by JL Bryan
Stacey and I took one of the diner-style wooden booths that looked out through large windows so patrons could watch the big screen when eating indoors, listening to the speakers mounted above us. The framed, lighted movie posters nearest us featured a black-and-white King Kong, plus Rocky and Muppets Take Manhattan.
“How cute is this place?” Stacey snapped pictures with her phone. “Jacob is going to freak out.”
I traced my finger over the wooden table, etched with years of scraped and carved graffiti, teenage declarations of love and hate, a tic-tac-toe game, stick figures, and other hieroglyphs of lost time and forgotten days.
“Okay, I admit this is a little crazy,” Callie said from behind the counter. She set out three pizzas on wooden platters. “One Greek style with olives and feta, and one egg roll pizza with cabbage, carrots, all that, with a kind of soy-sesame. Then I have this Southern-style pizza with collards and chicken, which is really completely experimental. Do either of you want to try? It’s totally okay if not. Like I said, these are really weird and bizarre—”
“I’ll have all of it,” Stacey said. “Those look amazing.”
The girl blushed and swiped her pizza cutter, slicing out wedges for us. “I get wacky ideas. But I figure, if we’re doing a drive-in, we could do kind of a high-end version of that classic drive-in food. The drive-in is where America met pizza and fell in love.” She brought the food over on metal dishes the size of hubcaps.
“Holy cow,” Stacey said after biting into the collards and chicken. “This is… amazing. The best… are you a witch or something?”
“No,” Callie said. “Well, on Halloween, a couple times.”
I tried the Greek one. Jaw-dropping. Unbelievably good.
“No, seriously, you’re like a master chef,” Stacey said.
“Definitely not.” Callie was redder than ever. And really, given how that pizza tasted, she could’ve been as arrogant as a stereotypical French master and gotten away with it. “I mean, I went to culinary school, so it’s all just practice. Anybody can do well with practice.”
“Where did you study? Paris?” I asked.
She laughed. “Just the Art Institute. Over in Atlanta? It was…pricey, but worth it.” She bit her lip. “I met Ben while I was living in Atlanta, too.”
“Where are you from originally?” Stacey asked.
“Little Rock.”
“I’ve got a cousin in Arkansas!” Stacey said.
“When did you move to Atlanta?” I asked.
“For school a couple years ago. Atlanta was much bigger than Little Rock, which I liked. I wanted a big city to explore. It was scary at first, though. It got better after I met Benny. He’s more outgoing than I am. You know, he meets people easy, he knew the interesting spots around town. I probably would have holed up and had no social life without him.”
“When did you move to Savannah?”
“After I graduated, I got a job here. We wanted to move here, anyway.”
“Where do you work?”
“It’s called Napoleon III.”
“Only one of the best restaurants in the city,” Stacey said. “And you’re making pizza for the drive-in. Your husband was right—you really are the secret weapon here.”
“Sure. What do you want to drink? We have Cannonborough sodas from Charleston. Honey basil, raspberry mint, blueberry vanilla. Or iced tea, or water.”
“Water’s fine,” I said, and Stacey gave a thumbs up, her mouth full of egg roll pizza.
Callie brought iced water glasses and sat in the booth with us, nervously twisting a napkin in her hands. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Your husband said you’ve been hearing things late at night. And seeing things.”
“We both have. He told you that, right?” Callie asked.
“He didn’t get into details.” I eased my notebook onto the table.
“Great.” She sighed, twisting the napkin tighter, like she was about to rip it in half. “It started with the voices. They came late at night. From… out there.” She gestured at the parking lot and movie screen. “It began a few weeks ago, when we started screening movies.”
“Are you showing a movie tonight?” Stacey asked.
“We are. Have you ever seen Labyrinth? It’s a classic.”
“It’s been a while,” I said. “Can you tell us what you experienced?”
“The first time was the night we screened Bedknobs and Broomsticks for Daisy, and for whoever else showed up that night, which turned out to be nobody. We all went to sleep around one in the morning. It was still dark outside when they woke me up.”
“Who woke you?”
“These weird, echoing voices, like a movie soundtrack blasting over the outdoor speakers back here at the concession stand. I don’t know what movie. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I assumed the sound system was going haywire. I also thought Ben would eventually wake up and go deal with it, but he just kept snoozing. I went to check on Daisy. She was sleeping through the voices, too, but Gumby wasn’t on his usual rug in her room.”
“Gumby?” I asked.
“Our chocolate lab. I looked all over for him. Usually, he stays close to Daisy at night.”
“Gumby was okay, right?” Stacey asked, plainly worried. “Nothing bad happened to the dog?”
“I finally found Gumby on the ground floor. He was growling at the door to the outside. Gumby’s usually a big marshmallow. I’d never seen him growl before.
By the time I finally calmed him down, the voices had stopped. It was silent outside.”
“So, the chocolate-and-marshmallow dog was fine,” Stacey said, relieved.
“I checked that the door was locked before going back upstairs to bed. I told myself it was just a bug in the sound system. If not for Gumby, I would have thought it was just my own mind playing tricks, something I dreamed while I was still half-asleep.”
“Oh, wow, that’s crazy,” Stacey said.
“It was eerie.”
“No, sorry, I mean it’s crazy how good this pizza is. Collards, chicken…do I detect a note of cornbread in the crust?”
“Just a note,” Callie replied. “You don’t think it’s too weird?”
“Mm-mmm.” Stacey shook her head emphatically while chewing the last bite.
“What happened next?” I asked Callie.
“I went back upstairs. Gumby came with me, sticking to me like bubblegum, like he used to when he was a puppy. He was shaking pretty bad. I was, too.”
“Did you have any other occurrences like this?” I asked.
“It happened again a few nights later. The voices were louder. A woman and a man, yelling. Fast-paced, back and forth, like in a stage play.
I woke up Benny, and we went downstairs. Gumby was growling at the closed door again.”
Stacey leaned forward, plainly worried for the dog again.
“We didn’t see anything out the window, just our little side yard. Benny slid open the deadbolt. I told him to wait. It’s a solid fire door, no peephole or anything. Someone could have been standing right outside, waiting for us. Benny opened the door anyway, and Gumby bolted out, barking.”
“Oh, no!” Stacey said. “Not Gumby.”
“Benny ran out after the dog. Daisy started crying upstairs, and I was torn because I wanted to go up to her, but I didn’t want to take my eyes off Benny. I could barely see him in the dark. The voices stopped, though.”
“Did Benny see anything outside?”
“Nothing. He wanted to check the sound system for electrical problems, but I told him to wait ’til morning. I wanted everyone locked inside together. Upstairs, Daisy was still crying, saying she had a bad dream about an evil man. We all stayed in the same room that night.”
“That sounds frightening,” I said, scribbling on my pad. “Did he ever check the sound equipment?”
“Yeah, the next day, but nothing was wrong.” She shook her head. “It was quiet the next night, and the one after. We d
idn’t talk about it, like that was the key to the whole problem—just don’t talk about it, pretend it didn’t happen, and it would go away. Like that ever works.”
“Did you have any other problems?”
“Oh, yes. The worst was one night as I was breaking down the kitchen.” She gestured toward the brick oven behind the counter. “I’d told Benny to go ahead and put Daisy to bed. I like squaring away the kitchen at the end of the night myself, making sure everything’s where it’s supposed to be, ready for a new day.
“I turned off the lights, locked the door, and started skating on my board across the parking lot, heading home to the tower.” She looked out at the rows of speaker poles. “I have a little flashlight on my keychain, but I didn’t need it because of all the moonlight.
“As I was a few rows into the parking lot, passing that crumbling old projector house from the fifties—which is a hazard we need to remove, but that’s another story—the voices started up again. Loud, but totally garbled, like the man and woman were arguing again. Like a man and a woman in a heated argument.
“Then the sky turned dark. Clouds, I guess. That was when I saw them, up on the screen, larger than life. They were just barely visible, but I could make out the glowing ovals of faces, a couple of faces yelling passionately at each other. Like a movie was playing at low resolution, projected with barely any light at all. Ghost lights, that’s what I thought. Chilling and cold.
“One of the ovals, who I took to be the yelling man, closed in on the other, like he was attacking her. Or kissing her, aggressively.
“The moonlight came back, reflecting off the screen, drowning out the faint images. The voices stopped, too. All of it stopped. Like I’d gone crazy, but only for a minute, then right back to normal. Though I guess you never really hear of crazy people abruptly ‘going normal,’ do you? Not that I’m anybody’s idea of normal.
“Anyway, the whole event with the voices and the images, the ghostly movie playing up there, might have lasted ten seconds. After it ended, it was hard to force myself to keep going toward the screen tower where I’d just seen the strange images. But my family was in the tower, and I sure didn’t want to be alone anymore.
“I looked up at the projection booth—” She pointed toward the concession stand’s second floor above us. “It was all dark. Nothing happening, nobody in there, as far as I could see.
“As fast as I could, I skated the rest of the way to the tower, ran inside, and locked the door. Gumby was right inside the door, whining. He calmed down once I took him upstairs.
“I couldn’t sleep. I just kept remembering the voices and the phantom shapes on the screen. I’m sure this all sounds strange to you. I promise we are well within our gourds, not out of them.” She sighed and looked around. “Except maybe for buying this place. There’s an obvious reason it’s been out of business for years. It’s a drive-in theater. But with Ben, it was always going to be something. At one point, the dream was a coffee shop where he and his band could play. Then he talked about a vintage record store, which seemed like a bad idea to me. He looked into opening a CBD oil place. He kind of has a mad-artist approach to life. Like with college. He started out in music at Chapel Hill, then cultural anthropology at Georgia State, but ended up getting his degree in social media from A-Plus Online Technology University.”
“Well, I think y’all are doing a great job,” Stacey said. “I can see this drive-in being a fun night out for anyone.”
“I hope so. But can we convince enough people to come? And will they keep coming back?” Callie frowned at the blank white screen towering over the empty parking lot, like she was counting all that it had cost them so far.
“They’ll come back for the pizza,” I said, and she smiled a little. She wasn’t wrong, though. They were taking on a type of business that had peaked and declined long ago, and obviously they knew it, or at least Callie did.
I’d assumed Benny and Callie were rich kids, or at least one of them was, with money to burn on iffy business ideas. Callie’s face looked strained, though, like someone attempting to balance too many things at once while trying not to collapse from exhaustion. Maybe they’d put themselves at great risk for a dubious business idea, and she was trying to support them both with her job at the restaurant.
“Have you had any other unusual experiences?” I asked.
“I thought I saw someone watching me from the old farmhouse, back behind the fence, when I was working in the garden. A shadow. It vanished when I blinked. I always feel like someone’s watching me there, maybe from the windows of the house, though I never actually see anyone.
“Out here in the parking lot, I’ve smelled smoke a couple of times. I mean tobacco, a cigarette or cigar. But we don’t smoke tobacco. Graham and Marcia—those are Benny’s friends who came out last week—they smelled it, too, when they saw the man.”
“What man?”
Before she could answer, a pair of double doors at the far end of the room flew open, making us jump.
“Foosball, snoozeball, Daddy’s gonna lose-ball.” Daisy June skipped out through the double doors, Benny following. Behind them was another large room, empty aside from movie posters on the wall and a foosball table in the middle.
“How do you like our fabulous arcade?” Benny gestured around at the mostly empty space. “The future to-do list includes pinball and retro video games. Maybe ping-pong.”
“Those can wait.” Callie gave a short, tight smile that faded quickly. “After the digital projector, resurfacing the screen with new aluminum, restoring the buildings, we’re probably good for now.”
“Definitely. And air hockey. A jukebox, obviously. All part of the time-warped package experience.” Benny looked out at the enormous white screen and smiled. “It’s all happening. Maybe we should rename this place The Time Machine. What do you think?”
“Well, it already came with a huge sign calling it the Nite-Lite, so that’s paid for,” Callie said. “I was just telling them about when Graham and Marcia came to see Princess Bride. Maybe you can fill them in on that. Daisy June, want to play foosball?”
“Foosball!” the little girl shrieked, running back through the double doors, her voice echoing in the nearly empty arcade room. More framed posters decorated the wall, many of them black and white—a 70s-horror looking thing called Manos, Hands of Fate; a Commando Cody poster featuring a helmeted superhero; a noir-ish looking black-and-white flick called Pocketful of Aces, featuring a pinstriped gangster with cards in his hand and a beautiful woman on his arm. The woman's large, expressive gray eyes made the Aces poster stand out from the others.
Callie followed. She cast a worried look at us, and out at the theater screen, before closing the doors behind her.
Chapter Three
“Hey there, buddy.” Benny petted a chocolate lab that came up to him as he stepped outside the concession stand. The dog regarded Stacey and me cautiously.
Stacey put out her hand and made little clicking noises at Gumby, who sniffed her palm dubiously.
“We plan to fence off a dog park.” Benny swept his arm across the lawn behind us. “That’ll be something people can do while they wait for the movie. People like it when they can bring their dogs places.”
“Callie mentioned your friends had an unsettling experience here,” I said. “Something to do with cigar smoke?”
“Yeah, for sure. Graham and Marcia came out from Atlanta for our Princess Bride screening. They parked up in the front row.” Benny started across the rows of parking spots, toward the screen tower. The tower’s reflective surface glowed in the daylight. “You know, at one point back in the sixties, drive-ins were more popular than indoor theaters. Families came every week. But you know what wrecked it all?”
“Cable TV?” I guessed.
“Flatscreens? Broadband?” Stacey asked.
“People not wanting to sit around in their cars?” I suggested.
“All those, and more,” Benny said. “But the first big b
low was Daylight Savings Time. You start the movie an hour later, the customers get home an hour later, it’s not so convenient. Your standard drive-in experience is a double feature, but we’re shifting to a movie palace type experience instead.”
“Ooh, so you have a cartoon?” Stacey asked. “A newsreel? A serial?”
“We’re skipping the newsreel,” Benny said. “But yes to an opening cartoon, a short film, or some vintage serial, and one feature. If we’re screening Superman: The Movie, we could start with a 1940s Max Fleischer Superman cartoon, follow it with a chapter from a 1950s Superman serial, then boom, right into Marlon Brando’s end-of-the-world, you-complete-me monologue to baby Superman. Everybody gets a full, classic experience, but you also get home by midnight.”
“Can you tell us more about what your friends experienced out here?”
“Sure, back to business, right.” He took off his puffy hat, unleashing a tumble of long dark hair, and wiped sweat from his brow. “No other customers showed up that night. We screened The Princess Bride, and I led into that with an early Bugs Bunny—Buccaneer Bunny, 1948, because it has Yosemite Sam as a pirate. Then an episode of Manhunt of Mystery Island, an adventure serial from Republic, 1945.
“Anyway, they were watching the serial when Marcia smelled smoke. In her rearview mirror, she saw somebody right behind the car, a man in shadow, outlined from behind by the light from the concession stand. He was just standing there, like he was spying on them.
“But when she turned to look out the rear windshield, nobody was there. Graham got out and looked but didn’t see anyone. He smelled the cigar smoke, though.
“Later, they asked me who the strange man walking around the parking lot had been, but we didn’t know. We would have noticed someone hanging around without paying admission. We couldn’t figure it out.