by JL Bryan
“Okay, then.” Stacey looked up along the dimly lit concrete stairs to the dim, uninviting third floor. No happy rainbow colors had been painted here; it was grim cinderblock gray all the way to the top, where a black metal door awaited us. “This is sure to be a happy place.”
We gathered our gear and hiked up, supplementing the weak overhead bulbs with our flashlights. I unlocked the door and pushed it open, revealing the darkness of the uninhabited third floor.
Chapter Nine
The tower’s third floor was, as expected, even narrower than the one below it, like a long walk-in closet with a low ceiling and clutter that made it feel claustrophobic and difficult to navigate. It was exactly the kind of dark, forgotten space ghosts liked to inhabit. Most of the overhead lights were burned out. Junk was crammed into both sides of the narrow space. A faded sign advertised hot dogs for a quarter, Cokes for a nickel. A pile of outdoor speakers rusted away next to a cigarette vending machine.
“Look, it’s the murder movie,” Stacey whispered and pointed, though there was no need to whisper.
One of the movie posters tacked to the wall advertised The Body in the Basement, featuring a patchwork wooden door, slightly ajar, with dirt-covered fingers reaching out from behind it.
“That was made by Mazzanti, the serial killer movie director?” I asked after reading the poster’s fine print.
“Yep. A few years after they made this, he murdered the leading lady, Portia Reynolds. That’s why it’s sometimes just called ‘the murder movie.’ It’s actually hard to find, since distributing it is considered extremely poor taste.”
We walked single file, working our way past advertising stand-ups made of wood and cardboard. A giant, faded cartoon mouse face promoted some long-forgotten kids’ movie. A dusty Santa mannequin slumped in a sleigh, near a wooden Christmas tree cutout dotted with colorful lightbulbs, many of them broken.
“Lots of Halloween stuff over here.” Stacey slowed down to study a life-size coffin covered with dust and spiderwebs, heaped with oversized skulls and a jack-o’-lantern painted on plywood. “They get kinda dark back there. Look.”
Behind the plywood jack-o’-lantern was a caged gibbet with a fairly realistic zombie inside it, one plastic hand reaching out through the bars. There was a black iron candelabra shaped like a pentagram, candle stubs at each point of the star. A lifelike plastic goat statue with red glass eyes. Severed limbs and assorted torture implements, hopefully fake, were piled nearby.
“This isn’t fun Halloween, this is bad Halloween,” Stacey said.
Ahead of us, blocking off the rest of the third floor, loomed a hand-painted plywood flat depicting a haunted castle, with a little ghost in the arched window. The tall piece of plywood looked as though it had been designed to frame a door, maybe the concession stand entrance. A dusty red curtain hung inside the door area, obscuring the view beyond.
I drew the curtain aside.
Beyond lay a final narrow room. We’d reached the back end of the tower’s top floor.
A table against the low, steep ceiling was heaped with jumbles of small film spools and reels, all covered with dust. The previous owner had plastered the wall with images of his favorites, cut from posters, magazines, and newspapers, wrinkled and curled and stained nicotine yellow by cigar smoke. Chance Chadwick and Adaire Fontaine were most heavily represented, among other actors of their generation.
Stacey looked through the film reels. “These look like eight-millimeter film.”
“Which means?”
“Homemade movies, most likely.” She picked up a spool and frowned. “Can you read this, Ellie?”
I tried. I squinted. The writing on the label was faded and looked like random geometric figures to me. “I can’t tell if it’s bad handwriting or a secret code.”
“Why not both?” She picked up a boxy portable film camera from a shelf, wiped the lens that took up half its body mass, and peered through the viewfinder. “He probably filmed them on this Super 8. The first home movie camera. He has an eight-millimeter projector over there. It looks like he watched his home movies here, too.” She unrolled an age-cracked screen on a movable stand, and I covered my nose as dust swirled out. “A screening room inside a screen tower. Wacky. Should we pop in a reel and have a look?”
“Maybe later,” I said. “Tonight we have to sit out in the parking lot and try to get harassed by the ghost.”
We set up gear to monitor the third floor.
By the time we emerged from the tower, night had fallen and the cartoon was playing on the big screen. A few more cars had arrived, including some rowdy teens who sat in the back of a pickup truck, vaping, talking loudly, laughing. If they missed important Powerpuff Girls plot points, it was their own fault.
Stacey and I split up; she went to her Escape while I sat in the van. We were working parking-lot phantom security tonight.
I texted Callie, updating her about the top floor and letting her know we’d be watching and listening for any further activity up there.
Then I waited, hoping to see the dead thing that came out at night to terrify the movie audience.
Chapter Ten
Having already seen the cartoon, I spent my time in the back of the van, checking the monitors, particularly watching the sunken, disused projection room and the third floor of the tower. Daisy was sleeping down in her bedroom, and while her parents could watch her remotely over the baby monitor, I was glad to provide some extra eyes and ears on any activity in the tower while her parents worked.
The teenagers in the truck looked like they were having a good time, though paying no attention to the screen. The tailgating family had moved on from fried chicken to pie. The boy watched the movie from his lawn chair, while the middle-school girl paced around outside the car, holding her phone, frequently stealing long glances at the wild older teens across the way like she wished she could join them.
As far as I could tell, nothing stirred in the sunken projection house just outside my van, or in the dark upper reaches of the screen tower.
Billy Bunny’s song and swamp show played, followed by dancing hot dogs and pizza slices promoting the concession stand. People drifted over to the Purple Pizza Eater and back, returning with popcorn and soda and pizza boxes. Foot traffic continued into the opening sequence of Labyrinth.
See anything? I texted Stacey, while looking across the top of the abandoned projection house at her car.
Nothing except some major tight pants on David Bowie, Stacey texted.
Let me know if anything sneaks up on you, I texted back.
I would probably notify you of that, yes.
I waited and watched a little Labyrinth, the tale of teenage Sarah crossing into the Goblin Kingdom to rescue her brother. The story echoed some of the world’s most ancient myths, going back to the Sumerian story of the goddess Inanna—her descent into the underworld, the land of the dead, a place of darkness and monsters, and her victorious return to the world of light.
Seemed like it would set a good tone for ghosts to come out.
Yet the monitors showed little sign of activity. The sunken projection house was a little colder than the above ground area, but nothing had changed. No cold spots, no movement. Nothing happened up in the tower, either, which I watched closely.
After a while, I started to wish I’d grabbed some popcorn.
Finally, the closing credits rolled. The theater’s outdoor lights showed the way to the exit. Car engines started, headlights flared to life. The words Good Night! glowed on the screen, surrounded by colorful cartoon stars.
The cars of the theater patrons made their way out the exit drive, disappearing onto the midnight highway beyond. When they were gone, all the theater’s exterior lights snuffed out.
Benny emerged from the darkened concession stand. Callie had skateboarded home earlier to join her sleeping daughter in the screen tower.
Stacey and I stepped out of our vehicles as Benny bicycled over to us.
�
��Any news?” he asked.
“No activity so far,” I told him. “We’ll keep monitoring all night, and probably take a walk around, pick up some readings.”
“Pretty good crowd, huh?” He looked at the exit driveway. “Considering all we have is the sign out front and a basic website. When the big rollout happens, boom! Am I right?”
“I hope so,” I said. “Looked like you sold a lot of pizzas.”
“Yeah, we sold a few.” He glanced toward the screen tower where his family waited, then back at the empty parking lot and darkened concession stand. “No patrons got run off tonight. That’s good, right? Maybe things are calming down already. Maybe we just have to convince the ghosts, ‘hey, yo, we’re just trying to make this place nice again.’ And they can just chill with us, watch the movies for free. Right?”
“Maybe so,” I said. “Have you spent much time on the screen tower’s top floor?”
“Not really, but it looks like some of the old holiday décor is prime.”
“Have you looked at any of the film reels up there?” I asked, while thinking he might want to consider taking a closer look at the awful holiday décor before using it.
“Reels?” He was obviously excited. “Like what?”
“Eight-millimeter,” Stacey said. “Probably just home movies.”
“Oh.” His face fell. “Anything interesting?”
“We haven’t looked,” I replied. “Just wondering if you had any insight. Maybe save us some time.”
“Sorry.” He shook his head. “There’s some old thirty-five-mil reels up in the concession stand. The previous owner’s favorites, it looks like, black and white classics, but we still can’t exhibit those without paying to license. Which we might do, sometime after I see what condition they’re in. We could have Hollywood Golden Age weekends, promote them to the local retirement communities. Hmm. Anyway, have a good night. Text if you need anything. I probably won’t answer until tomorrow, though, realistically, because I won’t be awake much longer.”
“Okay. We’ll keep quiet.”
“Send a marching band through my bedroom, I won’t hear it.” He yawned and pedaled away.
“What now, boss?” Stacey asked me. “Shall we commence poking around?”
“Let’s stay out here dangling ourselves as bait a little longer,” I said. “Maybe the crowd was too large for Cigar Man’s taste. Go back and wait. Keep all your lights off.”
“You got it. I’ll go put myself on the hook, maybe something will bite me.” She winced. “But not literally. No bites or scratches, dead guy!” Stacey scolded the sunken brick projection booth, so reminiscent of a mausoleum in a graveyard. The rows of speaker poles sprawling out all around us could have been markers for other graves, ones for paupers, maybe.
I returned to the van and sat in the driver’s seat to wait alone in the dark. The starlight from above, plus the faint glow from the monitors in the back of the van, were the only sources of illumination. The low hum of the monitors and speakers was the only sound.
As I was climbing into the back of the van to look over the monitors, my phone buzzed in my pocket. You’re seeing this, right? Stacey had texted me from her car.
Clambering back up front, I saw what she was talking about. Couldn’t miss it. Before I could even look out the window to see whether Chance Chadwick was standing on the brick projection house, or perhaps some gruesome horror had slithered out from the little Hobbit door to creep up on Stacey, I saw the activity up on the big screen.
On the screen tower glowed pale, cloudlike shapes, just barely suggesting two people, like images cast by a projector almost too weak to shine.
I tried to discern what was happening, what the giant ghostly images were actually doing. Arguing? Fighting? Kissing?
Then I heard it—a female voice, faint, barely audible. Her tone was urgent, her words fast-paced, spilling over each other like a waterfall.
The voice wasn’t coming from up around the screen, though. It came from right behind me, inside my van.
I felt chills as I listened to the woman, trying to make out her words.
A male voice took over, speaking rapidly, as incoherent as she’d been, and finally I turned to look.
Nobody was there.
Are you hearing the movie? I texted Stacey.
No. You have audio? From the car speakers? I’ll try mine.
Stepping into the rear of the van, I found no apparitions waiting to jump out at me, which was nice. I tracked the low sound to one of our speakers and turned up the volume. I double-checked that it was recording. My eyebrows raised at the source.
The voices are coming from the house behind the fence, I reported to Stacey. Maybe that old speaker box.
Ooh, I want to listen. Can I come over?
By the time Stacey arrived, though, the voices in the house had gone silent.
“Aw, the movie’s disappeared from the screen, too.” Stacey frowned up at the tower. “I wanted to see how it ended. And I think we came in late, because I had no idea what was going on.”
Through the night vision camera in the decrepit farmhouse, we could see some of the outdoor seating area on the farmhouse roof, including the rusty speaker box.
“The sound came from there,” I said.
“Not that old speaker? Are you sure?”
“Or else from inside the house. Analyze it, kiddo. It’s your time to shine.”
“On it.” Stacey picked up a laptop. While she reversed and replayed the footage, I turned down the volume on the live monitors. “Here it is,” she said.
We listened carefully, but even at a higher volume, it was hard to distinguish individual words from the faint voices.
“Did she say ‘cane’?” Stacey whispered at one point. “‘Wrong cane’? Or ‘long crane’?”
I shook my head. “It’s a man and a woman, that’s all I can tell. Sounds like they’re arguing.”
“There’s something in the background, too. I’ll see if I can isolate it.” Stacey worked on digital representations of the soundwaves, identifying a repeated pattern of sharp spikes that grew larger.
Isolated from the soft, indistinct voices and amplified so we could hear it, the first row of sound spikes turned out to be three thuds, like someone knocking on a door.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
A gap of silence followed, represented by a long, flat line on the screen. Then the sounds repeated louder and faster, the sound growing angrier and more insistent.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Another silent, flatlined gap.
Then came the final set, almost deafening compared to the first knocks.
THUMP THUMP THUMP.
We pulled back, wincing at the loud, angry sound.
“Sorry.” Stacey turned down the volume, though the horse had already fled the barn on protecting our ears against those final loud thumps. “The voices cut out after that last knock. I guess the knocks were part of the ghost movie?”
“Unless the knocks were coming from inside the house,” I said. “Can you remove the thumping spikes and just replay the voices?”
“I can…try. It’ll be a little skippy if I do it quick, so don’t mind the blank spots in the sounds…” Stacey hummed to herself as she worked. “Okey-doke, here’s what we’ve got.”
The movie sounds played again, going briefly silent at moments where Stacey had removed the knocking. This left the voices a bit clearer overall, and she could finally crank up the volume.
We each held a notepad and did our best to capture whatever words we could. Stacey played it several times.
“I think she said ‘fish chips,’” Stacey told me as we compared notes.
“I got ‘wish chips’ which makes less sense,” I said. “But before that, don’t you think it said ‘wild card’?”
“Ooh, I know the part you mean.” Stacey played the first few seconds and nodded. “I was thinking ‘mild car’ but that sounded dumb, so I didn’t write anything. Then I think she sai
d ‘long game.’”
“From the man’s voice, I think I got ‘doll’ and ‘clubs.’”
“Wild card, fish chips, dolls, clubs…”
“Maybe she’s talking about poker chips, not fish and chips,” I said.
“You’re thinking Pocketful of Aces?”
“Featuring Stanley Preston’s favorite actors, Chance Chadwick and Adaire Fontaine.”
“He did give that poster a prominent spot in the concession stand,” Stacey said. “With a lightbulb frame, too.”
“Have you ever seen Pocketful of Aces?” I asked.
“I actually haven’t,” Stacey said. “I mean, it’s not considered one of her greater works, but I should probably see it. I’ve seen A Soldier’s Dame, obviously, and Legend of the South—”
“We’ll have to watch it.”
“Yes! Ellie and Stacey movie night. This is so happening. Your place or mine? Do we invite the guys or nah? We’ll need popcorn, obviously. Do you have a bean bag chair?”
“I was thinking of streaming it to my laptop.”
“Eleanor Jordan! That’s no way to watch a classic movie. You’ll miss all the delicate subtleties.”
“If it was one of Stanley’s favorites, there might be a copy up in the newer projection booth.”
“Yes! Thirty-five-millimeter! That’s the way to go! It’s like listening to the original record instead of streaming digitally.”
“They may not be able to screen it because of copyright. Now check for any correlating recent activity down in the old projection house.”
“You got it.” Stacey worked at her computer. “Okay, nothing on audio, let’s check thermal video… what is that?”
On the thermal recording, a deep blue spot occupied the semi-underground projection house, frozen in place where Stacey had paused it. It was a patch of profound cold with no clear shape.
“It’s next to the junky old projector,” I said, pointing to the rickety, monster-sized device.
“I’m going to go out on a crazy, hairy limb and guess this entity is responsible for projecting the ghost movies,” Stacey said. “Benny didn’t find any sign of it up in the concession stand projection booth because it doesn’t hang out up there. It hangs out down there, in that terrible, terrible place.”