Cinema of Shadows

by Michael West

  Kim offered Kevin the recorder and smiled. “We could trade. You could ask the questions and I could film.”

  “She was killed by a man. She’s not going to respond to me. Burke says —”

  “Jesus.” Tashima rolled her eyes. “Enough with the ‘Burke says’ shit. It’s like having the bastard here with us.”

  Kim fiddled with the digital recorder, staring at the tiny red LED. “Guys, I’m recording this, hello!”

  Tashima looked at her own instruments; sighed. “Well I still got nothin’. I don’t think anybody’s home.”

  Kevin panned his camcorder over to the bed. “Kim, why don’t you lay down?”

  She glared into the lens. “Fuck that.”

  Tashima looked shocked. “11:33 pm, Kim Saunders uses the F-word. Something abnormal is definitely at work here.”

  “Why would I —”

  This time, Kevin didn’t say “Burke says,” but he quoted the professor just the same, “‘If you exhibit or mimic a behavior the spirit is familiar with, you may get it to somehow manifest.’”

  Static on the walkie-talkie, then Joss asked, “What’s going on?”

  Tashima grabbed it from Kim’s hand and said, “Kim’s chickenshit.”

  “Forgive me for not wanting to lay on a bed somebody was killed in.”

  “It’s not the bed,” Kevin assured her. “That’s probably in some evidence locker somewhere. But the woman who sleeps in this room has seen the little girl.”

  She stared at the blankets, at the pillow. “Why can’t Tashima do it?”

  Tashima held up her hand. “Oh, hell no! Bein’ a black chick in a horror story’s like wearin’ a red shirt on Star Trek, so I’m not doin’ anything stupid. I hear, ‘Get out,’ I’m out the door, okay.” She pointed to her red Nubuck casual shoes. “And this is as close to the haunted bed as I’m gonna get.”

  Kim rubbed her right arm.

  No.

  She eyed the bed.

  I can’t do it.

  She took a step toward the mattress.

  I’m afraid. I —

  I need to get over it.

  She swallowed, then said, “Fine ... I’ll do it.”

  Behind the camera, Kevin looked pleasantly surprised. “Cool. Just ... I don’t know ... lay down and act like you’re going to sleep.”

  Kim moved tentatively to the bed, sat on the edge of the mattress. She hesitated, then lowered her head onto the pillow, one hand holding tightly to the recorder, the other clutching the crucifix that hung from her neck, the one that had once belonged to her grandmother. Her pulse was loud in her ears. She breathed deeply and closed her eyes, trying to think of spring break, of parasailing off some sunny Florida beach. Instead, the darkness of her mind filled with the vision of a distant covered bridge. Edna Collings Bridge. She saw it looming toward her, its entrance like a hungry mouth. It swallowed her whole, and then a voice was in her ears, no louder than a whisper, a child’s voice...

  “Take me with you.”

  Kim’s eyes sprang open and she sat bolt upright on the bed.

  “You feel that?” Tashima glanced around.

  “What?” Kevin asked.

  “It just got colder in here.”

  “I feel it.” Kim shuddered. She grabbed the flashlight and turned it on her friends.

  Tashima aimed the thermal scanner like a laser, trying to pinpoint the temperature of the room. White clouds of breath fogged the shaft of light as she spoke, “Thirty-five ... Shit ... Twenty-two degrees.”

  A siren blared from the hallway.

  Kim let out a short, startled scream; Tashima’s shoulders leapt up to meet her own ears.

  “It’s the motion detector,” Kevin yelled over the warning cry. He whirled around, aimed his camera into the darkened hallway and zoomed. “Something’s there.”

  Tashima took a step back and bumped into the bedside table with her hip. She held the walkie-talkie up to her mouth. “Joss ... where are you?”

  “Still down in the living room,” he replied over the speaker. “You need me?”

  Tashima hesitated a moment, then said, “Not right now, but be ready.”

  A new voice was in Kim’s ear, lower, deeper. This was no child. No, the speaker was older, threatening ...

  “Leave us alone!”

  In the hallway, from just beyond the limits of their lights, she saw a dark figure approach, a hulking silhouette that grew until it filled the entire doorframe. It held something in long, bony fingers, something that gleamed in the glow of her flashlight, something sharp.

  The air filled with a static crackle that coaxed every hair on Kim’s body to stand on end. It was as if the room had become a glutton for energy, condensing it, letting it build and grow, and then someone, or some thing, gave it direction.

  Music blared as the clock radio turned itself on.

  The open textbook came alive. Its binding lifted from the bedside table, its pages flapped and swayed, and then it flew across the room. Kevin ducked as the book sailed over him and collided with the far wall.

  Above Kim’s head, the mirror shattered, raining shards. She sprang from the bedding and the mattress slid to the floor behind her as if it were after her.

  The door slammed shut, sealing the room, keeping the knife-wielding shadow out in the hall, and the electricity drained from the atmosphere, evaporated, leaving the world quiet and still.

  For a moment, Kim heard nothing but her own breath as it rushed in and out of her mouth, then Kevin broke the silence.

  “Everybody okay?”

  Tashima was pressed against the wall, the thermal scanner clasped so tightly in her hand that her ebony knuckles had turned a light shade of mocha. Her eyes were wide and bright in the dimness, and they surveyed the room with a mix of awe and terror. “Tell me you got that!”

  Kevin tilted the video camera from left to right, then he turned it on himself, looking into the lens as if to make certain it was still intact. He nodded. “Oh yeah, I got it.”

  Kim gestured at the door.

  “In the hallway,” she managed, shocked by the sound of her own trembling voice. “It had a knife!”

  An edge crept into Kevin’s voice. “You saw York?”“I don’t know!” All Kim could think about was the blade.

  Tashima moved to her side, put an arm around her. “It’s okay, girl. It’s over.”

  “No.” Kim shook her head and pointed, tears welling in her eyes. “It’s still in the hall!”

  They looked at one another, then Tashima nodded at the door.

  Kevin shook his head; mouthed, “No way.”

  Tashima glared at him, nodding more insistently at the entrance and the hallway beyond.

  With reluctance, Kevin held the eyepiece of the camera up to his face and reached out for the door. Before his fingers could touch it, however, the brass knob turned on its own.

  Kevin leapt back. “Oh shit!”

  The trio backed away quickly; pressed themselves into the far corner of the room, their devices held out in front of them like talismans.

  The wooden door swung inward, its aged hinges creaking.

  Kim tensed; pinched her eyes shut. If the shadow with the knife walked into the glow of her flashlight, if she saw its true appearance, she would go instantly insane.

  An excited but familiar voice filled the room, “What the fuck just happened in here?”

  She allowed herself to look.

  Joss stood at the entrance, the doorknob in his hand and a look of astonishment on his handsome, chiseled face. His white Superbowl XLI T-shirt glowed in the dimness, making him look like an angel. If she hadn’t been so scared, Kim might have laughed at the comparison. Instead, she exhaled and felt tears of relief on her cheeks.

  “Jesus.” Kevin gave a nervous chuckle. “I just about pissed my pants.”

  Joss focused on Tashima, his pale blue eyes filled with concern. “You alright?”

  She hugged Kim tightly and said, “Nothing a pacemaker can’t f
ix.”

  Kevin ran over to him; held up his camera. “Dude, Burke is gonna go crazy when he sees this footage!”

  Tashima nodded. “He’d better. Shit, after that, we deserve a fuckin’ triple A plus or somethin’.”

  She grabbed Kim by the hand, pulled her toward the door.

  Kim tugged back, fear lingering in her watery eyes, her arms still tingling with gooseflesh. “I can’t go out there.”

  Tashima rolled her eyes. “Girl, please. It’s gone.”

  “What if it’s not?”

  Joss moved over to her, put his hand on her shoulder. “Kim, I just came up here. There’s nothing out there.”

  Kevin stood in the doorway and put his left hand on the frame. He dangled his foot out into the hall as if to see if something would bite it. Nothing did. “They’re just ghosts, guys ... apparitions, specters, phantoms. They say ‘boo’ and throw stuff around. They can’t hurt you.”

  The bedroom door slammed shut on his hand.

  2

  Kim had been sitting on a chair in the emergency room for over an hour when she noticed the doctor looking at her. He was tall, cute, with short-cropped sandy hair and broad shoulders. It was after one in the morning, and the ER was fairly deserted.

  Kevin sat on the end of a hospital bed, his left hand wrapped in a blood-soaked towel.

  “It’s gonna be broken,” he predicted as he stared at his own fingers.

  Tashima sat next to Kim. She got up and gently squeezed the tip of his index finger. “Can you feel this?”

  “Ouch!” He glared at her. “Why —”

  “Sorry.” Tashima winced. “But you weren’t movin’ ’em. You don’t have any nerve damage. That’s good, right?”

  “Stop trying to make me feel better.”

  When Kim glanced at her own hands, she saw that they were still shaking. She clenched her fists, took a deep breath, then relaxed and had a quick look around. Curtains hung from tracks in the ceiling. They should’ve been pulled together, creating a private cell, but the nurse who came to take Kevin’s vitals had left them open.

  She watched the young physician, saw his eyes linger on her a moment before returning to a backlit X-ray of Kevin’s hand. Then he glanced at her again, and this time, he flashed a wide, bright smile.

  Kim returned an uneasy grin of her own, then forced herself to look away.

  Tashima elbowed her. “Somebody likes you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.”

  “You should go over and ask him out.”

  “You should mind your own business.”

  Tashima shook her head; turned and pointed to Kevin’s hand. “What did you feel?”

  He blinked. “My ... hand breaking?”

  She elaborated, “No, I mean, did you sense something — a presence?”

  He gave a little snort. “I don’t know ... maybe. Felt like somebody was pressing on it, trying to close the door.”

  Joss pointed to Tashima’s nose. “What did that feel like?”

  Her hand moved to the diamond she wore there. “What ... when they pierced it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It hurt like a motherfucker.”

  “Then why’d you do it?”

  She shrugged. “Just always wanted to. Mom never let me when I lived at home. I think it was the first thing I did when I moved here freshman year.”

  Kim remembered. “Our little rebellion,” Tashima had called it. They went to this little hole-in-the-wall tattoo parlor on the edge of campus called The Real You. Its ad proclaimed: “We specialize in body modifications.” Kim snickered. For some reason, that always made her think of MTV’s Pimp My Ride. Kim had two additional piercings put in her left ear, one more in her right, and Tashima —

  “It was either my nose or my tongue,” she told Joss, “and there was this guy behind the counter who was taking my driver’s license info.” She turned to Kim. “You remember that dude?”

  Kim smiled and nodded. He’d been covered in drawings of Asian girls and dragons, rows of metal spikes encircling his eyes and protruding from his lower lip. “The Lizard Man.”

  Joss started to laugh, then coughed and said, “Lizard Man?”

  “I asked him if it hurt to get your tongue pierced, and he says, ‘Yeah, it hurts, but not as bad as this.’ Dude opens his mouth and —” Tashima pointed to her lips as she spoke. “— he had the end of his tongue slit so it looked like a snake.”

  “No way.”

  Kim held up her hand. “Swear to God.”

  Joss smiled at Tashima. “You’ll go to a tattoo parlor run by the Lizard Man, but you wouldn’t lay down on a little girl’s bed?”

  “A dead little girl’s bed,” Tashima pointed out. “I’m not gonna piss off any ghosts, desecrate their resting place.” She paused, then said, “Look what happened to Kevin.”

  Kevin shrugged. He lifted the towel a moment, wiggled his fingers and winced.

  Tashima frowned, an apologetic look in her eyes.

  “It’s not that bad,” he told her. “We probably frightened Anna more than she frightened us.” He quoted Burke again, “‘If spirits feel threatened or provoked, they get upset, just like people.’ They’re generally not dangerous.”

  Tashima pointed at him. “See there, it’s words like ‘generally’ that scare the shit out of me.”

  Kim remembered the knife. Was it a real blade? What would have happened if that thing had entered the room? She shuddered.

  “They’ll act just as they did when they were living,” Kevin told them.

  “Living people do some weird-ass shit,” Tashima proclaimed. “You didn’t see the Lizard Man.”

  She reached into her purse and produced a pack of Virginia Slims, then looked up at the NO SMOKING sign on the wall above the bed.

  “I gotta get out of here and have a smoke before I die.”

  Joss laughed and gave Kevin a pat on the shoulder. “You gonna be okay if I take off too?”

  “Where you goin’?” Tashima asked.

  He shrugged. “Gotta take our equipment back to the lab, start reviewin’ some tape.”

  “At two in the morning?”

  “The A/V Lab’s empty this time of night. Gives me a chance to get more done.” He looked at Kevin. “You gonna be okay?”

  Kevin nodded. “I’ll be fine. Go log that footage before something happens to it. If I’m gonna lose my hand, I want it to have been for something.”

  Joss chuckled, then his eyes found Tashima. “I’ll give you a ride. You can smoke all the way home.”

  Tashima leaned toward Kim as if asking for permission.

  “Go on,” Kim told her. “Who knows how long we’ll be here.”

  Tashima stood and grabbed her black leather jacket off the back of her chair. She hugged Kim; whispered in her ear, “Go talk to the cute doctor.”

  Kim gave a quiet giggle. “Go home. I’ll try not to wake you when I get in.”

  “I mean it,” Tashima insisted, pointing at her with an unlit cigarette. “What have you got to lose?”

  She slid the Virginia Slim’s filter between her lips and walked out into the hall with Joss.

  Kim watched them move to the automatic door, then returned her attention to the doctor. Love at first sight was not something she’d ever believed in. In fact, she had trouble believing in love at all.

  Carter Donovan had told her he loved her after their senior prom. He’d said it again and again over the squeaking springs of a queen-sized bed at the Greencastle Dollar Inn. She remembered that bed well. She’d been sitting on it, sheet wadded up to her neck to cover her breasts, tears in her eyes as he got dressed and suddenly ended their three-year relationship.

  “Did I do it wrong?” she’d asked, and the memory of her own pitiful voice still made her cringe.

  He’d slipped his arm into his black tux jacket. “No, you were great.”

  “Then why?”

  “School will be over in a few weeks, and I’m gonna be a Florida G
ator in the fall. We’ll be a thousand miles apart. It can’t work. Don’t you get that?”

  She looked at her hands, at the dingy brown carpet and the pink prom dress that lay unzipped and inside out, anything not to have to see his face. This was not the person she’d known for so long. It couldn’t be.

  “I get it. You’ve finally had me. Touchdown. Game over.” She’d meant it to sound angry, but it was far too shrill, the horrid sound of her heart tearing in two.

  “That’s not true. We’re young. It’s not like we’re gonna run out and get married or anything. I just think it’s best if we move on.”

  She continued staring at the dress. She’d shed it so easily, so willingly, as if it had been a dried husk of snake skin she’d been itching to be rid of. Her eyes narrowed. “Best for you, you mean.”

  “Kim, why won’t you look at me?”

  “Take me home.”

  “Don’t you want to go to any part —”

  “Take me home.”

  He’d dropped her off in front of her house and that was the last she’d seen of him. That summer, she’d started to write him a dozen letters, but wadded them up half finished and threw them away. She’d also picked up the phone to call him. She would stand there, staring at the numbers, the dial tone droning on in her ear, and then she would slam the receiver down. She wouldn’t be the one to make the first move. The phone worked both ways. If Carter wanted to, he would call her and beg her forgiveness. Of course, he never did.

  As far as she knew, he was still alive out there somewhere, but he haunted her mind like the dead, like that night so long ago on Edna Collings Bridge.

  Kim stood; took a step forward, and her right hand fiddled with her crucifix. “I need something to drink. Want me to bring you something?”

  “Yeah,” Kevin said, still holding the towel to his hand, “a Coke would be great.”

  She nodded and stepped into the hall. The physician glanced at her a third time, his smile warm and friendly.

  She walked over to him. “Hello there.”

  “Hi.” His voice was deep, sexy.

  “Do I know you?” she asked nervously.

  “Not really. Nasonex, right?”

  Kim cocked her head. “Huh?”