Cinema of Shadows

by Michael West

  “Hang on, Joss!” Tashima called up.

  And after a pause, Kim said, “Grab the other end.”

  He attempted to reach up with his left arm. His fingertips managed to touch the railing, but they could not get a grip on it.

  “It won’t work,” Tashima said. “He’s too heavy!”

  And then Kim screamed, “Stand on it!”

  He strained, trying to kick his feet up, to climb the balcony wall, his chest burning with every labored breath. He slipped, his right arm snapping taut again, and a bolt of pain shot up his nerves like a dagger to his brain. He bit into his bottom lip, drawing blood.

  “Jesus,” Tashima said. “He’s bleeding!”

  Above him, the shambling corpses now stood at the rail. They reached for him with raw, flaking fingers, but they had no substance. They passed right through his hand and wrist, sending waves of tingling cold down his arm.

  The dead girl with the knife in her neck was among them. She gazed down on Joss with wide, sad eyes. “It wants you to join us.”

  His cramped, aching hand slipped from the railing and he plummeted to the floor.

  33

  In the Woodfield’s projection booth, Kevin stood hunched over a rusted metal shelf, making certain one of the night vision cameras was positioned correctly. He whistled to himself as he worked, though he couldn’t name the tune, just some old melody that got lodged in his brain and never shook free. When he was sure of the angle, he straightened and duct-taped the connecting cable to the wall, ensuring that the lens would not wander unless someone physically moved it.

  Perfect.

  Done with the task at hand, his thoughts returned once more to Professor Burke. Kevin’s faith in the man remained unshaken. Once he got over his initial shock, he found the professor’s behavior easy to understand. He’d simply encountered something that, in all his years and experience, he’d never seen before, something that excited him and shook him at the same time.

  Kevin gave a crooked grin, recalling his own experience on the railway tracks, his first crude attempt at a ghost investigation. True, he’d seen that eerie ball of light drift back and forth across the rails with the precision of a metronome, but it had been so dark, so very dark, that he was never able to glimpse the entity that wielded it. Kevin tried to imagine what he would have done, frightened as he was, if he’d seen a full-bodied apparition that evening — well, full-bodied minus a head — and even now, with all that he’d learned from the professor, he wondered how he might handle such a situation if it arose here tonight.

  The very idea dowsed him with equal doses of excitement and trepidation.

  And to know that Professor Burke had seen what he’d seen, that he’d stood his ground and hadn’t run screaming out the front door, that he was now able to walk the halls of this place by himself without fear of being alone, gave Kevin an even greater respect for the man.

  It also inspired him to work that much harder.

  Kevin held up his arm. Beneath the brace, his hand was throbbing. The doctor had prescribed Tylenol 3 for his pain, but when it made him sick to his stomach, he’d switched to Vicodin. Kevin had the vial with him now, but he’d refrained from taking another dose. He was afraid it might work too well, deaden his senses, make him less likely to see or hear something important ... or less likely to believe it if he did. Plus, the fact that he was taking a narcotic might taint the professor’s research in some way.

  He flexed his fingers. The pain was manageable for now, a few hours from now however, he knew it would be —

  A distant shriek echoed through the room, immediately followed by a second, lower-pitched cry.

  Kevin froze, eyes wide, but the paralysis did not hold. He rushed over to the remaining equipment, looking through case after case until he found a digital audio recorder. He yanked it free from its bag, hit “record,” and held it high above his head, hoping the screams would come again.

  They sounded as if they were in agony, in torment.

  A banshee?

  He frowned at that.

  A banshee wailed when someone was about to die.

  An arctic draft blew in from the hall, tossing scraps of old paper, dust, and dead leaves around the booth. Kevin raised his splinted arm to shield his face and strained to see. The heavy metal doors on either side of the room slammed shut.

  There was a sound to his right. A growl.

  Something was in the room with him.

  He turned his eyes and his recorder toward the noise. “Are there any spirits here?”

  Now the sound was to his left, a rustling, scurrying sound, as if an animal were crawling through the clutter that littered the floor, maybe an opossum, perhaps the same opossum they’d stumbled on the other day.

  He spun around, faced it head on, the red LED on the recorder winking. “Is there anyone here who would like to speak with me?”

  Now the rustling sound was behind him.

  He glanced over his shoulder, saw nothing but a pile of loose film there on the floor, and turned away. He began scanning the rest of the booth, but movement in the corner of his eye made him look back again.

  The film leapt on him.

  It wrapped around Kevin’s neck, formed a noose, its thin, stiff edge slicing his skin as it constricted. He clawed at his own throat, at the celluloid collar that now choked him, but his fingers skidded uselessly across the tiny sprocket holes.

  The reel was unbelievably strong. A swift tug pulled Kevin back, hauling him toward a pile of rusted canisters.

  And as he was dragged across the floor, he had a sudden, horrid revelation ...

  They never said the prayer.

  In Burke’s haste, in their own confusion and excitement, they never took the time to ask for protection, for the human spirits that dwell here to let them be. They never said a word to keep the demons at bay.

  The cases opened like metal cocoons, the film within unspooling. Long black snakes slithered down onto Kevin’s chest and face, coiling around his ribs, forcing the air from his lungs. Kevin’s mouth opened in a silent scream. One of the prints slipped inside, worming its way down his throat. He gagged and wheezed and his eyes fluttered closed. At any moment, he knew he would lose consciousness.

  A door opened. He heard the roar of unoiled hinges above the rustling, flapping, and fluttering of the film.

  Something else was in the room now.

  Kevin opened up his eyes. He was dizzy. His vision blurred. And yet, he could still make out a shadowy form. It hovered over him, holding something in its hand, something that glinted of silver in the failing light.

  A moment later, the hand blurred out and started slashing.

  34

  Kim screamed, “Joss!”

  Tashima glanced across the aisle at her, saw the stunned, frightened look in her eyes, then followed her gaze up to the balcony.

  Joss hung there, thirty to forty feet above them. His right hand clutched the metal guardrail, his left arm flailed wildly. His legs swayed back and forth, his feet kicking the air.

  As she watched helplessly, he tried to pull himself up with one arm. It didn’t work. He dropped again, and for a single horrid moment, she thought his fingers would slip. Instead, Joss hung on tight, swaying back and forth over her head, reminding her of a hangman’s gallows.

  Tashima’s stomach caved. She cupped her hands to her mouth and called up to the balcony, “Hang on, Joss!”

  Her eyes dropped to the floor, quickly mapping out the place she thought he might land if he fell. The chairs had been pulled, leaving a space of hard, unforgiving concrete between the remaining rows. He wouldn’t just break an ankle or a leg if he hit that. He’d be killed.

  She spun around, searching the auditorium for a rope, a ladder, anything.

  Kim sprinted for the tools that had been left on the floor. She grabbed a thick blue tarp and ran down one of the remaining rows, dragging it behind her. She tossed it over the backs of the seats and it draped off the chairs onto the f
loor. Her eyes shot to Tashima. “Grab the other end.”

  Tashima snatched it up and ran with it, pulled it across the seats of the next row up, covering the bare cement, pulling it taut like the skin of a drum. The tarp was thick, the kind her father used to cover his car when it sat out in the drive, but Joss was built like a linebacker. He had to weigh over two hundred pounds.

  She glance up, watched Joss reach up for the railing with his free arm, heard him grunting and straining. He managed to touch the metal, but he couldn’t get his fingers around it. She knew he couldn’t hold on much longer. Images strobed through her mind, possible scenarios, the tarp ripping, Kim letting go, Tashima letting go, both of them letting go, and she shook her head at Kim. “It won’t work. He’s too heavy!”

  Kim glared at her. “Stand on it!”

  Tashima stepped on her end, then knelt down, trying to position herself so the plastic would not slide out from under her, and when she looked across the tarp, she saw Kim do the same.

  A drop of hot rain landed on Tashima’s check. She touched her hand to her face, wiped at it, and her fingers came away red. Her eyes leapt up to Joss again, watching his feet kick and sway, watching another drop fall. She followed it down to the tarp, a tiny red splash in the wide blue sea.

  “Jesus,” she said aloud. “He’s bleeding!”

  Her head snapped back up in time to see his hand slip, to see gravity seize him and yank him down, and she had only a moment to brace herself.

  Joss came down feet first, his right arm held straight up as if he were still trying to grasp the guardrail. His eyes were pinched closed, his entire face scrunched. There was blood on his shirt. A lot of blood.

  He hit the tarp a little off center, created a sag on the left-hand side, and then he tipped forward, his right arm still held high, like the toppled statue of a dictator. Tashima lost sight of him as he went down, but she heard the loud slap as he did a belly flop onto the concrete.

  “Joss!” Tashima stood and her hands went to her mouth, her fingers steepled against her lips, her thumbs on her chin. It looked as if she were praying. She was.

  Oh Jesus ... Jesus don’t let him be dead ... please Lord ... please!

  Tashima ran to him. He was there on the floor. Face down. And he wasn’t moving. Why wasn’t he moving? She knelt at his side and started to cry.

  “Don’t move him,” Kim warned as she hurried into the row.

  Too late. Tashima had already turned him over. His eyes were closed. There was blood on his chin.

  “Joss?” Tashima’s lower lip trembled. “Wake up, Joss.”

  His eyes fluttered open. They rolled left, then right. When he caught sight of the balcony, he became instantly aware and squirmed in Tashima’s arms, trying to sit up. “We got ... we gotta get out of here!”

  “Shhhh ... shhhh ... Relax,” Tashima told him. “You’re okay. You’re —”

  And then she saw where the blood came from, the rips in his shirt, the cuts; three long, deep gouges. They started at his left clavicle and trailed off to the right of his navel. The center wound appeared to be the deepest. Tashima thought she could actually see his ribs. Her stomach turned over and her eyes rushed to Kim.

  “Call 911!”

  Kim had her cell phone out now. She dialed; put it to her ear. After a moment, she pulled it away again, staring at its darkened screen.

  “What is it?” Tashima asked.

  Kim frowned, her brow furrowed. “I just charged this.”

  “I got it.” Tashima’s own phone was clipped to her belt. She plucked it off, flipped it open, but when she hit the power button, nothing. Earlier tonight, she’d had half a battery left. Now it was dead. “What the —”

  “It happened to the scanner too,” Kim told her. “That ... that thing we were talking to, it drained all the batteries, used the power to ...”

  Kim’s gaze fell on Joss, on his wounds, and the sight robbed her of words.

  “Outside,” Joss told them, wincing as he tried to sit up again. “I left my phone in the van.”

  Tashima put her hand on his shoulder to push him back down. “Stop movin’! Kim’ll go get it.”

  Kim nodded and turned away, but Joss reached out for her, grabbed her ankle, and she looked down into his wide, panicked eyes.

  “Ghosts ... up there in the balcony ...” His voice was husky, his breathing rapid. “They ... they know your name.”

  Kim knelt down, suddenly fascinated. “What did they say?”

  Tashima glared at her, punched her shoulder. “Go call the damn ambulance!”

  Kim blinked, then gave his wounds another quick study. She frowned. “We should carry him out of here, get him someplace safe.”

  “Weren’t you just sayin’ not to move him? Go get some help up in here. I’ll stay with him.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. Go.”

  Kim stood and took a few swift steps to the now crumpled tarp. She gave it a tug, dragged it over to Joss, covering him like a mother tucking her child in for the night. “Keep him warm, so he doesn’t go into shock.”

  Tashima nodded and Kim ran up the aisle toward the lobby doors. Tashima watched her go, watched her glance up at the balcony and back over her shoulder as she went.

  “Everything’s gonna be okay,” Tashima told Joss. “She’ll be right back.”

  He tried to chuckle, air whistling between his clenched teeth. “You ... afraid to be alone with me?”

  Tashima felt a sudden chill and she swept the room with her eyes.

  They weren’t alone.

  35

  Geoffrey Burke left the booth, his head bent, his eyes on the small, square view screen that extended from the side of his digital camcorder. He opened the door across the hall, looked in on the huge popcorn kettles, on unused boxes of popping oil still sitting on rusted metal shelving. He frowned and moved off down the narrow corridor, his hurried footfalls loud against the crumbling gray floor tiles.

  The next door opened on a storeroom. Burke saw stacked boxes and rolled movie posters, and when he glanced down at the monitor, the view was the same. No orbs. No shadow people. No life-like apparitions like the Vernon Armstrong he’d seen in the lobby.

  Nothing.

  Burke made a fist and pounded the metal doorframe. While he was no stranger to disappointment, this sense of frustration, this anger was new to him. For the greater part of twenty years, he’d seen his hopes build and wane numerous times, seen his childhood fears ebb and flow. Each new investigation promised to bring him nearer to answers, to his precious truth, but in the end, he was convinced that they’d only served to lead him further astray. And yet, he’d somehow managed to govern his passions, to keep a cool, rational head; project a calm demeanor in the face of setback. That is, until tonight. Now, his discipline broke down, the mental barriers he’d built brick by brick crumbling. Decades of angst, once tempered and consigned to the dark wells of his subconscious, had been granted free reign, steering him into unfamiliar territory. He was impatient, impulsive, but he couldn’t help it. The spirits had finally revealed themselves to him. His life had not been wasted. They were here, right here, and he would not rest until he put them on record.

  The door to the manager’s office was closed. Burke walked over; jiggled the knob. It was locked, and Mr. Harvey would have the only key.

  Where the hell are you, old man?

  Burke let his arm fall limp at his side and moved off. He’d taken only two steps toward the stairs when he heard a loud click behind him, the turning of a lock, followed closely by a short creaking sound. He spun back around, knowing exactly what he would see.

  The office door stood ajar.

  A sliver of light shone through the crack, painting a bright line across the cracked tile floor. Something passed by the opening, a silhouette. There was someone inside.

  “Harvey?”

  Burke lifted the camcorder; his eyes on the monitor, watching the picture quiver and shake as he rushed back down the
hall toward the door. He placed his left palm flat against the wood and pushed. The door moved slowly across the screen, like a curtain being pulled aside. Three desk chairs were arranged in a semi-circle facing the doorway. Dark, transparent forms appeared in front of them, faint shadows, like stains on the monitor glass. When Burke glanced up, however, he saw a slightly different view.

  The chairs were there all right, and they were occupied, but not by mere shadows. Three men sat staring at him, their hands folded in their laps like schoolboys awaiting the arrival of their headmaster. Two of them wore suits, one light gray, the other blue, and the third wore a full tuxedo. They had pale skin laced with blue veins, deeply socketed eyes, and wide, knowing grins. One of them was Vernon Armstrong, wearing the face he’d shown upon their first meeting. The others were strangers.

  “Hello?” Burke tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry. “Can you hear me?”

  The man in the tux had a matching black handlebar mustache. “Of course we can hear you, Professor Burke. We’ve been waiting for you. Come in.”

  He stepped inside the room. It was like walking into a freezer. When he spoke, his words rode the backs of clouds. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.”

  “Come now,” the man said, his breath invisible, “surely you must know who I am.”

  “I’m afraid I —”

  Good lord ... it can’t be.

  But he knew it was.

  “Gorman? Patrick Gorman?”

  The man’s smile widened, showing teeth. “Yes indeed.” He regarded the other specters. “You see, gentlemen, he’s very perceptive. Very bright, indeed.” Then his eyes went back to Burke. They appeared just as black in person as they had in the news clippings, two bottomless pits, like holes drilled into an empty skull. “You like it, don’t you? People knowing just how bright you really are?”