Witching Hour Theatre

by Jonathan Janz

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

  Larry 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 hurried grimly toward the red glowing exit sign and shouldered 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. Larry yelped and tremored wildly when a hand flopped over and caressed his ankle, but somehow, he kept advancing. The wall ended and he sidled to the outer door and gripped 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 moonglow 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 several blocks from here. There might not be time to get there before the killers 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 of Halloween and thought of how people rarely came to one’s aid when they were needed. He checked his watch and saw it was twenty-five minutes to five o’clock. Only a handful would be awake now, with at least an hour of darkness left.

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

  Larry broke into a sprint. He pumped his arms and dashed toward the road. He’d escaped certain death, and soon he’d tell the police his story. If he was fast enough, the murderers might not escape. They’d be…

  Wilson stopped, dread clutching his heart.

  Was Nichole in the theater?

  With a little moan he realized 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 theater.

  She hadn’t been decapitated. Hers wasn’t one of the heads lined up on the first row. Yet he’d talked to her just before the third feature began.

  So where was she now?

  Then, he knew.

  Oh my God, he thought.

  Larry closed his eyes, opened them. Then, as if he were viewing himself in a movie, Wilson watched his thirty-seven year-old out-of-shape body turn and stride 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 was returning to the site of the nightmare.

  Chapter Four

  Larry 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 insane, he knew returning to the theater 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. 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. Spotting the rear door to Theater One ahead, he broke into a sprint.

  He reached the door. Pausing, he scanned the alley desperately for some sort of weapon. In the orange glow of the alley light 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, but he also knew the men could be murdering or torturing Nichole as he stood there doing nothing.

  Resolutely, Larry pushed through the door and began wading through the corpses. Time was short. He couldn’t bother to keep to the wall now. Nichole was alone with those monsters.

  His toe caught on some unyielding object, and before he could help it he was tumbling forward. Wilson landed with a sickening squelch and felt with alarm the cool dead flesh squish 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. The withering odors of excrement and burst entrails assaulted him. 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 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. Some distant, hopeless corner of his mind declared he’d be better off dying here in the tunnel, asphyxiated on the taste of bile and the cloying odor of emptied bowels, than he would facing the freaks again. He knew he was no match for them.

  After a time, the vomiting ended and his mind cleared. He clawed his way forward, disengaging his leg, and clambered feverishly on all fours over the puke-covered corpses, his hands sliding over bloody clothes and flayed skin. Ignoring the stench of human waste and misery, the bloodcurdling sensation 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 hauled himself into the theater. Pushing to his feet and muscling through a wave of lightheadedness, 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 at The Omen. By the sound of a car clicking into gear, Wilson knew David Warner, like the poor souls who now occupied the first row, was about to lose his head.

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

  Longface was nowhere to be found.

  Cautiously, Larry strode up the aisle past the row of heads and tensed for battle. If Longface were still down here in the theater, he might have heard Wilson reenter.

  Larry paused and listened; he peered into the darkness.

  Empty.

  Just like in the movies, he thought. Every time you believed you’d killed the bad guy, he reappeared and came roaring at you again. Larry frowned, thinking.

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

  No one was there.

  Lowering his fist, Larry tried to master his frayed nerves. If the freak wasn’t in the projection booth and he wasn’t in the theater, where in God’s name was he?

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

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

  Shoved between the trash can and the wall Larry spotted a 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 attempted to exit the front of the theater, they discovered the enormous 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, lurking 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 with the piercings. 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 contend with such lunatic evil? Larry was unarmed and weak. What could he do against two raging fiends?

  He paused in front of the concession stand, remembering a gesture Nichole had made over his shoulder, toward the red door across the lobby.

  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 toward 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 unspooled the final few minutes of Veil 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.

  Which meant Longface was in there, too.

  Larry turned left and climbed the concrete steps. The depraved cackling grew louder as Larry advanced.

  At the top of the stairs he beheld a pale 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 paused outside the projection booth door. If it was locked, his chance to catch them off guard would be squandered; if the door creaked or the doorknob clicked they’d seize him and murder him. He thought of the corpses and shivered.

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

  Nichole.

  Oh Jesus.

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

  Taking one last breath, he eased the door toward him. He was bathed in a harsh fluorescent glow as he peered inside.

  The killers’ 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. The giant wore tattered 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 that hung at his sides flexed, unflexed, and each time the fists squeezed, the knuckles went a shade whiter.

  Longface was on his knees a few feet to the left of Pumpkinhead. The freak had removed his shirt, revealing powder-white skin stretched taut 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.

  Wilson shivered with revulsion.

  The freak was fondling himself.

  Larry looked away from Longface, and spotted something that made his pulse quicken. Against the wall in front of the two men reclined the axe.

  Larry grimaced. 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 realized 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 gazing at her nude body through the garment.

  Dull rage throbbed within him.

  Goddammit, he thought. How dare they do this to her?

  Nichole was weeping and kicking at Longface, who manipulated himself with one spidery hand and snatched at her legs with the other. The sound of the freak’s laughter made Wilson’s spine tingle. Larry looked around for a weapon but only found metal reels of film. Longface was crawling toward Nichole now, one hand pushing up her gown as his pale, wormlike body slithered nearer.

  Then, Nichole’s eyes shifted and widened. She’d spotted Larry.

  Who held his breath, not daring to move.

  Longface froze.

  Slowly, the freak turned and fixed Wilson with his alien stare. Larry 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 pivot 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 encountered, hefted it, and brought it down on Pumpkinhead’s skull with everything he had. The heavy reel caught the giant squarely on the forehead. The giant grunted and staggered against the ivory-colored projection counter, his elbow landing on a pile of clothing Larry realized belonged to Nichole. He saw the red-and-black button still affixed to her shirt and felt a pang of loss at how happy he and Nichole had been only an hour earlier.

  Nichole thrust her knees into Longface’s stomach. With a breathless squeal he fell over and gasped for air. Larry raised the reel, made to bash Pumpkinhead again, but as the reel was angling toward the hideous white face, the giant flung up a massive arm and deflected the blow. The metal reel went flying, 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. Larry 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 manhandling 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 of The Omen still echoed dully from the speakers in the theater but the picture now swam on the wall in miniature.

  Wilson glanced right and left and saw that Pumpkinhead’s feet were planted on both sides of his shoulders, preventing Larry from rolling away. The giant pointed the projector lens at Larry’s face and for a moment, Wilson’s eyes were pierced with a blinding light, Damien’s evil face meshing with his own.

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

  Longface had retrieved the axe and was on his feet, clearly meaning to finish the job he’d begun earlier. Larry pushed through Pumpkinhead’s legs as
the giant made a clumsy grab for him. Wilson jumped to his feet, looked up, and saw the head of the axe slicing down at him. Though he knew he’d reacted too late, he flung up his arms to shield his face.

  The axe halted in mid-air.

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

  Larry stared at the axe poised above his face, and realized she’d saved his life. Then his elation froze as Pumpkinhead snarled and backhanded Nichole in the cheek. The blow yanked her off her bare feet and sent her flying against the wall. She landed in a heap and lay without moving.

  Larry’s hands gathered into quaking fists.

  Longface tittered, his eyes agleam with sickening malice. The freak raised the axe and swung. Larry shot his arms out and caught the handle with both hands.

  Furious at being thwarted a second time, the freak gritted his crooked teeth and struggled to force the axe head down. Larry grunted, straining against Longface. The flat back of the axe drifted 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 down and the flat back of the axe smacked Longface squarely in the forehead. Longface yelped and his grip slackened. Wresting the axe from Longface’s fingers, Wilson was about to lop the man’s elongated head off when movement in his periphery grabbed his attention.