Chapter 11: Chris's Charm
In front of the dilapidated church.
While Chris was busy dismembering the Creeper, the siblings from the movie finally returned to this location, just as in the original.
They parked the car on the shoulder, but neither of them got out.
The older sister, Trish, wanted to peel out of there immediately, because they noticed the Creeper's truck was still parked nearby.
This meant the monster hadn't left yet.
"Let go, Darry. We agreed to bail if we found danger."
Trish slapped at Darry, who was trying to stop her from leaving, but then heard him whisper urgently, "Quiet! That thing might not have gone far."
That one sentence scared Trish into silence, but she still glared daggers at Darry, as if demanding to know why he wasn't sticking to their plan.
However, Darry didn't have time to deal with his sister right now. After observing carefully, he said, "Trish, that guy's driver door is open, and the bed is open too. I need to go check it out."
Hearing her brother's suicidal plan, Trish immediately prepared to start the car and leave his dumb ass behind.
But Darry was too quick—before Trish could react, he'd already opened the door and stepped out.
Darry, who'd gotten out of the car, didn't close the door. Although he was a professional at getting himself killed, he didn't actually want to die.
"Stay in the car and be ready to pick me up. If something goes wrong, start the engine. I'll be right back."
With that, he ignored his pissed-off sister and crept toward the Creeper's truck.
Seeing that her brother had already bailed on her, Trish had no choice but to wait in the driver's seat as instructed, just in case.
After confirming the coast was clear, Darry cautiously approached the truck. Just as he was about to climb up and check things out, he heard the harsh cawing of crows.
Spooked, he thought someone was coming and quickly ran back toward his sister.
Trish, seeing her brother sprinting toward her, was also ready to floor it the second he got in.
However, Darry had only run a few steps when he heard someone call out from behind him, "Hey, can you give me a hand?"
Darry spun around at the voice and saw a blond teenager climbing out of a corrugated drainage pipe.
Then Darry watched the blond kid wave and say, "Come on, dude. You're never gonna believe what just went down here!"
After thinking for a second, Darry glanced back at Trish, then made a 'hold on' gesture to her and walked toward the pipe.
Once he got closer, he asked nervously, "Who are you? Where's that psycho who drives the truck?"
As he spoke, Darry peered into the corrugated pipe, only to find it pitch black. Combined with the teenager blocking most of the light at the opening, he couldn't see jack inside.
"I'll tell you everything, but can you pull me up first? This pipe's slippery as hell."
Seeing this, Darry reached out to help, but he hadn't expected the guy in front of him to be so damn heavy. It took him a while, even with the other person pushing himself up, to finally get him out.
Then Darry saw that this dude had a rope tied to his ankle, and several cloth bags were tied to the rope, giving off a nasty smell.
Just as Darry was wondering if there were bodies inside, he suddenly noticed a few of the cloth bags twitch.
This sudden movement made Darry jump.
"Ah!"
"Hahaha, you're such a wimp! Why would you even come to the Creeper's lair in the first place?"
Chris now recognized that this kid was the death-wish little brother from the original movie.
"What! The Creeper?!"
A sharp female voice cut in—the sister from the story.
After seeing a blond kid climb out of the pipe from the car, she'd also gotten out.
After all, the guy looked so clean-cut and trustworthy, completely different from the body-dumping monster they'd seen earlier.
So when Trish got closer, she arrived just in time to hear the blond kid roasting her brother.
Chris, sitting on the ground, smiled without explaining. Instead, he pulled over one of the cloth bags, untied it, and showed them the still-twitching black chunks of meat inside.
This monster truly lived up to its reputation as the villain of a horror franchise. Even after Chris used the spear to chop it into fist-sized pieces, the damn thing still wasn't dead.
Upon discovering this, Chris decided to go nuclear on this creature. He'd used the body bags the monster kept for storing victims to package up the Creeper itself, then prepared to climb out and try other methods.
Then, the second he crawled out of the pipe, he saw Darry sneaking around and called out to him.
After all, in this middle-of-nowhere hellscape, trying to walk out on foot would take forever.
There was a real chance the Creeper would outlive Chris at that rate.
Therefore, upon spotting living people, Chris figured they must have driven here.
After all, Chris didn't want to mess with the Creeper's booby-trapped death truck.
After proving to the two that his story checked out, Chris tied the cloth bags back up and then untied the rope from his ankle.
"My name's Chris, and I'm a..."
Just as he was about to introduce himself, Chris suddenly hit a mental roadblock. If he said he was just a regular student, he'd have to spin a whole web of lies.
After all, some random high schooler wouldn't have the skills to take down the Creeper, plus he'd appeared here out of nowhere.
Fortunately, Darry was still in his comic book-obsessed teenage phase. Seeing Chris's troubled expression mid-sentence, he immediately jumped to a wild conclusion and blurted out, "Are you like a monster hunter? Or maybe one of those supernatural warriors? Like in the comics?"
"Uh..." Faced with the convenient cover story, Chris hesitated for just a moment, then nodded and said, "Yeah, something like that. This is classified though, so I'd appreciate you keeping it quiet."
"Awesome!"
Unexpectedly, the kid shouted excitedly, then bragged to his sister, "See? I called it again! That's another point for me!"
But Trish wasn't in the mood to deal with their stupid game right now. From the initial tension and fear to her current sense of relief,
It was safe to say this girl's emotions had been on one hell of a rollercoaster ride, with way too many ups and downs.
At this moment, she was staring intently at Chris, her entire focus on him.
"You guys drove here, right? Can you take me to find some gasoline or something? This monster isn't dead yet!"
Chris spoke up to refocus the siblings, which snapped them back to reality. They immediately said, "Yeah, yeah, we're heading home for spring break. We never expected to run into something like this."
After Chris loaded the Creeper's remains into the trunk, he naturally headed for the back seat.
Darry then also tried to get in the back—he still wanted to learn more about this demon-hunting kid's story.
He'd never expected to witness an actual urban legend. Now he'd have something epic to talk about when he got back to campus, and he might even become the most popular guy at school.
Unfortunately, dreams are beautiful, but reality is harsh.
Trish, the older sister, didn't know what her little brother was scheming. She only knew that she wanted to spend more time with this mysterious, heroic guy.
So Trish blocked Darry, who was about to climb into the back seat, and said in a no-nonsense tone, "I put up with your reckless crap for the last hour. Now it's your turn to drive!"
"Oh come on! How is that even fair!"
Darry still wanted to argue, but Trish had already slid into the back seat and slammed the car door shut with finality.
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