to pay attention to it just in time to hear the reporter on the television talking about a body being found in the Forest Hills trailer park.

And while Valerie quickly threw herself over the counter to use the phone in order to call her mother, Matthew could do nothing but stare at the trailer in the background that he'd been to at least over a dozen times during the nearly three years that he'd spent buying drugs from Eddie Munson.