by JL Bryan
In the world of the film, it began to rain. Adaire’s character opined they should get inside, but the handsome blacksmith insisted, in a somewhat less than logical claim, that the best method for avoiding the rain was to dance through it.
I saw where this was going—he started demonstrating dance moves, and she copied him, then outdid him with a flourish. Soon it was more of a dance-off between them, their shoes clomping rhythmically on the boardwalk, each trying to out-jump or out-spin the other, in a kind of musical-theater mating dance.
To cornball things up a little more, a small crowd of local river folk formed to watch the dance—first a group of three fishermen came up the boardwalk, pointing and gaping at the two dancers, then three washerwomen with laundry baskets entered from the opposite direction, doing the same.
Soon enough, the fishermen flung aside their buckets and poles, the washer-women dropped their wooden baskets of damp clothes, and everyone joined in the dance.
I’m having doubts about the historical accuracy of this film, I texted Stacey.
If there’s any place where people are spontaneously breaking into song and dance, it’s Louisiana, she replied, and I guessed she had me there, though the scene wasn’t set in New Orleans.
I checked the monitors in the back of the van. My eyes were quickly drawn to the camera feeds from down in the projection house. The night vision showed nothing out of the ordinary, but the thermal showed a vast, deep cold spot down there, near the projector. The cold spot was as still as a winter pond, as though the entity were sitting in place, perhaps watching the movie on the big screen through the front porthole, perhaps waiting its turn to project one of its ultra-late-night ghostly films.
Eventually, I returned to my seat up front. I considered texting Stacey about the cold spot, but when I looked over the top of the sunken building to the window of her Escape, I realized she was locked in an embrace with Jacob, doing things that teenagers of yesteryear had surely done in the relative privacy of the drive-in.
Swinging my sun visor down and around to block off as much of my side window as possible, I returned my attention to the movie, still hoping for a message from Adaire, or at least an appearance by the parking lot phantom.
Soon the great flood swept away the plantation and the town, in a visually stunning climax of destruction that had wowed audiences back in the day and was still pretty impressive. It must have been done with very well-crafted and painstakingly detailed scale models, because it didn’t look fake at all.
Adaire ended up on the rooftop of her flooded mansion with a group of people, the waters rising around them, all distinction between aristocrats and common men and slaves wiped away by the flood, a sentiment expressed by an elderly slave in an earnest soliloquy, his straw hat over his heart, an uplifting moment.
Then the floodwaters rose and swept them all away, leaving no trace of the plantation, only water to the horizon. The screen went dark.
Chapter Twenty-One
Being a more upbeat film, it didn’t end there. The sun rose to find Adaire and her young blacksmith floating on a broken balcony, right in the heart of New Orleans, where they and the other rooftop survivors were lifted up by the locals, who immediately pulled them into a jazzy song and dance number. With her parents’ plantation destroyed and her family impoverished—as well as those of her various approved gentleman suitors—Adaire’s character was at last free to marry the man she loved. Naturally, New Orleans had a parade about it.
Stacey knocked on my window as the credits rolled, and I hopped out to greet her.
“Okay, it was pretty good,” I said.
“How about that flood scene, huh?”
“Impressive, like people say.”
“Jacob’s ready to check out the old tomb. I mean the projection house.”
I looked over her shoulder to see Jacob slowly circling the low brick pillbox structure. He knelt to look into the two portholes where the projectors had cast their relatively low-powered, short-range images in the earliest days of the drive-in.
“There’s a major cold front down there,” I said to Stacey, in a low voice so Jacob couldn’t hear. “I think Preston might be stirred up by the movie starring his favorite actress. I’ll go down to guard Jacob. You stay up here and make sure that creepy little door doesn’t slam shut and trap us in there.”
“Yikes, good point. But I’m going with him. You hold the door up here for us,” Stacey insisted.
“I’m not comfortable putting you in potential danger—”
“You’re always putting me in danger, so relax. I want to watch out for him. If it was anyone else, I’d probably let you go ahead.”
I was surprised, but she seemed pretty firm in her stance, so I went with it.
We joined Jacob at the projection house, where he was running his fingers over the cracked bricks.
“This is your problem right here, ladies,” he said. “That guy up in the screen tower? He’s down here, too. But his energy’s much stronger down here.”
“Could he come up to the parking lot, do you think?”
“Yeah, he feels like the whole theater is his. He used to work here, or maybe he ran it, or even owned it… he’s definitely territorial…”
“Is he dangerous, though?” I asked.
Jacob shrugged. “You saw him upstairs. He’s not something you’d want in your home or workplace. Especially if they’re the same place.” He toed the strange half-door with his shoe. “I guess we have to go down in there. I’ve known it since I first saw this weird little building. It’s been hanging over me this whole time.”
Stacey kicked open the little half-door and slid down inside, followed by Jacob. I sat down in the doorway, propping the door open with my body.
As the thermal camera had indicated, it was frigid down there.
“Okay,” Jacob whispered. “I think this is his lair. He especially likes to stay over there, by the projector.” Jacob reached out to touch the massive antique machine and shuddered visibly on contact, like it was freezing cold, or like he was getting an electrical shock, or both at the same time.
He was quiet a long moment.
“This is bigger than I thought,” he said, his breath coming out in frosty clouds. “There’s a troupe of them… and they perform up there, on the big screen, acting and reenacting the same roles over and over… I don’t know if that makes any sense…”
“It does,” Stacey and I said.
“Oh.”
“Are they dangerous to the living?” I asked, my usual top concern.
“Potentially. But I’m not sensing anger right now. He—the main guy—is annoyed at us for being down here in his space, especially me for touching the projector.” Jacob drew his hand back. “Just like he didn’t want us up on the third floor. But I’m not sensing hostility toward the family, your clients. If anything, he’s glad to see the drive-in restored, to see movies on the screen again.”
“What about the rest of them?”
Jacob shook his head. “They’re drawing away. I don’t think he wants another confrontation like upstairs.”
“They’re happy, though?”
“They’re active, they’re energized. I think they’re feeding on the rejuvenation of the theater.”
“By scaring customers?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Maybe. But this spot right here is the real center of the haunting, more so than the tower, though the guy spends time in both places. And just because they’re not attacking now, it doesn’t mean they’re friendly. You saw what happened up in the tower.”
“Yeah, I did notice the ghost getting right up in my grill in a threatening way,” I said. “That hasn’t slipped my mind yet.”
“I wouldn’t rest easy just because they’re leaving us alone right now. They are watching and waiting. I’m not sure what they’re waiting for. And to be honest, I’d really like to get out of here, posthaste.”
“Did you seriously say ‘posthaste’? Like, out loud?” Stac
ey asked.
“If you don’t start heading for the door, I’ll start saying ‘tout suite.’ On the reg.”
“Okay, I’m moving. This is all too painful for me to hear.” Stacey started toward me, and I scooted back to clear the doorway.
She climbed out on her belly, the only way to exit that stupid sunken building, and Jacob followed close behind. I let out a little sigh of relief when they were both outside.
Stacey brushed dirt from her jeans. “Okey-doke. Let’s go load up our low-budget creature feature, The Body in the Basement.”
Jacob cast a glance back at the small door. Maybe he was feeling less enthusiastic about the prospect of subterranean horror movies.
The concession stand’s warm yellow lights and funky polka-purple interior were a welcome relief from the dark place we’d just left. The baked-in scent of popcorn exuded from everywhere.
“This is more like it,” Jacob said.
“No moody dead people here?” I asked.
“Not exactly, but I’m picking up lots of trace memories. This was a very dense focus of activity for many years. It was long ago, but it still echoes with the thousands who came and went. People here for a good time, for a night out with family or friends, for a date… and more specifically, they came into this building for snacks, for the refreshment phase of a fun night out. Definite good feelings in this building. This is where you want to hang out. Not those other buildings, avoid those.”
“Good to hear there’s a bright spot at the drive-in. I’ll go load up tonight’s awful horror movie.” Stacey headed around the corner, to the back hallway with the bathroom doors and the employees-only stairs to the second floor.
Jacob wandered over to the game room. “They need more here. Retro video games, at the minimum. Pinball, ideally.”
“That’s what Benny wants eventually. I think it’s a budget issue.” I followed him at a distance.
“Yeah, I could see that. Maybe they could go low-budget first, like a ping-pong table, or bumper pool…” He touched the hole punctured in the drywall, then glanced at the smashed corner of the foosball table. “Looks like somebody was a sore loser.”
“Something like that.”
Jacob looked at me. “What did you see in here?”
“Who says I saw anything?”
“Sometimes I can tell things about the living, too.”
“That makes one of us. I never understand the living,” I said.
“What did you see, Ellie?”
“Should I tell you?” I asked. “Couldn’t it unduly influence your psychic-vibe action?”
“Okay, you can tell me later. You clearly want to.”
I laughed. “I actually do, yeah. Stacey better not have mentioned it.”
“Not a word.”
“What secrets are we keeping from Stacey?” Stacey ambled into the room, hands on her hips.
“None,” I said. “You and I are keeping them from Jacob.”
“Oh.” Stacey looked at the damage he was inspecting. “Yep. Now the movie’s about to start, so I say we pile into my car, because the van’s a real back-breaker.”
“We should split up again,” I said. “Ghosts are more likely to approach isolated individuals. Maybe even into three cars.”
“Well, that’s no fun,” Jacob said.
“And that really hasn’t been the rule around here,” Stacey said. “The parking lot phantom scared off that whole family in the packed van, right? If anything, this entity might be drawn to a larger crowd.”
“I shouldn’t be hearing this. I’ll meet y’all outside. After I grab one of those honey basil sodas.” Jacob headed out.
I considered what Stacey had said until he was gone. “Yeah, that’s a good point.”
“And do you really want to watch Body in the Basement alone?” Stacey added.
“That’s a great point. But we should keep an eye on the monitors.”
“The people who got stalked weren’t watching monitor arrays. We need to imitate what they were doing—watching the movie as a group.”
“Okay. It’s worth a try. Plus, your car really is more comfortable.”
“I know! So come on, it’s starting.”
We piled into Stacey’s Escape, a hybrid SUV, roomier and with far better seating than the van. I stretched out in back, doing my best to act like a regular person out with friends for a night of innocent fun. It was weirdly hard for me to pretend that, for some reason.
Legend of the South, the evening’s first movie, had been a sweeping, high-energy epic, packed with song and dance and romance and tragedy, all the ingredients believed to make a grand movie in those days.
The Body in the Basement had… none of that, as I shortly had the displeasure of learning.
Chapter Twenty-Two
On the screen, the camera panned across an average, unassuming suburban house from Anytown, USA—but I knew from the movie trailer that all was not as it seemed, as least once you got to the basement door.
Soon the camera view entered, somewhat Peeping-Tom fashion, through a window into the bedroom of Portia Reynolds, playing a teenager dancing to a boppy song on her radio, at least until her character's stern-looking parents entered and insisted she turn it down.
As luck would have it, her parents were traveling out of town for the weekend, but she was not to have any guests, and certainly no parties.
“Oh, mother, how can I have any parties when I’ve no friends in this awful town that’s so strange and odd? I wish we’d never moved here!” Portia Reynolds emoted tearfully. She was definitely pretty, shorter, dark-haired, and very curvy, where her roommate and co-Silk-Strangler-victim Grace LeRoux had been tall, blonde, and willowy.
Was it possible that Portia Reynolds was the woman in the sunglasses we’d watched on the Super 8 reel as she left her apartment and climbed aboard the Los Angeles city bus? It was very possible.
“You will make friends,” Portia’s movie mom assured her.
“But not this weekend!” the movie dad added, gruffly.
I pulled out my phone and looked up Portia Reynolds, a girl-next-door type, apple-cheeked and smiling in her publicity photos. She’d been twenty-five when she starred as a teenager in The Body in the Basement, thirty when she died five years later. She’d only had three minor roles after The Body, all in low-budget movies. Maybe she’d worked on the stage in that time, but I had the impression of a struggling young actress. If not for her murder, she might have moved on into a quiet post-acting life. She had only gained fame with the manner of her death.
Her apartment building was easy to find because it was listed on multiple macabre Hollywood tours, including a “Hollywood Murder Tour,” a “Movie Star Death Tour,” and one ghost tour.
There it was. The four-story stucco apartment building with the cavelike stairwells. A recent Google street view image showed it even more rundown than in the stalker home video we’d seen, where it hadn’t looked all that inviting, either. Garbage was strewn down one set of stairs; bars had been added to the ground-floor windows.
“Hey! Are you seriously looking at your phone, Ellie?” Stacey asked, alerted to my distraction into other activities by the light from my screen.
“I was just researching,” I said. “It’s about the movie, don’t worry.”
“Well, you’re missing the plot. She’s going to have friends over on Friday night even though her parents told her not to.”
“What a shocking twist.”
“Are you done with your phone yet?” Stacey asked, rather demandingly.
“Yes, done.” I touched the power button to darken the screen. “Let’s watch the banned murder movie, hooray.”
“That’s the spirit!” Stacey turned back to the screen.
I checked out the window for any actual spirits who might be wandering the parking lot, but I didn’t see much. My gaze lingered on the dark shape of the sunken projection house, only a few feet away. It wasn’t hard to imagine the odd little door silently
opening, letting some undead thing slither out.
To take my mind off that, I focused on The Body in the Basement.
Portia Reynolds, twenty-five years old, lay on her stomach dressed in a plaid jumper on her bed, hair tied back in a huge bow, stocking feet kicking excitedly as she chatted on a big phone with a coiled wire. “We’ll play records, drink pop, and have the grandest time!” she gushed.
The view cut to another actress, also in her mid-to-late twenties but playing a teenager. “I’ll telephone the boys!” she said.
“Agnes!” Portia gasped. “We can’t have boys at a party without adults around! They’re apt to get fresh!”
“What if the boy is Tom Hooper?”
“Tom Hooper?” Portia gasped. She did a lot of gasping in this movie. I supposed that was appropriate, considering the director would eventually strangle her to death in real life. “But he’s the finest fella on the whole football team! And class president! Why, they don’t come more popular than Tom Hooper!”
“And the scoop around school is he’s got the hots for you.”
“For me?” Portia gasped, again. She was on her feet, looking at herself in the mirror, turning this way and that. “I would be the luckiest gal in town!”
“You’d better act fast, because the latest scuttlebutt is Myra Finklestein has the hots for him.”
“But she’s the prettiest gal in school!”
“Then I propose you invite him to the party. Or you could end up the loneliest gal in town.”
“Gee whiz. Darn that Myra Finklestein, always getting her pick of the pack! You had better telephone the boys after all.” Portia hung up the phone and looked dreamily out the window, a doo-wop song crooning over her radio. “Tom Hooper. He’s such a fine-looking fella!”
The camera view pulled back and away from her, then panned down, down, down, to a narrow basement window. A movement flickered behind the glass, as if somebody lurked in the basement, hiding, listening, waiting.