I cleared my throat. “Dani, I know this is really bad timing, considering we’re about to be either eaten by demons or consigned to hell, neither of which is how I would’ve planned our first date. But the truth is, I’m crazy about you. Totally. Madly. Completely. And I know this is stupid, but I have to know: If this were a normal Saturday night, and I asked you out, would you say yes?”
Dani stared at me. I couldn’t tell if she was mad or happy or sad or all of the above. “Wow. Your timing sucks.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” My heart plummeted. “Sorry. Forget I said anything.”
“Would you shut up for a second, Kevin?” She came closer. “For, like, forever, I’ve been waiting for you to ask me out, but you never did. You’re the reason I took this stupid job. And now—now—when we’re about to be sacrificed to hell, you finally work up the courage?”
“I—Wait. You like me?”
“Oh. My. God.” Dani lifted up her arms in frustration and let them fall to her sides again. “Seriously? You mean you couldn’t tell?”
“Not … really?”
“Damn, boys are dumb.”
“Sexist.”
“Sorry. I meant to say, ‘Damn, Kevin is dumb.’”
“Better. So how come you didn’t just ask me out?”
“Because…” Dani’s brows furrowed. “Because it’s scary putting yourself out there?”
“Yeah,” I said, smiling in spite of everything. “It really, really is.”
“Aw-w-w. You two are awfully cute,” Natalia said. “I feel real bad that you’ll either get eaten by demons or lose your souls.”
“Thanks?” I said, and then I added, “ma’am,” because I was inside a theater full of revenants led by the devil’s henchman on my first and possibly last date with the girl of my dreams, and my mouth had given up trying to make sense of things.
“Kev!” Dave said, sounding panicked. “The hope thing’s not working!”
Mr. Scratsche laughed. “You see, Kevin. There really is no way to stop it.” He held out the scroll again. “Accept your fate.”
“No! Wait!” I paced. Stopped. “Unless we destroy the movie.”
“Yes, yes, but you can’t,” Scratsche said, impatient. “And even if you could, I doubt that someone like you would destroy the last remaining print of a rare film. After all, you know what it is to be thrown away.”
I’d never wanted to be somebody like my dad, who could just cut ties and take off with only hope stuffed in his pockets. But now I saw it differently. Maybe sometimes the best thing you can do is to burn it all down and start over. If we survived this night, I’d apply to UT. Hell, I’d fill out twelve applications.
I ran back to Dani. “Hey,” I whispered. “You pretty good with that bow?”
“For somebody who only took one semester of archery and ended up accidentally shooting Coach Pelson in the ass, yeah, I guess so.”
“Who says there’s only one way to stop a cursed film from playing?” I offered a lame half-smile. “Options.”
Dani smiled back at me. “Options.”
“Do you have an answer for me, Mr. Grant? Your audience is hungry.” Scratsche gestured to the impatient demons.
“I do. I’d like to show you the trailer for my first short film, entitled You’re Not the Boss of Us, in glorious 3-D.” I removed Cthulhu Shortcake from my pocket. “Dave—lighter, please.”
Dave handed over the blue Bic. “You sure you got this, bro?”
I took a deep breath. “Hope so.”
Behind me, I could hear the muffled, curious voices of Natalia and Alastair. “What’s he doing?” “Is this a thing kids do nowadays?” “It’s strange.” But they were the sounds of the past getting dimmer.
I stuck our plushie elder god to the tip of the arrow. “Sorry, Shortcake.”
“Enough, Mr. Grant!” Mr. Scratsche’s voice was a thundering roar.
“Please! No talking during the movie,” I said, and with a shaking hand, I set Cthulhu Shortcake aflame. To Dani, I whispered, “Aim for the fireplace.”
She nodded and let the imitation Robin Hood: Prince of Darkness arrow sail. It pierced the screen, smoked, and fizzled out.
“Shit,” Dani said, and my heart sank.
“It’s okay,” I told her, and I wondered if that’s what Dani’s mom had said to her little brother in the seconds before the plane hit the ground.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Alastair Findlay-Cushing was staring at the floor of the old movie mansion. A line of fire had traveled from our Cthulhu arrow through the screen and into the film. Natalia and Alastair coughed as their cinematic tomb filled with smoke.
Mr. Scratsche leaped to his feet. “No!”
“Betcha didn’t see that twist coming,” I said.
A huge bang sounded. The rickety walls of the mansion shook. Natalia screamed as the swirling hole of the fireplace opened up and sucked her inside. A visibly shaken Alastair went for his drink, remembering at the last second that it was fake.
“Oh, fuck,” he grumbled, and then he, too, was gone.
Smoke billowed around the edges of the movie screen and spread into the theater. Mr. Scratsche pointed a gnarled finger at us. “Feed! Feed!” he roared to his demon minions. But they were confused by the order and began devouring each other in a bloody frenzy.
The scroll flew from Scratsche’s pocket and hovered in the air. He made a desperate grab for it just before it disappeared. A hole opened in the center of the screen, a bottomless void that mirrored the black of Scratsche’s widening eyes. Terrible sounds escaped from that darkness—howls of pain and sorrow, but also of loss and regret.
“No,” Scratsche gasped. “No, wait, I—”
A giant, flaming hand shot out from the darkness and closed its fiery fingers around the screaming Scratsche. He beat against its grip, but it was no use. He really was out of options. As the flaming hand dragged him back to his eternal nonrest, we heard only one last whimper. The hole closed.
For a moment, it was silent. And then everything went apeshit.
The screen bowed out, vomiting fire. Flocked wallpaper bubbled and blackened. Scraps of ceiling rained down in chunks, as if the theater were built on a fault line whose time had finally come.
“We’re trapped!” Dave yelled, dodging flaming ceiling scraps.
My chest tightened at the thought of this being Scratsche’s last laugh, one of those last-second horror movie gotcha! moments.
“Dani!” I coughed, taking hold of her hands. “I love you. I’m sorry it’s ending this way.”
Dani’s mouth settled into a tight line. “The fuck it’s ending this way!” She ripped the edge of her shirt, wrapped it around the arrow, yanked it from the screen, and used it to pry open the fire exit door. “C’mon, y’all!” she yelled. “We out!”
This time, she reached for my hand, and we didn’t waste any time running toward the open arms of the night.
* * *
Dani and I leaned against the trunk of her car in the light mist and watched the flames eat through the Cinegore. Fire truck sirens sounded in the distance. Just under their caterwauling, I could hear Dave on his phone. “Dude, you don’t know what kind of night I’ve had. For starters, I’ve got brain goop on my jacket…”
The inferno intensified the oppressive stillness of the Texas night. We’d stripped down to our tanks and jeans. If I could’ve unzipped my skin and taken it off, I would have. Dani poured some Milk Duds into my palm. They were slightly melty, but that was the way I liked them best. She burst out laughing. I started laughing, too. It was the shock, for sure. Your emotions get super weird after you’ve been hunted by demons and forced to banish your boss to hell.