Summer Days and Summer Nights

by Stephanie Perkins

  “Who?” I asked.

  Natalia’s eyes fixed on a point somewhere behind me. “Him.”

  Slow clapping echoed from the back of the theater. He emerged from the shadows, wearing the same sharkskin suit as in the photograph. “Bravo. Well done. I must say, this is quite a surprise.”

  “Mr. Scratsche?” I peered out through the haze-dust thrown off by the screen and into those dark, soulless eyes. He didn’t look a day older than he had in 1963.

  Mr. Scratsche gave a courtly bow. “At your service. In a manner of speaking.”

  His hand went up like a conductor’s. The broken broomstick shot free of the door handles. The hungry, growling creatures staggered inside, shuffling into the rows, taking their seats, mesmerized by the flickering images.

  Scratsche smiled. “Ah, you people. You never tire of staring up at that screen, imagining yourselves there—better, beautiful, immortal. Everywhere, it’s always the same: people sitting in the dark, hungry for the light, for validation, for the idea that good defeats evil, for the smug safety of thinking that they will win in the end.”

  “You belong here with us, Scratsche, and you know it!” Jimmy Reynolds shouted, falling to his knees. “You escaped only by damning us all!”

  “Whoa. Chill, Marlon Brando,” Dani muttered.

  “Jimmy, Jimmy.” Mr. Scratsche shook his head like a mildly put out headmaster. “True, I offered all of you up in return for my escape. But you all signed the contract of your own free will.” Like a magician’s trick, Scratsche produced a scroll that unrolled to reveal hundreds of signatures. Another snap and the scroll rolled up and dropped back into his pocket. “I heard you earlier, Jimmy. You tried to warn people. Didn’t I tell you last time that there would be consequences?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Scratsche. I’m just awfully tired of being trapped in this movie.” Jimmy sounded scared and tired. “I’ve been wearing this cravat for fifty-six years. It makes me look like an asshole.”

  “Understood.” Mr. Scratsche flicked his fingers toward the screen and sudden flames consumed Jimmy Reynolds. Seconds later, all that remained was the singed cravat and a burned patch on the carpet. “That’s for going off script.”

  Dave’s eyes had a glazed look. He’d started humming the Care Bears Movie theme song. It was what he did when the world was too much.

  “What do you want from us?” I shouted.

  “I believe the question is what do you want, Kevin? What do you all want? Oh. That’s rhetorical. I’ve read your questionnaires.”

  Mr. Scratsche strode down the center aisle with the grace of a leopard. He threaded his fingers together. His fingernails were long and curved. “I’ve been thinking that the time is right to bring the film out of retirement. You’re correct that someone needs to keep the story alive. To be its caretaker, hmm? I Walk This Earth—a new version for a new audience, directed by Kevin Grant. How does that sound?”

  No adult had ever said anything like that to me before, like they saw me. Like I was worth seeing. “Me? Why me?”

  “I’ve been watching you for months. I know what lives inside you. The longing for what you cannot have.” His eyes flicked to Dani, and she looked at me quizzically. My face went hot. “The world is hungry for new thrills. In the past, distribution was a problem. But, my goodness! The things you can find nowadays, right there on your devices. Imagine it, Kevin: Your take on I Walk This Earth, available on demand. Downloadable. Shareable. It only requires a bit of sacrifice.”

  The scroll was out again. In Scratsche’s other clawed hand was a pen.

  “That didn’t seem to work out too well for these guys.” I jerked my thumb at the screen.

  Dave nodded. “You tell him, bro.”

  “They don’t have your vision.” Scratsche smiled. I knew it was a trick, but somewhere inside me it was like somebody had opened a bank vault and said, Go ahead. Take what you want. His smile hardened. “Or did you just want to stay home and look after your mother, like a good boy? Maybe end up at the bottom of a bottle like her?”

  “Fuck you,” I said, even though my voice trembled. “That’s not my only choice.” And I didn’t know if that was true or if I just wanted it to be true.

  Mr. Scratsche laughed. “Haven’t you been paying attention, Kevin? The vampire rises again. The scientist revives the killer’s brain. The zombie horde is reinfected. That’s what accounts for all of those sequels and remakes. You can’t win against evil. Oh, sure. If you were to destroy this last remaining print of the film now, before you’d committed your soul, you would. But the projector is all the way up there.” Scratsche pointed to the thick glass of the narrow projection booth window. “Out of reach. Like your dreams.” Scratsche’s dark eyes blazed. “You’ve been out of options for some time, Mr. Grant. Deep down, you know that. Join me … or you’ll all die. Have you ever been torn apart by demons? I’m told it hurts. Quite a lot.”

  On-screen, the fireplace hissed. I looked over my shoulder at the swirling circle of flame and the endless darkness inside, devoid of shape, like my futureless future. My eyes locked on Natalia’s. “Please,” I begged. “Just a hint.”

  For a moment, she stared at the floor. Then she whispered, “The movie feeds on your fear. That’s what gives it power.”

  Mr. Scratsche put a hand to his chest. Tiny horns had sprouted at the top of his forehead, and his teeth had lengthened. “Ah, me. I really should have cast Yvonne De Carlo.”

  He flicked his fingers once more, and Natalia screamed in terror as she flew backward, pinned to the mansion wall, a dagger hovering inches from her neck.

  “Be good, now, my dear,” Scratsche said. “I know you’d hate to play out the rest of your contract with a slashed throat. Messy.”

  Dave shut his eyes tight and rocked. “Stop feeling fear. Stop feeling fear. Stop feeling fear.”

  I pulled the three of us into a tight huddle, draping my arms over both of their backs. I’d never been this physically close to Dani before. We were nearly nose to nose, and suddenly I was flooded with want for that future she’d asked me about under the tree. A future with her. “The movie lives on fear, right? So we have to stop feeding it. Quick! What’s the opposite of fear?”

  “Taylor Swift?” Dave said. Dani and I glared. “What? Taylor Swift makes me happy.”

  I turned to Dani. “What’s a normal opposite of fear?”

  Dani let out a shaky breath. “Um, courage? Joy. Love. Altruism. Hope.”

  “That’s it,” I said.

  “What’s it? That was, like, five things.”

  Shadows and light played across her face. I brushed a drop of popcorn oil from her cheek.

  “Hope,” I said.

  The old movie’s hazy glow turned me into a ghost of myself as I stepped to the front of the theater. “If these are going to be my last few minutes on earth, then I have something to say.”

  “Oh. He’s one of those ‘last profound words’ kids. Won-n-nderful,” Alastair mumbled into his glass.

  “You know, you’re kind of a dick,” Dave said. “I revoke your hotness status. I might clap when you go back to hell.”

  Alastair shrugged. “I’m a B movie actor. Hell’s redundant, kid.” He drained his glass, which immediately refilled. “This isn’t even real booze.”

  “Mr. Grant. This protracted endgame has begun to bore me. I’m not pleasant when bored,” Scratsche threatened.

  “Just a sec, okay?” I faced Dani. In those movies I’d made inside my head, I was always cocky and cool, because there were no stakes. I’d been guilty of the very thing I’d railed against. But now, looking into her big brown eyes—seeing the fear and the anger and the worry—I felt all of my emotions at once. I hated that I’d wasted so much time, and I wished more than anything that I could be the hero I wanted to be, the hero worthy of her.

  I cleared my throat. “Dani, I know this is really bad timing, considering we’re about to be either eaten by demons or consigned to hell, neither of which is how I woul
d’ve planned our first date. But the truth is, I’m crazy about you. Totally. Madly. Completely. And I know this is stupid, but I have to know: If this were a normal Saturday night, and I asked you out, would you say yes?”

  Dani stared at me. I couldn’t tell if she was mad or happy or sad or all of the above. “Wow. Your timing sucks.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I know.” My heart plummeted. “Sorry. Forget I said anything.”

  “Would you shut up for a second, Kevin?” She came closer. “For, like, forever, I’ve been waiting for you to ask me out, but you never did. You’re the reason I took this stupid job. And now—now—when we’re about to be sacrificed to hell, you finally work up the courage?”

  “I—Wait. You like me?”

  “Oh. My. God.” Dani lifted up her arms in frustration and let them fall to her sides again. “Seriously? You mean you couldn’t tell?”

  “Not … really?”

  “Damn, boys are dumb.”

  “Sexist.”

  “Sorry. I meant to say, ‘Damn, Kevin is dumb.’”

  “Better. So how come you didn’t just ask me out?”

  “Because…” Dani’s brows furrowed. “Because it’s scary putting yourself out there?”

  “Yeah,” I said, smiling in spite of everything. “It really, really is.”

  “Aw-w-w. You two are awfully cute,” Natalia said. “I feel real bad that you’ll either get eaten by demons or lose your souls.”

  “Thanks?” I said, and then I added, “ma’am,” because I was inside a theater full of revenants led by the devil’s henchman on my first and possibly last date with the girl of my dreams, and my mouth had given up trying to make sense of things.

  “Kev!” Dave said, sounding panicked. “The hope thing’s not working!”

  Mr. Scratsche laughed. “You see, Kevin. There really is no way to stop it.” He held out the scroll again. “Accept your fate.”

  “No! Wait!” I paced. Stopped. “Unless we destroy the movie.”

  “Yes, yes, but you can’t,” Scratsche said, impatient. “And even if you could, I doubt that someone like you would destroy the last remaining print of a rare film. After all, you know what it is to be thrown away.”

  I’d never wanted to be somebody like my dad, who could just cut ties and take off with only hope stuffed in his pockets. But now I saw it differently. Maybe sometimes the best thing you can do is to burn it all down and start over. If we survived this night, I’d apply to UT. Hell, I’d fill out twelve applications.

  I ran back to Dani. “Hey,” I whispered. “You pretty good with that bow?”

  “For somebody who only took one semester of archery and ended up accidentally shooting Coach Pelson in the ass, yeah, I guess so.”

  “Who says there’s only one way to stop a cursed film from playing?” I offered a lame half-smile. “Options.”

  Dani smiled back at me. “Options.”

  “Do you have an answer for me, Mr. Grant? Your audience is hungry.” Scratsche gestured to the impatient demons.

  “I do. I’d like to show you the trailer for my first short film, entitled You’re Not the Boss of Us, in glorious 3-D.” I removed Cthulhu Shortcake from my pocket. “Dave—lighter, please.”

  Dave handed over the blue Bic. “You sure you got this, bro?”

  I took a deep breath. “Hope so.”

  Behind me, I could hear the muffled, curious voices of Natalia and Alastair. “What’s he doing?” “Is this a thing kids do nowadays?” “It’s strange.” But they were the sounds of the past getting dimmer.

  I stuck our plushie elder god to the tip of the arrow. “Sorry, Shortcake.”

  “Enough, Mr. Grant!” Mr. Scratsche’s voice was a thundering roar.

  “Please! No talking during the movie,” I said, and with a shaking hand, I set Cthulhu Shortcake aflame. To Dani, I whispered, “Aim for the fireplace.”

  She nodded and let the imitation Robin Hood: Prince of Darkness arrow sail. It pierced the screen, smoked, and fizzled out.

  “Shit,” Dani said, and my heart sank.

  “It’s okay,” I told her, and I wondered if that’s what Dani’s mom had said to her little brother in the seconds before the plane hit the ground.

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” Alastair Findlay-Cushing was staring at the floor of the old movie mansion. A line of fire had traveled from our Cthulhu arrow through the screen and into the film. Natalia and Alastair coughed as their cinematic tomb filled with smoke.

  Mr. Scratsche leaped to his feet. “No!”

  “Betcha didn’t see that twist coming,” I said.

  A huge bang sounded. The rickety walls of the mansion shook. Natalia screamed as the swirling hole of the fireplace opened up and sucked her inside. A visibly shaken Alastair went for his drink, remembering at the last second that it was fake.

  “Oh, fuck,” he grumbled, and then he, too, was gone.

  Smoke billowed around the edges of the movie screen and spread into the theater. Mr. Scratsche pointed a gnarled finger at us. “Feed! Feed!” he roared to his demon minions. But they were confused by the order and began devouring each other in a bloody frenzy.

  The scroll flew from Scratsche’s pocket and hovered in the air. He made a desperate grab for it just before it disappeared. A hole opened in the center of the screen, a bottomless void that mirrored the black of Scratsche’s widening eyes. Terrible sounds escaped from that darkness—howls of pain and sorrow, but also of loss and regret.

  “No,” Scratsche gasped. “No, wait, I—”

  A giant, flaming hand shot out from the darkness and closed its fiery fingers around the screaming Scratsche. He beat against its grip, but it was no use. He really was out of options. As the flaming hand dragged him back to his eternal nonrest, we heard only one last whimper. The hole closed.

  For a moment, it was silent. And then everything went apeshit.

  The screen bowed out, vomiting fire. Flocked wallpaper bubbled and blackened. Scraps of ceiling rained down in chunks, as if the theater were built on a fault line whose time had finally come.

  “We’re trapped!” Dave yelled, dodging flaming ceiling scraps.

  My chest tightened at the thought of this being Scratsche’s last laugh, one of those last-second horror movie gotcha! moments.

  “Dani!” I coughed, taking hold of her hands. “I love you. I’m sorry it’s ending this way.”

  Dani’s mouth settled into a tight line. “The fuck it’s ending this way!” She ripped the edge of her shirt, wrapped it around the arrow, yanked it from the screen, and used it to pry open the fire exit door. “C’mon, y’all!” she yelled. “We out!”

  This time, she reached for my hand, and we didn’t waste any time running toward the open arms of the night.

  * * *

  Dani and I leaned against the trunk of her car in the light mist and watched the flames eat through the Cinegore. Fire truck sirens sounded in the distance. Just under their caterwauling, I could hear Dave on his phone. “Dude, you don’t know what kind of night I’ve had. For starters, I’ve got brain goop on my jacket…”

  The inferno intensified the oppressive stillness of the Texas night. We’d stripped down to our tanks and jeans. If I could’ve unzipped my skin and taken it off, I would have. Dani poured some Milk Duds into my palm. They were slightly melty, but that was the way I liked them best. She burst out laughing. I started laughing, too. It was the shock, for sure. Your emotions get super weird after you’ve been hunted by demons and forced to banish your boss to hell.

  “Holy fuck,” I said, trying to settle.

  “You can say that again.”

  “Okay. Holy fuck.”

  Dani stepped in front of me. With the flames behind her, she made me think of an avenging angel in a movie I wanted to see over and over. “Just checking: That actually happened, right?”

  “Yeah. Pretty much.”

  “Okay.” Dani nodded, more to herself than to me. “Okay.”

  “This is insane!” Dave
was selfie-ing the shit out of himself in front of the melting Cinegore. “I’ve already got one hundred and fifty-three retweets and over sixty favorites in just the last five minutes!”

  “I need to sit down.” Dani unlocked her car and dropped into the driver’s seat, keeping the door open to let some of the hot air escape. I got in on the passenger side. The car smelled like her—like popcorn, vanilla perfume, and something I didn’t yet know but knew I wanted more of.

  Dani clutched her car keys in her fist. “So, technically, is this our first date?”

  Now that the adrenaline-laced fear was gone, a different sort of fear seized me. I’d opened myself up pretty wide in there when I thought I was going to die. It was time to deal with the aftermath of my honesty. But I was feeling okay with that. More than okay, in fact. “Yeah.” I let my head loll against the leather headrest. “Guess so. Sorry it’s so weird—”

  Dani leaned over and cut off my apology with a kiss. And when she did, all the movies went out of my head, because there was no invented story that could compete with the here-and-now feel of her lips on mine. Reluctantly, I broke away.

  “Hold on,” I said, and reclined my seat.

  Grinning, Dani did the same. And then it was on. We were a tangle of mouths and tongues, hands and legs, and, once, an unfortunate parking brake intrusion. It was making-up-for-lost-time kissing. You’ve-been-granted-a-second-chance-don’t-waste-it kissing. Kissing with plenty of options.

  Panting heavily, Dani broke away and stared up at the car’s top. “Wow. Um. Why the hell haven’t we done that before?”

  “Right?” I managed between gulps of air. I couldn’t wait to kiss her again. The pessimistic past was slipping away like the last of the rain. I felt strangely good. Maybe when the new Starbucks was built, I’d get a Frappuccino there. Maybe over Christmas break, when Dani and I were both home from school.

  The sirens sharpened as they arrived. We brought our seats up again. In the rearview mirror, Dave was still reading his phone. “Over three hundred and climbing! This is so fucking rad!”

  I shook my head. “Can you get a double major in Oblivious and Narcissistic at Stanford?”