Cinema of Shadows

by Michael West

  Kim frowned, but her smile returned almost immediately. “Are you gonna keep asking me that?”

  “Sorry.” Tashima looked a little uncomfortable. “I didn’t mean to upset you or anything.”

  “I’m not upset. I just don’t want this to be weird. I don’t want you to be afraid of me, think I’m Carrie and I’ll blow your head up while you sleep.”

  Tashima laughed at that. “Girl, please. I’ve known you how long? I’ve given you plenty o’ reasons, and if you haven’t blown my head off by now, you’re not gonna.”

  Kim snickered uneasily and they stood there for a moment without saying a word. She regarded Tashima closely, searching her features. For what? For signs Tashima was lying? For a hint of some kind of fear in those dark brown eyes — a fear she might be trying to deny not only to Kim, but to herself? If it was there, there was no hint of it.

  Instead, Kim found a strange sort of curiosity flickering in her friend’s eyes.

  How do you do it? What makes you so special?

  I don’t know, Kim thought in reply, and it was the truth.

  She decided to change the subject, to refocus on the assignment at hand. She pointed to the K-II meter. “Ready to try out that new toy Joss gave you?”

  Tashima blinked. “Oh, yeah. Sure.” She looked down at the black box she held in her hands. “You wanna ask questions, or should I?”

  “We can take turns.”

  “Cool.” Tashima looked around the room and spoke to the dusty air. “Hello? Is there anybody here with us? Any spirits who would like to talk to us tonight?”

  Tashima held up the meter, and turned in a circle, displaying it to the empty auditorium. As far as Kim could tell, only the statues were there to see it.

  “We got something here that’s gonna let us talk with you.” Tashima put her right thumb on the power button, pointing out the LEDs with the index finger of her left hand. “If you can move by us ... you can make these lights blink. Twice for ‘yes’...”

  She glanced over at Kim for confirmation.

  Kim nodded.

  “... and once for ‘no.’”

  They stood in silence, watching the tiny red bulbs, patiently waiting for —

  The lights blinked wildly, strobing across the tip of the meter.

  “Holy crap.” Tashima’s eyes widened. “You seein’ this?”

  Kim nodded. She did another quick scan of the chamber, but she still saw nothing, felt nothing.

  The LEDs went dark again.

  Tashima sighed. “And now it’s gone.”

  A chill in the air. Kim shuddered against it, then glanced down at her thermal scanner. “I don’t think so. It’s down to sixty-five degrees in here.”

  Tashima quickly posed another question, “Are you here with us now, yes or no?”

  The lights on the meter re-ignited. Once. Twice.

  “Yes,” Tashima interpreted. She lifted her eyes from the meter to do her own survey of the auditorium. “Did you die in this room?”

  A single flash of light.

  “No. Okay.” Tashima smiled, showing the pearls of her teeth. She looked over at Kim. “This is better than a Ouija board. Nobody can move it. I know it’s real.”

  Kim returned Tashima’s grin, then asked her own question, one that had been silently gnawing at her, “Did you die in the ... in the box office out front?”

  Another solo flash. “No.”

  Tashima asked, “Are you a boy?”

  “No.”

  She giggled and threw up her free hand. “Are you girl?”

  Again, the lights said, “No.”

  Tashima locked eyes with Kim. “I think this thing’s busted. I mean, they gotta be one or the other, don’t they?”

  Kim shuddered against the worsening cold and glanced down at her scanner. “Fifty-two degrees,” she read aloud, then nodded at Tashima’s meter. “Try asking them something else first, something to check the meter, a question we’ll know the answer to.”

  “Like what?”

  Kim thought a moment, then shrugged. “Ask them if they know where they are.”

  Tashima flashed a skeptical look, then she said to the room, “Are you in the state of Indiana?”

  This time, the lights said, “Yes.”

  Tashima’s giddy smile returned. “Are you in the town of Harmony?”

  Again, “Yes.”

  Tashima laughed nervously. “This is some freaky shit.”

  “Were you born here?” Kim offered, and the words arrived on wispy clouds of vapor. Her smile faded. The thermal scanner now said it was but forty degrees where they were standing.

  “No,” the lights replied.

  Tashima shivered; rubbed her bare arm. Her breath was visible as well. “When you were alive, were you a man?”

  “No.”

  She tried again. “Were you a woman?”

  “No.”

  Tashima frowned. “What the hell is —”

  “Maybe there’s more than one spirit trying to answer us,” Kim offered, then asked the auditorium, “Are there more than one of you speaking with us right now?”

  “No.”

  Something was wrong. There was an entity here. She knew it. But why couldn’t she hear it? Where was the cry for help? Where was the desperation? This ... this felt more like a game.

  Kim was so cold, so very cold. “There’s only one of you here?”

  “Yes,” the meter told them.

  Kim’s right hand was on her chest now, clutching the crucifix, and when she spoke, she stared at the black box as if it were the one answering. She didn’t know what frightened her more, the question she was about to ask, or the answer the box would give her. “Were you ever human?”

  A long pause, followed by a single streak of light. “No.”

  Tashima’s thumb leapt off the power button. She took a step back, holding the meter away from her as if she’d just discovered it was made of excrement. “Uh-uh. No. I’m done with this.”

  Now, perhaps too late, Kim felt it. A presence circling, stalking closer, like a shark or ... or a wolf. She put her hand on Tashima’s shoulder and tried to maintain her composure. “I think we’ve got enough from here. Let’s go find the others.”

  As they hurried toward the lobby doors, Kim resisted the urge to turn around. The thing that had spoken to them through the K-II was back there. It moved up the aisle behind them. Whatever it was, it was big, and the concrete floor trembled with its every step.

  It’s the wolf, Kim’s mind cried out. The big bad wolf.

  If she turned her head, Kim knew she would see it lurking there. A charging monster, with fangs bared and claws like grappling hooks. If she saw that, Kim knew her newfound courage would ebb away and abandon her to the slaughter.

  A stack of chairs fell over —

  The wolf knocked them down! It’s right behind us!

  — and Tashima shrank from the deafening clatter of metal striking concrete and more metal. Tashima started to turn her head toward the sound, toward the thing that made it, but Kim grabbed her by the arm and yanked her forward again.

  “Don’t,” Kim warned. “Keep your eyes on the doors.”

  Before she could take another step, a dreadful snarl filled Kim’s ears, low, angry, and then a gust of hot breath warmed the nape of her neck. She glanced down at the thermal scanner, looking for proof, a hot spot, but the screen went suddenly dark. A moment ago, the device had ninety minutes of charge remaining. Now, it was dead in her hand, and she knew she was about to join it.

  But instead of pouncing on them, this thing, whatever it was, leapt into the air and buffeted past them like a blizzard gale.

  Kim’s hair blew forward, whipping and flailing in the breeze, and she heard a woman shriek from the gallery overhead. She raised a hand to brush her wild locks aside, and a second cry filled her ears, just as loud and shrill as the first, but this time it was the cry of a man in agony. As Kim lifted her eyes to the balcony, a body fell over the guardrail.
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br />   32

  The projection booth was steeped in decay. A fresh breeze flowed in through broken window glass, but the horrid stench of rot lingered. And if anything, it had worsened since their previous tour, permeating the very air Joss breathed. He bent over, wretched, and spit on the floor to clear the taste of it from his mouth. Beneath his shoes he saw irreplaceable lobby cards for the movie ALIEN. Mint, they would have been worth hundreds of dollars to any collector. Instead, someone had left them here, abandoned them to the elements. Now, they were plastered to the concrete, ruined.

  Joss frowned, stood upright, and as he unburdened himself, placing the heavy equipment cases on the floor, he mourned the terrible waste of it all. Once valuable equipment covered over in a fluffy blanket of dust and grime. Rust slowly feasting on the metal carcasses of forgotten film canisters. A torn, rippled movie poster for Taxi Driver tacked to the far wall. Exposed film tossed in a shadowy corner to quietly dissolve away, its images lost to extreme heat, bitter cold, and time.

  And then there were the things Joss didn’t see.

  No reels spooled on the platters. No film threaded through the cool projector. And no projectionist.

  Joss spun to face Burke. “I thought you said Harvey was up here?”

  “I assumed he was,” the professor said absently, more concerned with the digital camcorder he held in his hands. He swept the corrosion, squinting into the small display screen on the side of the camera, searching for something specific. Whatever it might be, he clearly hadn’t found it. His face wore a look of supreme frustration.

  Kevin set his own equipment down and said, “Maybe he went out for a bite to eat.”

  Joss pointed back over his right shoulder with his thumb. “Then somebody would’ve had to pick him up. His truck’s still sittin’ out there in the lot.”

  “You don’t think the old guy had a stroke or heart attack do you?” Kevin asked, suddenly concerned.

  “The thought crossed my mind,” Joss told them. “I think we should check the place out to be sure he’s not dead on the floor somewhere.”

  And then Joss saw Burke’s interest flit to the door, to the hallway beyond. “Yes, well, for once I’m in agreement with you, Mr. Giler.”

  Joss nodded. “We should go from room to room and —”

  “I’ll go,” the professor told them, and he was halfway to the open door when he said it. “I’d like you gentlemen to busy yourselves with placing all of this equipment, a camera in here, one in the hallway, and a third —”

  Joss interrupted, “It would go faster —”

  “— on the balcony.”

  “— with the three of us.”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake, he’s just an old man. I think I can handle it.” Burke’s face reddened and a pair of veins plumped on his forehead like worms wriggling beneath the skin. “Now, make certain the camera on the balcony faces outward so that we get a wide view of the entire auditorium.”

  Kevin’s eyes widened at this new outburst.

  This is your hero? Joss thought. Take a good, long look.

  The professor’s nostrils flared, drawing in a deep breath. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, his fingers clawed and trembling. “Now then, are we clear on our respective duties?”

  Kevin nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  Joss regarded Burke steadily and tried to sound indifferent. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Good. Now, why don’t you two have at it and I’ll see if I can locate our friend Mr. Harvey.” And with that, the professor disappeared down the hallway, still clutching the video camera, still searching.

  When Joss thought the man was out of earshot, he turned to Kevin and said, “Our fearless leader’s gone bat shit.”

  Kevin refused to look him in the eye. He knelt to unpack, busying himself with the equipment. “I just hope he’s okay.”

  “Harvey’s missing, and you’re worried about that asshole?” Joss shook his head in disgust. He leaned over, picked up the camera cases, and made steps toward the door. “I’m gonna go get the balcony set up.”

  And check on Tashima, his nervous mind added.

  Kevin’s head snapped up. “We should stay together.”

  Joss glared at him. “It’ll take twice as long to do it that way, and I’m not gonna spend one more minute in this place than absolutely necessary.”

  Joss walked out and turned down the short hall that led to the balcony. He noticed a slight mildew odor, but after the overpowering stench of the booth, it was a blessing. He pushed on double doors and they swung open like the gateway to a saloon.

  Fifteen empty rows looked down on the blank screen.

  He’d seen theater balconies before, at concert halls and the Stanley University auditorium, but he’d never been to a cinema that had one.

  This would have been a great place to make out. Quiet, out of the way. I bet on a slow night you could’ve really had a good time.

  He chuckled briefly, then remembered the fire.

  A few dozen people burned to death.

  Josh felt an intense chill, and as he moved down the aisle toward the railing, he could not shake the feeling of eyes on his back, studying his every movement. He set the camera cases down, then rubbed his neck to flatten bristling hairs.

  Electromagnetic fields, he told himself, recalling Kim’s fit of nausea on the previous walkthrough. High EMF readings could cause headaches and queasiness, could inspire feelings of paranoia, the sensation of being watched. Probably a junction box around here somewhere, or it could even be an exposed wire or faulty outlet.

  Joss leaned over the tarnished metal guardrail and saw Kim and Tashima standing on the auditorium floor below. He smiled. Tashima held the K-II meter he’d given her.

  “Are you in the state of Indiana?” she asked, looking around the empty room.

  Joss saw the monitor flash twice, and his smile widened. Holy shit, it’s really workin’ for her.

  Tashima grinned as well. “Are you in the town of Harmony?”

  Two more flashes of light.

  And now Tashima was laughing. “This is some freaky shit.”

  “I’m glad you like it,” Joss whispered aloud, then he turned away.

  The girl standing in the balcony aisle behind him was young, her blonde hair pulled back in a long ponytail. She wore a white sweater that hugged her perky breasts, and ... was that a blue poodle skirt? She reminded Joss of an extra from one of the 1950’s horror movies he’d watched on television as a child, I Was a Teenage Werewolf or the original Blob. Her sunken, glassy eyes fixed on him, and when she spoke, her whisper soft voice was charged with excitement. “You’re here. I was worried you wouldn’t come, but here you are.”

  Joss swallowed and his startled heart resumed its normal rhythm. “Here you are.”

  She took a step toward him. “I’ve been waiting so long.”

  He unconsciously retreated a step and was stopped by the lip of the balcony, the hard railing pressed against the small of his back.

  “Take me with you,” the girl begged. Her bright eyes, rimmed in shadow, seemed to glow in the dimness. “I have to get out of here.”

  “Sure, okay.” Joss licked his lips and his dry tongue stuck to them. His right hand gripped the guardrail so tightly it ached. “Did you come out here with Mr. Harvey? Are you his granddaughter?” More like great-granddaughter by the look of her. She had to be all of sixteen. “Where is he? Is he all right?”

  “Please,” she begged, her arms outstretched; milky skin, blue fingernails, “take me home.”

  “Okay ...” He glanced over his shoulder; saw Kim and Tashima still down on the floor, walking back up the aisle, leaving the auditorium. They were almost running. Could they see him up here? “We can give you a ride if you need one.”

  He turned back around.

  The girl had moved so close to him that their noses nearly touched. He could smell her perfume now, a floral scent, like a meadow in bloom. She put her hands on his shoulders, and he felt the ch
ill of her icy touch through his shirt. “It won’t let us leave. It needs us.”

  It?

  “That’s why it made Johnny stab me.” There was panic in her bright eyes now. “That’s why it made that man drop his cigarette.”

  They were not alone on the balcony.

  Surrounding them were corpses. They filled the gallery’s once empty seats, their charred faces staring out at him with white, scalded eyes. Some had scattered patches of hair, brittle, blackened, like burnt straw, others had been reduced to bald, grinning skulls. Their features had melted and clotted into lumpy, twisted landscapes before crusting over. They sat up, singed, tattered clothing hanging from their skeletal frames, their movements accompanied by the dry rustling sound of dead leaves.

  Joss wanted to scream, felt it rising up his throat, but when he glanced back at the girl in the poodle skirt, he was struck mute. A switchblade handle poked out from her neck, blood cascading around the blade, pouring down the front of her sweater, dying the wool a deep red.

  “Tell her we’re here,” she said, more fluid gurgling out through the slit in her throat as she spoke. “Tell her we need her help.”

  A gust of hot wind blew across his face, as if some enormous animal had just exhaled beside him.

  “We need Kim!” the girl cried.

  And a shadow rushed forward from the gloom, taking shape. Gleaming talons sliced the air, passing right through the bleeding girl’s vaporous body. She threw her head back, shrieked at the ceiling, and when Joss felt the cold sting of icicles slashing into his chest, he joined her.

  The force of the blow sent Joss reeling backward across the guardrail, and had it not been for his firm grip on the metal, he would have fallen to his death on the concrete below. Instead, he swung around. His body collided with the lip of the balcony and hung there, shoulder popping, legs dangling. He screamed again in agony, and this time, someone answered the call.

  “Joss!”

  Kim’s voice, somewhere below his kicking feet.

  He tried to look down, but pained, frightened tears blurred his eyesight. He grunted, flexed his arm to do a one-armed pull up, his muscles like thick cables beneath the skin of his wrist. He’d worked hard to build his physique, to erase the memory of that scrawny video geek who failed even the simplest of exercises in high school gym, but it wasn’t enough. His chin dropped and he swung like the pendulum of a clock, his shoulder and fingers throbbing with frenzied blood.