Atticus Jackson

We didn't want to see this fabled secret movie so much as we wanted to be able to say that we hadn't wasted our time.

Sunk cost fallacy, my dad calls it.

Logan shoved his phone back into his pocket again so he couldn't see what he had been reading.

That makes total sense.

Even Logan had lost all trace of enthusiasm for the movies themselves at that point, and I honestly think one of the reasons Corey and I stayed is because we were worried about him.

We could have left the lake house any time.

No rule said multiple people had to be there to unlock this thing, but Logan had roped us in, and now he looked like the guy in the horror movie who's got a zombie bite and doesn't want to tell anyone.

So we stayed, because we didn't know what he would do if we weren't there.

At least that way we could bring him burgers from Sonic and keep reminding him to eat.

Sure enough, a few hours later, Friday the 13th ended, and a thick tension ran through the room, joining the smell of stale beer and body odor.

We watched the credits roll, waited for the recommendations bar to load for the millionth time to show us something different or tell us we'd failed again.

Halfway through the credits, no bar appeared.

Logan's eyes never left the screen.

Credits scrolling up the lenses of his glasses like a secret code all their own.

The credits ended.

The screen went black.

Across the room I heard Logan make a noise that was somewhere between an I told you so scoff and a fuck this groan.

I remember sitting forward on the couch, puzzled, palms slick with sudden sweat, wondering if maybe we'd just reached the end of what the app would let us watch.

Maybe it was cutting us off for our own good, like a bartender.

Then the buffering wheel came up, a thick, translucent snake eating its own tail, loading something.