Midnight Special

by Phoef Sutton

  “He had it too.

  “I thought there must be some kind of 28 Days Later-type virus on the loose and it was spreading like wildfire.

  “He still had the knife in his hand. He raised it, so what could I do?

  “I killed him.

  “I saw the light go out of his eyes.

  “I felt a swelling hardness growing in my cock. And I thought, ‘You are one sick motherfucker, Barnabas Yancey.’

  “Now there were three dead men in the room, two of whom I’d killed myself.

  “The fixer couldn’t get there soon enough.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “While I was waiting for the fixer, I thought I’d check my back and see how bad my wound was. I went into the bathroom and took my shirt off, expecting to see a mess.

  “There wasn’t a scratch on me.

  “But my shirt was torn and bloody. WTF?, as they say. I mean it could be that the blood was from somebody else (take your pick) and it could have been that the paramedic had just torn my shirt with the knife and missed me altogether. And the stabbing pain I’d felt? That could have just been my imagination.

  “Or it could be that I was superhuman.

  “It could be that I’d died and come back as some sort of Zombie Killing Machine.

  “How cool is that?

  “The buzzer rang. I let the fixer in.

  “He was dressed just like I’d imagined he would be. Trench coat and fedora. Half-burnt cigarette dangling from his lips. He didn’t speak—he just walked to the scene of the carnage and nodded.

  “‘Anybody else?’ he asked.

  “‘No. Isn’t that enough?’

  “He shrugged. I started to tell him what happened. He stopped me with a wave of his hand. ‘I really don’t care what happened. That’s not a part of my job. My job is to clean up messes.’

  “‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

  “He stubbed out the cigarette on the bottom of his shoe, took out a lollipop, unwrapped it, and stuck it in his mouth. ‘Mr. Karanlik.’

  “‘Do I need an alibi for tonight?’

  “Karanlik shrugged. ‘No one will ever find these bodies. And even if they do, they won’t be able to trace them back here. You’re clean. Now get out. I have work to do.’

  “I moved toward the door.

  “‘Hey, Mr. Yancey,’ he asked. ‘One thing…Did you like it?’

  “I turned back to see Karanlik smiling a broad clown-like smile that seemed to swallow his whole face.

  “‘A little bit,’ I said.

  “‘That’s good. ’Cause I’m thinking you’re gonna keep me very busy.’”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Barnabas threw back another shot of tequila.

  Matt sipped his. He wasn’t quite keeping up with Barnabas, but the bottle was growing rapidly empty.

  “Karanlik didn’t lie. I tried to run from it. But everywhere I went, from Cabo San Lucas to Osaka, Japan, it kept following me. The rotting flesh and the killing. And everywhere I went, no matter what exotic corner of the world I tried to hide in, the fixer always found me and cleaned up after me.”

  He set the shot glass down with a sharp clink on the table.

  “End of story.”

  Matt took it in.

  “He’s a clown to me,” Matt said. “Or a doctor. Or a lot of things.”

  Barnabas barked his laugh. “Same difference.”

  “Karanlik,” Matt said.

  “It’s Turkish. For ‘black.’ Or ‘darkness.’ Or ‘dark.’”

  “He’s just ‘Mr. Dark’ to me.” Matt couldn’t believe he was opening himself up so much to this man who was, in so many ways, let’s face it, a creep. But he was a creep who seemed to share so many of Matt’s experiences. And he was a creep it was oddly easy to talk to.

  “With his damned grin,” Matt went on. “And his lollipops. That’s how I knew he was behind this. I found a cellophane wrapper at the scene of the Telegraph Hill fire.”

  “He wanted you to find it, of course,” Barnabas said.

  “Of course.”

  “He plays us like puppets on a string.” Barnabas poured himself another mouthful. “But now. We’ve got him. We’ve got a way to trap him.”

  He poured Matt a shot and continued. “I was praying for someone to come along. Someone to help me. And, lo and behold, here you come, with your ax! So it’s meant to be. Cheers, Matthew Cahill. Let’s fix that motherfucker!”

  Matt didn’t pick up the glass. “How do you propose to do that?”

  “Well, I don’t know about you, but up until now I’ve just been following him. Seeing the signs. Being there when it happens. Reacting. But now I know where he’s going to be. And when. I have something he can’t resist.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Utter fucking chaos! Dinner at the Brooklyn Morgue. On the anniversary of the New Fairfax massacre. He won’t be able to stay away. Wild horses couldn’t keep him from this place. And once he’s here, he’ll never be able to leave.”

  “Why not?”

  Barnabas smiled to himself. “That’s my little secret. It took me a lot of effort to find it, but I have a way.” His eyes gleamed as he looked at Matt. “Are you with me?”

  Matt considered. Barnabas was clearly a sadist, clearly insane.

  Who better to fight Mr. Dark?

  “I’m in,” Matt said and downed his tequila.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  He left the office with more questions than answers, but Barnabas had clammed up once he’d gotten Matt’s assurance of help that night.

  “I’ll tell you the rest tomorrow night. Right before showtime,” Barnabas had said.

  Misgivings filled Matt’s head. He still didn’t know a thing about Barnabas’s plan. How, or even if, he was planning to keep the audience safe.

  Barnabas liked mayhem. Thrived on it. Even if he was telling the truth about wanting to catch Mr. Dark, how much collateral damage would he be willing to see inflicted? How much would he positively enjoy?

  The Club of the Walking Dead. Matt reflected on its very exclusive membership. Aside from himself and Barnabas, he had met only one other person who had gone through death and resurrection as he had—Abbey, the pretty young owner of an antique store in Crawford, Tennessee, who had turned out to be a hundred-year-old serial killer.

  Matt had to wonder—was he the only Dead One who wasn’t insane? Was that what he had to look forward to? Madness and violence and the love of slaughter? Or perhaps, Matt pondered, he was already insane and just didn’t know it. Perhaps the people he killed with his ax were really innocent. Perhaps the decay and rotting he saw on their bodies was only in his mind.

  Perhaps he was as crazy as Barnabas and Abbey.

  He shook those thoughts from his head and realized he’d been so occupied by nightmarish fantasies that he had taken the wrong turn in the narrow hallway and found himself facing a closed door with an ancient sign on it that read “Projection Booth.” He tried it, but the door was locked, so he turned around and went the other way. He passed the office door and heard Barnabas singing inside. It sounded like “Another Saturday Night.”

  Eva was crouched behind the concession stand, cleaning out the popcorn maker, when Matt passed through the lobby. He was sorry when he saw what Golden Flavoring did to the insides of that machine. Yuck.

  “What the hell is going on?” she asked when she saw him.

  “I can’t tell you,” Matt said. “Just don’t be anywhere near this place tomorrow night.”

  “Don’t you worry about that,” she said. That set part of Matt’s mind at rest, at least. She stood up and brushed her platinum hair out of her eyes. “I wish I’d met you two years ago,” she said.

  “Two years ago you were in high school.” Matt felt a stirring of desire. He tried to suppress it.

  “I dropped out of high school long before that.”

  She smelled of Golden Flavoring, which on her came across like some exotic perfume. “I better get so
me sleep,” Matt said.

  He pushed through the double doors and walked out into the cool night air. The streets were as empty as any one-lane Main Street town he’d ever been in. Three in the morning and New York City would still be as busy as midday. Here? Nothing. He even thought he saw a coyote lurking around the corner. Must have been his imagination.

  “The coyotes love it here,” Eva said, joining in step with him as she walked with him down the middle of the street. “Good eating. With the Dumpsters and the house pets. It’s paradise for them.” She lit another of her Indian cigarettes with her Zippo lighter. She didn’t offer him one.

  “Where do they live?”

  “Where they can.”

  “Are you parked around here?” Matt asked.

  “Back that way.”

  “Then where are you going?”

  “With you. To your motel,” she said simply.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Matt was still on East Coast time.

  He woke up at three and thought it was noon. For a moment he didn’t know where he was. For a moment he didn’t know whom he was with. The naked body next to him was warm, and the so-blond-it-was-white hair on the pillow confused him. Then he remembered. It was a nice memory.

  Eva’s eyes drifted open as she nuzzled him.

  “Do you want to fuck again?” she asked him.

  His erection under the covers was willing but felt sore from the night before. They had spent hours at it, which surprised him considering how tired he’d been. But there was something about the brush with death that had made him want to cling to life. And to Eva.

  She’d been wild in bed. Nothing was off-limits. He’d done some things with her that were new to him. But they hadn’t felt perverse or degrading. She’d made them feel, well, fun. A challenge. A game.

  With Gina, sex was a warm way of sharing each other’s time. With Eva it felt like an athletic competition.

  They kissed. He thought about Gina and felt a flush of guilt.

  “What’s the matter?” Eva asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You got all serious for a second.”

  Matt stroked her face. “Why did you do this?”

  “I could say I wanted to thank you for saving my life. But to be honest, I’ve been dying to fuck you ever since I met you.”

  “Disappointed?”

  “Hardly. You’ve got a lot of stamina for an old man.”

  Yeah, he thought. Ever since I died I’ve been a great fuck.

  She mounted him and rode him till they came, eyes locked together, sharing the moment.

  Getting off him, she hopped off the bed and went toward the bathroom. “I’m gonna take a shower.”

  “I have to make a phone call.”

  She stopped and looked over her shoulder with a smile. Her ass was beautiful. “You have a wife?”

  “No. Just a girl.”

  “Lucky.” And she was gone.

  He called Gina from the hotel phone, and he reached her this time. She was out on the veranda of her house on Market Street, sitting on the swing. He could hear the wind in the trees, cars buzzing down the street, the creak of the porch swing. He suddenly felt homesick.

  “How’s it going?” she was asking.

  “All right,” he said.

  “Are you going to be able to stop the screening?”

  “It’s all a little bit more complicated than I thought.”

  “More complicated? Than a cursed movie?”

  “I miss you,” he said.

  “I miss you too. Who’s that in the shower?”

  He hesitated. “Must be in the next room.”

  “It’s OK, Matt. We didn’t say we’d be exclusive. If it makes you feel any better, I have a guy eating pancakes in the kitchen.”

  “I’m jealous. You make the best pancakes.”

  They laughed.

  “You still have your job, whenever you get back, Matt. You know that.”

  “Thanks.”

  Now was the time for them to say “I love you,” but they didn’t.

  Gina hung up, feeling good. Matt was alive and the traveling salesman in the kitchen had been a good bedmate last night. Not quite up to Matt in sheer fucking, but kinky in a twisted, exciting way. Good for a change.

  He came out on the veranda and sat with her on the swing. He even offered her a lollipop, which Gina thought was nice.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Barnabas was singing when Matt came to the theater at nine o’clock that night. Using the broom to sweep out the lobby, Barnabas was belting out, “When we played our charade, we were like children posing,” like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Ah! There you are! I thought you weren’t coming,” Barnabas said. “We got three hours before the show. We have a lot to do to get ready.”

  Matt stepped into the lobby.

  “Is Eva with you?”

  “No,” Matt said. “She’s back in my room.”

  “Oh,” Barnabas said with a smile. “Pretty good, isn’t she?”

  Matt blushed. “She’s not coming back,” he said.

  Barnabas shrugged. “They always go sooner or later. My disciples. They learn from me, and then they move on. She lasted longer than most.”

  Matt was silent for a moment. Then he said, “How’s this gonna work?”

  “Well, I take the tickets. You wait in the lobby. With your ax. It’ll just be like part of the show. The hoopla.”

  “Just the two of us.”

  “That’s right. The concession stand is closed tonight.”

  “What about Flint?”

  “He’s still chained in the office. You should see him.” Barnabas chuckled. “So he’s here. Oh, and the projectionist, of course. That’s it.”

  “What are you keeping Flint around for?”

  “Spoiler alert! I can’t give away everything,” Barnabas said with a smile. “Your job is to protect the audience. To get them out of here when the trouble starts. We don’t want them to get hurt.”

  “It’s nice to see that you care about them.”

  “Hey, they’re some of the most promising filmmakers of the next generation. You should see their short films, read the scripts. They’re going to set the world on fire.”

  “Your other disciples?”

  “Yeah. The ones that are going to stab me in the back in five years. Can’t let anything happen to them.”

  “How are we going to stop it?”

  “That’s up to you. At the first sign of—well, you know the signs—you get them out of here. Through those doors.” He pointed to the double doors that led to the street. “I don’t care if there’s panic, as long as they run. And when they’re out…”

  Here Barnabas paused and pulled something from the shadows, behind the Coke dispenser. A long, curved staff, taller than both of them. It looked like it belonged to some ancient shepherd, the kind who saw the angels from on high.

  “You bar the door with this. It will keep him in here. Forever.”

  “What is it?”

  “The Staff of Truth. It took me forever to track it down. I found it in an old castle near the village of Schwartzhoff in Austria. Supposedly it belonged to one of the shepherds at Bethlehem. I don’t know about that. But legend has it, it traps all evil.”

  “Legend has it?” Matt was not convinced.

  “Mr. Dark was trapped there once before, between World War One and Two. The time of peace. We can do it again.”

  The story sounded oddly familiar to Matt, but he still couldn’t believe it.

  “You got innocent people coming here tonight,” Matt said. “I’m not going to stake their lives on that thing.”

  Barnabas smiled. “Then I’ll have to show you how it works.” He turned and walked up the narrow stairs to the office. Matt followed.

  Flint was barely more than a skeleton now. Still, he gnashed his teeth and dove for them, the chains holding him back by his bony ankles.

  “Hey, Flint!”
Barnabas was mocking him. “I brought you a present.” He handed the Staff to Matt. “Here. Show it to him.”

  Matt hesitated. Barnabas went back behind the desk and waited. Flint cocked his skull, questioning. Matt thrust the Staff forward.

  Flint reacted like he’d received an electric shock. Sparks flew from the chain around his legs and he convulsed, his one eye blazing in his skull.

  He died.

  Matt lowered the Staff slowly.

  Smoke drifted off Flint’s lifeless body.

  Barnabas walked up to Matt and took the Staff from him. “See? That’s why I kept him around. To demonstrate. That’s what it does to the weak. But to the Master, it creates an impenetrable barrier. He’ll be trapped in here forever.”

  “Or as long as this theater stands.”

  “I have money. This theater will be here as long as I live. And I’m just guessing, but I think, and I’m not boasting here, that I’m immortal. Don’t you think?”

  Matt remembered that Barnabas was crazy. But the Staff worked. And crazy might be exactly what was needed here.

  “So what’s next?” Matt asked.

  “The show!” Barnabas started singing again, “Tonight, what heights we’ll hit! On with the show, this is it!”

  Matt recognized it. It was the Bugs Bunny theme. He just hoped he wasn’t playing Elmer Fudd.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  FADE IN:

  Times Square, when it was fun.

  People and cars passing by. Theater marquees offering porn and martial arts movies. A blonde with masses of hair and real breasts bouncing under her blouse walks down the street. A man follows her with unbelievably bright red blood dripping out of his mouth and gray and blue circles under his eyes. Prog rock booms from the sound track.

  The man grabs the woman. She screams, but no one seems to notice. He pulls her into an alley.

  He eats her.

  Now that’s the way to start a movie.

  Matt walked back into the lobby just as the opening credits started rolling. The theater was nearly full. Mostly young men with the requisite soul patches and hats and young women with the requisite tattoos and piercings. A few days ago they would have looked avant-garde to Matt. Now he realized this was the new mainstream.