by Anton Strout
I had seen Mason Redfield’s fighting techniques before, but that psychometric vision had been from years ago when he was still an active member of the Fraternal Order of Goodness. As I closed in on him, Mason must have noticed the intent in my eyes. He dropped down off the top of the seats, wobbling on his new legs like a newborn animal taking its first steps. A look of fear filled his bright young eyes and he pressed his way back into the sea of zombies, more of which fell from the screen every second.
“That’s right,” I said, raising my bat as I hit the first wave of the undead. “You’d better run!”
Connor fell in beside me and used the shamblers’ own slow lurching to help pull them out of my way. For every one he moved, another one fell from the screen to take its place.
“I’m going try to stop the projector,” Jane called out from somewhere behind me, her voice fading as she ran off. “I think that should kill the magic at work here.”
The door in the lower-right corner of the theater leading off to the Department opened. Wesker came walking out of it unassumingly with a coffee mug in hand, but dropped it as he took in the chaos of the room. He looked shocked and not a little pissed off. His hands flew into a series of arcane movements directed at the zombies nearest him, but nothing happened. Panic rose up in my chest, causing me to redouble my efforts. Wesker’s magic had failed against them, but I was happy to see that the blunt-force trauma my bat was delivering still worked just fine.
Connor was off holding his own nearby. Each zombie he knocked down got a quick boot stomp to its head, filling the air with a fleshy crunch.
“This is the most active I’ve been in a movie theater since The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” he said exuberantly.
“If you start singing ‘The Time Warp,’ the next notch on my bat is for you.”
“Fair enough,” he said, grabbing another of the zombies out of my path. “Just get over to Mason Redfield…and hurry.”
I pressed harder through the crowd of shuffling undead mayhem, but it was no use. Mason Redfield was always a step ahead of me in the crowd as he backed away, putting more distance between us every second. Shoving through the crowd was no good. There was only one thing I could think of as an alternative.
I collapsed my bat and sheathed it before climbing up onto the front row of seats themselves, putting me half a body length higher than everyone around me. Compared to jumping off the high-rise balcony the other night, my new idea seemed only slightly less insane, but if I gave myself time to come to my senses, I’d talk myself out of it. I stopped analyzing and threw myself out over the battle.
I hadn’t gone crowd surfing since they closed CBGB a few years back, but my body remembered the strange elation that came with giving yourself over to the energy of the crowd and the hands supporting you. For a moment it all felt familiar… until the raking claw of fingers caused me to snap to and got me moving. I rolled into motion across the sea of heads and arms, gunning for Mason Redfield.
Spinning, I kept my eyes focused on the professor. I was actually gaining on him this way and the look of panic on his face told me he knew it. He turned away from me as I closed the distance and he burst into a full run through the fighting crowd, but despite his efforts, I was still closing in on him. My hands brushed against the back collar of his suit coat, but didn’t find enough to grab at. One more revolution, however, and the reborn Mason Redfield was mine.
I came out of my next roll with my hand coming down for the grab, but the professor made a swift change in direction and was no longer in my path. Before my mind could even process the thought, I saw why. I had rolled with such determination that I had lost all sense of direction and was inches away from a collision with Director Wesker. Our eyes met, surprise registering on both of our faces, but it was far too late to stop rolling. My knee came up fast on his face and smashed into his temple, knocking him back and sending him toppling to the floor of the theater. A space opened up as he fell in the fray and I aimed myself for it. I grabbed ahold of two zombies as I shot past them in the hopes of slinging myself into the space, then flipped myself into the spot, careful to avoid stepping on Wesker. Jane’s boss looked like he was out cold.
Mason Redfield was already gone and making his way up the aisle toward the exit out to the café. I could maybe still nab him if I ran off after him now, but there was Wesker to think about. I couldn’t just leave him there to be torn apart by zombies, even if he was a dick most of the time. Besides, Jane actually got along with her boss and would never let me hear the end of it if I left him to become all zombified.
I stood my ground protectively over the prone Wesker, knocking back zombies in whatever direction they came from. Worry set in as my arms tired, yet the hordes still came, even more of them still pouring from the screen.
“Jane!” I shouted up to the projection booth. “Any luck?”
“No,” she called back.
“Can’t you, I don’t know, talk to the projector or something ?”
“I tried,” she said, sounding panicked. “It won’t listen. I even asked politely.”
“Screw politeness,” I said. “The time for manners is kind of passed. Go with aggressive!”
The electric hum of Jane’s technomantic voice boomed out loud over the battle sounds in the theater. The pitch of the projector changed to a metallic whine, followed by a dull, explosive thwump.
All of the lights went out and everything electronic went dead.
The sound of the movie died with it, leaving me in the pitch black surrounded by the sound of struggle and the low, guttural moans of the undead all around me.
“Oops,” Jane said.
I spun myself around in a continuous circle, swinging blindly into the darkness to keep every last creature away from me. I didn’t have a clue who might be attacking or from which direction, and I was rewarded with a few satisfying hits. I could only pray none of them were my coworkers.
The dull red glow of emergency exit lights kicking on filled the theater, giving just enough for me to make out my surroundings once more. The professor was gone from the aisle now, but his zombie horde was still scattered all around.
“Steady!” the Inspectre called out from somewhere across the theater. “Keep them contained. I want zero zombies walking out of here. Is that understood?”
His words gave me hope, especially since the screen was no longer producing any more enemies. I started swinging, thinning their ranks. The job became easier when several of them lost their shape even before I struck them, melting instead into a goo that fell from their bones and coated the floor of the theater.
Jane came down from the projection booth and walked over to me through the last bits of fighting, the reel of film held in her hands at arm’s length. She clearly wanted nothing to do with it. Connor walked over to me when he finished dispatching the remaining zombies next to him. He looked down at the growing film of goo on the floor. “You think that happened to the professor, too?” he asked.
“Let’s hope so,” I said.
“Doubtful,” the Inspectre added as he joined us, winded and huffing. “Very doubtful.”
“Why do you say that?”
“The Mason I knew was resourceful, a careful thinker, and this newly reborn Mason seems to still have it. He wouldn’t have planned this out only to suffer the same fate as these celluloid minions. You heard what he expected. He thought he would be with some of his students at another location, not here in our movie theater. The zombies were a mere distraction.”
Director Wesker put his hand on my shoulder, squeezing down on it hard. “Speaking of distractions,” Wesker said. “I want a word with Mr. Canderous and Mr. Christos in my office now.” He reached over to Jane and snatched the film from her hands.
“Thaddeus,” the Inspectre said. “There’s too much to do. Redfield’s on the loose and we need to keep searching for the water woman who killed him, despite the fact that he is alive once more. She may have had a hand in his rebirth. Some stran
ge connection exists between these two incidents and we need to know what it is.”
“That may be,” said Director Wesker, unmoved, “but clearly your lapdogs are stirring up trouble on your behalf and I’d like a moment with them by myself.”
I looked over to the Inspectre with a pained expression. “Sir…?”
The Inspectre sighed. “Go, both of you,” he said, still catching his breath. “I’ll be along soon.”
Wesker pushed Connor and me both toward the doorway to the offices, waving us toward it with the film reel.
“You’d better hurry, then,” Wesker said. “I can’t promise they’re going to live that long.”
Professor Redfield’s attack had been brutal, but it was Thaddeus Wesker’s string of expletives on our way back to Greater & Lesser Arcana that really stung. It might have had something to do with most of his comments being aimed directly at me more than Connor for allowing Jane to get marked.
“Do they actually teach you anything in Other Division?” Wesker asked, stomping his way toward his office in the red-lit hallways of the Department. “Or is it always free-range chaos over there?”
“That didn’t fit on our business cards,” I said. “ ‘Other Division’ did.”
Wesker turned to me with a hard glare in his eyes. He went to speak, stopped himself, and then threw open his office door and headed over to a workbench on the right side of the room. The lights and power flickered on both in his office and out in the hall.
Connor put his hand on my shoulder. “Not the time, kid.” He walked over to Director Wesker, who was busy flicking on a magnifying work lamp on top of the workstation as he set the film reel down. “What can you tell us?”
“What I could tell you would fill up volumes,” he sneered, still fuming.
“Hey,” Connor snapped. “This is the first time either of us has ever been attacked by a living film, so give us a break, okay? I’d say it was a first for you, also.”
Wesker turned back to the half-unspooled reel of film and set to examining it. “I’ve at least heard of people experimenting with this before. It’s a bit of a Holy Grail among film buffs with an interest in arcana, but I’ve never actually heard of anyone accomplishing it.” He stretched a length of the filmstrip between both of his hands and held it up under the lens. He moved it up and down to watch it as if running it through a projector. “Interesting.”
I moved closer to study the strip over his shoulder, despite the aura of go-away still radiating off of him. “What is?”
He pushed the arm holding the lens over toward me, keeping the film in place underneath it. “Look closer and tell me what’s missing.”
I studied several of the individual frames, all of them from the end section of the film. The spliced-in section that contained bits of other horror movies was familiar with fields of grass covered with half-dug-up graves in each panel, but I realized what was missing from each and every one of them.
“The professor and the zombies,” I said. “They’re all gone.”
“Exactly,” Wesker said, lying the piece down on the reel. “This section should be filled with dozens of zombies from the film, but now they’re no longer there.”
“Of course they’re not,” Connor added. “Why should they be? All of them died in the theater, save Mason Redfield himself.”
“You mean they’re gone from the film completely?” I asked.
Wesker reached over to me and patted my head. “This younger generation,” he said. “They catch on so quick.”
Before I could say or do anything, a loud haroom came from the doorway and all three of us turned. Inspectre Quimbley and Jane were standing there, looking at us.
“Careful, Thaddeus,” the Inspectre said, walking in. “You keep petting him like that, he’s liable to follow you home.”
Wesker pulled his hand away like I had grown quills. “No, thank you,” he said. “You can have your lapdog back now.” He wiped his hand on his pant leg, and then turned his attention back to the Inspectre. “Well? What’s the damage?”
Jane stepped forward. “Actually, when I killed power to the building, I caused a bit of a problem with getting everything up and running again. I’ve been talking to the Department’s electrical grid with my technomancy and it’s starting to cooperate, but it may take a while for everything to fall in line.”
Wesker changed his focus to the Inspectre, looking none too pleased. “And what about your old … friend?”
The Inspectre sighed. “I’m afraid Mason Redfield is gone. We were able to take down all of the zombies that crawled out of the film, so it wasn’t a total wash.”
“So you let him escape?” Wesker asked. He turned his fury on me, his finger pointing only inches from my face. “This is all your fault, Canderous.”
My draw dropped. “How is this all on me?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, “but every time I see a fiasco around here, you’re somehow involved in it.”
“Now, Thaddeus,” the Inspectre chided. “No one just let Mason escape. He planned the whole thing perfectly, only we beat his students to the film apparently. He banked on the zombies providing enough of a distraction if his plans went wrong, thereby securing the means of his evading us. In life, Mason Redfield was quite clever, you know. And why wouldn’t he be? I practically trained him when he came into the Fraternal Order of Goodness. If you want to lay blame anywhere, you had best start at my feet.”
Wesker gave him a tight-lipped nod. “I’ll be sure to do just that when I speak to the Enchancellors.”
“Stop it!” Jane shouted, stepping between the two of them. “Our numbers in the Department are already far too few these days to start fighting among ourselves. Especially when we all that monster loose on the city.”
The Inspectre reached for Jane’s right hand, taking it in both of his. “Thank you, dear girl,” he said. “It’s easy to lose sight quickly in these trying times.”
“Hold on,” I said as something occurred to me. “Does this squash our murder investigation, then?”
Connor looked puzzled. “What do you mean, kid?”
“What I mean is that, technically speaking, Mason Redfield isn’t dead. We watched him walk out of here today, alive … ish.”
“A ritual raising like that doesn’t come without a blood price,” Connor added.
“Oh, I can more than guarantee that,” Wesker said. He scooped up the strand of film and rubbed the nail of his thumb against it. He pulled it away and held it up, showing that it had turned a brownish red color.
“This whole spliced-in section of horror film has been soaked in blood,” he said. “Something tells me it isn’t his own.”
“Ick,” I said. “Great. So how do we stop him?”
“First things first,” Wesker said. “We destroy this piece of film.”
“Do you think that’s going to work, Thaddeus?” the Inspectre asked.
“I’m not sure,” he said, “but there is magic bound to these frames, and as far as first steps, destroying that bond is a good way to go.”
“Do we have an expert on this or something?”
Wesker narrowed his eyes at me. “Did you not hear me before when I said I’ve never seen this done successfully before?”
“Right,” I said, throwing my hands up. “Sorry.”
“Can you let me do my job, then?” Wesker asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. He stormed off to a tall cabinet on the other side of his office and threw it open. It was stocked with vials, tubes, and little clay pots that were full of a variety of colorful spell components. He bent down to the bottom shelf, pulled up a large, plastic jug, and carried it back to his workbench.
“Do they sell bulk bloodroot at the discount clubs now?” I asked.
“No,” Wesker said, sliding on a pair of protective gloves, “and this isn’t bloodroot. It’s nitric acid. Movie film—more commonly, cellulose nitrate—eventually deteriorates and releases the acid naturally. Using this amount should serve
as a catalyst.”
“Ah,” I said. “So naturally you just happen to have it around for office use.”
“It also makes a fine salt substitute for spell components when mixed,” he said. “As it stands, however, it’s quite toxic. You might want to step back.” He picked up a set of gloves and a pair of goggles off the workbench and put them all on. “This might eat away your eyeballs if I splash any of it.”
A mix of vanity and fear was enough to back me away almost before he finished his sentence.
Wesker twisted off the cap, and then poured half the container out into a large, clear petri dish. He put it down, and then scooped up the film and lowered it into the liquid, backing away from it.
In seconds the dish filled with swirling, bubbling activity. The mixture popped and hissed as sections of the film dissolved under the chemical attack. The acid turned from a clearish yellow to a dark, soupy mess. Only after a few minutes of furious activity did it begin to settle down.
Wesker walked back over to it, a satisfied smile on his face, no doubt loving the destructive display before him. When he reached it, however, the look vanished and was replaced with a disappointed one.
“Look, Simon,” he said, dipping his hand into the liquid mess. “Here’s something you should be familiar with—failure.” He raised his hand, pinching a section of stillintact film between his fingers. Wesker kept pulling until a fair section of film came out of the sludge.
“Your chemical didn’t dissolve all of it,” I said.
“No,” he said, walking over to a sink set off to the right of the workbench. “I suspect that what survived is the spliced-in magical part.” He rinsed the section of film thoroughly before laying it down.
“So, now what?” I asked.
“I’m on it,” Jane said, stepping forward with a determined look on her face despite the exhaustion in her eyes. She grabbed up the remains of the filmstrip and brought it over to Wesker’s desk. She leaned over and picked up the wastebasket next to it. On top of it were the close, sharp teeth of an electronic paper shredder.