by Alan Spencer
Darlene talked about how they first met at a showing of Cleopatra at The Odyssey Theatre. Jules ran the place for two years on his own before he met Darlene Purtee (He liked calling her Darling Pretty; cheesy, but it got the job done. The woman married him!). She was the only other person who attended the showing. They were both in their late middle age. Jules had seen her come and go into movies alone many times before that day. Sometimes she’d buy popcorn and licorice and a Diet Coke, and other times she didn’t buy anything. That particular day, she hadn’t purchased any concessions, so Jules bought her favorite goodies and sat right down next to her and gave her several free tickets and the treats on one condition. They call the movie a date. Six months later, they were married and co-owned the theatre. She was a hardcore movie fan. Darlene ran a local fan club in honor of classic movies. Jules allowed the group cheap rates to attend the movies they requested. He ordered the reels and fulfilled their requests. Romance blossomed so naturally between them. But when she died, the film group disbanded. It seemed Darlene had that special power over people. Without her, the magic was gone. Her radiance was missed to the point the theatre slowly became less popular. The business was failing. Any day now, collectors would kick him out. But that didn’t matter. Here Darlene was kissing him, holding him close and reminiscing about those good times. It was like she was never gone.
He tried to ask her why he was cutting up the reels, why he was confined to his office, how come she was back from the dead and in a much younger package, but each kiss, each touch, melted him and those concerns. He closed his eyes and lapped up the affection and attention as she unclothed him and they made love with their backs to the ocean.
Jules didn’t see the group of scantily clad women playing volleyball on the beach in the far background. The beach bimbos spiked, served and scored to win their game. A cooler of beer was opened as the guys guzzled them down and watched their girlfriends in action. Behind them, a transient in a tattered overcoat, dirty hobo face and long hair helmed a metal detector. The detector beeped. He dug his hands into the sand and retrieved an axe. The beach called out to the bum, and the bum listened. The bum’s thoughts were attuned to the spirit of the beach. Attuned to the spirit of The Beach Bum Slasher. The man who drowned years ago while crowds of beachgoers did nothing to save him, too caught up in their game of volleyball to save the drowning man.
The beach whispered to the transient, “You will now become “The Beach Bum Slasher.” Use this axe…carve my name into their backs. Avenge me. Carve ‘Ricky Black’ into their backs. Cut off that blonde’s tits. Slice their heads off. Then put them on different bodies. May they rest in pieces. I summon you. Avenge. Me. Ricky. Black.”
The whispers, “Ricky Black…write Ricky Black into their backs,” repeated as a mantra. Then, “Cut those tits off…cut those tits off…tits…off…”
The transient, guided by the spirit of The Beach Bum Slasher, went to work on the young beach goers hacking off heads, tits, and carving names into their backs.
Jules was oblivious to it all.
The beach vanished. Darlene disappeared again. Jules returned to his task. There was no night, or day, or hour break. Time didn’t exist. Only work. Jules’s hands were bleeding as he clutched onto those damnable scissors to cut yet another strip of film. He shivered from fatigue. Jules opened and closed his eyes, and no matter how many times he did that, his eyes felt gummy and dried out. He was hanging onto his sanity, frail and thin as grainy super 8 film.
Movies used to be his solace. His reason for living. His absolute passion. The very reason he acquired so many bank loans, zeroes to his debts and dust bunnies in his savings account. Movies were entrenched in his childhood. His house growing up was literally behind The Red Ruby Cinema House. He spent the majority of his childhood catching cheap flicks. Jules’s fascination with movies increased from there. He didn’t have any real friends in high school. He was overweight. He also had a streak of uncontrollable flatulence. They called him “blow ass”. When he’d tie his shoes, he’d let one go. Jules would be walking down the hall, stepping up stairs, or answering a question in class, and he’d let out a fart. And they didn’t smell pretty either. He was taunted mercilessly.
Jules didn’t care that he didn’t have a girlfriend until his early twenties, and that he didn’t marry until he met Darlene. He retreated to the Red Ruby House Cinema after school and sat on those red plush seats to catch a movie. Nobody bothered him at the theatre. Nobody laughed at him. Nobody called him names. Jules worked as a manager for the Red Ruby House Cinema until he was in his mid-thirties. Earl Haggerty, the owner, closed it down to retire. Jules later worked at the local video rental store as an assistant manager. When that place went out of business, he inherited a stockpile of used VHS tapes. He had well over a thousand movies in his collection, easy.
A great opportunity came from the video store. The store owner, Kevin Newman, offered Jules to go fifty-fifty in a new business venture, and that was taking over The Odyssey Theatre. They got a good price for the property and a sizeable bank loan. Within the first three years, they paid off their debts. Kevin later died in a head-on car accident. Jules became the sole owner.
A chill entered his body. The quick flashback of his life made him realize what he was doing in this room was insane. Darlene couldn’t be alive. She was dead. Dead for years. Why did she look younger? How could she make love to him? Why was she asking him to cut up endless reels of film? For what purpose? Why couldn’t she just tell him what it all meant?
The truth sank in hard. What he was doing was supporting something unreal. Possibly dangerous. Jules threw himself at the door. He clutched the doorknob, and it scalded his hand. The iron knob was orange hot. Smelling scorched skin, he gripped his hand in pain.
Penny was out there. Poor Penny. He had ignored his niece during the previous months. Put the business on her shoulders. His problems too. She had a decent head on her shoulders. It felt like forever since the last time he had a real conversation with Penny.
He hadn’t showered in what felt like weeks. He barely ate any food, just whatever junk from concessions Darlene brought him.
Darlene.
What the hell was she?
He looked down at the palm of his hand. The flesh was glistening and bright red from the second degree burns.
Strips of film littered the floor among stacks of reels stored in their metal cases. Boxes of cut up reels were set up on metal dollies ready to be hauled elsewhere.
Just what the hell was being perpetrated here?
Jules kicked the door, suddenly needing out of the office now more than ever. “HELP ME SOMEONE! I’M TRAPPED. IS ANYONE OUT THERE? PLEASE HELP ME!”
Losing control of himself, Jules ended up on the floor swimming in snippets of reels. He wept. Bemoaned and pitied himself. The movies. Something about the movies. What was Darlene doing with the movies?
Jules tipped over the desk. He kicked at one of the wooden legs until it snapped. Then he beat it against the wall until a sliver broke free. He turned the leg into a sharp stick.
A wooden stake.
He had a theory.
The reel sent to him in a package two months ago—it was called Morgue Vampire Tramps Find Temptation at the Funeral Home. The movie was obviously about vampires. The movie had come to life, or something along those lines. Insane, yes, but what else could be doing this? He had to protect himself. What else did one do to kill a vampire besides shove a fucking stake into its blasphemous heart? Whatever allowed Darlene to live again, even as a monster, the reel was the catalyst. He thought again to the reels he was cutting. They were all horror movies.
Why horror movies?
Jules clutched the rough wooden stake in his hands and waited for Darlene to return to the office.
She wasn’t his wife.
She was a vampire.
Jules was about to turn off the reel p
rojector when a hand grabbed him by the throat and tossed him across the room.
Darlene had returned.
She shattered Jules’s wooden stake by closing her fist around it. “I see you’re finished with your job, honey. It’s the perfect time to sign off. It’s almost show time. But you’re not the only person whose work here is done. There’s a war about to be waged. People will fight to the bitter end against us. There’s already a plan to counter our attack, but we will fight against their strategies. We will win, and we will conquer!”
Jules stood in shock.
Helpless against the vampire/monster.
Darlene ripped her clothes off with insane zest. In tandem, her smooth creamy flesh turned plated black. Reptilian. Naked and proud, the monster clicked her razor sharp teeth together and rasped, “I am your wife, Jules. I really am Darlene. My soul is in this body. I’ve been subjected to death. I never wanted to be buried in the ground. I kicked and screamed during the funeral wake. Nobody heard me. The living chose not to listen. Even you, Jules. You didn’t hear me because you weren’t listening. I heard every shovel of dirt thrown over the top of my grave. All you people did was cry for yourselves when you should’ve been crying for ME! You shut the dead up in wooden boxes under six feet of dirt. It’s desecration of the soul! Spitting on my humanity!
“The longer I was in the grave, the dimmer my memories became. I began to forget who I knew, including my friends, my family, my loved ones. It was replaced by darkness. But the deeper the silence became, I began to hear new voices. The dead can talk to each other when they’re buried in the ground. We’ve banded together. The living shall join the ranks of the dead. Not a single person will be alive to inherit the earth. Everyone shall die! Everyone will be like us! DEAD! DEAD! DEAD!”
Darlene’s eyes were orbs of rage. Jules was lifted up by the neck. Slammed into the wall. Picked up again. Strangled harder. Seconds ticked on with agonizing sluggishness as every process in his body was constricted. When his wife’s wild eyes warned him of the hell she was prepared to inflict on the living, Jules went unconscious.
Jules woke up suffering a blinding headache. How long had passed, he had no idea. He couldn’t move. He was standing up straight with his arms and legs bound by thick rope. Jules was propped on a metal push dolly, while blinking something sticky out of his eyes. It kept dripping from the ceiling and pattering his skull, what inevitably trickled down his facial features. Blood caked the entire room. A blood bomb had detonated inside his office, and Jules was soaked in red from head to toe. Bits of flesh and raw meat were stuck to his skin. An intestine was wrapped around his neck. An ear was glued to his shoulder. Gobs of gooey flesh everywhere. Where did this gore come from?
Film reels floated in plastic containers steeped in blood, guts and human skin. Reel strips hung up from the ceiling covered in nasty gore. The overall effect reminded him of gory flypaper strips. Scissors, knives, cleavers, machetes, swords and implements of torture so archaic he couldn’t place their name or use were scattered in his office. Dead bodies, many of them carved up shells, were strewn about the office. Dozens by a quick count.
Jules cringed inside making the connections. He had cut film reels into smaller strips. Darlene had murdered the victims in the room and bathed the reels in blood. But why? It couldn’t be just to fuck with him. There was a practical use behind it, insane as it may be.
Confused, needing answers, and craving escape most of all, Jules shouted for help. He couldn’t stay quiet in this maddening room. He nearly lost his voice forcing out plea after plea. Then the door to his office opened. And a man in a gray suit and red bow tie entered.
The smiling person introduced himself as Mr. Ratchet.
Part Two
Chapter Three
The Odyssey Theatre wasn’t what it used to be. Jules Baxter used to run a quality four-screen movie house. It was the talk of the town. The theatre used to be the hot spot in the New Jersey suburb of Englewood. Now the property was about to be condemned. Ever since the CineHall 30 opened six miles south of the theatre, The Odyssey Theatre became a ghost town. The loss of revenues and the plummeting of public interest seemed to inflict damage not just on the pocketbook, but on the building itself. The parking lot was a cracked monster’s back of broken asphalt. The lot was riddled with pot holes large enough to pop tires and damage axles. Ugly mutant forms of weeds sprouted up tall enough to hide small animals and cast weird crooked shadows at night. The Odyssey Theatre sign was painted in big faded white letters with planets inside the letters that glowed blue, red and neon green at night. That paint faded, no longer glowing in the dark. Drivers could barely see the theatre from the highway anyway because only two of the five lamp posts in the parking lot actually worked. The theatre house was more like a closed down Wal-Mart property. Along the double doors on both sides of the ticket seller’s booth, the glass was painted over in black with more glowing planets. The paint job hadn’t been touched up in five years, leaving it an ugly gray shade. Display cases on the outside walls showed the posters for four different movies: a western, Six In The Chest, One In The Heart, and the other three were horror flicks: Tit Trance, Psycho With A Badge and Deep Sea Bimbos Attack Surf Beach.
Driving her old pick-up truck that owned more rust than actual paint, Penny Baxter approached the building with a low level of affection and a high level of disappointment. She would be out of a job by tomorrow, midnight. She used to love the place, she remembered. The theatre showed films that were a mix of new movies and old classics. One could catch Gone with the Wind paired with The Maltese Falcon on one weekend and Three Amigos and The Naked Gun the next. For the past few months, Jules had insisted on showing nothing but trashy horror movies. The man was suffering a nervous breakdown, Penny was convinced. Her uncle’s budgetary crisis spilled into every facet of his life, including his fiscal sanity. Penny watched her uncle wither from the inside out as his livelihood and passion decayed into piling up bills and threatening calls from collection agencies. It only got worse when the staff quit last Friday after their paychecks had bounced for the second pay period in a row. They weren’t coming back, and that left Penny with the task of what she called The Odyssey Theatre’s “Grand Closing”.
Getting out of her truck and walking toward the theatre, Penny wasn’t surprised the doors were left unlocked. Her uncle didn’t leave the building. He stayed overnight every night. Why was a damn good question. She didn’t know. Jules stayed locked up in that office. The door was always locked, and she knew it, because she had tried to get in many times. He barked for her to leave him alone. Fuck off, in other words. She hadn’t seen her uncle in weeks. She pictured her uncle as a caveman with milky white skin and a crazed expression. She could overhear a movie projector running every time she pressed her ear against the office’s door. That wasn’t new in her experience. His office was big enough to set up a film projector and project it onto a small screen. The man paid bills, ordered stock and made his calls while the classics played on his wall. What a life, she thought.
Entering the lobby, Penny took in the musty smell of mildewed carpet. The carpet was a dark purple, but it was so dirty, it was near black. Penny had attempted to shampoo it. The last time she recalled doing so, she had dredged up the grossest black water. The grime was ten years worth of nastiness. The walls were no better. They were an ugly peach color. The color made her cringe on the inside. Jules refused to repaint the walls. He was cheap. Her uncle wanted it to look vintage, the theatre being a relic of a better, bygone time. Or so he claimed.
In the center of the lobby stood a large bronze statue of a person holding a planet over their shoulders. It used to be a working fountain, but people started throwing loose change into it and the change clogged the filtration system. Directly across from the statue, large light bulbs surrounded the perimeter of the concession stand. A wooden statue of a pretzel stood next to a wooden cola cup with a straw coming out of the top. A l
ife-sized box of Mike and Ike’s with arms and legs waved to the crowd to buy candy. Three popcorn machines backed the stand with a soda fountain in the center. Two hot dog machines were ready to rotate red hot juicies. The glass counters featured a wide assortment of candy, though their stock was dwindling. That was because by tonight at two in the morning, the theatre would officially close its doors. The CineHall 30 had robbed them of their business. “The corporate assholes slit our throats,” Jules bickered every time they talked about it. The corporate chain retained its stranglehold over the mom and pop establishments. Her uncle wasn’t wrong about that. Penny pictured the closing of the theatre. How the red velvet seats would be uprooted row-by-row. The film screens would be taken down. The movie projectors would be up for sale on eBay. Penny pictured the second the clock struck two a.m. a row of bulldozers and cranes would level The Odyssey Theatre into dust.
Penny should’ve left the theatre to rot when her check bounced the second time like the rest of the staff, but a part of her couldn’t let her uncle go down on the sinking ship alone. The man was suffering a personal crisis. Jules had helped her when she was going through a bitter divorce and hadn’t worked for five years because her husband made enough money as real estate agent to support them both. The real reason she stayed was to see Jules leave the office and be forced to see the light of day again. She would take him out for beers, and they’d have a good talk. Have one of those heart-to-heart conversations. A deeper reason she stayed so long, one she only admitted to herself, was while the man burned the midnight oils in his office as of late, Jules sounded strangely determined behind that office door. Almost chipper, like he only had good things to look forward to.
