Witching Hour Theatre



Craig Schaffer


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Larry Wilson stood alone in the dark October chill, his eyes in shadow. The pink neon sign above the marquee read STARLIGHT CINEMA.

 Below that, WITCHING HOUR THEATRE.

 He slid his hands into his coat pockets and crossed the street, careful to avoid a beat-up van dragging its muffler behind it like a spilled intestine.

 Reaching the curved glass ticket booth, he handed the wizened cashier ten bucks. His ticket rose out of the metal counter like a flat red tongue. Clamping the ticket in his teeth, he stared at his reflection in the ticket booth glass and finger-combed his light brown hair.

 He noticed the old man watching him, amused. Wilson grinned around the ticket and nodded good evening. The cashier nodded back, smiling a little sadly, and took twenty dollars from a young couple.

 Fishing more bills from his wallet, Wilson approached the concession bar and scanned its wares.

 The girl at the counter watched him with large brown eyes.

 He pulled the teethmarked ticket out of his mouth and smiled.

 "I'll have Date Package Number One, please."

 "Tired of Number Two, are we?" asked the girl, who returned his smile and folded her arms. Despite the line behind him she seemed in no hurry to shuttle him through. Encouraged, he sucked in his gut and rested an elbow on the counter.

 "I'm feeling a bit dangerous. I have a craving for two bags of candy rather than one."

 She nodded, placing two large cups under the soda fountain. "You are an unpredictable fellow. A root beer and a lemonade, I assume?"

 "Please. Mustn't buck tradition too much."

 He watched her as she pressed the drink buttons with one hand and probed for a popcorn bucket under the counter with the other. Her short brown hair hung shiny around her cheeks and curved to little inward-pointing horns along her jaw.

 She looked up and caught him staring at her. Blushing, he looked away.

 She set the drinks on the counter and asked, "Will we be having extra greasy today, or extra-extra greasy?"

 "Oh, since we're going with the first Date Package and all, let's throw caution to the wind. Extra-extra greasy."

 She grinned, her eyes holding his for an extra beat.

 The problem, he thought as she shoveled popcorn into the bucket, was he didn't want to stretch their relationship beyond its comfortable shape. He never asked out co-workers at the city treasurer's office because of the potential for awkwardness later, and he applied this rule to every setting he frequented: the café, the grocery store by his house, the shop where he bought his books, and most of all, his home away from home three nights a week: the Starlight Cinema. It was his adherence to this policy that made his life so uncomplicated.

 And boring, he added.

 Nichole was pumping butter over his popcorn and eyeing him to see if he wanted her to continue. He nodded back boldly, as if ordering his tenth shot of whiskey. Smiling, she depressed the black button three more times with her little palm.

 "So when do they promote you to projectionist?" he asked and the humor drained from her face. She threw a quick glance over her shoulder at a red door behind the concession stand.

 "I'm not cut out for that sort of work. Rather be out here with human beings than up there with them," she said, the skin around her mouth going tight.

 Unsure of what was wrong, he said, "Well, I like you down here just fine. If you were stashed away in one of the booths I'd never get to see you."

 Was her half-hearted grin a product of his response or some association with the men who ran the projectors?

 "Dots and Twizzlers both, correct?" she asked.

 "Please," he said, wondering when their conversation had veered into hollow pleasantries.

 "That'll be eight-fifty."

 "Coming up," he said and extracted another dollar from his wallet.

 She handed him his change. Had her fingertips lingered on his palm?

 "Anything else tonight?" she asked, her caramel eyes expanding. Was she nudging him toward something? Was it possible she saw something more in him than a lonely customer?

 "No. Not that I can think of," he said.

 "Enjoy your movies, Larry."

 "Thank you, Nichole."

 They'd exchanged first names months ago, yet this was the first time she'd used his. Feeling a good deal better, he smiled and left her to wait on her grumbling queue of customers.

 Strolling down the hallway to Theater Two, his pockets filled with candy and his drinks and popcorn expertly positioned, he opened himself up to the magic of the place. He loved his Mondays and Wednesdays at the Starlight, but they were only dress rehearsals for the grand event, the one thing that kept a spring in his step as he slogged through each uniform day, inundated with memos and contracts.

 Fridays at midnight, long after the casual moviegoers filed out of the exits, the Starlight Cinema transformed into something dark and perilous. Theater One, the newer half of the Starlight, closed for the night, while the other half, Theater Two--the older, original theater--was plunged into a shadowy world of hauntings and serial killers, werewolves and cannibals, slaughter and mayhem.

 Witching Hour Theatre.

 It was the one place he could go and let his imagination reign. For ten bucks a guy could hunker down in the moody old theater and lose himself in worlds where pedestrian matters were just that, where the objectives were staying alive, staking vampires, or running from flesh-eating zombies.

 At eleven forty-five the marquee changed and the box office reopened. From midnight until the early morning three horror films ran consecutively, with five minute intermissions between. The first film was a recent release, the second a classic of the genre, the third an obscure flick only the hardcore fans stuck around for--a creature feature from the fifties or a low-budget dud so awful it was entertaining.

 Tonight's triple bill sounded promising.

 Death Mountain , a teen slasher pic, was followed byThe Omen . The third feature was one he'd never seen. It was dubiously titledVeil of the White Temptress . A quick check of his video guide told him the 1963 film was directed by Richard K. Ludlow. The name didn't ring a bell, and what was more, no lead actors were listed. Wilson knew the film couldn't be good, else he'd have heard of it before. The video guide gave it just one star, so he hoped it would be bad enough to amuse him, for that was all he really asked of the third features.

 As he neared the open double doors to Theater Two he frowned at his watch. He was only five minutes later than usual, yet the muted roar pouring into the hallway promised that finding a seat would be difficult.

 He stepped into the doorway and a cursory scan of the crowd confirmed his apprehensions. All his favorite haunts were occupied. The aisle seats he could care less about. They were for those whose bladders burned after a thimbleful of soda. By contrast, Wilson was able to hold his water for days.

 At times he enjoyed cozying up to a wall, for this would prevent the incontinent from stumbling over him as they made their feverish treks to the bathrooms. Just as often he liked to situate himself in the middle of a row, for despite the traffic impeding his vision and bruising his toes, the view was simply better the nearer one got to the center.

 What he avoided at all costs was sitting in the front half of the theater. There was nothing worse, he'd learned, than staring straight up into the air for five or six hours at a time. After such experiences Wilson had awakened bitter and stiff.

 A girl and a bespectacled man in an olive green coat stood behind Wilson in the doorway. As Larry attempted to step out of their way, the man gave him a hard bump on the shoulder. Wilson threw out his arm to keep his balance and half of his popcorn exploded in the air like a firework. Gaining his balance, Wilson stared murderously at the man's receding back.

 Had the bump been intentional? Thinking back, he was certain the pair who'd just passed him was the same couple who had followed him to the ticket booth and the concession stand. Was the upsetting of the popcorn tub the bespectacled man's retribution for Wilson's extended dialogue with Nichole? Had this man been peeved at being made to wait fifteen seconds longer and therefore given him that knock on the arm?

 Against his will Larry found himself recalling an incident in grade school, one that had marked him for years afterward. He and another boy had been wrestling for some toy--he'd long since forgotten what it was--when Wilson bit the boy in the arm to gain the upper hand. The boy had screamed and writhed as though his arm had been torn from the socket.

 In truth, it hadn't been that deep a bite, though his first grade teacher and his parents had behaved as if Larry had turned cannibal. The weeklong privation of recess and the month he spent without eating sweets were as nothing compared to the mockery of his classmates. At first he'd been called Cruncher and Jaws, which in retrospect weren't all that bad.

 Then a schoolyard rake coined the nickname Scary Larry. It spread like a plague and dogged him for the next eleven years. Though the teasing was bad enough, the abuse had an even stronger effect on his ability to defend himself. Because he wanted to avoid situations in which he'd have to fight and possibly resort to his teeth as weapons of self-defense, Larry grew so passive he became a target for the other children. Even the girls found him easy prey. In high school phys ed, the bullying had continued, and he was mortified to find the coldness of his fellow man didn't thaw with adulthood. No one called him Scary Larry anymore, but neither did his boss or co-workers treat him with respect. In his mild-mannered demeanor they saw an outlet for their anger, a drain into which they could pour their baser moods.

 And now, because of the man in the olive green coat, he'd been forced into another situation in which he'd fail to protect himself. What kind of a world was it where a man had to be on constant guard against unkindness?

 Wilson found he was gnashing his teeth.

 He steadied his breathing with an effort and examined the seats. Most of the open seats were singles stashed between couples. He didn't want to sit in one of these, for besides shattering the intimacy which the empty seat provided both couples, sitting between them accentuated his own aloneness. He understood it was his fault for being unmarried, but he didn't need to be reminded of his perpetual bachelorhood by surrounding himself with whispering, cuddling lovers.

 He also found that some women insisted on a running question and answer session with their men.Who is that guy? Why did she say that? Does she know he's the killer? Did that man enjoy having his genitals eaten?

 Sighing, he searched for a seat that was neither wedged between two couples nor shoved so close to the screen he'd have to lay prone to see the film. He checked his watch again. 11:55. The root beer was sweating cold water into his side where he held it against his body with one elbow. The hand grasping the freezing lemonade had passed beyond numbness and begun a dull throbbing. More patrons filed by him. If he didn't choose soon, even the seats in the front of the theater would be taken.

 Resignedly, he made his way down the aisle, past the drunken rowdies just out of happy hour, past the chattering teens whose cell phones clung to their ears like parasites.

 He reached the second row from the front, where a new problem presented itself. Not only was he too close to the screen, but the exit tunnel jutted forth fifteen or twenty feet from the wall so that it actually blocked a small portion of the screen. Terrible planning, thought Wilson. The tunnel would only obscure a fraction of the film, but it was still an annoyance.

 Well, he thought as he sidled up the second row, at least he'd found a three empty seats. Planting himself in the middle one, he placed his drinks in the holders. Starting in on his popcorn, he noticed three young women in the row in front of him turned around, staring. One wore a baggy blue sweater and a blue bandanna that didn't quite match. The other two wore tee shirts, black and white; all three favored heavy eye makeup.

 "Can we help you?" asked the girl in the white shirt. Wilson glanced at her protuberant upper lip and realized she was wearing braces.

 Unsure of what she meant, he only stared.

 "Do youhave to sit there?" asked blue sweater.

 He glanced askance at the empty seats.

 "Are these seats reserved?" he asked.

 Blue Sweater rolled her eyes. "No, they're not ‘reserved,'" she mocked, as though Wilson had spoken in Aramaic.

 "Then I don't understand," he said and felt little beads of sweat dotting his temples.

 White Shirt laughed. "You wouldn't."

 She and Blue Sweater exchanged a sour look and turned back to the screen, which flashed ads for local realtors and used cars.

 Wilson was about to pursue the matter, to somehow vindicate himself, when he noticed the girl in the black shirt, the one who hadn't spoken, still staring at him. She wore heavier eye makeup than the other two and had a pierced eyebrow to match the piercings in her ears and nose.

 At once Wilson understood. The other two, the one with the blue bandanna and the one with the braces, were playing at being horror movie fans. They'd come here tonight because Witching Hour Theatre sounded cool and different, and it afforded them the opportunity to slum with the hardcore horror buffs. If one didn't look too closely, he supposed, they looked the part. But something around the eyes, something in the aloof way they lolled in their seats, betrayed them. They were here for kicks and they wouldn't be coming back. After the novelty wore off, these girls would be bored stiff.

 The girl in the black shirt, though, the one who was now favoring him with a little secret smile, Wilson knew she was the real deal, and as she gave him a little nod and turned back to her friends, he remembered seeing her here before. Like him, she often came by herself. That smile she'd given him, she'd recognized him too.

 All at once, Wilson felt better. He was still in his element, regardless of the distractions and the crowd and the petulance of the other two girls. In the third girl, the one with two dozen piercings, he had an ally. Eventually, the other two would leave, as would sixty percent of the crowd after the first feature. Only people who lovedThe Omen or those who'd heard about it would stick around for the second film. Three quarters of those would grow tired or bored and depart before the second feature was halfway through.

 Wilson turned and skimmed the multitudinous faces. Most of the people looked like casual fans, so Wilson was confident the theater would be all but deserted by the timeVeil of the White Temptress came on. Oh, even if there were fifteen or twenty folks left for the third feature, they would be men and women like him, hardcore devotees who could spot a bad horror flick a mile away. In fact, though they rarely spoke when the lights came on, he'd developed a rapport with some of the regulars. They played off one another, making cracks about the clunky dialogue or the cheesy special effects. It wasn't as entertaining asMystery Science Theater 3000 , but if the movie were bad enough, it was close.

 Savoring the smells of the cinema, Wilson ripped open his Twizzlers and unsheathed a pair from the bag. He bit off the tips of the licorice strips and let his eyes wander to the vermilion velvet draping the walls, the velvet curtain bunched together on each side of the screen. Electric torches cast spires of orange light up the walls. Here and there hung the black speakers the Starlight had adopted a few years ago to give the movies they showed some bite. Though Theater Two was old, the equipment was state-of-the-art, and hearing a heroine screaming for mercy or a gout of blood splashing against a shower stall, a moviegoer felt like he was right there in the action.

 God, he loved this place.

 The churlishness of the girls fading, the sweet salty taste of popcorn and Twizzlers mingling in his mouth, he let the sights and sounds surround and soothe him. He'd been to older theaters, ones with balconies, yet this one was his sentimental favorite. Something about its layout--two large sections bifurcated by a single narrow aisle--made it cozier than Theater One next door. Though newer, that place didn't have the atmosphere of its older counterpart. It was larger, offering three seating areas rather than two, yet it had no personality. Sitting in Theater One was like sitting in an airplane hangar. He thought it a stroke of genius that Witching Hour Theatre was conducted in Theater Two, for the atmosphere here made the horror classics even better.

 Wilson felt chills ripple his spine. It was 11:59 on a Friday night and the workweek was over. He'd have all afternoon tomorrow to idle at the book shop. Tonight, he could experience the thrill of being chased without the danger of actually dying. He could inhabit the minds of killers without inflicting damage on anyone. He could be more than a meek little man sitting alone in the dark with Twizzlers dangling from his mouth.

 The theater darkened.

 Scooting his rear end to the front of the seat, Wilson reclined and peered up at the screen. The prelude of obligatory advertisements and disclaimers paraded across the screen to the accompaniment of an ecstatic synthesizer.

 This close, the images were overwhelming. His entire field of vision was nothing but giant popcorn containers and swooping cups of soda, an unheeded request for silence and a futile plea for the termination of cell phones. He knew how silly it was, but he even enjoyed this part of the movie going experience, the disclaimers and the unnecessary advertisements for the concession stand, as if everyone in the room hadn't passed by the concession stand on the way in.

 There were two trailers for upcoming releases: one of them a comedy; the second, a sequel to a serial killer suspense film. He'd liked the original, and the follow-up looked promising. They'd at least gotten the same actors back--usually a good sign.

 The electric torches dimmed.

 The theater was shrouded in pitch. Scattered hoots and catcalls erupted from various points in the room, coaxing the electric hum of anticipation into a crackling frenzy. A young man's gleeful voice shouted something about seeing some blood and guts. The girl in the blue sweater shouted something nonsensical in reply and Wilson was too elated to be annoyed with her. Whether her excitement were genuine or feigned, at least she'd come tonight, and as long as Witching Hour Theatre made the cinema money, it would be allowed to continue. He couldn't imagine his life without it.

 Death Mountainstarred a couple of names he'd seen in the recent entertainment mags, teen idol types who'd made their start on daytime soaps. The supporting cast included two horror movie veterans and seeing their names, Wilson felt a tug of nostalgia. One had played a masked psycho in a mediocre scare flick and its tepid sequels. The cheers that accompanied the actor's name separated the zealots from the novices.

 The makeup, Wilson was heartened to find, had been done by a master in the field, so even if the movie turned out to be crap it would still be visually interesting. The screenplay, he saw, had been written by four different people. Definitely a bad sign, he thought.

 The director's name faded and was replaced by an establishing shot of a lake in the moonlight.

 Wilson stuffed popcorn into his mouth as a good-looking pair of teenagers made their way through the woods by the quiet lake. The pair emerged from the forest onto a pallid beach. As the boy spread a blanket on the sand, his companion kicked off her sandals and let fall her jacket, revealing an impossibly tight tank top. At the sight of her perky nipples poking through her white shirt, a number of men in the audience cheered wildly and drummed their feet on the floor. In response, some woman called out"Pigs!" and the audience broke into laughter.

 Wilson smiled. The feeling of community, of sitting around a giant campfire with a group of companions, was strong tonight.

 As the girl was about to shed her tank top, a twig snapped in the woods nearby; she lowered her arms, the tank top creeping back down her sides. The lack of nudity was met with boos and other derisive taunts and another wave of laughter rippled through the audience. Her boyfriend moved to embrace her and soon the pair was kissing passionately.

 They lay down on the blanket. The moonlight was preternaturally bright, but of course it had to be for the audience to get a good look at the young woman's large round breasts as she discarded her shirt. As the predominantly male audience pumped their fists and exchanged high fives, the young man onscreen unbuttoned her jean shorts and began to lower them down her hips.

 Another sound and the girl, her silicone breasts jiggling, stood and fastened her shorts. The audience groaned. Her boyfriend was as anxious to continue the goings-on as were the men in the audience, but the girl convinced him to investigate the source of the sounds.

 Here we go, Larry thought. The only question would be who would get it first. Wilson's money was on the boyfriend. Eight times out of ten, it was. So far the film hadn't shown him anything original, so there was little reason to hope for anything but a paint-by-the-numbers opening slaughter.

 True to form, the camera followed the boy as the woods swallowed him up and then cut to the killer's perspective as he or she or it watched the boy from the shadows. The boy's footsteps were unnaturally loud as he asked "Who's there?" and spoke such lines as "This isn't funny" and "You better come out and show yourself."It took four writers to come up with that? Wilson thought and smiled.

 The director cut to the girl kneeling on the blanket, hugging herself against the chill of the night air. She looked very young and very pretty in the moonlight. Her eyes were a light brown. A little bit like Nichole Patterson's, Wilson thought. As the scene cut to the boy's hesitant exploration of the woods, the temptation to ask Nichole for a date again tickled at the back of Wilson's mind. To be sure, he was a good deal older than her, but she was old enough to make her own decisions and she seemed interested in him.

 So why exactly was he balking at the prospect of taking a lovely young woman out for a nice dinner? It wasn't as though his schedule wouldn't allow it. He hadn't been on a date in over a year, and even that had been a disaster. What had he to lose?

 A scampering rabbit startled the boy onscreen, jolting Wilson out of his reverie. In the row in front of him Blue Sweater and White Shirt screeched and giggled. Wilson thought: this is usually when the bad thing happens--right after the false scare.

 The boy turned and opened his mouth to scream. An axe whistled through the air and cleaved his head in two, stopping the scream. The upper half of the boy's head landed on the forest floor, his shocked eyes gaping at the camera.

 So much for subtlety, Larry thought.

 The girl on the beach didn't hear the division of her boyfriend's skull--a proposition Wilson thought unlikely given their proximity--so she rose and walked down the path he had taken.

 Now, he thought, is when we'll have another false scare, followed by the girl finding her butchered boyfriend, followed by a chase during which we'll get more of the killer's perspective, ending with the big-breasted girl's demise.

 Wilson regretted to find he was correct. After the girl took the obligatory fall and sustained the requisite injury, she tried to crawl away from the killer. The one saving grace of the contrived scene was the manner in which the director showed her head tumbling off her body as the axe sprayed blood over the camera. The scene was clichéd, but the excellent makeup work was showcased. That had to count for something.

 Wilson sucked down more root beer and waited for the body count to rise.

 * * * *

The body count reached nine--a fairly respectable number actually--before the killer, a mentally handicapped custodian, was shoved from a third-story window and impaled on a farm implement. But despite the solid make-up and special effects,Death Mountain was a disappointment.

 The highlight of the film had come not from the movie itself but rather from an incident involving two drunken men who'd obviously come to the Starlight straight from the pubs. Though they'd sat near the back of the theater Wilson could hear them spouting rude comments at the screen throughout the film. At first it was amusing, but as their taunts grew more profane, he wished the men would go home.

 The rest of the audience seemed to exhale a collective sigh of relief when, with a "This movie blows," the pair of sots stumbled down the aisle to leave. Wilson thought of reminding them the tunnel exit under the movie screen was locked during Witching Hour Theatre but decided he'd enjoy hearing them discover it for themselves.

 Laughing coarsely, one of them hit the tunnel door like a battering ram and for a moment, Wilson could see through the darkness of the tunnel the metal bar one pushed to open the alley door. As the door which led out of the theater eased shut, he heard one of the men slam into the outer door with a muffled thud. Obviously finding the door chained shut from the outside, the men rattled the metal bar and abused the unyielding heavy wooden door. Then, spitting expletives at the ownership, they appeared again at the doorway which led into the theater. A spate of sarcastic applause broke out among the theatergoers, which further inflamed the already embarrassed duo. Wilson sat silent, cherishing their humiliation with a delicious private glee. The two marched up the aisle soberly, their smooth departure ruined by a chain and a padlock.

 Though the episode with the men pleased him,Death Mountain was a major letdown.

  Thankfully,The Omen was as entertaining as he remembered. The kid who played Damien, the son of the devil, did a credible job considering his age, and Gregory Peck and David Warner hit just the right notes in their respective roles as the American ambassador to England and the meddling journalist. The babysitter's suicide, the hysterical animals assaulting the car, Peck's wife's unintentionally hilarious plunge from the banister, the revelation of the graveyard bones--all were iconic moments which made him glad to be a horror fan.

 Sadly, most of the crowd had gone after the first feature, and the numbers dwindled further during the course ofThe Omen . By the time the lights came on signaling the five minute intermission before the final show, Wilson counted only thirteen souls, including himself, left in the theater.

 Carrying his popcorn to the concession stand for a refill, he debated asking Nichole Patterson out for dinner the following evening. This time of the year was nice; the leaves were just beginning to change; the air carried a pleasant chill. He'd not find a more romantic setting for a first date.

 "And how wasThe Omen ?" Nichole asked.

 "Good as ever," answered Wilson.

 He slid his empty tub of popcorn across the counter. "Nice button," he said, looking at her red shirt. On a circular black background, bloody red text read WELCOME TO WITCHING HOUR THEATRE.

 "Thanks," she said.

 As she gave him his free refill, he asked, "Why is it that I never see you peek in during the films?"

 "I do on Mondays and Wednesdays," she said.

 Immensely pleased she remembered the other nights he came to the Starlight, he said, "Yes, but those pictures are never as good as the ones shown on Friday night."

 She wrinkled her nose. "I abhor horror movies."

 He tried to subdue his irritation. "How can you ‘abhor' horror films? They're better than anything else out there."

 "But they give me nightmares."

 Ah, so that was the way, Wilson thought. He felt much better. Being afraid of a movie implied respect for it; otherwise, it wouldn't provoke such a strong emotional response.

 "If you're frightened, why don't you have your boyfriend take you?" Wilson felt his pulse quicken. He couldn't believe his own audacity. He had no idea if Nichole had a boyfriend, and if she did, what if she told the boyfriend about Larry's advances? He was doomed.

 She smiled. "Myex -boyfriend doesn't like scary movies. He says they're stupid and a waste of money."

 "Well, I think he's stupid and a waste of money."

 She giggled. "Are you saying I had to pay him to go out with me?"

 "Not necessarily. But if you did, you wasted your money." Laughing with her, he leaned on the counter. Her laugh was delightful: easy, without a trace of self-consciousness. If he were ever going to ask her, he realized, now was the time.

 But she surprised him by saying, "So you see, if I wanted to go to a horror film I'd have no one to sit with."

 His mouth went dry. "You could sit with me," he said.

 She was still smiling, but her eyes were serious. "That would be nice."

 Wilson swallowed. He felt himself getting dizzy. Wanting to keep the tone light, he said, "I better get to know you first, though. Can't be too careful these days."

 She laughed her delightful laugh. "I'm free tomorrow evening."

 "Tomorrow evening it is," he said with more confidence than he felt. "Would you like to meet here at 6:00?"

 "No," she said and pulled a pen from under the counter. She scribbled on a napkin. "Here's my address and my phone number. Pick me up at 6:30. I get off of here at 5:00 so I'll need a little time to get ready."

 And that was it. He'd gotten a date with the girl of his dreams. He could worry about the ramifications later. Pocketing the napkin and picking up his popcorn tub, he told her he'd see her tomorrow night and fled down the hallway.

 As he passed through the entryway, he surveyed the remaining twelve moviegoers like a minister counting his parishioners.

 One person sat to Wilson's right, in the shadows of the back row. To his left and also obscured by the darkness was a couple whose age he couldn't ascertain without staring too closely. Another couple sat near the back on the left hand side of the theater, and in the middle left, a trio of college-age kids threw popcorn at one another.

 Across the aisle from the kids Wilson saw a white-haired man in his late fifties or early sixties; the man's feet were propped up on the chair in front of him, and he shot Larry a hostile look as he passed.

 Nearer the front was a young couple huddled close together. As Wilson passed them, he saw it was the same guy who'd bumped him and spilled his popcorn before the first feature. Angry but not wanting an altercation, Wilson advanced to his seat in the second row. In front of him, the girl in the black tee shirt sat solitary, her companions having grown tired of their horror movie experiment.

 He sat and was about to say something winning to her when the light bled out of the room and the screen said WINDSWEPT PICTURES PRESENTS A RICHARD K. LUDLOW FILM. The capital white letters announced an unfamiliar pair of lead actors. Then, in letters so large they barely fit on the screen: VEIL OF THE WHITE TEMPTRESS.

 The credits continued as shots of some European countryside established the setting. Wilson didn't recognize the supporting actors, nor had he heard of the art director or the sound editor. The director of photography, he saw, was none other than the director of the film, Richard K. Ludlow. Ludlow, it also appeared, had been in charge of casting and editing. Wilson was delighted to learn the film had been produced by Richard K. Ludlow, and he was already stifling giggles when the credits announced that the original score, as well, had been composed by Richard K. Ludlow.

 Larry gave in to his laughter and saw that the girl in the black shirt's shoulders were bobbing as well. Wilson was pleased that she too had gotten the joke. It had been a most excellent evening, he thought. He'd gotten a date, seen one of his favorite horror flicks, and now it appeared as though VEIL OF THE WHITE TEMPTRESS was going to be just as awful as its title promised. How could life get any better?

 The opening scene took place in a sterile white office in which sat seven or eight people across from a dour man--a lawyer, apparently--whose thick spectacles matched his thick black sideburns. Someone had died and this was the reading of the will.

 The man and woman sitting across from the lawyer were young and attractive and judging from the way they sat apart from one another, Larry guessed the young couple were brother and sister rather than husband and wife. Soon it became clear they were indeed siblings and their father was the man whose will was being read.

 Sideburns had a dry, surly voice, and due to the age of the film and the probable cheapness of the sound equipment used to record the dialogue, Wilson was having trouble hearing what the man was saying. To further complicate matters, the trio of kids behind him and to his left were talking in obnoxious voices and, Wilson saw upon turning around, hassling the couple sitting a few rows in front of them.

 Wilson had mixed feelings. He knew it was hypocritical of him, but part of him rejoiced to see the guy in the olive green coat get his comeuppance. On the other hand, he did feel for the man. Larry knew how it felt.

 Couldn't the boys leave the couple alone so they could all enjoy the film? As if in answer, Wilson saw a spiky-haired blonde pelt the man in the head with a Milk Dud. The man in the olive green coat stood and shouted something at the young men, and then he and his girl were moving up the aisle. For a moment Wilson thought there would be a confrontation, but the guy only shouted again at the boys as he passed them. They jeered and made obscene gestures as the couple left.

 Jerks, he thought. Now they'd focus on him. He was alone and that, he knew from experience, made him fair game. His only hope was the boys would grow bored with the movie and leave.

 Onscreen, the lawyer was announcing that everything Bracken Treadwell had owned would go to his son Evan and his daughter Susan. Wilson thought the name Bracken Treadwell the worst he'd ever heard.

 The attractive young people, Evan and Susan Treadwell, embraced and the scene faded to an aerial shot of a large gray castle.

 In the following scene, Evan and Susan rode in a horse-drawn coach toward their new home. It was difficult to get a handle on the time period of the movie, for though Evan and Susan had haircuts contemporary to the sixties, their clothes were early Victorian. Larry wished Ludlow had invested in a pair of wigs for his two young stars. Seeing Evan Treadwell in his Beatles haircut jolted Wilson out of the nineteenth century.

 During the traveling scene the siblings provided the back story of how they came to be estranged from their father and why they hadn't spoken to him since he'd purchased the castle, Thistlebottom Manor. When Wilson heard the name of the castle he let loose with a gust of laughter and immediately turned to see if the boys were going to mock him for it. With a grimace he saw they had moved across the aisle and were giving the lone man sitting there a hard time.

 Wilson was torn. On one hand, he saw there was nothing he could do. If he confronted the boys they'd turn their meanness on him, and if he complained to the front desk, he might risk dragging Nichole or the kindly old ticket-taker into the fray. It was possible the projectionist working tonight was also a manager, yet even if he were and even if he did throw the boys out, what was to stop them from waiting for Wilson after the show to exact their vengeance?

 Larry thought of the strange way Nichole had gone silent when he'd mentioned the projectionists earlier and wondered why. In any event, there was nothing he could do about the drama unfolding behind him. It was sad, but the white-haired man would have to fend for himself against the boys.

 Still, the situation nagged. He felt a kinship with the guy sitting there alone. He was older than Larry by twenty years or more, but like Larry he was a man who'd probably come to the Starlight tonight to relax and to lose himself in the films. They had no right to take that from him, and if Wilson let it happen, what would stop them from treating him the same way after they were done? Perhaps that was their plan, to methodically rid the theater of patrons until they had the place to themselves. Feeling his pulse speed, Larry glanced at the girl in front of him.

 She was looking at him, and it was as if she were reading his thoughts. She was attractive in her own way, and perhaps the jerks had caught sight of her during the last intermission.

 The girl watched him.

 Had she caught his last thought too? That the boys might be trying to get everyone else out so they could get her alone?

 Wilson remembered the closed exit. Last year the management, fed up with an influx of teenagers and vagrants sneaking in the back door from the alley behind the theater, and without the necessary staffing to monitor it, declared the alley exit would be disabled after eleven-thirty on Friday night. It was a fire hazard, a few had claimed, but there were no more problems with people sneaking in and little else was said.

 Now, though, there was only one way out of the Starlight, and that was through the main exit, which meant that one way or another the girl would have to pass by the boys. They would make rude jokes about her piercings, Wilson was sure. They'd call her names.

 Feeling ill, Larry held the girl's gaze and wished he weren't such a coward.

 He turned and scanned the dark silhouettes behind him for possible allies. One couple, the one that had been sitting near the back of the theater, had gone.

 That left only nine people: Wilson, the girl, the three boys, the guy they were pestering, a man and a woman who sat in the back left corner, and one more solitary figure who, Wilson thought, had moved up a couple of rows. He was certain the figure--he couldn't make out its gender--had been sitting in the back row. But now the figure was a little bit closer. Maybe this solitary person, who might also be debating whether or not to help the harassed man, was inching forward to intervene.

 Wilson turned and again met the girl's eyes; her face, dark as it was in the shadowy theater, stirred paternal instincts in him.You seem like a good man , her eyes seemed to say.Aren't you going to help us get rid of those jerks so we can all enjoy the film and have the fun that we came here for?

 She saw into him and through him, and try as he might, he couldn't look away.

 Oh hell , he thought and rose from his seat. He knew he'd hate himself if he just let this happen, and he'd had more than a lifetime's worth of self-loathing. Getting beaten to a pulp had to be better than feeling like a coward.

 But as he strode up the aisle to intervene in the bullying he saw that another man was already there. The fellow looked powerful. His plaid shirt stretched tight by muscled shoulders, the man was speaking loudly to the trio of bullies and Wilson was amazed to see that the boys were apologizing and moving back to their seats.

 Larry continued up the aisle and stood at the man's side. The large man saw Wilson's quizzical look and grinned. He had short, light-colored hair, and he looked like a larger, cleaner version of the boy who'd thrown Milk Duds at the couple earlier.

 "What did you say to them?" Wilson whispered.

 The man's grin broadened. "That I'm a policeman."

 Wilson nodded. "Are you?" he asked.

 In answer, the man held up his badge.

 Larry exhaled. "I'm glad you were here. I don't know what I would have said to them, but it probably wouldn't have done much good."

 "You never know," said the cop.

 Larry shook his head. "It's sad, you know? I mean, kids will be kids and all that, but--"

 "Kids," the policeman cut him off, "can be pricks, too."

 And with that, he nodded and moved back to his seat. Wilson had thought the cop was the solitary figure in the back of the theater, but now he saw the man turn the opposite way and move down the aisle to the woman Larry assumed was his wife.

 When he returned to his seat, the girl in the black shirt smiled at him and turned back to the movie as though no explanation were necessary.

 Feeling good he'd at least made an effort to put a stop to the bullying, Larry took a sip of his watery lemonade and watched Evan and Susan climb out of the carriage. Seeing the castle from their perspective, the place was a lot larger than he'd had at first thought. There was no way Richard K. Ludlow could have built such an impressive set on the shoestring budget he was obviously working with, which meant the castle was real.

 Evan and Susan Treadwell, with their sixties haircuts and their Victorian garb, were met by a butler whose gauntness and haunted eyes gave him the aspect of a terminal cancer patient. Wilson wondered if there would be a dedication to him on the credits, as there usually were for people who worked on a film but died before the movie was released.

 The butler led them on an extended tour of the castle. Though it was poorly photographed--Ludlow was clearly in over his head--the eerie setting cast a spectral mood. With its winding stone staircase, rising towers, and dimly-lit catacombs, the place was fit for a Shakespearean tragedy. Wilson wondered if it had been used for exactly that purpose by a more competent director.

 The combination of the Gothic castle and the cadaverous butler was actually managing to suck Wilson in, and all things considered, he was of the opinion that his video guide had been a bit hard onVeil of the White Temptress . No, it wasn't a masterpiece, but giving it only one star seemed ungenerous.

 Lit with the flickering candle in his skeleton's fingers, the butler told the siblings the legend of Thistlebottom Manor. Wilson smiled again at the castle's ridiculous name but was soon lost once more in the butler's recitation of how Abner Thistlebottom had murdered his family and how the place had remained empty until Evan and Susan's father Bracken Treadwell had purchased it. Bracken and his new bride had been haunted by the ghost of Abner Thistlebottom's murdered daughter Cassandra.

 It was Cassandra, the butler explained, who had visited Bracken Treadwell in the night, a beguiling succubus who wore a sheer nightgown and a white veil.

 Wilson nodded, pleased to have the film's title explained. Remembering his unopened candy, he scratched at the cellophane for a few moments, opened the box, and popped a couple of Dots into his mouth.

 He leaned forward and listened. He found he had to slow his chewing to hear all of the old man's hushed details, for Richard K. Ludlow insisted on plaguing the scene with inappropriately loud music. Despite the slow cadence of the butler's voice, the violins shrieking in the background would have been better suited for a violent death scene.

 "Cassandra possessed your father entirely, children," said the butler to Evan and Susan Treadwell.

 "But how can the dead possess the living?" asked Evan. The actor playing Evan Treadwell, Wilson thought, had the range of a coat rack.

 "The ghost of Cassandra, clad in a lurid white gown," the butler continued, "would come to your father after his new bride had fallen asleep. In the wee hours of the morning she would appear in her flowing white gown, its diaphanous fabric revealing her supple body beneath."

 "Did you ever see Cassandra?" Susan asked him.

 A dark smile spread across the butler's face.

 "Just once," he answered.

 "And what did you see?" asked Evan.

 Something clattered in the shadows of the chamber in which the three characters stood. The butler's eyes shifted for a moment. He didn't look alarmed. From the way the old man took the clamor in stride, Wilson decided the butler was privy to whatever secrets the castle held. Had he been around when Cassandra Thistlebottom lived? He wished one of the siblings would ask the question, and again he marveled at how much the film was growing on him. It was still a B-movie, of course, but it was also an engrossing little affair.

 Though he felt silly thinking the thought, he was glad there was a policeman here. The old theater could enhance the sense of foreboding a good horror film created, andVeil of the White Temptress was turning out to be just that kind of film. Wilson threw a grateful glance over his shoulder at the policeman but was disheartened to see the man and his wife were gone. He thought for a moment the three hooligans were obstructing his vision, but by cocking his head he could see there wasn't a single soul behind the boys. That part of the theater was deserted.

 Only seven left, Wilson thought.

 Seven was a low number even for a third feature. It was their loss, though. For his money, this film was far better thanDeath Mountain .

 Proud of himself and the six remaining theatergoers who'd stuck it out this far, he turned in his seat to make sure the other two people who had come by themselves were still there.

 Wilson squinted into the darkness, confused.

 The white-haired man who'd been rescued by the policeman was still there, as was the figure in the rear section of the theater. Yet the latter appeared to have moved up again so that he was now only a couple of rows behind the white-haired man.

 Why, Wilson wondered, was his heart racing? What was so odd about someone wanting to move forward a few rows? Perhaps the man's eyes--if the figure was a man, he reminded himself--were growing weary and he therefore needed to sit closer to the screen to better see. Or maybe the guy didn't want to sit in the back of the theater alone. Wilson could commiserate. For his own part, he was grateful for the girl sitting in front of him. In other circumstances Larry and the girl wouldn't have given one another a second thought, but here, in Witching Hour Theatre, they were bound by a fellowship. They loved horror movies and they wanted others to enjoy the films, too.

 Evan and Susan Treadwell had retired to their respective living quarters and Wilson felt a pang of excitement as Susan shed her conservative blue dress and began to untie the corset that bound her. Moments later she was nude and stepping into a steaming bath.

 The scene cut to Evan Treadwell, clad in one of the long white nightgowns male Victorian film characters insisted on wearing, who sat reading a book in a rocking chair by his four poster bed. With an elaborate yawn he set the book on his bedstand and climbed under the sheets. He reached over and snuffed the candle with his fingertips and soon, he was drowsing peacefully.

 Then, the quality of the light changed, grew colder. Crinkling his brow, Evan muttered in his sleep.

 The door opened and in glided a thin, feminine figure whose ghostly white cerements fluttered as she moved through the dark bedchamber. Evan awoke and stared at the figure as it floated at the foot of his bed, rose, and hovered in the air above him.

 Beneath the sheer gown Wilson could make out the dark triangle of the woman's pubic hair. From the neck up, she was obscured by a veil of thicker material than that of her gown, so that the viewer could see nothing of her face.

 Her floating feet drifted forward and materialized on the blankets of the bed. An extreme close-up of Evan's face expressed more arousal than fear, which summed it up for Wilson as well. Then the specter's smooth white fingers were unbuttoning her gown and the sheer material was pooling around her ankles. The low angle camera traveled slowly up her naked body, giving the viewer Evan's perspective. The woman, whose face remained hidden behind the eponymous white veil, knelt over Evan Treadwell and slowly peeled back his bedclothes.

 What came next shocked Wilson.

 He'd seen pornography a few times as a younger man, though he'd never made a habit of it. Yet never in his seven years of movie going at the Starlight had he seen such explicit sexual content. Not only did the lens linger on Evan's erect member, but it captured the insertion of said member into the woman's vagina with jarring clarity.

 Wilson began to sweat, feeling suddenly like a pervert at an adult movie theater. He half expected to hear the sounds of opening trench coats and feverish masturbation break out around him. The girl in the black shirt rose from her seat and shook her head as if to sayI'm not into this before giving Wilson a sad little wave and disappearing up the aisle.

 Embarrassed and a little angry, he nevertheless found himself watching closely as the nude woman rose and fell. Evan Treadwell's face contorted as though his appendix were being removed. Just as Wilson expected porno music to accompany the action onscreen, the veil swung up from the woman's face.

 Wilson gasped.

 Though her face was lovely in every detail but one, Larry couldn't suppress the revulsion serpentining through his body.

 The woman's eyes had no pupils, no irises, were completely white.

 Wilson had seen such a thing before--in the Martin Sheen movieThe Believers , for one; yet never had the effect provoked such a dramatic physical response from him. Something in the vacuous white stare chilled him to the marrow. He wished the girl with the piercings wouldn't have gone. Not only would she have appreciated the shock of the white eyes, but her presence also would have been a salve for his solitary nervousness.

 Treadwell bellowed in terror, and just as the woman's face twisted into a rictus of terrible malice, she disappeared. Treadwell covered himself and leapt from his bed to stare down at where he'd just made love to a phantom. As he ran a trembling hand over his face, his sister, covered only in a white bath towel, dashed into the chamber to investigate her brother's scream.

 The scene cut abruptly to the dining room where Evan and Susan were eating breakfast the next morning. As the brightness of the dining room illuminated the dark theater, Wilson felt his fear evanesce. He knew not why, but the film had really gotten to him. The gratuitousness of the sex scene, he knew, had something to do with the weird emotions coursing through his body, but there was more to it than that.

 He giggled. After seven years of his patronage, Witching Hour Theatre had finally managed to frighten him. He craned his head around to see how many people were left in the theater.

 And felt his stomach lurch.

 Only one person remained.

 The boys, angry perhaps their fun had ended, had gone. Absent too was the white-haired man Larry had earlier walked up the aisle to defend. The figure, the same figure that had begun the night in the shadows of the back row, had advanced to the front third of the theater and now sat closer to him than anyone had sinceThe Omen . Though there were still ten or eleven rows between Wilson and the figure, his skin still crawled as he stared at the silhouette behind him.

 For now he saw how tall and thin the figure was, how unnaturally still it sat. He strained to see but couldn't make out its face.

 Fine, thought Wilson. Nothing had changed. He'd told himself earlier the man or the woman had a bad case of eye strain and that it made perfect sense for him or her to move continually closer as the night wore on. This latest development only served to confirm the thought.

 He checked his watch: 4:06, said the digital face.

 Folding his arms he rocked back in his chair and focused on the movie. He was too old to be acting so skittishly. So he was alone in the theater with only one other person. So what? Was he too craven to sit there for forty-five more minutes until the film was over? Hadn't he only twenty minutes earlier taken measures to confront a group of hostile young men? If they didn't intimidate him, why should a single emaciated figure strike fear into his heart?

 He wasn't even alone. Not really. Nichole Patterson still sat at her confectionary post, and the old man who took tickets was likely vacuuming the lobby or the hallway, as Wilson had often seen him doing on the way out of the theater.

 And of course there was the projectionist.

 His courage bolstered, Larry settled into his chair and listened to Evan Treadwell recount his experience of the night before to the butler, who listened to the tale impassively, as though Treadwell were sharing a recipe for roast mutton.

 Growing restless once more, Wilson became aware of an electric tingle in his abdomen and was surprised to find he had to urinate.

 Yet he didn't want to leave his seat. As childish as he knew it was, he didn't want to draw attention to himself. Something about the figure ten rows behind him made getting up seem a bad idea. If he stayed where he was he could retain his anonymity; he could blend with the darkness. If he arose, well, what was to stop the figure from rising with him and meeting him in the narrow aisle?

 He gritted his teeth, angry with himself. So what if the figure confronted him? What of it? He'd asked a girl on a date, by god, and even if she'd spoon-fed him the opportunity, it was he who had taken advantage of it. Since when was going to the restroom a more daunting venture than asking a pretty girl out for dinner?

 Wilson was about to rise when the scene switched to Susan Treadwell, who walked alone through a misty forest. The afternoon was growing dark around her and thankfully, Ludlow had opted not to ruin the foreboding atmosphere with his obtrusive score.

 Susan walked through an overgrown patch of brush and found herself alone in a clearing. The director chose to shoot her from a high angle, and for once, Wilson found himself agreeing with one of Richard K. Ludlow's choices. Framed this way, Susan looked both small and alone. The gray, dusky light gave the shot a somberness of texture, as though Susan was both mourning for her dead father and fearing for her own safety. Her eyes haunted and lost, she glanced behind her to see if anyone were watching her.

 Feeling much like Susan, Wilson turned and saw a long pale face two inches from his own. The man was leaning forward, his pale skin nearly touching Wilson's.

 His eyes were rolled back white.

 Screaming, Wilson recoiled and felt himself pushing backward and away from the man's freakish face and the huge white eyes in which no pupils shone. Smelling something rotten, Wilson moved toward the movie screen and the back of a front row chair bit him and he felt himself toppling over backward. Rolling with the fall, he let his body slide over the seatbacks and pulled himself forward over the seats, feeling at any moment the man would fasten onto one of his ankles and reel him backward like a wayward infant.

 Susan Treadwell screamed above him but Wilson hardly noticed. He scrambled to his feet and stood between the exit tunnel and the staring, silent figure. The man, facing the screen, had risen and stood before Wilson. Impossibly tall, he wore black pants and a long-sleeved black shirt. Only the long, thin head moved as Larry backed away, the pupiless eyes following him. The creature's face looked like those sketches of aliens Wilson had seen on UFO shows, only instead of widening at the forehead, the being's entire face was thin, a man's face but stretched out of human proportion into a grotesque caricature. As Wilson moved toward the screen and away from the hideous creature he sensed warmth in his crotch and knew he'd wet himself. His back pushed through the door marked Exit, and without thinking, Larry lunged through the short dark tunnel and threw himself against the alley door.

 It gave only an inch before the chain which held it caught and shoved him back into the dark corridor. Knowing he'd erred, Wilson turned and watched the door he'd just burst through falling slowly shut.

 Just like the drunken men earlier, he thought bitterly, he'd chosen the wrong exit.

 He was trapped.

 He stood panting, waiting for the ghastly figure to follow him.

 The door wheezed shut, snuffing out the dim light that had momentarily filtered through from the theater. The darkness of the tunnel was mitigated only by the red Exit sign above the alley door.

 Wilson's body shook. He covered his eyes and felt the tears and the sweat running together, dampening his trembling fingers. He stood like that for nearly a minute.

 Then, a thought occurred to him.

 Why was he afraid?

 What, he wondered as his breathing began to slow, had he to fear? The man with the long face was a horrific sight, unquestionably. Especially in the darkness of an old, empty theater. Anyone in his position would have reacted the same way.

 By degrees, Wilson's lifelong knowledge of horror films returned to him. He could use that knowledge, he realized, to help himself now. The first thing he'd need to do was take away the bastard's advantage.

 That was good, he thought. Think of the creature that'd scared him as a man instead of some ghoul from the beyond. The man had some sort of medical condition. That explained the elongated face.

 The eyes?

 Well, couldn't anyone do that with his eyes if he let them roll back far enough? Wilson remembered kids in his elementary school who'd done the same thing, and if they could do it, why couldn't an adult--particularly one with a sick sense of humor?

 As for the way he'd snuck up on Larry, well, that was no great feat; the Starlight's revamped sound system made it impossible to hear much of anything other than the films. Any shadows the man had cast as he approached would have trailed behind him, so there would have been no ocular clues to aid Wilson.

 The man's smell was unpleasant, like an untended urinal, and he wondered why he hadn't noticed that before the freak had startled him. Dismissing the thought, he steeled himself, extended his arms like a sleepwalker, and made his way across the dark corridor.

 His outstretched fingers found the door. Placing his palms flat on the smooth wood, he drew in breath and prepared to shove. The door, he knew, was on the kind of hinges which allowed it to swing both ways. If the man were pressed against it, eavesdropping to hear if Wilson were weeping or screaming for help at the back door, he'd get a good knock in the head for his troubles. Serve him right, Larry thought. If the man were waiting, poised to the right or the left of the door only to leap out and scare him once more for good measure, Wilson would give him no such pleasure.

 The door felt cold under his wet palms. Beyond it he could hear Susan Treadwell's frightened screaming as she fled who knew what evil in the forest.

 Wilson took his hands from the door, stepped back, and kicked.

 The door swung outward, and compared to the darkness of the corridor, the theater looked as though it were lit with neon. In the moment before the door rebounded and came back at him, he could see nothing but empty seats. If the man were still in the theater, he wasn't seated where he'd been when he'd frightened Wilson.

 Larry stepped back and allowed the door to swing past him. He caught it with his elbow and held it open. If the bastard were hiding beside the doorway to scare him or jump him, he'd be ready. He tensed, summoning what courage he had left, and burst through the doorway. No one jumped him, and a quick check right and left showed that the areas adjacent to the doorway were empty.

 His breath released in a quivering moan. He turned and stared out at the empty theater. On the back wall, the glass window of the projection booth was dark. In the middle of it, protruding through a hole in the glass, the projector lens glowed like a miniature white sun.

 Larry searched the shadows of the room, but saw only a vacant theater. The thought dawned that the man could be anywhere, hiding, watching his movements.

 Because of the way the shell of the exit's short hallway protruded, there was a space beside it, directly under the screen. The man could be hiding there. Knowing he'd lose his nerve if he waited any longer, Wilson took a step and jumped out from behind the exit tunnel.

 But the space beside the tunnel was empty.

 The man had either concealed himself in the darkness between the rows, or he'd gone out to the concession stand to buy himself some candy to celebrate his immature little victory. Then again, perhaps he'd been so pleased with Wilson's reaction to his prank he'd left the Starlight on a high note and gone out for an early breakfast.

 Peering into the theater as it moved and flickered as though it were a live thing, he placed a hand on his galloping heart and hoped the freak had gone home. He didn't know if he could take another scare. He could wait to leave until after the film ended, but the suspense of standing here doing nothing was already growing unbearable. He checked his watch and estimated the film still had a half hour left. He knew he'd not be able to stand here that long and he'd be damned if he was going to sit back down again and give the freak another opportunity to scare him out of his wits. How would he explain himself to Nichole if she found him huddled in a ball under his seat, wet-crotched and quivering?

 He regarded his pants in the darkness, a new concern knitting his sweaty brow. What if Nichole saw he'd wet himself? Untucking his shirt, he found that by arranging it just so, his accident might be concealed. He stuck out his chin and stood up straighter.

 He'd emerge from the Starlight unscathed and, he thought, with a great story to tell Nichole. Certain details would be omitted, of course, but it would still be a good story. Maybe he could break the ice with it tomorrow night, an amusing anecdote about a horror movie fanatic who got more than he bargained for at an all-night triple bill.

 Now all he needed was a shot of courage. And even if he didn't have it, he could pretend.

 Moving down the only aisle in the theater, he kept to the centermost point, eyes scanning right to left, left to right, before and after every step he took.So help me , he thought,if that bastard's face pokes out of the shadows I'll stomp it into kingdom come .

 He took another step and peered down the row to his right. He surveyed the row to his left.

 Nothing.

 Though he tried to suppress the memory, the long white face grew clearer and clearer in his mind's eye. Was it just the proximity of the blank eyes and the unnatural length of the face that had frightened him or had there been something more?

 He remembered the emotionless manner in which the man had stared even after Wilson screamed and climbed awkwardly away. Now that he examined it, he realized it was the lack of a reaction that was so troubling. The childhood memories he had of someone scaring him by leaping out of a hiding place or sneaking up on him always ended with the frightener bunched up and shaking with laughter. Wilson was always angered by people who tried to scare him, and his anger seemed to fuel their mirth.

 Yet the man had shown no emotion as Larry clambered away.

 He took another step and cursed the Starlight management for locking the back door on Friday nights. Not only was it a fire hazard, it was also a damned nuisance. Had that door been open he'd already be on his way home to his apartment and his warm safe bed.

 A sibilant sound from the screen startled him. Turning, he saw Evan Treadwell staring down a long dark corridor at the veiled temptress. Wilson felt his mouth work, though no sound filtered through. The white figure, lit from behind by a spectral glow, beckoned to Evan Treadwell and despite the eeriness of the scene, it was not the woman in the veil that frightened Larry Wilson.

 What frightened him was not the movie at all, but the tall, gaunt figure which stood erect on the top of the exit tunnel, his wraithlike body painted black by the dark images spewing out of the projector. The dark figure extended an arm and pointed at him.

 In terror, Larry turned and fled up the aisle.

 He glanced from side to side thinking he'd discover the corpses of those who'd sat behind him, for that was what would happen in a horror film. Yet he saw no one.

 The people who were there earlier had vanished. Only an occasional popcorn tub or half-drunk soda signified there had been other life in the theater at all that night.

 Larry cast a terrified glance over his shoulder as he neared the double doors and with a little cry saw the man had left his perch. He could be anywhere, Wilson realized. The man could be sprinting up the aisle at this very moment.

 He lunged for the doors. Just before he hit their wooden surfaces he worried the tall man might have somehow locked them, but they gave easily as he shoved through and stumbled into the hallway. Ignoring the stitch in his side and the burning in his chest, he ran toward the bright glow of the lobby. The overhead lights warmed him as he slowed to a jog and glanced expectantly at the concession stand. Its lights were on, yet no one stood behind the counter.

 Thinking Nichole might be on her knees restocking the shelves behind the counter, Larry walked up, threw his chest on the glass surface and peered over the edge.

 Nothing.

 It was then that he turned and saw the steel gate, the one that stretched from floor to ceiling, the one they wheeled out and locked against the walls on each side of the foyer after the last patrons exited the theater each night. But the last patron, he fumed, wasstill in the bloody building . They'd locked him in!

 He walked over to the gate, grasped the solid steel accordion bars, and rattled them to see if they'd give.

 Was it possible they'd forgotten he was still inside? Surely they hadn't. Surely Nichole would have prevented the old ticket-taker from fastening the gate to the walls had she seen him wheeling it out.

 But what if Nichole had gotten off work early that night?

 And what if the tall man were preparing to attack him from the darkness of the corridor behind him?

 Whirling, Wilson stared down the hallway.

 No one was there.

 He heard nothing but the muted roar of the movie.

 And something else. He screwed up his eyes and listened hard. The other sound, the one mixing with the violins screeching out the score toVeil of the White Temptress , was coming from behind him.

 Which was impossible.

 He turned and walked up the hallway toward Theater Number One, the newer half of the Starlight. It was cordoned off during Witching Hour Theatre.

 So why did he hear voices coming from inside?

 He glanced to his left and thought about shouting through the bars to catch the attention of a passerby out in the street, yet he knew that was silly. The ticket booth and the front doors were fifty feet from where he stood, and it was pitch black outside. It was still--he checked--4: 35 in the morning. No one would be passing by the cinema this early.

 The sounds emanating from Theater One grew louder.

 Wilson walked that way and stepped over a red velvet rope. The hallway was darker than the lobby, but there was enough light spilling into the corridor to see by. He approached the door cautiously, and letting his fingers close over the silver handle, pressed an ear to the door and listened.

 Music was playing in the theater; music, he realized, that he'd heard somewhere before.

 He pulled open the door and sawDeath Mountain playing on the screen. The movie had just begun; the girl in the tight tank top was straddling her boyfriend. Wilson stepped forward and looked around.

 The theater was empty.

 He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Was the projectionist such a fan of the film he was watching the wretched thing again? Were there two projectionists on duty tonight? Larry was certain one person could go from booth to booth, changing the reels at the appropriate moments, but it was probably nicer working with a partner.

 He walked down the aisle, and as he scanned the rows a vertiginous familiarity gripped him. Longface could explode through the doors at any moment. Never mind that he couldn't possibly have snuck by Wilson into Theater One--he wassomewhere in the Starlight Cinema, and if Larry went all the way to the bottom of the aisle, he might find himself right back where he started from.

 Without knowing why, he drifted down the dark aisle. It was as if the allure of the flickering images was too great to resist.

 Then, a new thought occurred to him. What if the back exit of this theater had been left unlocked? Might they have forgotten that one? He thought it plausible.

 The scene in the forest was very dark, so there was little light to see by. But he was determined now to investigate this new escape route, and he'd almost made it to the bottom of the aisle. He felt the floor level out under him; he strode to the exit under the screen. He pushed and though the door moved forward a bit, it swung back shut.

 Wilson swallowed. It was almost as though something on the other side of the door had pushed back.

 Trembling, he pushed the door again and though it gave just a little, it again refused to open. Frantic now, feeling that at any moment the long pale face would materialize in the air behind him, Larry slammed into the door and felt whatever had been pushing against it give way.

 The darkness of the tunnel made it difficult to see. He strained to see but could only make out faint shapes, confusing shadows that swam and flowed into one another. Not even an Exit sign glowed in this tunnel, as it had in the other one. Had someone disabled it?

 Then, the theater lit up. As his eyes adjusted to the new, brighter light, he realized the first scene of the slasher flick had ended, that the boy and the girl had been decapitated.

 In the pale illumination glaring off the screen above him he saw what it was that had blocked the door.

 A headless body lay on its side. Wilson saw the plaid shirt and remembered the cop from earlier. Questions assailed his mind as he stared down at the decapitated policeman. Had the three boys been so angry they'd killed this man for bringing a stop to their childish antics? How could this have happened without someone else noticing?

 What were the other shapes in the dark corridor?

 Bodies, he now saw. Headless bodies littered the dark corridor which flickered with the light that shone in from the open doorway. Wilson saw the body of the girl in the blue sweater. He saw the soccer shirt the boy with the spiky blonde hair had worn, stained dark now around the collar, where his head had been torn from his body.

 Wilson saw the girl in the black tee shirt. His heart ached as he knelt and tried to remember what her face had looked like. He stepped toward the poor murdered girl and felt his foot slip in some viscous substance which he knew was blood and he looked down and saw it was everywhere, of course it was, for that's what headless bodies did, they bled. The floor under him felt very much like the floor of any other movie theater after a full day of movies, the cola and the popcorn and the spilled candy gelling together in a thick sticky mess. Only this substance had been pumped out of ragged, jetting necks. Wondering faintly where their heads were, a horrible truth slammed into him, taking his breath away.

 This was no movie.

 The things below him, lying ruined in the wet darkness of the tunnel, were the bloodied remains of human beings, people he had seen, even spoken to earlier that night.Jesus , he thought.Oh my Jesus Christ .

 Sick and dazed, he shut the door and tried to rid his memory of the images of the bodies, the headless bodies heaped like refuse in a small theater hallway, the blood congealing around them like syrup.

 He shot a glance at the screen and saw the black hound of hell protecting Damien, son of the devil, barking and snapping at Gregory Peck.

 Somehow, the projectionist had switched reels on him. Numb with shock, Wilson turned and saw the front row of the theater was indeed occupied. The heads of the bodies in the corridor had been placed on the theater seats, lined up in a neat row staring up at the screen. Their eyes were open. Whoever had killed them had manipulated their eyes so that they seemed to watch the movie. The killer had placed a small popcorn bucket on the policeman's head, so that he wore it like a yellow hat. Wilson whimpered. His mind raced. It was a twisted, pagan ritual he was witnessing, these faces staring up at the screen, seeing nothing, their arteries draining into the theater seats, the crimson fabric blackening as it absorbed the sacrificial blood.

 Larry counted twelve heads. He recognized the policeman, the older man with his neat white hair, the three boys and the couple they'd harassed, the three girls who'd sat in front of him--the sweet young woman in the black shirt. Tears crawled down his trembling cheeks. He tried but failed to look away, to look at anything but the terrible staring eyes.

 The other faces weren't as familiar. He assumed they were the other moviegoers who'd stayed for the third feature. Then, his eyes fell on the decapitated head of the kindly old cashier. The cold tide of a new terror washed over him, dousing his senses. He took a step forward and studied the faces more closely, praying one of them wasn't Nichole Patterson. One of the women's heads was in a state worst than the rest. Whatever Longface had used to murder his victims, he'd done a messier job on her. Larry saw with something like sorrow that the woman with the ruined face had short dark hair. There were deep slashes in her face. Not wanting to but needing to be sure, Larry approached the head and bent to look into its eyes.

 They were blue.

 It wasn't Nichole.

 Exhaling pent-up breath, he felt an enormous weight lift from him, then felt guilty for feeling relieved. He felt bad for the woman with the short dark hair, but the grim truth of it was he'd rather the victim be her than Nichole Patterson.

 Next to the badly butchered face of the woman was the cop. Larry remembered how strong and authoritative he'd been when protecting the white-haired man. Wanting to preserve some of the policeman's dignity, he lifted the popcorn bucket off his head, then wished he hadn't. There was a gash in the middle of the cop's skull that looked very, very deep. Wilson looked away but not before he saw the policeman's brain. So that was what happened, he mused. This man and his wife had put up a fight and Longface butchered them. He hoped the cop at least got a couple of good licks in before he fell.

 Wilson came back to himself, realized he'd been standing there like a conductor before this macabre, disembodied orchestra for more than a minute. Where was Longface? The sickness and pity he felt for the twelve victims transformed into a need for self-preservation. This, he realized as he peered down at the staring heads, could soon be him.

 As Gregory Peck and David Warner ran from the black dogs in the graveyard on the screen behind him, Wilson became aware of a brightness coming from the back of the theater. His eyes climbed slowly up and over the seats, up the back wall of the theater, and into the flickering projection booth. The overhead light in the booth was on.

 Two faces stared down at him. Longface and his opposite. The second man had a face like a big bleached pumpkin. In the light from the booth Wilson could see he was at least as tall as Longface and had dark strands of hair plastered against his white pumpkin's skull. For one crazy moment he thought of the filmPumpkinhead . Despite its off-putting title, it was one of Wilson's favorites, and why the hell was he thinking about this now, when his meek existence was about to come to a gory, macabre end?

 The men were pointing at him, and even though he couldn't hear their voices above the eerie choral chants and growling dogs ofThe Omen , he could see by the way they bounced and pointed they were laughing at him. Then, the larger man said something to Longface, who disappeared.

 Larry knew the freak was coming for him. The bodies in the corridor had so unnerved him he'd not tried the exit there and that was the only escape route left.

 Yet his body would not move. He was immobilized as surely as the disembodied heads on the seats in front of him.

 And now Longface was striding down the aisle and Larry could see how tall he was, six and a half feet or more, and that he carried an axe, and that the axe was coated with blood.

 Wilson's mind raced. The axe reminded him of the first feature, the axe that killed the teenagers. Larry's eyes lowered to the policeman's head, an angry red gash of a wound staring at him through a messy thatch of clotted hair. Just like one of the victims inDeath Mountain , Wilson thought.

 The man was almost upon him, and Larry could see his eyes were normal now and knew the man had only rolled back his eyes that way to mimic the woman he'd seen in the movie, the succubus in the white veil.

  Longface was raising the axe and preparing to lop off his head so he could add number thirteen to his front row collection.

 The freak swung the axe and as the blood-black blade cleaved the air, Wilson felt his trance fracture and without thinking he dove forward onto a front row seat. The axe whistled over his head, and he saw Longface stumble with the force of his swing. Larry made to climb back to his feet, but his heels were slipping on the painted concrete under the seat because the run-off from the heads had trickled down there and pooled like a molasses retention pond.

 Wilson fell, his back sopping into wetness, and something landed in his lap. He saw with horror it was the head of the girl in the black shirt. His hands closed on her temples and for a moment he stared into the sad, sweet dark eyes of the girl and then Longface was standing over him and chopping down at him and he rolled to his left and felt the concrete become carpet and the carpet squished sickly under him and the axe head slammed itself on the concrete surface he'd just vacated. Sparks flew and blood spurted sideways from the axe head and Larry heard Longface squeal.

 The freak stood erect and stared at him. They faced each other below the movie screen on which Gregory Peck and David Warner were scrambling over a black-spiked iron fence. The spike slid through Peck's arm as the hounds jumped, nipping at his heels. Wilson got to his feet and watched the freak that was trying to kill him and wondered how he'd managed to stay alive this long.

  Longface's eyes crawled down Larry's body and paused on his right hand; Wilson followed his gaze and saw with a little jolt that he still grasped the pierced girl's head by her black hair. His eyes returned to Longface, whose dark eyes locked with his, and under those eyes he could see a ghastly grin rippling into shape and above Longface in the projection room he saw the huge figure of Pumpkinhead, arms crossed, a diabolical foreman supervising his death factory from above.

 Wilson's eyes flashed back to Longface just in time to see the axe speeding toward him and the freak was bringing it in lower this time, at waist level, so it would catch him in the ribs and embed itself in his left lung. Raising his arms above the whooshing blade, Wilson sucked his chest and stomach in and performed a little backward hop and the corner of the blade's tip sliced through the skin of his torso just below his nipples. Longface swung so hard he threw himself off balance, and as he tried to straighten up Wilson stepped forward and swung the girl's head as hard as he could in an uppercut. He felt a surge of vicious glee as the base of the girl's skull connected with Longface's thin under jaw. Larry heard a click as the man's teeth banged together and a cracking sound as the freak's head snapped back. As Longface's head came back down Wilson saw the man's eyes were glazing over. His thin tower of a body retreated clumsily and then he was tumbling over the front row of chairs, his long wraith legs scissoring at the ceiling and then toppling over the seat back and disappearing between the first and second rows.

 Through the dialogue on the screen behind him and his own shuddering breath Wilson could hear a dull thumping from above and he looked up into the projection booth and saw Pumpkinhead smashing his huge meaty fists against the Plexiglas window.

 He couldn't allow those huge hands to close around his neck, nor could he wait for Longface to regain his feet and take another swipe at him with the axe, which had gone over the seat with him.

 He had to move.

 Wilson turned and walked grimly toward the red glowing exit sign and shoved open the door. It caught on the headless corpse of the policeman but opened wide enough for him to step through. He didn't want to trod upon the bodies but knew there was no avoiding it. Trying to keep to the wall, he felt the rubbery corpses shifting and yielding beneath his sneakers. His frame tremored wildly when he felt a hand flop over and caress his ankle, but somehow, he kept moving. The wall ended and he sidled to the door and felt the long steel bar of the door that would either deliver him to safety and the outside world or pen him in here to be slaughtered like the others. Surely the monsters had locked the door. If they possessed the guile to commit so many murders, they'd be smart enough to shut off this last escape route.

 He pushed.

 The door yielded.

 The cold air rushed over him and the moon glow illumined his sweaty face. He couldn't believe they hadn't locked the back door. They hadn't thought it necessary. Hubris, he guessed. He stepped out into the silent back alley and the glow of the orange security light.

 He was free.

 Larry glanced up and down the alley. The police station was blocks from away. There might not be time to get there before the men got away. He could knock on an apartment door, but who would answer him at this hour? He remembered Jamie Lee Curtis and the end ofHalloween and thought of how people rarely came to one's aid when they were needed. He checked his watch and saw it was twenty minutes to five o'clock. Only a handful would be awake at this hour, with at least an hour of darkness left.

 What if Longface pursued him? What if the freak had already come to his senses and was striding through the hallway of dead bodies right now to reclaim his quarry?

 Larry broke into a run. He pumped his arms and ran toward the road. He'd escaped certain death, and soon he'd tell the police his story. Wilson stopped, dread clutching his heart.

 Was Nichole in the theater?

 With a little moan he knew at once she had to be. She never left until the last show was over; every time he passed through the front exit she was helping the kind old cashier--the dead old cashier, he amended--clean up the place.

 She hadn't been decapitated. Hers wasn't one of the heads lined up in the first row. Yet he'd seen her just before the third feature began.

 So where was she now?

 Then, he knew.

 As if he were watching himself in a movie, Larry saw his thirty-seven year old out-of-shape body turn and walk back up the alley. Every fiber of his person thrummed with terror and disbelief at his own stupid behavior.

 God help him, he was doing exactly what he screamed at characters for doing in horror films.

 He ran two fingers over the slash in his shirt and felt the blood, wet and slippery, slick his fingertips. The axe had cut him but he'd been lucky. Two or three inches deeper and the wound would have been fatal.

 Though part of him screamed it was crazy, he knew this was something he had to do. If she wasn't already dead, Nichole was being held prisoner in the Starlight by two monsters and she needed his help. He thought of her warm ironic smile and her quick sense of humor and the way she always made him feel a little dashing when she smiled at him and joked with him. He had to go back inside because if he didn't, he might as well be dead anyway.

 He passed by the locked door of Theater Two. Seeing the back door to Theater One ahead, he broke into a run.

 He reached the door. Pausing, he searched desperately about the alley for some sort of weapon. In the orange glow of the alley he saw nothing but a few small rocks and a penny buried in verdigris.

 Knowing he'd already wasted too much time Wilson decided to go in unarmed. He knew it was crazy/suicide but he also knew the men could be murdering or torturing Nichole as he stood there doing nothing.

 Pushing through the door, he waded through the corpses, not even bothering now to keep to the wall now.

 He felt his toe catch on something and before he could help it he was tumbling forward. Wilson landed with a sickening squelch and felt with alarm the cool dead flesh press against his own. His alarm increased as he realized his leg had somehow slipped beneath one of the dead bodies, that he was tangled up now in the sticky pile of corpses. Acid, burning and mean, elevatored up his throat and before he could stem the gushing tide he was spewing popcorn and soda and bile and candy all over the corpses, and even as he did it he felt sick and guilty for desecrating the headless victims.

 Wilson tried to gain control, but he couldn't close his mouth; it was frozen open, locked in that stretched position as if held in place by a jack. The excruciating heat choked out his breath, and he felt himself growing faint. He'd be better off dying here in the tunnel, asphyxiated on the taste of bile and the cloying smell of emptied bowels, than he would facing the freaks again.

 Then, the vomiting ended and his mind cleared. He yanked forward, disengaging his leg, and clambered feverishly on all fours over the puke-covered corpses, hands sliding over sticky clothes and flayed skin. Ignoring the stench of human waste and misery, the feel of cold and slithery bodies beneath him, he advanced in a nightmare, crawling like an infant through a black stinking hell.

 His knuckles brushed against the doorway. He fisted it open and lurched through the aperture. Half expecting the axe to descend upon the back of his neck like a guillotine, he pulled himself through and into the theater. Pushing to his feet, he glanced around the cavernous room to see if Longface or Pumpkinhead were rushing at him, but all he saw were the heads lined up, their eyes staring dutifully atThe Omen . By the sound of a car clicking into gear, Wilson knew David Warner, like the poor souls who now occupied the first row of Starlight Cinema's Theater One, was about to lose his head.

 Larry wiped blood out of his eyes and stared up into the booth. He saw the huge shape of Pumpkinhead in the window. The man's back was turned to Wilson as though something in the booth were attracting his attention.

  Longface was nowhere to be found.

 Cautiously, he walked up the aisle past the row of heads, tensing for battle. If Longface were still down there in the darkness behind the row of heads he might have heard Wilson reenter.

 Larry stopped and leaned forward; he stared into the darkness.

 Empty.

 Just like in the movies, he thought. Every time you thought you'd killed the bad guy, he disappeared and came back at you again. Larry frowned, thinking.

 And whirled with his right fist raised to meet Longface before he could chop him down with his axe.

 No one was there.

 Lowering his fist, Larry tried to get a grip on his fraying nerves. If the freak wasn't in the projection booth and he wasn't in the theater, where in God's name was he?

 He ran a trembling hand over his torso. The blood was flowing freely from his wound. He walked up the aisle. His steps sped to a trot, for if Pumpkinhead turned, looked down from the booth window and saw him coming, he'd be prepared for him, and Larry knew he'd need the element of surprise against the giant. As he bumped through the double doors he gasped, sure he'd committed a fatal error. But instead of an axe blade screaming toward his face, he saw only empty space and a quiet corridor.

 He was creeping down the hallway toward the concession stand, scanning the shadows for the long-faced ghoul, when something else caught his attention.

 Shoved between the trash can and the wall Larry saw a white hand-written sign. Pulling it out, he saw someone had written in black marker FRONT EXIT CLOSED PLEASE EXIT THROUGH THEATER NUMBER ONE.

 So that's how they lured their victims to their deaths. Either Longface scared them or their own boredom flushed them out of Theater Two, and when they left they saw the metal gate barring their way and the sign declaring they could only leave through Theater One.

 His skin crawling, Larry thought of Pumpkinhead, a hulking, murderous giant, waiting with the axe in the shadows of the exit tunnel while his alien-faced partner toyed with their victims in the theater next door. He shivered, thinking of the lives the sadistic bastards had cut short. That poor sweet girl in the black shirt. She probably never saw it coming. Just a step into the void and a whistling sound and her life was over.

 Dizziness swept through him. How could one cope with such lunatic evil? He was unarmed and weak. What could he do against two raging fiends?

 Larry paused in front of the concession stand, remembering a gesture Nichole had made over her shoulder, toward the red door behind her.

 The door to the projection booths.

 He strode over and turned the knob.

 The door opened and Larry stepped into darkness.

 The hallway forked right and left. The right staircase led up and into the projection booth for Theater Number Two. The booth was dark, the only sound emanating from up there the mechanical whir of the projector as it revealed the final few minutes ofVeil of the White Temptress .

 The left staircase, he could tell by the sounds of idiot laughter, led to the projection booth for Theater One. Wilson heard two voices. Longface was in there, too.

 He turned left and climbed the concrete steps.

 At the top of the stairs he saw a white horizontal sliver of light under the booth door. His breathing impossibly loud in his ears, Larry made the final few steps as quietly as he could and stood outside the projection booth door. If it was locked, his chance to catch them off guard would be lost; if the door creaked or the doorknob clicked they'd seize him and murder him. He thought again of the corpses and shivered.

 A third voice sounded, faint and frightened, a strangled cry of fear and suffering.

 Nichole.

 His hopes and fears simultaneously confirmed, he touched the cold metal doorknob and felt his fingers wind around it. He turned it, wondering what the hell he was going to do if he did manage to surprise the men.

 The knob stopped.

 Taking one last breath, he pulled the door toward him. Light spread over him as he peered inside.

 Their backs were to him and he knew at once they were unaware of his presence. Pumpkinhead, impossibly huge in the small booth, stared down at something on the floor. He wore blue jeans and a black tee shirt that read "I SURVIVED THE NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD." The scant black hair plastered to the back of his monstrous round skull reminded Larry of shredded electrical tape. The meaty hands which hung at his sides flexed, relaxed, and each time the fists squeezed, the hands went a shade whiter.

  Longface was on his knees a few feet to the left of Pumpkinhead. The freak had taken off his shirt, revealing powder-white skin stretched tight over protuberant ribs. Wilson could tell from the limp way Longface's black trousers sagged on his hips that the man's pants were open in front. The bony elbows jerked.

 The freak was fondling himself.

 Against the wall in front of the two men reclined the axe.

 Larry felt his spirits sink. He'd have to make it past both men to grab the axe and even then he'd only be able to swing it at one target before the other one jumped him.

 Wilson stepped into the booth and saw Nichole lying on the ground, her head propped against the wall opposite him. She was swathed in a diaphanous white gown, her mouth gagged with a white rag, her hands bound at her stomach with strips of black cloth. Looking closer, Larry saw that the strips binding her were not made of cloth at all, but of celluloid.

 The dress they'd made her wear revealed everything. Larry felt something inside of him recoil, as if he too were violating Nichole by looking at her nude body through the garment.

 She was weeping and kicking at Longface, who manipulated himself with one spidery hand and snatched at her legs with the other. Larry looked around for a weapon but only saw metal reels of film. Longface was crawling toward Nichole now, one hand pushing up her gown as his pale wraith's body inched nearer.

 Then, Nichole's eyes shifted and widened.

  Longface stopped.

 Slowly, the freak turned and fixed Wilson with his alien stare. He saw fascination in Longface's eyes, dazed comprehension in Nichole's. He thought of how he must look to them, standing here in the brightly lit booth, his face and body caked with blood, his own and that of the twelve victims. Pumpkinhead, too, began to turn his huge body toward him, and Wilson knew if he allowed the giant to make the first move, all would be lost.

 Larry grabbed the first reel his fingers closed on and brought it down on Pumpkinhead's skull with everything he had. The heavy reel caught the giant squarely in the head. The giant bellowed and staggered against the projection counter.

 Nichole drove her knees into Longface's stomach. With a breathless squeal he fell over and gasped for air. Larry made to bash Pumpkinhead again, but as the reel was angling through the air the giant extended one huge arm and deflected the blow. The metal reel clattered against the Plexiglas window, spun like a coin on the projector counter, and rattled to a stop.

 The giant grabbed Larry by the lapels of his shirt and tossed him across the booth like a rag doll. He crashed into the wall above Nichole face-first and only just managed to avoid landing on her as he thudded on the concrete floor.

 Larry heard a grunt, looked up, and saw Pumpkinhead lifting the projector, hoisting the entire heavy apparatus above his head. The giant swayed across the booth, his footsteps landing on either side of Larry's body. The sounds ofThe Omen still echoed dully from the speakers in the theater but the picture now swam on the wall in miniature.

 Wilson glanced from side to side and saw that Pumpkinhead's feet were planted on both sides of his shoulders. The giant pointed the projector lens at Larry's face and for a moment, Wilson's eyes were filled with a blinding light, Damien's evil face meshing with his own.

 Then the projector was rushing down at him, trying to brain him with its protruding lens. He grabbed the giant's legs and thrust himself up to a sitting position. The cord ripped out of the wall as the bottom of the machine plummeted by Larry's head. The projector crashed to the floor, its shattered motor whining and sparking.

  Longface had the axe and was on his feet, clearly meaning to finish the job he'd started earlier. Larry slid through Pumpkinhead's legs as the giant made a clumsy grab for him. Wilson jumped to his feet and saw the head of the axe bearing down on him. Though he knew he'd reacted too late, he threw up his arms to shield his face.

 The axe halted in mid-air.

 Nichole, her wrists still bound in front of her, had risen and caught the axe handle with her fingers.

 He stared at the axe, poised above his face, and realized she'd saved his life. Then his elation froze as he saw Pumpkinhead backhand Nichole and send her flying against the wall. She landed in a heap and lay without moving.

  Longface grinned. As the axe, unimpeded now, razored down at his head, Larry reached out and caught the handle with both hands.

 Furious at being stopped a second time, the freak gritted his crooked teeth and tried to force the axe head down. Larry grunted. The flat back of the axe moved toward Longface's widening eyes. As they grappled with the axe, Wilson planted one foot against the wall behind him to gain leverage against the taller man. With cold triumph, Larry saw the axe blade moving away from his own face. With a final shove, Wilson jerked the handle forward and down and the flat back of the axe smacked Longface squarely in the forehead. Wresting the axe from his grip, Wilson was about to lop the man's elongated head off when he heard Nichole scream his name.

 He turned.

  Pumpkinhead was rushing at him, arms out, and the only thing he could think to do was duck. The giant snatched at him and missed. Larry stood up and saw his chance. Pumpkinhead's back was exposed. He reared back on his heels and swung the axe at the giant's back, aiming for the words LIVING DEAD and he heard Longface shriek as the blade swooshed toward his partner's back.

 The heavy blade crunched into Pumpkinhead's shirt and all but disappeared, cleaving through fat and gristle, ribs and lung. With a bellow of mortal anguish the giant turned and goggled at Wilson in shock. His great hands flapped and pawed at the object sticking out of his back. His fingers closed on the handle and with an awful ripping sound, he pulled the axe out.

  Longface was weeping, watching his mountainous friend staring down at the axe as though it were something he'd never seen. His eyes growing dim, his limp hands still holding the axe out in front of him, Pumpkinhead thudded to his knees.

 As if in a dream, Larry stepped forward and accepted the axe from Pumpkinhead's hands as though the giant had proffered it. For a moment, Wilson's eyes blazed at Longface. Then, exulting in the cry of anguish that leapt from the alien freak's broken heart, Wilson swung the axe like a baseball bat and felt the flesh of Pumpkinhead's neck split around the steel blade.

 The giant's head didn't quite come off.

 The blade stopped two thirds of the way through, the long wooden handle poking out of the giant's neck at an angle, so that when Pumpkinhead's dead body fell forward at Wilson's feet, the axe pointed across the empty seats of the theater toward the dead stillness of the movie screen.

 With an earsplitting scream, Longface threw himself at Wilson, his long vampire fingers scratching and clawing at his face.

 Both men landed on the counter and though Larry fought to match the vigor of the man's onslaught, he soon found himself gasping for air as Longface's fingers seized on his neck.

 The freak's fetid stench burned his nostrils. He reached out to rake the man's eyes but couldn't reach them; the freakishly long arms held him at bay. Wilson felt himself growing faint. The freak throttled him, mercilessly thrashing his head against the Plexiglas. Larry saw the man's long face, felt the demonic vengeance charging his squeezing talons. Wilson tried to suck in breath, but the choking hands had closed his airway. His breath was gone.

 Reaching out in a flickering haze, Wilson's hand fastened on the first thing it touched.

 Nichole's shirt.

 He felt the button pinned to it and as waves of gray swam over him, he remembered what it said: WELCOME TO WITCHING HOUR THEATRE. As his vision blurred and he felt the last threads of consciousness snapped apart by the freak's iron grip, Larry yanked the button off the shirt and felt it open, exposing the sharp point of the steel fastener. In desperation, he jabbed the long metal needle at the man's forearm and instantly felt the choking hands pull away.

  Longface shrieked and pulled the needle out of his flesh. He held his forearm with a trembling white hand and watched the blood bubble up between his fingers. Larry curled up on the counter, coughing up blood and watching it spatter on the white countertop. Longface watched his own bleeding arm in disbelief.

 Then, he glowered up at Wilson.

 "You fucker," he growled.

 Before he was caught in another chokehold, Larry shoved off of the counter and met the freak head-on. Grabbing him by the ears, he yanked the man's face down and lashed out with his own forehead.

 Their skulls crunched together like rams, the sound cracking like a pistol shot in the small booth.

 The force of the head butt surprised them both, and both men reeled. Then, blood pouring down his forehead, Wilson tackled Longface, driving the freak's skinny body against the wall. Struggling, they twisted through the open doorway and Larry heard Nichole scream as he and Longface passed over the landing. Clutching each other by the neck, they tumbled down the stairs.

 They toppled end over end, their bellows and cries merging together as the sharp edges of the stairs struck them glancing blows, bit their bodies with razor teeth, cracked ribs and vertebrae as they caromed down into the darkness.

 They landed in a heap.

 Wilson gasped for air, his body a web of agony. Under him, his alien head cocked at an awkward position, Longface lay still. Larry strained to see the freak's face in the darkness.

 Had the bastard broken his neck? In the movies that was usually the way, the hero grappling with the villain as they fell, the villain getting the worst of it.

 Something darkened the doorway at the top of the stairs. Wilson turned painfully and gazed up. From above, Nichole was gazing at him through the shadows. Could she see him? He tried to raise his left hand to wave but felt pain flood through his arm and knew it was broken. He tried to disengage his right arm to signal her but found that it was hopelessly pinned under Longface's limp body. This close to the man, the smell was revolting, soiled diapers and moldy bread.

 Eyes adjusting to the darkness, Larry looked down and examined the closed eyes of the freak. His powdery skin seemed old and dry.

 He brought his face closer to see if the creature still breathed. The smell was awful but he had to be certain Longface was dead. Wilson leaned in and watched for movement, felt for the spoiled hot breath on his skin.

 The man's eyes opened.

 He grinned at Larry, his long teeth bloodied and bubbling.

 Something in Wilson snapped. With a moan, he bared his teeth and lunged for the man's throat. He heard the creature give a little hoot of surprise and felt him thrash beneath him as Larry's teeth sunk into the soft flesh of his throat. Larry champed and bit with vise-like jaws and Longface cried out and struggled. Wilson burrowed and gnawed and tore at the man's throat like a ravening beast and he advanced with grim resolve toward the bobbing Adam's apple. Blood spurted around his lips and shot up his nostrils but still he chewed. The man's arms were slapping at Wilson's head and Longface bucked and squirmed to throw him off but Larry only bit down harder. His growling became frenzied as he bit through gristle, gnashed through cartilage. Beneath his own guttural growls he heard the pounding of the man's heart slow. The hands pummeling Wilson's shoulders grew weak.

  Longface lay still.

 Then, Larry's body began to purge for the second time that evening. He hung there in the darkness, letting the hot flood splatter over Longface. He felt no compunction about puking the blood and chewed remains back into the man's ruined throat.

 As he heaved and coughed he felt a small hand rest on his shoulder. Nichole whispered something, comforting him. His body ached, but he hurt more for her. What had the men done to her before he came?

 The vomiting abated. Out of breath, Wilson pushed up so that he was resting on all fours. His broken arm felt numb beneath him.

 "It's okay," Nichole was saying as she caressed his back. "It's okay, Larry."

 He sat back on his heels and felt himself growing faint. Her arms were locked under his, holding him up.

 "Can you stand up?"

 Waves of gray swept over him, through him.

 "I don't know."

 "Try, Larry."

 Leaning on her for support he climbed slowly to his feet. Clenching his teeth against the searing pain in his right shin, he peered through the dimness at her.

 "I think my leg's broken," he said.

 He felt himself going under and fell against her. She held him like that until he regained his equilibrium. The pressure of her hand under his left arm shot spirals of pain through his torso. "My arm's broken too," he told her, trying to keep his voice even.

 "You're better off than he is." She was peering down at Longface.

 He couldn't look at the man he'd just killed.

 Instead, he whispered, "We've got to get out of here."

 "I know. Just catch your breath."

 He shook his head. "I mean we need to get out of here now," he said and thought of all the horror movies he'd seen. Both freaks couldn't be dead. It was too soon.

 "Okay," she said. "Let's go."

 As he limped through the doorway to the lobby, his good arm slung over her shoulder for support, he couldn't help throwing fearful glances over his shoulder. This was when the killer always came back to life: when the terror seemed to be over, that's when things were the most dangerous.

 They made it to the concession stand. She walked him around the counter and leaned him up against it.

 "I'll take Date Special Number Two," he said.

 She giggled and he knew then that whatever had happened to her in the projection booth hadn't killed her spirit. Still, he couldn't rid his mind of Longface running his skeleton's hand up her leg.

 "Shouldn't we find something for you to put on?" he asked. He studied the concession stand counter so he wouldn't see her private parts through the gauzy dress.

 "I'm not exactly wild about the outfit either, but all things considered, I just want to get out of this place." She bent and shuffled under the counter for something.

 "Okay."

 "Are you embarrassed, Mr. Wilson?" she asked from behind the counter.

 "Embarrassed isn't the right word." He was growing used to the nausea, but the anger would not abate. "It's just… those bastards…"

 She reappeared from behind the counter. "Larry, look at me."

 He did.

 "Other than seeing me naked and touching my legs--" she broke off as tears filled her eyes.

 She cleared her throat and said, "You got there in time."

 She squeezed his hand and came out from behind the counter. She carried something in her hand, and passing him, she walked over to the gate. He heard a rattle, and looking over he saw she had unlocked it and was rolling it open.

 "Nichole," he said. "Nichole, I'm sorry."

 "For what?"

 "I left you there with those bastards."

 "But you came back," she said, putting an arm around him. "That's all that matters."

 He felt tears welling in his eyes as he let her support him. Together, they made their way through the lobby. As she unlocked the front door and led him through, he glanced over his shoulder one more time to see if they'd been followed.

 But the lobby was empty.

 * * * *

The waiter nodded and left the table, the sounds of murmured conversation and Italian music swallowing the little man. The warm air, redolent with garlic and wine, drifted onto the terrace of the Café Vienna. It felt good on Nichole Patterson's bare arms. April was a bit early, she knew, to wear a sleeveless dress, but she liked the feel of the silky material and Larry liked the salmon color on her. Her hair had grown longer since the night at the theater. She ran a fingernail lightly around the edge of her wine glass and peered up at him.

 "You seem quiet," she said. "Something on your mind?"

 He glanced at her, searching her eyes. He seemed about to drop whatever he was going to say, but with a little shake of his head he lifted his glass, and drained the rest of his wine.

 Returning her gaze, Larry asked, "Are you sure you're ready for this?"

 She watched him over the candlelight. "Are you?"

 Nichole covered his hand with hers.

 He watched her for a moment. Then he nodded.

 With her other hand, she lifted the basket of garlic rolls and placed it in front of him.

 "No thanks," he said. "I already had one."

 "Then have another." Her eyes glimmered. He marveled at how easy it was for her to make him smile.

 "My mouth is tired of chewing," he said. "These rolls are like driftwood."

 "Take one, Larry," she said and plucked one out of the basket. Placing it in his palm, she added, "We have to keep those jaws strong, don't we?"

 He stared at her, ignoring the garlic roll in his hand. She chuckled lightly, her tongue pressed against the inside of her teeth. Her eyes sparkled at him in the candlelight.

 "You're a sick woman," he said, smiling despite himself.

 "But you love me anyway."

 He nodded. "More than anything."

 After dinner they walked along the river and smelled the rain from earlier that day. The April air was cool, but underneath the chill Nichole could feel the promise of warmer days. Around them, people were joking and walking to the pubs. Across the street a man hailed a cab, which stopped to swallow up him and his woman like a hungry yellow beetle.

 They held hands and walked without speaking until they came to the edge of a quiet street and stopped.

 Looking up, they saw the marquee:

 WITCHING HOUR THEATRE

 And underneath that:

 GRAND REOPENING

 "You're sure about this now," he said and looked at her doubtfully.

 "I'm sure," she said. "I never got to take you up on your invitation, remember?" She grasped his arm. "And I don't want you to think I'm a liar." She pressed against him and felt his warmth.

 He smelled the wine on her breath and enfolding her in his arms, he kissed her. They lingered that way for a while, and when their mouths parted, their foreheads still touched.

 "You are a liar, but I still want to marry you," he said.

 "Good," she said. "Because you're not getting this diamond back."

 Together, they stepped off the curb. Holding hands, Larry and Nichole approached the Starlight Cinema. Above the old brick building the stars were pinprick blazes in a vast dark forest.

 "I forgot to ask you what films they're showing," she said as they neared the curb.

 "It's a superb lineup," he answered. "The Hungry Survivor, which was adapted from an old Stephen King short story about a guy who gets stranded on an island and has to eat himself."

 "Sounds charming," she laughed, delighted.

 "Dog Soldiers," he continued, "a masterpiece of dark humor and spilled entrails."

 "Is it about German shepherds at war?"

 "And last but not least," he said, grinning at her, "I Was a Teenage Werewolfstarring Michael Landon."

 "The guy fromLittle House on the Prairie ?"

 "You got it."

 "Is the film likeLittle House on the Prairie ?"

 "More or less."

 She nuzzled against him.

 "Can I hide my face if I get scared?"

 "Sure."

 Nichole stopped and stared up at the marquee.

 Larry glanced back at her. "What's wrong?" He took her hand, watching her closely.

 Still looking at the sign, she asked, "Can we skip Michael Landon tonight?"

 Larry shrugged. "I guess so. But only lightweights leave before the third feature."

 When her face remained serious, he asked, "Are you tired?"

 The tight line of her mouth melted into a lazy smile.

 "Far from it," she said.

 As comprehension dawned, Larry's cheeks flushed.

 "How does that sound?" she asked, twining her fingers behind his neck.

 He pulled her to him. "One movie might be enough for tonight," he said and kissed her.

 After they'd stood that way awhile, amidst the couples and the teenagers filing past them, she pulled away slowly and said, "Wow."

 "'Wow', what?"

 "You'd really skipDog Warriors for me?"

 "DogSoldiers. And yes, I'd skipDog Soldiers for you." He glanced at the ground between them. "If you wanted, I'd skip all three films for you."

 Smiling, she kissed him one more time and then led him toward the ticket booth.

 "We'll stay for the first movie," Nichole said.

 "You want to make me wait a little, huh?"

 "No, I want to watch that guy eat himself."

 "That should go well with Date Package Number One," Larry said, and pulled out his wallet.