B-Movie War

by Alan Spencer

  After waiting ten minutes standing in the parking lot and gradually getting closer to the building, Tony finally made it to the ticket booth. An old woman sat in a rocking chair knitting a sweater. Her voice was a creak, “Hello, young man. Want a ticket to the free show? If you wouldn’t mind reaching under the glass and grabbing the ticket for me…”

  Tony put his hand under the Plexiglas window to grab the ticket. After he accepted it, the old woman said, “If you enjoy the movie, you should clap after the show. Here, take these with you. You’ll need them.”

  She handed him two severed hands bleeding at the wrist.

  Within eyeshot of the ticket seller’s booth, Mr. Ratchet offered the man in his mid-twenties two hundred bucks to get on his knees and stick his head in the guillotine slot. The guy’s friends, each of them good and inebriated from an evening of shooting pool and guzzling cheap pitchers at a local pub, were cheering him on. “Yeah, Mickey. Show ’em how it’s done. Show ’em you got balls of steel.” The sexy woman dressed in fishnets and a tight red bodice helped Mickey down onto his knees and eased his head in the guillotine slot.

  Mr. Ratchet asked Mickey, “You comfortable in there?” He held the string that suspended the blade. “When your head falls in the basket, blink if you’re still alive.”

  He released the rope.

  The blade lopped Mickey’s head off. Mickey’s friends screamed in horror. Mr. Ratchet checked the head in the basket. “Well, he’s not blinking. Must be dead.”

  He stuffed two hundred dollar bills into Mickey’s back pocket. “Well, as I promised. Two hundred big ones. Who’s next, folks?”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Gideon, your guide to grand illusion.”

  The crowd watched the magician dressed in a purple silk shirt and black leather pants dance about juggling flaming cards from one hand to the other, then making them poof into dust.

  “I won’t patronize you with gags from kids’ books.” Gideon unhooked his left hand from the wrist with a click and gave it to a middle aged woman. “Feels real, doesn’t it?”

  Startled at the way the hand felt warm, the woman declared, “Yes, it feels real. But how did you do that? How does it feel so real?”

  “That’s because it is real, ma’am.”

  Gideon clicked his hand back into the wrist. “No tricks of light, no diversion tactics…here, you look like a brave guy. Why don’t you try on this straightjacket?” Gideon snapped his fingers twice and poof, down came a straightjacket as if it dropped from the sky. Snapping his fingers again twice, the jacket strapped itself to the guy who was wearing a Green Bay Packer’s jersey.

  “Wow! Neat trick, guy. Where’s the strings?”

  “I’ll coach you how to escape the straightjacket of doom.”

  The crowd cheered the Packer’s guy on.

  “But first, let us tighten those straps a tad…”

  Snapping his fingers twice, the straps tightened so hard, the blood forced to his head made the man’s brains pop out of his skull.

  Packers guy dropped to his knees with the base of his skull textured with brains.

  “Who’s next?” Gideon asked the crowd. “I promise it’ll work right the second time, folks.”

  Sarah Hatterfield was ready to visit her beloved theatre for the last time before it would close down forever. Beside the front entrance was a table where a woman dressed as a construction worker greeted her. On top of the table were six plastic buckets. There was a hole cut out of the tops.

  The construction woman said, “Guess what’s in the bucket, you win fifty dollars. Easy money, if you’re a good guess.”

  Sarah loved theatrics. She was lured into the gimmick without having to think about it. Her sister was in the “stick your head in the guillotine” for two hundred dollars line, but that line was so damn long, she decided to take a look around inside the theatre instead. And that’s when she came upon this booth.

  The construction worker said, “Stick your hand in, kiddo. Fifty dollars for the correct guess.”

  Sarah decided to go for it. She guided her hand deep into the first bucket. “Wait…wait. It’s soft. It’s cold. It’s squishy. It’s got a rough texture. It’s grapes, isn’t it?”

  The woman gave a maniacal smile. “Sorry! You guessed wrong.”

  Sarah screamed when she took back her hand and noticed it was covered in blood.

  Then a knife was driven into her back. She screamed out in terror as the construction worker shouted, “And a wrong guess costs you fifty stabs in the back!”

  Mr. Ratchet supervised tonight’s show outside the theatre. Screams were ringing out as people realized what was really happening to them. Those who ran from the parking lot, fleeing in terror, the theatre workers chased them with their flashlights. The flashlights cast a molten hot beam and sliced anyone in half who dared to leave the spectacle.

  Across from him, Mr. Ratchet watched Baron Black, dressed in a black cape and black suit, help six people into separate coffins. He dumped gasoline over the coffins and lit them up with one of his flaming torches. Baron Black then said to the scrambling crowd, “Did I forget to say for one hundred bucks that I’d ALSO have to set FIRE to the coffins?”

  The tall standing glass box nearby had an eager woman ready for the money tank to start spitting cash at her when up from the grates at her feet came rat monkeys. The rabid beasts removed her flesh in minutes.

  A longer line stood on a red carpet when the carpet starting rolling itself back up. Hundreds were squished and squashed as the carpet disappeared back inside the theatre’s main doors like a tongue drawing back into a mouth.

  What mattered most were the two pillars of steel that looked like a metal detector at the airport that stood at the main entrance. The sign above the post said “The Gut Checker”. Those who walked through it became zombiefied. Their eyes were cataract blue. Their smiles pasted on nice and big. Mr. Ratchet followed the crowds that went through the “The Gut Checker” and into the main theatre to grab refreshments and enjoy the upcoming show alongside the zombiefied audience.

  The people who walked through “The Gut Checker” were now enjoying the concession stands. Hotdogs made of Chad, Wilma, Steve, Jerry, Parker, Olive, Annie, and hundreds more were cooking on the spinning wheel plump and juicy. Patrons slathered chopped liver and kidneys for relish, blood mixed with bile and bodily humors for ketchup, and brains for sauerkraut. A family of four were enjoying carbonated offal soft drinks and eyeball popcorn, what was crunchy, steaming hot and coated in human fat for butter. The crowds were eating voraciously before they even stepped into the theatres.

  Things were going as planned, Mr. Ratchet thought, as he eyed the tall glass thermometer full of bright red blood. It was lightly simmering. The Sado-Meter was growing closer to boiling point. When midnight struck it would shatter.

  Hell on earth would begin.

  Death to all those living.

  Posters hung about the walls taped crooked and covering every inch of negative space: Caveman Terror, Octo-Squid, Gasm, The Pickler vs. The Embalmer, Syringe, Cannibalistic Flies, Acid Rain Melts Finland, Rabid Vermin, Probe Goons from Mars, Lethal Injection Mama, Hell Bus and Sever School.

  Mr. Ratchet walked beyond the lobby to Jules Baxter’s office. He turned the doorknob and entered. Scattered about the floor were snippets of film and empty reel canisters. This is where it all had begun. Their return. The beginning of the end. On top of Jules’s desk were rubber tubs stocked with blood. Above the desk hung two headless victims being drained of every drop. An Orion projector played a film on the wall.

  A valley girl was asking her professor in his office, “But Professor Hatchet, how do you sever the carotid artery? I just need an example, then surely I’ll pass this Friday’s test. If I don’t, my parents will kill me. If only I had an example.”

  Professor Hatchet said, “Your mind i
s thirsty for knowledge. Mine is thirsty for blood.” He removed a small hatchet from his briefcase and slashed her carotid artery in one clean swipe. As the girl bled on the floor clutching her neck and gasping, he asked her, “Now are you taking notes? This will be on Friday’s examination.”

  Hunched over Jules’s desk was a naked female with long flowing black hair and a shapely body. One of the vampire tramps. She worked tirelessly splicing, cutting and connecting what would complete the film The Final Flesh.

  The monster was occupied by the ghost of Jules’s wife, Darlene. She was key to Mr. Ratchet’s existence. The war effort itself.

  “Is it almost ready?”

  Darlene grunted. “Almost. Now leave me be. Go back to what you were doing. I can’t be distracted.”

  Mr. Ratchet agreed that she couldn’t be distracted. He moved on to Jules who was tied up and standing up on a metal dolly. His mouth was duct taped shut. Darlene had tied him up and left him there. Jules’s eyes doubled at the sight of Mr. Ratchet.

  “It’s almost show time, Mr. Baxter. I’m so glad you let us use your fine theatre to show our movie.”

  Mr. Ratchet lifted the dolly and began pushing Jules out of the room. “Keep up the good work,” he said to vampire Darlene as they made their exit. The vampire said nothing. She kept laboring at her task. She cared nothing about her husband. Only the war.

  Jules was moaning and grunting beneath the duct tape.

  Mr. Ratchet was delighted to hear his suffering.

  “I guess you’ve figured it out, Mr. Baxter. It’s so easy to trick the living. You know nothing about yourself until you’ve survived death, like I have. Don’t beat yourself up too bad, Mr. Baxter. Theatres like yours across the entire world are being seized. Theatre owners have been put to work just like you have. From Boston to Barcelona, we’re using your facilities to fuel the war. Fools like you have all succumbed to our tricks and traps. The real tragedy of your mistake is involving the ones you love.

  “But do you really love your niece? Even before I came along, you’d allowed the death of your wife to overshadow everything else. Selfishly wallowing in pity, you’ve forgotten Penny. She’s run the business for you while you checked out. Even when your staff quit after not being paid, Penny hung in there. She loved you unconditionally, but a person can only take so much dejection before they give up. The poor woman even stayed in a horrible relationship because she worked so hard at this theatre. It’s because of you, Mr. Baxter, that your niece will die right here in this theatre alongside you. Maybe that will quiet your begging and sniveling for a minute?”

  Mr. Baxter indeed went quiet. The facts were sinking in nice and deep. His life was flashing before his eyes. He didn’t like what he saw.

  The reaction brought great pleasure to Mr. Ratchet as he wheeled the man into Theatre 4 for the showing of The Final Flesh that was perhaps only minutes from being completed and finally shown to the masses.

  Lucky Lester ran the projection booth for Theatre 3. His final job here was playing the film The Final Flesh. A man named Mr. Ratchet paid him double time to perform his duties. The man went as far as saying three other people were being brought in to run the other projection booths.

  None of that mattered. Tonight was the final night. He had pulled some shit in his day, Lucky Lester reminisced. He enjoyed another pull from his bottle of cheap bourbon. They didn’t call him “Lucky” for nothing. For his eleven year run at this theatre, he’d sneak his wife up into the projectionist’s box for a little hugging and kissing. He was worse about playing with the ladies when he was in his late twenties. He would have a new girl in his “hot box” every other night. Lucky Lester had been fired for failing to change out the reels during features before because of the ladies.

  That wouldn’t happen tonight. He was alone. Lucky Lester checked his watch. Quarter until midnight. Lucky was ready to prep the first reel into the projector when a knock rapped on the door. He was about to hide his bottle of booze when he thought the hell with it. Mr. Baxter couldn’t fire him. His job wouldn’t exist in a matter of hours.

  Lucky swigged from the bottle defiantly and opened the door.

  It wasn’t Mr. Baxter.

  The stranger wore a slimming black dress. Her long blonde hair was in her face in long golden tresses. Blue eyes beheld him. She had the look. Enough slut and enough pretty to keep him interested. She wanted sex and lots of it. Her eyes were begging for it.

  “So baby, what brings you up here in Lucky’s box? You a fan of the movies? You want to see the magic that happens in this booth?”

  In a Brooklyn accent, she said, “Mr. Ratchet says you’re paid up. I’m all yours, mister, but don’t take too long. I’ve got a living to make.”

  She removed the gum she was chomping on and stuck it to the wall over the poster of The Clothesline Killer.

  “Somebody bought you for me?” Lucky Lester said it while eying her up and down from her impressive cleavage to ankles trapped by the straps of her red stiletto shoes. “Must be a going away present.”

  She locked the door behind her. “This won’t take long, honey. Take your underwear off.”

  Lucky was pushed to the ground. His back against the floor. The woman was a wildcat. She straddled him by the hips. She took him in without taking off her dress or her shoes.

  “There you go. Oh yeah. There you go, honey. Keep it up. You’re a real big man. Ohhh honey.”

  Her nasally voice would’ve ruined the moment, but she felt so good, Lucky Lester couldn’t stop pumping himself into her.

  “Not too much longer, honey, and you’ll get what you want. I’ll give it to you real good, baby.”

  Lucky’s body was bent backwards. A hundred bones cracked. His arms and legs struck the back of his head. He was folded in half. The hand that clutched his dick pulled him forward, and what hid inside the hooker ate him right up.

  Mr. Ratchet stepped over the widening pool of blood on the projection booth’s floor. The hooker was gone, having moved on to another customer. Lucky Lester was no more. Mr. Ratchet held a stack of reels in his hands. Blood leaked from the metal canisters. Maggots and mealworms were stuck onto the outside, squirming in death juices. Mr. Ratchet set up the first reel and turned on the projector.

  The Final Flesh played on movie theatre’s screen.

  A declaration of war.

  Chapter Seven

  Afraid of what could be behind the exit door, Penny was forced to think fast. She hid behind a pile of old theatre seats. Who was coming into the building? Penny waited for the exit door to open. The door did open, and one-by-one, they shambled in. The rush of cold night air was ripened by a punch of dead flesh and expired organs on the same level as what the reels of film were soaking in those damnable plastic bins. Dressed for the grave, their faces mummified and decayed beyond the point of having features except curvatures of bone and petrified flesh, the word repeated in Penny’s brain: zombie. In their arms were cardboard boxes. The half dozen zombies kept filing in and out of the back room piling up the boxes. This happened for ten long agonizing minutes. Penny could feel her body’s muscles lock up from being crouched low for so long. Her lungs could pop, the way she wanted to scream and call out for help.

  After leaving the back room again, the zombies didn’t return. Penny stayed still for minutes. She decided to take the chance to see if the way was clear. As she got up, nobody was in sight. She couldn’t go the back way again. She might run into the dead people, or whatever the hell they were. Moving forward, going deeper into the theatre, her eyes fell on the guts and blood in the rubber tubs. They could be slaughterhouse organs, she thought, but even if that were the case, the situation was still deranged. So wrong.

  Forgoing anymore guesses or hypothesis about the unexplainable, Penny treaded down to the end of the backroom toward the hallway that lead to the main drag of theatres. Up from that stretch would be Jul
es’s office. Possible safety. She would call the police and put this harrowing scene behind her.

  Before she made it very far, the door from both the back exit and the main door leading into the theatre area opened. Penny hid behind a huge cardboard display for the movie Casablanca. More of the dead people shambled in through the back exit. They were clutching onto plastic tubs and setting them separate from the boxes they had just brought in earlier. From the other door, a group of three women entered. They were naked from head to toe, shapely and buxom, smooth-skinned and waxen in the overhead lights. The trio walked in confident and with mischievous grins. Their eyes were smoldering embers, though they changed hue, as if every breath they took stoked the fires in their sockets. Blood trailed from their lips. Penny could see sharp teeth poking out from their mouths.

  The women sorted through the cardboard boxes. They removed reel canister after reel canister and stacked them up high. Without a word between the vampires and the zombies, they went to work on an unknown task. Ten dead people were working. Half of them started taking down the reels of film that hung from the ceiling and placed them on a table, while the other half were digging out the film strips that had been soaking in the offal and hanging them up to dry. The vampires were working with scissors to snip the new film reels brought in and then steeping them into the tubs of blood. Once the work was done, the zombies filed out of the building and the vampires swiftly exited the room.

  Penny blew a sigh of relief. Many thoughts were cycling through her head, all of them ending in ghastly question marks. She was beginning to think running out the exit might not be such a bad idea. If she crossed those dead people’s paths, she could bolt for the main road and call for help.