Chapter 3 – "Have I mentioned that you're gross?"

A half hour into the movie, Andy had buried her head not once, but twice against Josh's arm to shield her eyes from the gruesome slayings that were happening in the movie. Josh would never admit it to her, but he had gotten the movies intentionally to gross her out. He knew that as much as she insisted that she liked horror movies, blood and gore actually disgusted her. She just didn't have the stomach for it.

As he scooted a little closer to her on the couch, he realized that he was using her weak stomach to his advantage to get closer to her, or rather, to get her get closer to him. Her hand was clenched around his upper arm, practically cutting off her circulation, but he didn't care.

"Oh! That's disgusting!" Andy screamed as a zombie ripped the head off a human being who had become his most recent victim.

"Awesome," Josh exclaimed as the head went rolling across the floor.

"You're gross!"

"Hey, I didn't make the movie. Besides, I thought you liked zombie movies."

"I do. The old, cheesy zombie movies. These are…morbid."

"My favorite."

"Have I mentioned that you're gross?"

Andy shielded her eyes from the screen once more as a woman was dismembered limb by limb. Andy's head rested against Josh's shoulder, her lips dangerously close to the skin on his neck.

"Next we're watching A Cinderella Story," Andy mumbled against his shoulder.

"Wrong. Next we're watching Attack of the Zombies two."

She moaned.

Josh put his hand to his stomach as he felt it rumble and then groan loudly. It was then that he remembered that he was so nervous about his and Andy's little together that he had barely eaten his dinner.

"Only you could be hungry while watching this," she stated, finally lifting her head back up to watch the movie.

"Hey, I'm a growing boy."

Andy snorted and laughed.

"Yeah? With the amount of junk food you eat, growing in which way?"

"I'm going to go find something to eat."

Josh stood up, but Andy reached for his hand, jerking him back down.

"No! Don't!"

He couldn't help but smile as he looked at the desperation in her eyes.

"Why Andy Jensen, are you really that scared?"

"I'm not scared, I just…"

"What?"

"I don't want you to miss the movie."

He continued to smile, knowing that she was just making it up. She really was scared.

"Well, I'll just put it on pause and then I won't have to miss the movie." He grabbed the remote and paused the movie. "I'll be right back."

He stood up and walked away towards the kitchen, trying to figure out if it would be appropriate for him to tell her just how he felt about her. After all, she was giving off all the right signs – she was huddling close to him, touching his arm at every chance. Did she like him back or was she genuinely scared?

Shrugging, Josh opened the refrigerator door and began scanning the contents. Nothing appealed to him. That, and he really didn't need to eat anything that would make his breath smell funny so the leftover Chinese food was out.

He closed the refrigerator door, and began looking through the cabinets. Finally he came across a bag of popcorn. That would just have to do. He tore the plastic wrap off the bag and placed it in the microwave. As he programmed it to run for three minutes and pressed start, the lights suddenly went out. The entire house became shrouded in darkness.

"This is so not funny!" Andy shouted from the other room.

Josh didn't reply. Instead, he looked out the window. It was strange that the neighbor's lights were still on, as were all the street lights. Still, it remained that the Trager house was pitch black.

"Josh?"

He could hear the nervousness in her voice. Smirking, Josh began to scheme.

Author's Note: Okay, I'm writing as fast as I can without trying to make this story sound really stupid. But, I'm having fun with it so I guess that's all that matters. Hope you enjoyed!