Ben stared a minute longer, watching for movement, then reached a shaky hand to the projector and fumbled with the switch. He wound up the reel, replaced it with another, and fed the ribbon of film through the projector. He started it again.
This one was the first they’d watched together, The Case of the Screaming Telegram. Again, the scene of a crime, the police officers questioning the witness, the cue for private investigator Jack Mason to enter and confound everyone with his clueless swagger. But the cue came and went, and Jack Mason did not enter.
Ben’s mouth went dry. He was sure he must be mistaken; he was remembering it wrong. Then the other characters began reacting to empty space, talking to someone who wasn’t there. In their eyelines and blocking, it was easy to see exactly where Jack Mason was supposed to be moving around the scene, exactly where he wasn’t.
He stopped the film. Then, with growing dread, he queued up another. His hands were shaking so badly he nearly tore the film trying to feed it through the rollers. He started the film.
The first scene of this one was in a restaurant, where Jack Mason was treating his secretary to a dinner celebrating his success with a particularly dangerous mystery. Little did he know it was really Marcy Grant, his secretary and unrequited admirer, who made sense of all the clues and saved him from harm, time and again. Except Marcy wasn’t in the seat across from him, and Jack Mason was slumped against the table, the hilt of a knife sticking out of his back.
Alone in the old man’s living room, Ben gasped and sat heavily in the folding chair. Reels of film scattered across the carpet. He watched a man in a waiter’s uniform enter the scene and ask the corpse if he wanted more wine. He wrinkled his nose at an unheard comment, then proceeded to fill both wine glasses as blood continued to spread across one-half of the white tablecloth and drip onto his polished shoes.
The waiter left, and a moment later Marcy walked into the scene, wiping her hands on a stained white napkin. She didn’t move the way Marcy was supposed to, with purpose and poise and a bright expression. Instead, she shuffled, meandered, and finally slumped into the chair opposite her dead boss, toasting him and draining her glass. Then she leaned across the table in a very unladylike way, plucked up his glass, toasted him again, and began to drink that too.
Ben was shocked by her appearance, her hair unkempt and wild, her lipstick smeared, dark circles of exhaustion around her eyes. She also looked like a different actress than the usual Marcy Grant, a less-delicate woman, not purse-lipped and swishy but still alluring in a strong and dangerous way.
He stood up and started to approach the screen, wanting to get a better look, but the moment he moved, she noticed him. She actually turned, smiled wryly, and stood up. Every motion was jumpy and unnatural, as if she were out of sync with the frame rate. She held his gaze as she tipped her head back and poured the last of the wine into her mouth. Then she spun on her heel and dashed the glass against the table. Broken glass sprayed across the motionless Jack Mason, sticking in his hair like snow.
She turned back with her teeth bared, making a sound that wavered between a laugh and a snarl. She stalked forward, stuttering and jumping closer. Her face grew larger and larger on the screen. Her eye was the size of a hubcap and expanding. She was a giant, coming to reach through the wall and pluck Ben up, perhaps to break him on the table.
In a panic he stumbled back, tripping over the chair and sending the projector crashing to the floor. The reel continued to turn, though the film ripped and flapped against the casing like an injured bird. White light shone across the room like a spotlight that might be occupied at any moment by a murderous ghost.
Ben wasn’t hyperventilating by the time he returned to Solomon Miscavige’s hospital room, in fact he was unnaturally calm. But the moment the man roused and looked him in the face, he knew.
“You saw something,” he said simply. It wasn’t a question.
Ben lowered himself into the chair by the bed, clutching the duffel bag in his lap. “What is she?”
Solomon grinned without humor. “A woman scorned.”
He sat back in his bed and stared at the ceiling. “She was the love of my life, Marjorie Watterson. Well, the second love, after my love of the audience. Which I guess is love for myself, really. We were partners in theater, in writing, in … every way. But she was the fire, the passion. She made it all happen. A brilliant writer, a shrewd judge of character, and a proud woman. When we started getting offers, when we started making deals, she could smell the rats. She came up with the hook: the private investigator who keeps getting saved by his secretary. It was all her. And as far as the studio was concerned, she could keep writing. But she didn’t have a face or a figure for the big screen, not the way they saw it. So some doll would have to play Marcy Grant. She walked, and I signed.”
Solomon sighed, a long deflating sound. “And as much as she loved me before, that’s how much she hated me after. The fire of brilliance that burned in her, the passion, it burned her up. She hanged herself before the first film came out.”
“But a few years ago … she came back.” The old man stole a guilty glance at Ben, and in that moment he didn’t look like a man at all; he looked like a scared kid. When he spoke again, his voice was high and thin. “In the movies. She stalks me in my films, the copies I own, one by one, and I watch her murder me. And still the movie lives on, the rest of it plays out without me. I go to screenings when I can, just to be sure that I’m still there, but if I watch them at home, I get to see myself dead. And sometimes she comes to see me. To stare and taunt the scared old man.”
His voice cracked and then he fell silent, sinking into his bed as though the confession had taken the last of his strength. Ben saw Solomon’s outstretched hand shaking against the blanket and covered it with his own. The old man’s fingers closed around his gratefully.
Solomon mounted the front steps without assistance, though Ben was at his elbow and prepared to steady him at a moment’s notice. They entered the house together, turning on lights as they went, until they stood at the threshold of the living room.
The old man surveyed everything that now littered the floor: the tumbled chair, reels of film, the gun, and the projector itself. “I think it’s time for me to get rid of my collection,” he said heavily. “She’s finally gotten me in all of them, but she only gets me for real if I let this obsession ruin my life. Hell, it nearly killed me already.”
Ben nodded. “I think you’re right. It’s a good plan.”
Solomon smiled. “I’m going to live what life I have left. And once I get a little stronger, I’ll take the films out to a dumpster and burn them. Blaze of glory.”
He continued down the hall as Ben crossed the living room and righted the projector, surveying it for damage. He removed the torn reel and returned it to its case, then collected the others from the floor and carried the stack through the house to the bedroom. He heard Solomon moving around in there and entered the room saying, “You know, it might not be a bad idea to have someone take a look at these, maybe—”
He stopped as soon as he saw the open closet, and the writhing mass on the floor. It looked like a black mummy, wrapped up alive by mistake, fighting to be free. As he dropped his armful and hurried to the bundle, he realized that it was all film, looped around the form of Solomon Miscavige over and over again, sliding and tightening like the coils of a snake. Even as he fell to his knees and stared in shock, the films he had been carrying slid from their containers and joined the scrum, wrapping themselves around the end that must have been the head.
Jolted into action, Ben dug at the film there, trying to uncover a face. But there were too many layers, and the film sliced his palms and fingers. Even as he tore faster, the film only continued to cover and consume. For a brief moment he saw skin, the edge of a lip peeled back in a rasping scream, and then it was covered again.
Sitting back, his bleeding hands hanging uselessly at his sides, Ben finally took in the tiny image on each frame
of film before him. It was Marjorie’s face, over and over, with her snarling laugh and an ember burning in each eye.
And as the bound feet drummed their last on the carpet and stilled, the face changed and softened. She didn’t smile, and she didn’t look happy, but in her expression was something very much like satisfaction.
Ryan F. Healey is a lifelong writer and illustrator who lives in Webster, NY with his wife, kids, and an emotionally unstable poodle. A mild-mannered IT analyst by day, he spent several years writing and producing the podcast Tales from the Static, which recounted and reviewed episodes of a fictional 80s horror anthology show. This is his first professional publication.
Josie’s Last Straw
Karina Fabian
Josie’s Last Straw
The moon shone through the cloudy sky, dappling the lone trailer in a patchwork of light and shadow. A man shambled toward it. With the ease of familiarity, he navigated the trip-traps of rusting car parts and garden gnomes, and the pitfalls dug by dogs. Then, his foot caught on a newly dug hole. He staggered into a plaster, birdshot-spotted deer. With an unintelligible roar, he smashed both fists into the fawn and shattered it. He continued to the porch, walked into the steps, backed up, and walked into them again. A pause, then right foot lifted, then left, and he ascended the rotting wood. He hardly noticed as he crashed through the screen door, leaving it hanging off one hinge.
Inside, the television blared reruns of South Park to no one. He snarled at the set, then slammed the channel button. It changed to Elvira as she introduced the next horror movie. He sat down on the Lay-Z-Boy to watch.
Josie woke up from yet another nightmare of Jebediah having one of his “fits.” She always felt so guilty after a dream like that! Poor man, two days buried, and she had to think about him this way?
Not that the past few years had been kind, she reminded herself as she schlepped into the bathroom, one arm in her robe, only habit making her wash up and get ready to face another day as Widow Gump. She sighed. No, not easy years at all. After that Conroy had shot him in the calf trying to kill that badger, Jeb hadn’t been able to work much. He’d go out for the day, come home without a job, but always with something he’d killed for dinner. She didn’t believe those people who said he was drinking in front of the Gaslight Inn. Then she took that job—
We were going to lose the trailer, part of her said, and she knew it was true, but she knew that was the last straw for him.
“No woman of mine is going to work! Your job is to stay home, cook my dinner and have my babies!” he’d declare. It was so cute when they were dating, how manly he’d act. ’Course, she’d failed him the baby department, too.
She looked into the mirror at a face dripping with water. “You’re getting fat and ugly,” he’d warned her, more than once, sometimes with a pull on her frizzy hair or a pinch of her stomach to prove his point. “Don’t be thinking about leaving me now. There ain’t a man in the world gonna take you!”
Now, as the tired, faded and old face stared back at her, she saw just how right he was. That was going to be the hardest part, too, she knew it. Living alone. She left the TV on all night and slept with the dogs, but it weren’t no substitute for a man.
Their—her—retriever Buford and her toy poodle Pinkie scratched at the bedroom door. They nearly bowled her down as she opened it, dashing into the living room, barking furiously.
“What is it? Another coon?” She grabbed Jeb’s shotgun and made her way down the hall. Her steps slowed as she realized the television was no longer playing the comedy channel, but one of those creepy shows Jeb had loved to scare her with. If one of his friends had come in and changed the channel as a sick joke …
She recognized the back of the head she’d seen resting against that chair for twenty years. The shotgun slipped through her hands and crashed to the floor.
“Jebediah?”
Jebediah grunted and stuck out his arm in a way she recognized as well, and with shaking knees and trembling hands, she hurried to the kitchen and brought him his favorite beer.
It was him! It was a miracle!
“This is Dave Neilson, here with Josie Gump, whose husband, Jebediah, seems to be the first confirmed case of a zombie interacting safely with other humans.”
Josie gripped her elbows and watched the camera as if the big lens might swallow her. She still didn’t know if she’d done right by letting the reporter in, but she’d asked Jeb and he’d grunted that it was okay. At least she thought that’s what he meant. He really only grunted anymore. Guess being dead takes a lot out of a guy.
Besides, after his grave had been found dug open from the inside, everyone from Momma to her preacher to the sheriff had come calling. He was a zombie – the murderous, shambling undead, they told her. She needed to take the dogs and get away fast, they told her.
They were worried about her, they told her.
They were always worried about her. Why couldn’t they be happy for her? So she let them get a peek at him, and once they saw him drinking his beer, they were satisfied he wasn’t some murderous shambling undead that was gonna rip her to shreds like in the movies he loved so much. She didn’t let them talk to him, though. He wasn’t ready. Besides, Jeb always hated visitors that weren’t his friends. Not that any of them had come round, she thought bitterly.
Anyways, she needed to let folks know everything was okay, so they’d leave them alone to get on with life.
She was worried when the cameraman filmed him, even if he did so from the safety of the kitchen. Once upon a time, Jeb would have smashed the camera into the man’s face or, at best, flipped him off. But he sat watching some vampire pull off his shirt and walk to the beach. Shoot. She liked that movie. At least Jeb was behaving peacefully enough. Even the dogs were behaving, snuggled together on the couch, giving their master forlorn looks. She’d been worried about that, too; Pinkie always protected her and never got along with Jeb. Things were going well.
Reporter Dave had asked her a question.
“‘Changed’? Well, he don’t talk about it much. Jeb was always the private sort. But, yeah, I think he has changed. He’s a lot gentler now. Not that there’s been any—you know. I just mean that he’s a lot more content. He’s a better listener, too.” She blushed. Had she really just told the world about their … you know? Not that there’d been any. Even alive, she could count on one hand …
But that was my fault. I let myself go. I was so tired and angry all the time. Funny how anger made a person so tired. Still, he could have …
“So how does he feel, physically? Is he stiff?”
Her eyes widened. Why had she ever brought it up? “Well, I think that’s rather personal!”
Dave blushed. “I mean, like rigor mortis? Does he have a pulse? Is he warm? Does he feel alive?”
Actually, when she’d hugged him this morning, reaching around his back and squeezing into his arm, careful as usual to avoid getting in the way of the television, he’d felt kind of squishy under his skin. She forced a grin.
Dave continued, “And what about the smell?”
Suddenly she regretted ever having let this, this reporter into her home. “Now you listen here! I have been in mourning! And now my husband is back, and he has special needs! If I’ve let the housework slip—”
“No! Wait! I just meant—”
She didn’t care what he meant. This was a bad idea after all! She blinked back angry tears as she stormed for the door and flung it open. She called for the dogs, and they rose from the couch, barking and snarling.
“Please! All I meant—”
“Buford! Pinkie! Sic!”
The reporter and cameraman ran past her. The cameraman remembered the quick turn and made it down the steps, Pinkie snapping at his heels, but Dave overshot and tumbled off the low railing. Buford jumped after him, teeth bared.
She slammed the door on their screams.
Jebediah grunted with more force than usual. Josie hurried to put a fresh beer in
his hand.
“I’m sorry, Jeb! I’m so sorry. I won’t ever let anyone intrude on us again!”
Jeb gave another grunt and poured beer into his mouth. Some spilled on his shirt. She wiped it off with a dish towel, then got a tissue for her eyes.
“Josie!”
Josie halted her cart from where she was about to enter the beer section and glanced past the detergent, stationery, and bargain aisles to where her best friend, Audrey Callahan, came rushing up from the Hannah Montana clothing display aisle. It took a while, because Audrey was wearing those strappy heels of hers again. She outweighed Josie by 30 pounds, easy, but she always wore the latest fashions, always had a man looking her way. Some people was just born knowing how to “work it.”
Audrey’s smile clouded with concern as she approached. “Josie, oh, honey. You look so sad!”
Sad? “What? No, no. Just tired, I guess. Jeb’s got a lot of needs these days, and I decided to spring clean …” Her voice trailed off. After that reporter’s rude comment, she’d taken a good look at her house and seen it for what it was. A sheer shambles. Plus, she’d found cockroaches near Jeb’s chair! She’d decided she was going to spruce things up. She’d spent the past few days cleaning the house top to bottom. She’d come to Walmart to restock on cleaning supplies and buy some material for bibs. Jeb just didn’t have the motor skills he used to, and when she mentioned that she’d make him something in camo and hunter orange, he’d grunted, which she took as a good sign.
Audrey peered into her cart with a gasp. “New curtains? He’s letting you get new curtains?”
Monsters, Movies & Mayhem Page 31