Through the window, the darkened theater still flashed black-and-white. Dave balled and flexed his fingers. It was the self-soother his therapist parents had taught him for whenever his OCD kicked in. “Kevin. Dani. You guys are seriously starting to freak me the fuck out.”
Shrieks erupted from the theater like an all-the-souls-in-hell karaoke party.
“We have to get out of here. Now,” I said.
“But what if it’s turning into a total demon-zombie prom down there?” Dani asked.
“Plan A: we make a run for the back exit, then book it down the road to Taco Bell for help.”
“What’s plan B?” Kevin asked.
I’d seen hundreds of horror movies. The tropes and clichés, the zillions of ways people acted dumb or cocky and got killed? I knew them all. I felt smug and safe, thinking I’d never be that dumb. Now I knew: Some things you couldn’t plan for; you just had to react in the moment and hope it was enough.
“We’ll figure that out.” I turned to Dani. “Walk behind me. If, you know, something happens, if one of those things gets me, just run.” When she started to protest, I explained, “Your dad’s already been through enough. And you’ve got a scholarship.”
“What about you?”
I shrugged. “Who would miss me?”
Dani let out a gasp. Then she pursed her lips. “You’re a fucking moron, okay?” She grabbed my hand, and if I hadn’t been about to pass out from fear, I would’ve been the happiest dude alive.
Slowly, I opened the projection room door. It was clear. We crept down the stairs, listening to the hammering of rain on the roof. That’s when I noticed the photo on the wall. Scratsche was gone. Was it a trick of the light? I wanted to ask Dani and Dave if they saw it, too, but Dani whispered urgently, “Kevin, c’mon!”
At the bottom of the steps, we stopped short. Four of the undead paced in front of the back doors, snapping at each other.
“What. The. Total. Fuck,” Dave whispered, his panic evident. “Shit. What’s plan B?”
“Front doors. Keep low.” I crept along the wall. When we came around by the concessions stand I put up my hand and jerked my head to the spot in front of the I Walk This Earth poster, where two crouching demons were still munching down on John-O’s destroyed body. “Just keep walking,” I said, gently squeezing Dani’s hand. “Don’t attract attention.”
I kept my eyes on the doors. Rain swept past sideways in metal-colored sheets. Fifteen feet. Ten. Five. Zero. Carefully, I pressed the handles, trying not to make any noise. They wouldn’t budge.
“Stop fucking around, Kevin,” Dave whispered.
“I’m not!”
A gargling shriek like a dying air-raid siren sounded behind us. The demons who’d been blocking the back exits had arrived. Their huge mouths opened, giving us a front-row view of the pulsing membranes of their anaconda-large throats. It was scarier than any special effect, and it was one hundred percent real. The John-O eaters stumbled away from his corpse and reached their clawlike fingers toward us.
“Dude. You’re the manager. Tell them to get out. Show’s over. Go home.”
“Dave. You are seriously losing it,” Dani growled.
“No. I lost it. It’s totally lost. I’m trying not to shit myself here.”
“Follow me.” I ran for the concessions stand. The demons surrounded us, curious, but I couldn’t count on that holding for long. “Grab anything you can use as a weapon.”
“Like what?” Dave screamed.
“I don’t know! I’ve never had to kick demon ass before, okay? Improvise!”
Dani threw scoopfuls of ice. Dave started flinging plates of nacho chips. I looked around. Popcorn salt shaker. Soda cups. Napkin holders. Soft pretzels. Butter vats. Butter vats …
“Hey! Help with this.” I grabbed two dish towels to block the heat and removed the metal bedpan-looking thing that blessed the stale kernels with rancid oil.
Dave stared at me like I’d gone mental. “What are you going to do with that? Wait for their cholesterol to catch up with them?”
“Remember when we saw Aliens from Planet 11 Ate My Brain?” I said, loosening the top. “Remember how they finally killed the alien freaks?”
“The aliens couldn’t take the heat. They melted ’em.” Dani ran over to help me with the vat.
The thing formerly known as Bryan Jenks jumped onto the counter in a crouch, ready to strike.
“Hey, Bryan! You want butter with that?” I shouted, just like I was the hero in an action movie. Together, Dani and I threw the bubbling vat of yellow yuck. Bryan screamed and thrashed as the hot oil blistered his skin into ribbons, and even though Bryan was a total douche bag I’d often wanted to finish off with a series of cool-looking karate moves I didn’t actually know, I felt sick watching him suffer, demon or not.
Dave let loose with a slightly crazy laugh. “‘Hey, you want butter with that?’ Dude, that was so fly.” He tried to high-five me.
I let his hand hang out in space. “Not now.”
“Nggzzzzraaahsss!” Creature Bryan screeched.
Dave’s voice was choked with fear. “I think you pissed it off.”
I grabbed both Dave’s and Dani’s hands. “Plan C: theater, on three. One. Two—”
With a warrior’s cry, Dave took off running, dragging us behind him into the theater. We slammed our bodies against the doors. Dani grabbed the broom resting against the back wall, snapped it over her knee, and jammed the broken stick through the big gold door handles.
I shoved Dave. “I said on three, dumbass!”
“I couldn’t take it anymore. Those things look like frozen beef jerky. And they smell,” Dave panted. He kicked at an empty soda cup. “This is a bad way to die, man. God damn it, I had tickets for Comic-Con.”
This wasn’t how tonight was supposed to go. I was supposed to ask Dani for a date. She was, hopefully, going to say yes. And now we were making a last stand in the Cinegore against a horde of soul-stealing, flesh-eating demons escaped from a cursed movie. The doors began to crack as the demon-zombies thumped against them. Soon, they’d break through the flimsy broom lock.
“This is for real, Kevin. Think,” I said. All those horror movies in my head, and now, when it counted, I couldn’t come up with a way out of this mess. And that’s when the crazy idea hit me.
“Hey!” I shouted at the movie. “Hey, over here! Pay attention.”
“What are you doing?” Dani touched my arm, and I wished it were a different night so I could just enjoy the lightness of her fingers.
“I’m not going down without a fight,” I promised her. I yelled up at the screen again. “I know you can hear me. Look. At. Me!”
Natalia Marcova glanced in my direction. She’d been dead for five decades, but her image lived on, burning brightly, a beautiful, preserved fossil.
“I saw that! Yes! Over here,” I said, waving my arms.
She gave me a little wave. “Hello.”
“Help us. Please,” I said. “You’ve seen this happen before—isn’t that what you said, Jimmy?”
“Gee. I guess I did.” He raked a hand through his wavy, 1960s, swoon-worthy hair. “I kinda got caught up in the emotion of the moment, y’know? I’m method.”
“Why should we help you brats? You don’t even know how to dress properly,” Alastair Findlay-Cushing said from the sofa, nursing his tumbler of liquor.
“Because we’re the future,” I said. “In every movie, somebody has to live on to tell the story. Or else … or else there’s no point.”
“Not necessarily,” Jimmy Reynolds said. “What about Sunset Boulevard? It’s narrated by a dead man.”
“Thanks for the spoilers, ghost of John-O,” Dave whispered irritably.
“Gee, honey. I want to tell you,” Natalia purred, her native Brooklyn accent shining through. “But if I do, he’ll send me to the bad place.”