The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky (ebook reader for manga TXT) 📕

patted the space beside him, but under Bram’s scrutiny, I suddenly felt shy and sat at the other end of it, leaving a gulf of chocolate-brown leather between us. Felicity didn’t say anything at all.

At last, Bram sat in a tufted armchair. He may have been wearing sweats, but he still looked filthy rich and aloof in the big, throne-like chair. I couldn’t help but think: Bram, in the study, with the candlestick.

“Let’s get started.” He reached for a remote on the side table and clicked a button.

A projection screen lowered in front of the built-in bookcase and Felicity stood up to hit the lights.

Freddie leaned over. “We like to begin our meetings with a scary movie,” he said.

“Pick one,” Bram said, nodding at me. He grabbed a keyboard and balanced it on his knees, his fingers poised, waiting for my cue. It felt like a challenge, one that he wanted me to fail.

As I held his gaze, my mind began to race. Was this another test? Like Thayer’s twenty questions at the haunted house? For all I knew this club was all about trashy B movies or torture porn. What if they only liked highbrow stuff—the Oscar-nominated shininess of Get Out or The Silence of the Lambs? If I picked a classic, would that make me boring? The Exorcist was my favorite horror film, but they’d probably seen it a million times. What if I picked something none of them found particularly scary? Some people considered Gremlins for kids, but those little monsters were pretty traumatizing. I could go obscure and pick something none of them had heard of, but would that make me a pretentious try-hard? If I picked Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan would they just kick me out of the club immediately?

Who was I kidding? I would never in good conscience pick Jason Takes Manhattan.

And now I was taking too long. The room was all piercing stares, and I was the pincushion. I decided to go with something that covered all my bases. A B-movie classic.

“Black Christmas.”

“Original, remake, or remake of the remake?” Felicity asked.

“Don’t insult the girl,” Freddie said, his voice laced with amusement.

“Original,” I said.

Bram’s fingers danced over the keyboard, and on the screen, one file opened after another until a list of scary movies appeared.

“Behold, Bram’s Ultimate Collection of Horror,” Thayer announced. “True story: His parents once stumbled upon this hallowed list while curled up on the couch looking for Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. So horrified were they by the disturbing array showing their golden boy’s pent-up aggression that they proposed sending our dear Bram for psychoanalysis.”

“And what happened?” I couldn’t tell if Thayer was joking.

“He talked his way out of it, of course!” Thayer said.

“Champion of the debate team!” Freddie said.

“Voted most likely to host a talk show!” Felicity added.

“Guinness World Record-holder for biggest talker ever!” Thayer said.

They were obviously ribbing him, but Bram seemed to enjoy it because he did something I hadn’t ever seen him do. He smiled. Then he clicked play and the words Black Christmas appeared on the screen in gothic white outline.

Thayer rubbed his hands together and grinned with excited anticipation. “Holiday movies always give me the warm fuzzies.”

An hour and a half later and Thayer’s warm fuzzies were still intact. He sighed, deeply satisfied. “Awesome.”

Just one word, but it filled me with the confidence that I’d made the right choice. I fought to keep from beaming.

“You think every horror film is awesome,” Freddie said.

Confidence gone.

“It’s only awesome if you enjoy the voyeurism of tormenting a houseful of nubile young girls,” Felicity said.

I shot Felicity an incredulous look. Voyeurism? Well, yeah, but 80 percent of all horror was voyeuristic. Also, nubile? That word had the biggest ick factor. But I didn’t say any of that. I was new to this group. I needed to tread carefully.

“Not to mention the misogyny,” Felicity went on.

Screw it. Careful treading was for wimps. “You could look at it like that,” I said, “Or you could say that slashers actually give the F inal Girl the kind of agency that women in other film genres never experience.”

There was a moment of silence as the others turned to look at me. I sank into my corner of the chesterfield a little, wondering if I’d spoken out of turn. But Felicity actually looked thrilled, like a stray cat presented with a bowl of fresh milk.

“Yeah, at the end,” Felicity said. “Until then, it’s just an hour of sorority girls running around naked—”

“—not in this movie.”

“—or waiting by the phone,” Felicity continued. “Such a tired sexist trope.”

“This is the first major introduction to the call-coming-from-inside-the-house plot twist,” I said. “It should be given credit for that.”

Felicity rolled her eyes. “When a Stranger Calls did it better.”

“You’re missing the point. In a movie like this, the female lead takes control of her life.”

“She gets rescued,” Felicity said. “I’d hardly call that taking control.”

“Okay, but Jess survives. We have to get through the early—yes, inherent—misogyny in order to show the protagonist breaking free of its trappings. It’s character development. It’s reflective of real life.”

“Yeah, Black Christmas is totally relatable,” Felicity said, rolling her eyes.

Sarcasm aside, I found myself leaning forward eagerly. I was actually having a conversation about horror theory with someone. Like Thayer had said: awesome. I could’ve gone on like that all night, and the way Felicity was sitting, fingernails clawed into the edges of her seat, poised to pounce, it looked like she could’ve, too. Maybe this was how to get Felicity to not hate me. Maybe this was the way to win them all over.

But then Freddie switched the lights back on and the spell was broken.

“Down with the patriarchy,” he said, raising a fist in solidarity. This time, both Felicity and I rolled our eyes.

“But this is the portion of the evening where we answer some of your questions,” he continued.

“You probably have so many!” Thayer said. He bounced up, suddenly determined to make use