Night on Terror Island

by Philip Caveney

  ‘It’s my lumbago,’ said Norman, making it sound almost like an apology. ‘As the saying goes, Mr Lazarus, the spirit is willing …’

  ‘But the flesh is weak. I know, I know.’ He reached out a hand and patted Norman on the shoulder. ‘My heart goes out to you, sir.’ He paused, turned back to the counter. ‘So, let me see …’ He seemed to concentrate for a moment, as if marshalling his strength. ‘This fine cinema was opened in nineteen twenty-three with a showing of The Warrior Queen, a silent movie for which a live orchestra provided an accompaniment.’

  Kip happened to be looking at the card lying in front of him, and for a fraction of a second it showed another image: the Paramount Picture Palace in grainy black and white. A press of eager people stood round the entrance, the men all wearing hats, the ladies bonnets and fur coats. Kip was about to say something but, once again, the image shimmered and returned to blank white card.

  Mr Lazarus continued speaking. ‘The cinema has kept going ever since … your great-grandfather, your grandfather, your father and now you, Mr McCall, have worked tirelessly to achieve this … but, in nineteen ninety-six, a huge multiplex was opened only a short car journey from here, offering its customers the luxury of twelve screens and free parking. This had a huge impact on your fortunes. Now, you struggle on in the knowledge that the coming digital revolution will probably finish you off completely.’

  There was a long silence after that.

  Eventually, Dad managed to find a few words. ‘You’ve certainly done your homework,’ he said.

  Mr Lazarus smiled.

  ‘Mr McCall, that’s not homework. That’s knowledge built up over a lifetime of devotion to the silver screen.’

  ‘And may I ask what brought you to this area?’ asked Dad.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? There was a cinema that needed a projectionist. How could I stay away?’

  ‘But … I only put the ad in the Manchester Evening News five days ago,’ said Dad. ‘If you came all the way from Venice, then—’

  ‘I got here as quickly as I could,’ said Mr Lazarus. ‘The show must go on, Mr McCall. That is my motto.’

  ‘Well, er … that’s marvellous. I’m sure Norman here will be happy to take you up to the projection room to er … show you how everything works.’

  ‘No need,’ Mr Lazarus assured him. He lifted his hands as if framing a scene. ‘The projection room is long and narrow. You have just the one projector, a nineteen fifties Westar system, a fine piece of machinery still running smoothly after all these years.’

  ‘That’s absolutely right,’ gasped Norman.

  ‘To the left there is a tower of spools where the spliced film runs to the projector. Because of the narrowness of the room, the film has to be twisted by forty-five degrees in order to run through the shutter. Unusual, but it works. You use an ordinary anamorphic lens to show the adverts and then switch to cinemascope for the trailers and main feature.’

  Now Norman was staring at him, his mouth open. ‘How could you possibly know all that?’ he gasped.

  ‘Experience,’ said Mr Lazarus. ‘So, Mr Cresswell, your last night here is …?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ said Norman. ‘You see, on Sunday—’

  ‘Kitty is driving over in the Punto,’ finished Mr Lazarus. ‘How is your sister, Mr Cresswell?’

  ‘You know Kitty?’

  ‘I know of her. And I’m sure she is going to make your retirement very comfortable.’ Mr Lazarus considered for a moment. ‘In that case, I shall be here tomorrow at seven-thirty prompt for the handover. If it is all right with you, I shall run the last show while you observe that everything is done to your satisfaction. I think after so long in this business, you deserve to take it easy on your final night.’

  ‘Well … that would be a novelty,’ admitted Norman.

  ‘Excellent.’ The entrance doors opened and the first of the evening’s audience started to wander into the foyer. Mr Lazarus made a formal bow. ‘Well, I see your audience is arriving, so I shall leave you to your work. Till tomorrow!’

  And with that, he turned and strode towards the door. Dad, Kip and Norman watched him go. It seemed that the interview was over and the Paramount had a new projectionist – yet to Kip it felt rather like he and Dad had been the ones who’d just been interviewed. But customers were approaching the ticket office and there was no time to discuss the matter further. Dad scooted through to the ticket office while Norman made his way into the auditorium, looking slightly dazed.

  And Kip … Kip just stood there looking at the white card lying on the counter, willing it to show one of those amazing images again. But nothing happened. Not that night, anyway.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THERE WAS A good-sized audience that night. By ten to eight, the foyer was filling up with eager customers and Kip was obliged to crack open another big bag of corn kernels. He was kept busy, shovelling hot popcorn into containers and dishing out Cokes, Maltesers and other goodies. Over in the office, Dad was looking a bit happier than he had before, as hard cash began to change hands. If this was how it was on Friday, then Saturday and Sunday promised to do big business.

  At five to eight, Beth came in for her weekly fix of movies and popcorn. You could set your watch by her. She was twelve years old and in Kip’s class at school. She was thin and tomboyish, with large chocolate-brown eyes, her black hair cut in a short bob. She knew more about movies than any other girl Kip had met. She took her place in the queue for popcorn and smiled at Kip when she got to the counter.

  ‘Hi, Kip,’ she said. ‘Busy tonight.’

  ‘Yep.’ Kip shovelled popcorn into a medium-sized box without asking what she wanted. She always had the same thing. Then he reached into the fridge for a Diet Coke. ‘Bad news,’ he told her, ‘Rose will be joining us.’

  Beth smiled.

  ‘I don’t mind answering the odd question,’ she said.

  ‘The odd very odd question,’ Kip corrected her, taking her money. ‘What did she ask me last time? Oh yeah, “Isn’t that actor in Coronation Street?”’

  ‘What’s so odd about that?’

  ‘She was talking about Johnny Depp!’

  Beth laughed. Kip liked it when she did that, it did something weird to her face, making her look almost pretty.

  There was an uncomfortable silence – then Beth’s gaze fell on Mr Lazarus’s card, which still lay on the counter top. ‘What’s this?’ she asked, reaching for it. But before she could get there, Kip snatched it away from her.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he said, grabbing the card and pushing it into the back pocket of his jeans. He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d done that. Perhaps he didn’t want Beth seeing something odd and asking awkward questions. He wanted to examine the card himself first, to see if he could figure out how it worked. He gave Beth her change.

  ‘Save me a seat,’ he said, and she headed in the direction of the auditorium. ‘And one for Rose!’ he shouted after her.

  He went back to serving popcorn and dishing out sweets. He kept glancing up at the clock on the foyer wall. The film started at ten past eight and the trick was to make sure everybody was served by then. Dad could always cover for the odd straggler arriving after show time. But where was Rose? Woe betide him if he went in without her.

  As if in answer to his thought, the door opened and his sister stepped through. Kip caught a brief glimpse of his mother, waving a hand at him, before vanishing in to the night. Mum didn’t much care for the Paramount, especially since it had fallen on hard times. Dad told Kip once that when he and Mum were first married, she had loved the place and thought it a great adventure to be co-owner of her own cinema. But over the years, as she had watched Dad struggling to keep the place going, the novelty had worn off, and these days she regarded the Paramount as a great big weight around both their necks. There was a time when Mum had come out to watch the odd movie here, but not anymore.

  Rose marched over, looking the picture of innocence and stepped straight to the front of the
queue.

  ‘I want popcorn,’ she said.

  Kip looked apologetically at the people she had just bypassed.

  ‘Rose,’ he said. ‘There’s a queue.’

  She turned and looked at it, almost absent-mindedly, as though checking that he wasn’t lying. Then she turned back.

  ‘And some Skittles,’ she said. ‘Mummy said I could.’

  Kip ground his teeth and told himself not to get annoyed in front of the customers. It looked bad. He filled a huge box with popcorn and handed it down. It looked almost as big as her. She stood there, looking up at him expectantly, both hands holding the box.

  ‘Skittles,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Yes, yes.’ He got them from the display and held them out to her, but she didn’t have a spare hand to take them.

  ‘I’ll bring them in for you,’ he promised her.

  ‘You’re not to eat any,’ she warned him.

  ‘I won’t. I don’t like Skittles.’

  ‘I’ll know if you eat one,’ she said.

  ‘Will you go inside, please?’ he asked her. ‘I’ve got people to serve. Beth is saving a seat for you.’

  She nodded, almost wearily, and turned to go. Kip looked at the next customer with a forced grin. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘She’s my sister.’

  ‘She’s cute,’ said the lady at the head of the queue.

  Yeah, thought Kip, cute as a rattlesnake. He knew it was wrong to think like that. He knew that he was supposed to care about Rose and look after her and all that, but sometimes she could be really hard work. He went back to scooping popcorn.

  By two minutes past eight, there were only a few stragglers left to serve so Kip told Dad that he was heading into the auditorium.

  ‘I want to watch the new trailers,’ he explained. ‘Can you manage?’

  ‘I generally do,’ muttered Dad, who had become well used to this Friday routine. ‘You’d better hurry up. You don’t want to keep your girlfriend waiting.’

  ‘You’re hilarious,’ Kip told him. ‘You should be on TV.’

  He grabbed a bag of Skittles for Rose, went out through the office and hurried into the darkened cinema.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HE’D TIMED IT perfectly, arriving just as the trailer for next week’s movie, Terror Island, came on. It looked great. As Kip came down the aisle between the seats, some frightened-looking people were running through a dark forest, being pursued by a ravenous sabre-toothed tiger. Kip went to the front row on the right-hand side and slipped into the empty seat that Beth had saved for him.

  ‘Where’s my sweets?’ he heard Rose demand, so he passed the Skittles to Beth, who passed them to Rose.

  Now on screen, a terrified-looking woman was pushing open a door, beyond which lay total darkness.

  Don’t go in there, thought Kip. But she did. They always did in films like this. She took a step into the dark room and then she heard a noise – a sort of squelching sound. ‘Hello?’ she called. ‘Is that you, Tad?’ Kip shook his head. Whoever, or whatever, it was, you could be pretty sure it wasn’t somebody or something you wanted to bump into down a dark alley. ‘Hello?’ she called again. Suddenly, something absolutely horrible lurched out of the darkness with a sound like water going down a plughole and Kip nearly jumped out of his seat.

  Now the image cut to a group of people running down corridors. They were being pursued by several shambling figures; ugly slope-headed creatures dressed in furs and armed with lethal wooden clubs. They were gibbering like apes and baring their yellow teeth.

  ‘What are they?’ whispered Kip.

  ‘Neanderthals,’ said Beth knowingly.

  ‘What’s Number Tails?’ asked Rose.

  ‘Cavemen,’ said Beth.

  She held out a box of popcorn to Kip and he took a handful without taking his eyes off the screen.

  ‘Looks great,’ he whispered.

  ‘It looks ‘orrible!’ said Rose’s voice and Kip had to smile.

  He and Beth always chose to sit here in the front row, with the screen towering over them. It helped make it feel like they were actually in the film. This, in fact, was Kip’s biggest ambition – to be in a movie. Oh, he knew he’d never be an actor or anything like that, but maybe one day he could be a bit player in something like this. He’d love to dress up as a monster and go running round in the dark, making the actresses scream. He didn’t suppose it would ever happen, but it was nice to have a dream.

  There was a final image of a sabre-toothed tiger leaping straight at the screen, its jaws open as if to swallow the camera. Then the title came up in blood-red letters – Terror Island. The house lights came on briefly before the main feature and some twangy, old-fashioned guitar music began to play. Norman always put on exactly the same CD; something called Mr Guitar Man Plays the Hits.

  ‘That film looks nasty,’ said Rose. ‘I’m not coming to see it.’

  ‘Good,’ said Kip. ‘That suits me.’ He settled back in his seat and then noticed that Beth was smiling at him. ‘What’s up with you?’ he said.

  ‘Must be nice having a sister.’

  ‘Don’t get me started,’ said Kip, lowering his voice to a whisper so Rose wouldn’t hear. ‘It’s OK for you, you’re an only child.’

  ‘Yes, but I wouldn’t mind a little brother or sister to look after.’

  ‘Look after? Wait on hand and foot, you mean! It never stops.’

  Beth looked wistful.

  ‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,’ she said.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It’s something my mum says.’

  Just then the lights started to go down. Kip sat there, savouring the moment of anticipation he always felt at such times. Up came the card with the film’s title and the certificate on it. A brief pause.

  Then came the opening credits. Ominous music began to build and the names of the actors appeared one by one. All of it was increasing Kip’s anticipation of that first scene, the first thing the camera zoomed in on and …

  There it was! A city scene and you knew instantly that this wasn’t modern day because the cars were all black and clattery and the people strolling along the sidewalks wore old-fashioned clothes, and every single one of them was wearing a hat. Now the camera was homing in on the entrance to the FIRST NATIONAL BANK and …

  The camera cut to a close-up of a car drawing to a halt outside the bank. The rear door opened and out stepped Russell Raven, dressed in a sharp pinstripe suit, a hat pulled down over his eyes. He had a long package under his arm wrapped in brown paper. The camera cut to other cars drawing up, more tough guys getting out, each of them carrying a similar package and looking mean.

  The men began to stride in through the entrance of the bank, moving past a guard near the door, who looked ancient, and you just knew wasn’t going to be any use at all if anything kicked off. The men walked to different places around the crowded bank and the camera cut to a clock on the wall; you could see that it was just two minutes to ten. A series of cuts showed each of the bad guys glancing at the clock and looking away and you knew they were waiting; they were waiting for ten o’clock.

  Then there was an extreme close-up of the clock and in slow motion the minute hand clicked the last notch, with a sound like a mallet striking a lump of stone and then … then the mayhem began.

  Russell Raven tore open the package, revealing a vicious-looking Tommy gun, he swung it at the people standing near him and yelled, ‘Everybody on the floor! This is a stick-up!’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE SCENE WAS replaying itself in Kip’s head as he stepped through the cinema entrance the following evening. It had been brilliant: fast, punchy and close enough to make you feel as though you were part of the action.

  He found Dad sitting at his desk in the ticket office, looking a bit more positive than he had the night before. It had been one of the best Fridays in ages. As Kip came in Dad glanced slyly round and handed Kip a small gift box.
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  ‘What do you think?’ he asked.

  Kip opened it and found that it contained a cheap-looking digital watch.

  ‘It’s very nice and everything,’ said Kip, ‘but I’ve already got one.’

  ‘It’s not for you, you idiot! It’s for Norman. It’s his last night, I had to give him something after all these years, didn’t I?’

  Kip nodded. He tried to imagine the watch on Norman’s wrist and somehow couldn’t quite see it.

  ‘You don’t think it’s a bit … trendy for him?’ murmured Kip.

  ‘I’m sure it is, but I was in a fix. I had half an hour to run into Manchester and a budget of twenty quid. I had to grab something fast.’ He looked at Kip defensively. ‘I got him a lovely card,’ he added. ‘And I’ve laid on a few bottles of wine and some dinky pies for afterwards.’

  Kip shrugged and handed the box back to his dad.

  ‘I’m sure it’s better than a poke in the eye,’ he said. ‘Oh, by the way, Beth said she’d drop by after the film, to say goodbye and all that.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Dad waggled his eyebrows. ‘Getting serious, is it?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid. She just wants to say goodbye, that’s all. Better keep that present hidden, Norman will be in soon.’

  ‘He’s already here. Went straight up to the projection room with a duster and some polish. Said he wanted it all to be spick-and-span for when Mr Lazarus arrived.’ Dad frowned. ‘What did you make of him, by the way? Didn’t you think there was something … odd about him?’

  ‘Odd? He was a complete weirdo.’ Kip reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out the business card. He’d spent a lot of time looking at it since last night, but not once had he seen anything else unexpected. ‘Did you have a proper look at this thing?’ he asked.

  Dad grinned. ‘Yeah. Great business card that, isn’t it? No address, no phone number, just a name. What use is it?’