B-Movie Reels

by Alan Spencer

  Surrounded with nowhere else to race to, he climbed the side drainpipe. He was half-way up when the mix of robed elderly and the insane clamored below him. A knife stuck into the back of his calf. He lost his footing, but he grabbed the roof’s gutter and lifted himself up to safety.

  He ripped out the knife and tossed it from the edge of the house, infuriated.

  Now where the hell am I going to go?

  He feared peering over the edge of the roof to check if they were climbing up after him. The rattle of aluminum and the patter of feet against the house confirmed they were on their way up.

  There was no chimney to climb down into the house. He could jump from the other side of the roof, but how would that be any safer? And now that his calf was bleeding, his mobility was limited. What would he do if any of them reached the roof? He wished for the slightest weapon, even the meat tenderizer he’d lost earlier. The whir of chainsaws and power drills made him dizzy. He clutched the roof with both hands to anchor him in place.

  Andy looked up in the sky and his eyes widened.

  A green glow swarmed close to the house.

  Chapter Seventeen

  1

  The demon face kept lunging in at him for bites of his face. Sheriff O’Malley was hugged up tight against the woman, both arms locked at his sides by her vice-tight grip. Her muscles rippled through her skin, the plated hardness near cutting, and he could feel each contortion and ripple. The red eyes blotted out his ability to see, his vision purple botches.

  She took agile pecks at his skin, hungrier and hungrier with each taste. His neck was bleeding on a surface level. The monster relished each drop of blood and taste of skin, and she quivered and wrapped her legs around him upon the next gush of blood that landed on her tongue. “Ohhhhhh…”

  The beating of wings muffled what transpired below, though he knew it was a mob doing their worst. Feeling weaker, he wasn’t sure how to fight against the creature. The 12 gauge was still hooked by a strap around his back, but he couldn’t reach it. The demon’s grip cut his circulation. Every limb tingled without blood flow as if she were trying to squeeze it all up to his head.

  With another clamp of teeth, she removed an ear and spat it out. She sucked the blood flow, his ear canal filled with vicious slurping noises. He howled, unable to voice his agony. Then she covered his mouth with her own, her forked tongue working around his and miraculously tugging it back and tearing it from his mouth when she jerked her head back.

  “Awwwwggggh!”

  She swallowed the morsel with a wet suction.

  He moaned as blood spilled from his mouth in quickening torrents. The demon bit at his neck again and again like a bird digging for a worm until his jugular vein was pulled from the skin. More blood flowed warm against his chest, his uniform sodden. He was losing consciousness.

  The demon’s mouth was pressed hard against his throat, crushing his larynx. Lapping and what sounded like Tabitha giving him a hickey—a strange comparison he could only form in his delirium—sent him into convulsions.

  This was his final chance to fight back.

  The blaring red eyes were closed, savoring the blood she sucked from his jugular vein. He trained his eyes on the monster’s neck, making a split-second decision. Now or never, he thought, or die as you are. He shrieked, gaining confidence and backbone, and bit down on her windpipe.

  His teeth clanked against the plated skin, but he broke the surface and reaped a square-shaped mouthful.

  Black blood sprayed from the wound onto his face oil-thick.

  “Shraaaaaaaaaggh!”

  The creature released him, and he was dropped without knowing where he’d fall.

  2

  Ned hammered the stock of the rifle against the cellar door in the backyard. The two wooden doors on a brick platform were the only escape route from the threat in the sky. The locusts descended in that moment, ripping apart tree limbs and shredding their bark. His skin itched in anticipation of their attack.

  The padlock on the cellar door was rusted over and took three direct hits to break. Throwing open the door, he felt the rise of wind and saw the green glow above him. He ducked low, stepped forward, and threw the door shut behind him. Immediately it trembled against the force of the swarming locusts. He already saw cracks and splits along the grain. They would break through any minute.

  New looked around in every direction, but darkness disguised the cellar. He secured the iron lock in place with one hand, knowing full well it wouldn’t hold up against the locusts.

  He stumbled down the steps and stopped on the concrete floor when he saw a shape near the stairs. He couldn’t see who or what it was, so he demanded, “Who are you?”

  It was a younger girl, he could see now. She was possibly in her early twenties. Her brown hair was disheveled and in greasy tangles over her eyes. Gasping and taking one step back, he noticed an axe was driven into her sternum.

  “My God, what happened to you?”

  “You’re too late, you can’t stop me,” the girl rasped, truly angry at Ned. She threw back her head and removed the axe from her chest with an audible give of muscle and the spill of blood. “I’m already in her body…you can’t stop what’s in the soul.”

  “What in hell are you talking about? Make sense, you crazy bitch!”

  The locusts beat against the door, jostling the wood and breaking the hinges. Every bang made him jump.

  He aimed the .22 rifle, giving the girl one last chance to leave him alone. “Stay away from me. I’m going upstairs, and you’re not stopping me, whoever you are.”

  The girl dropped the axe.

  He should’ve known better.

  The girl’s eyes shed red tears. Both nostrils bubbled with blood. She gargled and coughed up the red liquid, every orifice leaking crimson. And then the faintest tearing of fabric gradually grew louder. A red line split down the middle of her body, like an incision created by an invisible scalpel. The skin parted, and opening by the force of its insides, the yellow fatty tissue flopped onto the ground in wads, the skin removed like an overcoat as the skeleton broke free, escaping its flesh prison.

  Ned screamed as the blood-caked bones leapt for him. He unleashed a gunshot at its sternum. The bones collapsed at the single shot, but the pieces continued to vibrate on the floor. But now that each piece had lost its connection, they were harmless. The woman’s eyes were still in the skull’s sockets glaring up at him.

  He planted one foot on the staircase up to the first floor, and the entire structure wobbled under his weight. He didn’t recall the stairs being so flimsy. Then he noted the layer of sawdust covering the floor. He sensed vibrations up and down the wood.

  Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

  The moment to climb the staircase was now. Launching forward, carefully placing each foot, he moved quickly, a haze of sawdust lifting with every step. He accidentally touched the top bar, and it crumbled. The hollow wood was occupied by thousands of termites, he now knew.

  Ned forced open the basement door and shut it behind him.

  An deafening collapse followed a second after. The staircase was gone.

  He stood in the kitchen and gawked at the faces staring back at him through the gaps in the boarded up windows. Each pane of glass shattered and arms reached for him clutching axes, hatchets and machetes.

  Thack! Thack! Thack! Thack!

  The echo of axes driven into wood continued with increasing numbers. They were going to cut and hack their way inside. It was only a matter of time.

  He bolted out of the room and checked both ends of the hallway. The crash of glass sounded again, and this time the voices were louder and increasing. Breaking through at the front and back porches, suddenly three of the straight jacketed people jetted after him with chainsaws kicking up gasoline fumes.

  He fled up the stairs to the second floor, dove into the first bedroom and threw the door shut. He latched the lock in place and wedged a twin-sized bed against the door. The rest of the room was e
mpty, without even windows.

  He’d hit a dead end.

  3

  Andy kicked the face that peeked up at him over the roof’s edge: a toothless old man with a shaggy white hair and beard. He was naked beneath his robe. The man faltered from the edge after another kick to the teeth only for another hand to clutch the roof. The hand reached out for grip and the other held a nail gun. Andy pried the weapon from the old man’s hand and shoved his face backward, sending the figure sailing into the wash of people below him.

  Andy opened fire.

  The nail gun pierced eyeballs and spat out the back of skulls in bursts of blood. One elderly lady’s head exploded on contact, and she fumbled backward, headless and convulsing on the lawn. The gun suddenly grew hot in his grip, kicked up smoke, and then clanked into pieces, useless.

  Andy had nothing to force them back anymore. Out of ideas, he avoided the edge of the house now that they were hurling their weapons, even pieces of glass. The thump, thack, crack repeated as they attempted to enter the house below.

  Behind him, one of the asylum escapees closed in. They’d climbed up from the other side without him noticing. It was a woman, tall and mannequin-like in stature, and she carried a pick-axe. Her black hair waved wildly in the breeze, her eyes completely dark and her mouth a smirk.

  “This is going up your ass, young man—just like I did to my husband when he tried to stick his thing up there! I’ll show you how it felt for him. That’s why they locked me up. They thought I was crazy, but I enjoyed what I did to my husband, and I’ll do the same to any man!”

  And then from behind her, the locusts swarmed together, their rising a green net of certain death.

  “Stay back,” Andy warned her, almost losing his footing on the shingles. “Don’t come near me. I don’t know you. I’m not like those men out there. You’re from a movie, but I’m real!”

  A shriek of agony marked a form dropping from the sky. It crashed into the house so hard, dropped from so far up high, it smashed through the shingles. Andy wasn’t sure what to make of it, but he dived into the hole to avoid the woman and the crowd of locusts, his opportunity to reach safety literally crashing down from the sky. Jumping down, he landed in a cushion of pink insulation. The force that broke the hole had also broken through a soft patch in the flooring.

  He crawled to the hole in the floor and peered down. Below, Ned was inside, staring in horror at Sheriff O’Malley’s body slumped on the floor. He looked up at Andy.

  “Andy, you’re alive! Get down here quick, before it’s too late. They’re coming in from everywhere.”

  Andy worked through the hole and landed below, his maneuvering clumsy and nervous yet effective. He studied the sheriff’s body. His throat was torn to ribbons, and his mouth was wide open, tongue-less and pooled in blood. He didn’t move or breathe. Dead.

  “Take his shotgun,” Ned instructed. “They’re coming from every direction. They don’t want us anywhere near the living room or the film projector. They know that’s why we’re here. How they know, it beats me, but they know.”

  “Why is this happening, Ned? You haven’t explained it to me.”

  He shook his head, sighing, “It’s not simple.”

  The woman with the pick-axe poked her head through the hole in the ceiling, and she smiled at her find. “Ah-hah! Found you!”

  Andy squeezed the trigger without thinking.

  Ba-Blam!

  Her body was thrown backward into the attic with a clatter. He remained poised to fire, watching the hole for any more lookers. The knock and smash, knock and smash against the room’s door was overwhelming. The barrier wouldn’t last long. Even the walls throbbed and shook with the pounding of fists. “Where do we go now? There’s no window or any other escape route.”

  Ned’s brow furrowed. He blinked sweat out of his eyes. “I’m not sure—I don’t fucking know.”

  “You know why this is happening!” Andy accused him. “Explain it to me. I want to understand everything.”

  His uncle gathered saliva, stealing glances at the hole in the ceiling and the door to the room. “I’ll tell you the condensed version. Your uncle keeps coming back to life through dead corpses, and he’s been speaking to me. In the beginning, he talked to me through a psychic tarot card reader. James spoke through her and told me the objects in his magic act were inhabited by spirits who made his tricks possible. He used ghosts in all of his performances.”

  Another person jutted their head down at them for a peek, and in the instant he made out his target a hatchet struck the floorboards between Andy and Ned, missing Andy’s foot by an inch. Andy pumped the shotgun, startled by the close call. The man was struck in the chest and was thrown back into the attic like the woman before him.

  “Keep talking,” Andy demanded, sure the maniacs in the attic would keep attacking. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  His uncle leveled with him, keeping his eyes glued to the ceiling as he explained everything. Ned related the story as he’d been told by James. “The ghosts, spirits, whatever the fuck they really are, want the living to die. They want us slaughtered! You see, we have to destroy it at any cost.”

  Andy’s stomach knotted, and it occurred to him what part he’d taken in creating these horrors. “It’s my fault this started. I found the damn projector and started using it. Shit, I didn’t know. I swear to you, Ned, I didn’t know!”

  “It’s your Uncle James’s fault,” Ned corrected. “He was so desperate to be a master magician, instead of honing his craft over many years and earning his talent like everybody else, Edgar and the spirits convinced him to take the shorter road. That’s why all those people died at the comedy club. The spirits want to live in our world again. They can’t be flesh and blood, but they certainly can recreate the experience. These ghosts wish us death, like I said. They’re jealous we’re alive and they’re not. It’s the simple reason that’s caused all this bloodshed.”

  Ned leaned against the bed frame when it threatened to be shoved away from the door. It did little good when the door knob came undone from the other side and clanked to the floor. The ends of axes and blades slashed through the door, six or seven in unison, and together they wrenched their edges only to drive them through again, sending out slivers and pieces into the room. Eyes glared through holes, reaping the fruits of their labors.

  “There isn’t much time, Andy! We have to get downstairs.”

  Andy fired again at the ceiling, trying to think. His shot connected into the round face of the man from the woods with the collection of severed heads around his wait. His head evaporated and the rest of him tumbled through the hole and landed smack into the floor next to Sheriff O’Malley’s corpse.

  The landing broke a floorboard in two.

  Thinking fast, Andy expelled two more rounds into the floorboards as a crowd shoved and battled through each other to reach them. “I’ll cover you. Shoot the floor, Ned! It’s our only chance.”

  Vibration shook the walls, earthquake powerful, and the house was jolted again and again. Andy believed the structure would topple, but it held strong. The wall suddenly blasted sawdust at them in blinding sheets. Thin circles of light were flickering bright as new holes bored through from the other side.

  “They’re eating through the panels!”

  Andy shook his head, rubbing the dust from his eyes, completely covered in the mess. “What the hell is eating through the wall?”

  Ned knew the source and shouted it like a war cry, “TERMITES!”

  Plaster and wood fragments exploded, as if it were power sanders and jack hammers destroying the walls instead of insect mouths. Andy fumbled to defend himself, aiming the shotgun at the floor and issuing round after round until the wood burst through a big enough access to escape. Ned dove in first, acting quickly. The bed frame was thrown from the wall, the blockade folding. Andy gained the courage to jump through the hole when the remains of the walls were axed down and dozens of the straight jacketed and elderly figures
barreled in after them.

  The termites swirled and spun into the room: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

  Andy landed near the first-floor staircase, hitting the floor awkwardly but not breaking any bones. Many of the intruders clogged the stairs, corralling after him. The man closest to him had an axe lodged in his abdomen, but advancing quickly, he ripped it free, and in that moment blood dripped from every orifice of his body. With a sound like a tearing sack, he clawed and wrenched the muscle and skin from his bones in strands, and then the skeleton lunged through the mess and attacked Andy, the skeletal hands grasping at air to get a hold of him.

  Andy was thrown into the far wall, the skeleton strangling him while banging his head with its boney fist. Andy tasted blood in his throat and was blinded by the skeleton’s attack. Helpless, his escape already turning into a meaningless charade, Ned jumped behind the figure and slammed his rifle against the attacker’s skull. The head snapped from the body with three blows, and then the rest unraveled.

  There was no time to enjoy the victory, as the green glow of locusts spread into the living room. They surrounded Ned instantly. The neon grew more intense as Ned’s screams escalated. Blood sprayed and bits of his flesh smacked the walls in a cycle of wet debris. Andy could do nothing to save him.

  Ned’s screams filled the house, though he managed to shout, “DESTROY THE PROJECTOR, ANDY!”

  The command sent him charging into the living room, determined to heed his uncle’s wish. He drove his fist into an elderly man who sported a knife in one hand. The punch broke every tooth in his mouth and removed the jaw from his face. The man shuddered to the ground and stayed down.

  The living room staircase rumbled with sprays of wood dust flying into the air and coming back down to create a thick haze. Neon green locusts flew toward him in frenzy. Straight-jacketed maniacs lunged from the failing staircase after him, tripping over each other in their haste. More attackers leapt out of their skin and skeletons skirted and lunged toward him with the click of bare bones against floorboards. The termites joined the smog of attacking insects, their rumble increasing with each piece of wood they devoured.