Exit

by Thomas Davidson

  He reached over the seat and gripped her shoulder. "Love you."

  "Love you, too. But right now, my love is focused on getting us home. I would really love to get out of here. I would love to be home and eating cold, leftover pizza. I would love to never again see a dark angel flying over a telephone pole, or hear that asshole screaming inside the trunk. That's what I’d love."

  He pulled a bandanna out of his army jacket's pocket, reached over, and wiped a thin sheen of sweat on her forehead. "Let's go home."

  Soon they saw the cemetery dead ahead, and the mouth of the alley.

  "Remember, get out on the left side," she reminded him. "And no matter what, protect that eye. Keep that patch on, it's better than nothing."

  Tim rolled down his side window, reached for the crowbar and held it in his left hand, its tip hanging out of the cab, ready to swing. He adjusted his pirate's eye patch.

  She pulled up and turned left into the alley's entrance. She squeezed the brakes, stopped for a moment.

  They scanned the dark corridor.

  Rayne wondered what awaited them in this narrow canyon. Gray exhaust fumes traveled through their open windows, smelling dusty and gritty like fireplace soot. Behind the back seat, the cabbie drummed the lid with his fist. Nonstop obscenities and warnings issued from the trunk. She could almost feel the loud death threats vibrate the upholstery and seat springs beneath her, which she found surreal. It seemed to her that the whole world out here was pissed and crazed—straight-up out of its mind.

  "Tim," she said in a low voice. "The windows—up or down?"

  Behind her, he took a weary breath. Another decision.

  She waited, peering through the windshield. The alley was a long, dark tunnel. A surprise package. The word Tinks came to mind.

  "Up."

  "Agreed," she said, as they closed the windows.

  "Seymour mentioned Peter Pan and Tinker Bell. I guess this alley is Neverland."

  She responded with a humming sound in her throat.

  Leaning forward in the back seat, he put a hand on Rayne's right shoulder. "Go," he said.

  She raised her foot over the gas pedal and silently counted…one…two…

  CHAPTER 13

  For the last twenty minutes, Alex Portland had been sitting among a small crowd inside the Gateway Theater. Gone was on the screen, but Alex tuned in and out. His thoughts were centered on something so hard to grasp that he felt a wave of nausea wash through him every few minutes.

  He glanced at this watch: 11:22 P.M.

  Countdown: eight minutes to push open the exit door.

  Was this really happening? Or did Alex Portland, intellectual bohemian with a pot belly, finally lose his mind? He knew one thing for certain—if he were to sit through Gone for a third time, he'd put a gun into his mouth and eagerly remove the back of his skull. What was it about this movie? He'd seen a steady diet of depressing films in his day, but Gone just shredded him. Shakespeare said the eyes were the window to the soul. This viewing experience was a flashbang grenade thrown through that very window, slugging his soul with a concussive blast.

  Then the screen brightened.

  And his stomach tightened. He gripped the armrests. Sure enough, a white rectangle appeared without sound. He could see the silhouettes of at least a dozen heads in front of him, fellow masochists being tortured by this movie. Then the dreaded words appeared in the middle of the screen:

  COMING SOON

  to a theater near you

  Yes, Alex thought, my dinner. Coming soon—right back up my throat and all over my lap.

  The screen darkened and an image emerged: the interior of a dark theater. The scene was shot in black-and-white, except for a single red exit sign in the left corner that offset the gloomy hues.

  Alex waited, knowing what was coming. He raised his wrist: 11:25 P.M.

  But what happened next surprised him. This time, the coming attraction changed. This trailer was completely different from the last showing. Alex's attention was riveted to the screen. This unexpected trailer made him feel…dare he think it…ambushed?

  The scene: a dark alley where most of the details were invisible. Still, it looked vaguely familiar. After an uneasy moment, he felt as if he'd been slapped awake. He leaned forward in his seat. What was he looking at? He focused, and his view coalesced. This was the alley behind the Gateway Theater. Right behind the screen he was facing. The other side of the brick wall. His eyes adjusted to the flickering, dark image. His seat squeaked when he leaned forward another notch.

  The trailer showed a tall man outside, standing alone by the theater's back door. Despite the darkness, Alex realized the man was speaking into a handheld radio transmitter. The stranger's voice was too low to be understood, but the tone carried anger and excitement, sounding like water boiling. Alex felt a rising tension. A sense that things were ready to erupt.

  For the second time that night on the screen, the same voiceover broke in. Again the ominous tone:

  "They are coming. They are here. The lines are drawn. The battle has begun. The invaders will be crushed. Tonight is the night."

  Alex knew the trailer was about to end. He expected to see a single word flash on the screen. White letters superimposed on the image of a theater with a dark, empty screen.

  EXIT

  But that did not happen.

  Instead the camera turned, the view changed. The screen showed a long shot of the alley. Way down at the end, by a streetlamp and a cemetery, a car suddenly appeared on the right side of the screen. It edged into view on the distant cross street. It turned into the alley, hesitated, then stopped.

  Two headlights. Motionless. Alex thought of two bright eyes staring into a cave.

  Something was about to explode. He was sure of it. He checked his watch: 11:28 P.M.

  T minus two minutes to Launch.

  Rayne had warned him to be punctual. Precise. Exact. And he took her words to heart. She was easily the most interesting person he knew. She had that uncommon trait, integrity, and he respected her for it, even though it was sometimes her liability in a go-along-get-along world. When it came to Rayne Moore, you always knew where you stood. For her, he'd always go the extra step.

  Plus she was half crazy, which earned her bonus points.

  Alex rose from his chair. He crept between two rows of seats, into the narrow side aisle, and began walking down the sloped floor toward the rear exit. He glanced once more at the screen. The moviegoers, lit by the glow of the screen, leaned forward in unison, sitting bolt upright. Everyone here was feeling the same tension. Alex imagined it as a cinematic epicenter with a quake about to hit.

  At the center of the screen, the white lights bounced, came to life. A brake was released.

  Two headlights were moving now. Gaining speed.

  Alex listened. The low voice heard on-screen, just a minute ago, had sharpened to a shout. A second voice, crackling with static, sounded from the radio transmitter, calling out an odd name: "C.C. Seymour." Then the tall man laughed with confidence and said a strange word: "Tinks." The sound of his laughter mixed with the metallic roar of an engine growing louder.

  "I don't need backup," the tall man insisted. "I released Tinks into the alley…the jumpers are driving into Neverland."

  On the screen, the car was barreling right at the theater's audience. High speed. Ready to rip through the screen and crash into the moviegoers. An electric sign glowed on its roof:

  EXPERIENCE THE INDESCRIBABLE

  Alex turned to his right and looked at the crowd. The moviegoers in the front rows were rising from their seats, wide-eyed, standing up as if the action on the screen were a live feed. The air was electric. A lightning bolt of energy.

  Alex reached out to touch the crash bar, when he saw on the screen…

  CHAPTER 14

  Tim braced himself in the back seat.

  The plan was insanely simple. Race down the alley. Use the cab as a shield, a two-ton weapon. Hit the brakes by the e
xit door and, with the cab still rolling, open both doors and bail out. Alley sky-diving. With luck, Alex opens the door at exactly 11:30 P.M. With luck, the two escape inside the theater and haul ass like they've never hauled ass before.

  What could possibly go wrong?

  Rayne's heel hit the gas. The cab bucked, and took off into the black hole. They started rolling down the alley when Tim saw it, and his stomach dropped. He thought of a cloud of locusts. EyeSoar's next generation of nano-drones was heading their way.

  Tinks.

  They had no choice, couldn't retreat. They raced right into the swarm. Tiny, blinking red lights swirled in the air. Drones hammered against the front windshield. A hailstorm of creepy crawlers. Cracks webbed the glass. Tim wondered if the windshield would shatter, spray glass into their eyes. He didn't think so; windshields could take more stress than side windows.

  "I can…hardly see," Rayne said, hunched over the wheel.

  Tim could feel the cab decelerate.

  A drone landed on the windshield wiper, the size of large dragonfly with copter gear. Green body, blue wings. Man's tribute to the serene beauty of nature. Until, in that instant, Tim saw a twisted version of Tinker Bell—at the tip of the thin body, a tiny skull lifted and faced the windshield. No hair, ears, nose, mouth, smile. Only a red light could be seen blinking behind a single eye, staring into the cab. A red light, the same color as the EXIT light at the Gateway.

  Looking at the Tink, Tim imagined Doctor Frankenstein making a quaint house call in Neverland, giving Tinker Bell plastic surgery and a 'new look.'

  The Tink rose vertically off the wiper as if a helipad.

  The wall of sound increased, smothering the cab.

  Their headlights shone through the humming swarm, straight down the dark alley. White light hit the back of the theater. Stepping into that beam, C.C. Seymour raised his arm, aiming.

  CRACK!

  On the left, Tim's side window exploded. Shot out. The tempered glass shattered into small pieces, diamonds on the seat and floor.

  "Tim!"

  "I'm okay. I'm—"

  Tinks swooped through the broken window, high-tech hornets. The car's interior boiled over with micro drones hitting glass, upholstery, flesh. Something struck the patch over his left eye and he howled. The cab careened as Rayne drove through the blizzard. He heard a whirl of voices: his, Rayne's, the cabbie yelling and pounding inside the trunk.

  The cab lost speed, swerving side to side, then—bangbangbangbangbang—sideswiped a row of trash cans that fell like aluminum dominoes.

  The cab screeched to a stop.

  Tim remembered the trash cans in the alley, the dumpster. He also remembered something else. He reached down and grabbed the rubbery gas mask on the floor, inched his way up, blindly leaned over the front seat. He partly shielded his face inside the crook of his right arm. With both hands, he slipped the mask with goggles over Rayne's head, feeling it slide along her hair. The mask protected the driver's eyes, and vulnerable soft tissues.

  "Go." He clapped her shoulder, then bent down again and grabbed the crowbar on the seat.

  What happened next made him marvel at her resourcefulness. Rayne reached below the dashboard and pulled the release lever. The trunk popped open. Freedom. The cabbie sprang out. A thunderstorm of obscenities and threats blew over by Tim's broken window. The cabbie, his face red and raw, spit flying, kicked the door. Drones inside the cab began flying through the hole toward their new target.

  The cab woke up. The cab punched forward, accelerated.

  Tim fell back. A drone hit his eye patch again, the covering partly dislodged. He hunched down in his seat, arms over head, feeling the forward motion of the cab. His field of vision was virtually nil, his left eye on fire.

  CRACK!

  A bullet penetrated the front windshield below the rearview mirror.

  "Hit him!" Tim said. "Run him…"

  The cab jerked a hard left. Tires squealed when Rayne hit the brakes, and slammed into a brick wall. Tim's forehead rocketed against the back of the driver's headrest. He heard a stranger shout beyond the windows.

  "Now!" Rayne's voice sounded underwater inside the mask.

  His good eye was a slit, a keyhole to the world. Adrenaline took over. His left hand fumbled, touched glass shards, found the handle and popped the door. His right hand held the crowbar. He stumbled out, felt Rayne's hand grabbing his collar, leading him.

  At the center of the storm he thought he heard Alex's voice. Crowe, bent over, got hammered with punches. He gripped the crowbar and blindly struck out at the assailant, hitting soft tissue.

  Rayne's hand steered him through an open door.

  EXIT.

  Inside the theater, the screen pulsed with shouts and bedlam. A soundtrack of buzzing drones shook the concrete walls. The room sounded like a nuclear bomb test site in the desert. A kiloton of chaos. The moviegoers stood in the flickering light, facing the monochrome screen with the awe of Army infantrymen at a Ground Zero experiment back in the 1950s. Some held their hands in the air in terror, maybe seeing their bones. Rayne pulled him along as if they were outrunning a blast wave.

  This trailer had state-of-the-art special effects. A new level of realism.

  Tim's field of vision was reduced to a fraction. His left eye felt burnt out, a spoonful of wet ash behind the patch. His right eye stung. He could feel the concrete floor beneath his unsteady feet. His feet…he had to stay on his feet, keep moving. Away from the exit. Away from the shock wave of the other world.

  She gripped his collar and he could hear her breathing hard. Together, the gas mask and the pirate weaved up the aisle of the dark theater, through the dim foyer, the glass door of the entrance, into the chilly Halloween night.

  #

  Shay stood across the street from the theater with her guitar. Usually she was long gone by now, but not tonight. She had kept her promise and waited, checked the time on her cell phone. Now or never. A sense of dread rippled through her, the same cold feeling she had last week when her friend Reggie never showed up at her car, when he simply disappeared. Then she heard a muffled noise, a commotion. She focused on the entrance, the dim foyer inside, and saw something coming into view, some strange creature, behind the glass door. A splayed hand appeared on the glass. The door rattled. A girl wearing a gas mask reeled through the front door with someone in tow, steering him by the arm.

  Then the girl ripped off the gas mask and dropped it, her hair flying like a model in a shampoo commercial, and audibly sucked in fresh air. Great winded gasps.

  Shay put a hand on her face, cocked her hip, and shouted, "Shut…up!" She waved excitedly. She unstrapped her guitar, her body tingling, feeling light as air.

  Rayne waved back, and pointed to her eye-patched companion. His head hung, legs weaving. She rushed her friend up to the corner, and pushed him into a cab.

  Shay watched the cab drive away, then crossed the street and picked up the gas mask. She recalled Rayne heading into the theater with a blond wig, and now emerging with a gas mask. Shay couldn't wait to hear the story. She went back and packed her guitar. An image came to mind: a clever guitarist wearing a gas mask, standing next to a guitar case overflowing with money. She smiled, and then sat down and had a cigarette.

  #

  "Where to?" the driver asked.

  "Mass General," Rayne said, holding Tim up. "Eye and Ear Clinic. Emergency entrance."

  Through the rearview mirror, the driver peeked at Tim slumped in the back seat. "I'm on it."

  The two rode in silence in the back seat, exhausted, swaying with the movement of the cab. Tim reached for his anti-inflammatory eye drops in his jacket's pocket. He whispered in her ear, "We're home," and tilted his head back. He peeled off his eye patch and shook a drop into his eye.

  She watched him and hoped the eye wasn't permanently damaged. She finally replied, "I hope so." Home, she thought. Yes, they had returned from their travels. She considered that for a moment. The words home and tra
vel reminded her of a line from Shakespeare's Hamlet. But she couldn't quite place it.

  Tim squeezed her hand and simply said, "Hey."

  She pulled his scarf off and wiped his forehead with it.

  "That eye does not look good," she said, an intentional understatement. The inflamed eye was glassy, the color of red wine. She wondered if there was irreparable damage, and turned to the driver. "Step on it. This is an emergency."

  "I'm going as fast as I can."

  "Don't make me ask twice."

  The driver's eyes flicked into the rearview mirror.

  Tim, head down, said, "What she just said? Believe it."

  The car jerked when it accelerated, and snaked through traffic.

  Soon they paid for the fare and exited the cab. They stood before a tall, gray building behind the Liberty Hotel, formerly the old Charles Street Jail. They stood on a narrow street that ran through a canyon of buildings. A handful of people were outside by the curb, talking, having a cigarette, waiting for their ride. Rayne and Tim turned to the wide entrance to the emergency room when Rayne's cell phone rang.

  "It's me," the voice said.

  "Shay?" Rayne asked.

  "Yeah."

  "I'm at the hospital with Tim. You sound…is something wrong?"

  "Maybe." Shay hesitated.

  "Go ahead," Rayne said, "What is it?"

  "Your friend, Alex."

  "Yes?"

  "He never came out."

  "What?"

  "The theater is closed for the night. But Alex never came out. I was standing right across the street, and saw the people leave."

  "You sure?"

  "Positive. He opened the exit for you, right? So he should have been right behind you."

  After a long pause, Rayne told her, "I'll call you tomorrow."

  She slipped her phone into her pocket. It was midnight. She felt exhausted, and could sleep for a week. Maybe a month.

  Tim stood by the glass doors. He tilted his head up. "What is it?"

  She took a deep breath and glanced up at the moon, a white orb veiled by floating gray clouds. For a second, she thought of it as an eye in the sky with floaters. Then it came to her, the line from Hamlet: "The undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns."