Witching Hour Theatre

by Jonathan Janz

  Witching Hour Theatre

  Jonathan Janz

  Witching Hour Theatre

  Foreword

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  My Wife, Stephen King, and Witching Hour Theatre

  An Afterword by the Author

  Also by Jonathan Janz

  Foreword

  Hello, friends. Some of you already know me and my work. Others are reading your first Jonathan Janz story.

  Regardless of your familiarity with my writing, there are a few things you should know before you begin.

  First off, this is a re-release of my first published tale. This novella was originally printed by Creative Guy Publishing in a now almost-impossible-to-find chapbook edition. It was even published under my real name (Jonathan Janz is a pseudonym).

  For those who’ve read the novella already, you should know that this version is very similar to the original tale. When first published, Witching Hour Theatre was 20,000 words long. While this version is closer to 22,000, the plot is the same as it was before.

  That’s because I really like the plot.

  Secondly, I’ve decided not to change the writing too much. Yes, I’ve re-edited the story, and yes, there are some altered words and sentences. But the basic spirit of the book, the youthful exuberance with which it was written, is the same.

  If you enjoy this story, I hope you decide to read more of my stuff. I like to think I’ve improved a lot since I wrote this tale.

  I should also mention some writers who influenced this story or who influenced me. In the Afterword of this edition, I talk at length about Stephen King, so if you want to hear about his influence, you can skip to the brand-new essay titled “My Wife, Stephen King, and Witching Hour Theatre.” Two other writers I don’t speak about at length in that essay are Richard Matheson and Richard Laymon, so I’d like to thank them here.

  Matheson’s Hell House was the first non-Stephen King book I ever read, and it remains an influence on my work. As an English teacher, I’ve used many of Matheson’s short stories in my classroom, one of which is a tale that directly inspired Witching Hour Theatre.

  Many of you have heard of the short story “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.” I saw the William Shatner/Twilight Zone version when I was a little kid and was scared senseless by it. What a delight it then was to read the original story as an adult and find it even better than the television show! I’ve taught “Nightmare” to thousands of students over the course of my career, and it remains as fresh and exhilarating as it was when I first read it. And because I studied it so zealously in my early twenties, it was bound to permeate my first published story.

  The name of the protagonist in Witching Hour Theatre is Larry Wilson.

  The name of the protagonist in “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” is Arthur Wilson.

  Both stories feature a great deal of their protagonists’ thoughts.

  Both stories are (hopefully) full of suspense.

  Both stories involve a face-to-face confrontation with something very frightening.

  So thank you to Richard Matheson for helping to inspire this tale. Thank you also, Mr. Matheson, for teaching me so much about writing.

  We miss you.

  Richard Laymon is another author I read a great deal in my twenties. Laymon has his detractors (Don’t we all?), but I’ve always been a big fan of his work. His greatest skill, I believe, is his incredible sense of pace. The pacing of this tale is hopefully a bit Laymonesque. No, I’m not saying it’s as fast-paced as a Laymon tale, but he definitely influenced the pace and structure of Witching Hour Theatre.

  So…thank you, Mr. Laymon.

  We miss you too.

  The last writer I want to thank is Brian Keene.

  I was late to the party with Brian’s work. Most folks discovered him in the early 2000s; I didn’t read a Keene book (the marvelous Dark Hollow) until 2010 or so. Since then I’ve gobbled up a great many of his books, and I’ve never been disappointed. It’s safe to say that I’m a huge Keene fan. Along with Stephen King, Joe R. Lansdale, J.K. Rowling, and Jack Ketchum, he’s one of my very favorite living writers.

  Even more importantly, Brian has become a friend and mentor to me over the past several years.

  No matter how self-reliant a person is, it’s immeasurably important to have people who believe in you. I have my wife and my kids, and while their belief means the world to me, it’s also important for me to know that someone who knows this business believes in me too.

  Brian has been that person.

  He was the first to champion my work in a public way. He was the first to treat me like I had skill and talent. He was the first to really guide me through the tangled thicket of this bizarre profession, and he remains that invaluable mentor to me today.

  He has also become a cherished friend.

  For these reasons and more, I’ve dedicated this novella to Brian Keene.

  Two other individuals I want to single out for thanks are Tim Slauter and Tod Clark, my amazing and indispensable pre-readers. They make my stories better.

  Lastly, thank you to Jason Brant, a heck of a writer and a generous friend.

  Now…to all of you: Welcome to my spooky theatre.

  I hope you enjoy the show.

  The ticket booth is right this way…

  This is for Brian Keene, who believed in me before I did.

  Chapter One

  Larry Wilson stood alone in the dark October chill, his eyes in shadow. The pink neon sign above the marquee read STARLIGHT CINEMA.

  Below that, WITCHING HOUR THEATRE.

  He slid his hands into his coat pockets and crossed the street, careful to avoid a beat-up van dragging its muffler behind it like a spilled intestine.

  Reaching the curved glass ticket booth, he handed the wizened cashier ten bucks. His bloodred ticket rose out of the metal counter like a serpent’s tongue. Clamping the ticket in his teeth, he stared at his reflection in the booth glass and finger-combed his light brown hair. It didn’t help much.

  He noticed the old man watching him, amused. Wilson grinned around the ticket and nodded good evening. The cashier nodded back, smiling a little sadly, and accepted twenty dollars from a young couple.

  Fishing more bills from his wallet, Wilson approached the concession bar and scanned its wares.

  He sensed the girl at the counter watching him and reminded himself to be cool, to not meet her big brown eyes. Not yet, at least.

  Wilson drew in a deep breath, removed the teethmarked ticket from his mouth, and smiled.

  “I’ll have Date Package Number One, please.”

  “Tired of Number Two, are we?” asked the girl, who returned his smile and folded her arms. He liked the way her canine teeth protruded subtly, an imperfection that enhanced her already considerable beauty. Despite the line behind him, she seemed in no hurry to shuttle him through. Encouraged, he sucked in his gut and rested an elbow on the counter.

  “I’m feeling a bit reckless. Let’s do two bags of candy rather than one.”

  She nodded and placed two large cups under the soda fountain. “You are unpredictable. A root beer and a lemonade, I assume?”

  “Please. I don’t want to buck tradition too much.”

  He watched her as she pressed the drink buttons with one hand and probed under the counter with the other. He smiled at the way her tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth in concentration, the way her short brown hair hung shiny around her cheeks and curved to little inward-pointing horns along her jaw.

  She looked up and caught him staring. Blushing, he looked away.

  She set the drinks on the counter and aske
d, “Will we be having extra greasy today, or extra-extra greasy?”

  “Oh, since we’re going with the first Date Package and all, let’s throw caution to the wind. Extra-extra greasy.”

  She grinned, her eyes holding his for an extra beat.

  The problem, he decided as she shoveled popcorn into the bucket, was he didn’t dare stretch their relationship beyond its comfortable shape. He never asked out co-workers at the city treasurer’s office because of the potential for awkwardness later, and he applied this rule to every setting he frequented: the coffee shop, the grocery store by his house, Von’s Books, and most of all, his home away from home three nights a week: the Starlight Cinema. It was his adherence to this policy that made his life so uncomplicated.

  And boring, he added.

  Nichole was pumping butter over his popcorn and eyeing him to see if he wanted her to continue. He nodded back boldly, as if ordering his tenth shot of whiskey. Smiling, she depressed the black button three more times with her little palm.

  “So when do they promote you to projectionist?” he asked.

  The humor drained from her face. She threw a quick glance over his shoulder at a red door across the hallway.

  “I’m not cut out for that sort of work. Rather be out here with human beings than up there with them.”

  He ventured a smile. “Well, I like you down here just fine. If you were stashed away in one of the booths I’d never get to see you.”

  Was her half-hearted grin a product of his response or some association with the men who ran the projectors?

  “Dots and Twizzlers?” she asked.

  “Please,” he murmured, wondering when their conversation had veered into hollow pleasantries. Her skin had gone slightly ashen.

  “That’ll be twelve-fifty.”

  “Coming up,” he said and extracted a twenty from his wallet.

  She handed him his change. Had her fingertips lingered on his palm?

  “Anything else tonight?” she asked, her caramel eyes expanding. Was she nudging him toward something? Was it possible she saw more in him than a lonely customer?

  He swallowed dryly. “Not that I can think of.”

  Her eyes lowered, came up again. “Enjoy your movies, Larry.”

  “Thank you, Nichole.”

  He turned away, and only with an effort did he avoid leaping for joy.

  They’d exchanged first names months ago, yet this was the first time she’d used his. Feeling a good deal better, he strode through the lobby and left her to wait on her grumbling queue of customers.

  Strolling down the hallway to Theater Two, his pockets stuffed with candy and his drinks and popcorn expertly positioned, he opened himself up to the magic of the place. He enjoyed his Mondays and Wednesdays at the Starlight, but they were only dress rehearsals for the grand event, the one thing that gave him hope as he slogged through each dreary day, inundated with memos and complaints and contracts.

  Because Fridays at midnight, long after the casual moviegoers filed out of the exits, the Starlight Cinema transformed into something dark and perilous. Theater One, the newer half of the Starlight, closed for the night, while the other half, Theater Two—the older, original theater—was plunged into a shadowy world of hauntings and serial killers, werewolves and cannibals, slaughter and mayhem.

  Witching Hour Theatre.

  It was the one place he could go and allow his imagination to run rampant. For ten bucks a guy could hunker down in the moody old theater and lose himself in worlds where pedestrian matters were just that, where the objectives were staying alive, staking vampires, or fleeing from flesh-eating zombies.

  At eleven forty-five the marquee changed and the box office reopened. From midnight until early morning, three horror films ran consecutively, with five-minute intermissions between. The first film was a recent release, the second a classic of the genre, the third an obscure flick only the hardcore fans stuck around for—a creature feature from the fifties or a low-budget dud so awful it was entertaining.

  Tonight’s triple bill sounded promising.

  Death Mountain, a teen slasher pic, was followed by The Omen. The third feature—dubiously titled Veil of the White Temptress—was one he’d never seen. A quick check of his video guide earlier that day told him the 1963 film was directed by Richard K. Ludlow. The name didn’t ring a bell, and what was more, no lead actors were listed. Wilson knew the film couldn’t be good, else he’d have heard of it before. The video guide gave it just one star, so he hoped it would be bad enough to amuse him, for that was all he really asked of the third features.

  As he neared the open double doors to Theater Two he frowned at his watch. He was only a few minutes later than usual, yet the muted roar flooding into the hallway promised that finding a seat would be difficult.

  He stepped into the doorway and a cursory scan of the crowd confirmed his apprehensions. All his favorite haunts were occupied. The aisle seats he could care less about. They were for those whose bladders burned after a thimbleful of soda. By contrast, Wilson was able to hold his water for days.

  At times he enjoyed cozying up to a wall because this would prevent the incontinent from stumbling over him as they made their feverish treks to the bathrooms. Just as often he preferred to situate himself in the middle of a row, for despite the traffic impeding his vision and bruising his toes, the view was simply better the nearer one got to the center.

  What he avoided at all costs was sitting in the front of the theater. There was nothing worse, he’d learned, than staring straight up at the screen for five hours at a time. After such experiences Wilson had awakened the next day bitter and stiff.

  A young woman and a bespectacled man in an olive green coat crowded behind Wilson in the doorway. As Larry attempted to step out of their way, the man gave him a hard bump on the shoulder. Wilson threw out his arms to keep from falling and half of his popcorn exploded in the air like a buttery firework. Kernels landed in Larry’s hair. Hot grease spattered his wrist. One of his drink lids popped open because he’d squeezed the damn thing too tightly. Root beer sloshed over his shoes. Regaining his equilibrium, Wilson stared murderously at the man, who proceeded down the aisle as though nothing at all had happened.

  Had the bump been intentional? Thinking back, he was certain the pair who’d just passed him was the same couple who’d followed him to the ticket booth and the concession stand. Was the upsetting of the popcorn tub the bespectacled man’s retribution for Wilson’s extended dialogue with Nichole? Had the man been peeved at being made to wait fifteen seconds longer and therefore given him that rude knock on the arm?

  The coincidence was too powerful to be ignored.

  Against his will Larry found himself recalling an incident in grade school, one that had scarred him for years afterward. He and another boy had been grappling for some toy—he’d long since forgotten what it was—when Wilson bit the boy in the arm to gain an advantage. The boy had screamed and writhed as though his arm had been torn from the socket, and the other students had gaped at Larry in horrified silence.

  In truth, it hadn’t been that deep a bite, though his first grade teacher and his parents had behaved as though Larry had turned cannibal. But the weeklong privation of recess and the month he spent without eating sweets were as nothing compared to the mockery of his classmates. At first he’d been called Cruncher and Jaws, which in retrospect weren’t all that bad.

  Then a schoolyard rake coined the nickname Scary Larry. It spread like a plague and dogged him for the next eleven years. Boys shunned him to escape the taint of the pariah. Girls whispered about him and shivered when he skulked past.

  Though the teasing was bad enough to crush his self-esteem, the abuse had an even stronger effect on his willingness to defend himself. Because he wanted to avoid situations in which he’d have to fight and possibly resort to his teeth as weapons of self-defense, Larry grew so passive he became a target for the other kids. Junior high lunch was a nightmare of overturned trays and
solitary meals. High school passing periods became exercises in stealth; only by utilizing inconvenient routes could he move from class to class in relative peace. In high school phys ed, the bullying took the form of hard tackles in touch football and vicious fouls in basketball. On one memorable occasion he’d discovered, only after squirming into his sodden shirt, that one of his classmates had urinated in his gym locker.

  As soul-crushing as high school had been, Larry was mortified to find the coldness of his fellow man didn’t thaw with adulthood. No one called him Scary Larry anymore, but neither did his boss or co-workers treat him with respect. In his mild-mannered demeanor they discovered an outlet for their anger, a drain into which they could pour their baser moods.

  And now, because of the man in the olive green coat, Larry had been thrust into another situation in which he’d failed to protect himself. What kind of a world was it where a man had to be on constant guard against unkindness?

  Wilson found he was gnashing his teeth.

  He steadied his breathing with an effort and examined the seats. Most of the open ones were singles stashed between nuzzling couples. He didn’t want to sit in one of these, for besides shattering the intimacy the empty seat provided the couples, sitting between them accentuated his own aloneness. He supposed it was his fault for being unmarried, but he didn’t need to be reminded of his perpetual bachelorhood by surrounding himself with whispering, cuddling lovers.

  He also found that some women insisted on conducting a running question-and-answer session with their men. Who is that guy? Why did she say that? Does she know he’s the killer? Did that man enjoy having his genitals eaten?

  Sighing, he scoured the theater for a seat that was neither wedged between two couples nor shoved so close to the screen he’d have to lay prone to see the film. He checked his watch. 11:55. The root beer was sweating frigid condensation into his side where he clamped it against his body with an elbow. The hand grasping the freezing lemonade had passed beyond numbness and begun a dull throbbing. More patrons filed by him. If he didn’t choose soon, even the seats in the front of the theater would be taken.