by Michael West
“Parapsychology is no different. There are those who believe in the Stephen King or Shirley Jackson notion of the ‘bad place’ — a building or location with a life of its own, one that serves as kind of spectral magnet, attracting misfortune and spirits — and then there are those who theorize that spirits can attach themselves to anything — a ring, a house, a car — if it is special to them or if the conditions are just right.”
Tashima glanced over at Kim. Her face was expressionless but her eyes said, “I didn’t sign up to hear another one of Burke’s lectures.”
Kim grinned at her; gave her hand a squeeze.
“Now when we talk about ‘spirits,’ we are referring to one of two types of entities,” Burke went on to explain. “The first is what you would label as your classic ‘ghost.’ These were once human beings — people just like you or I — but for whatever reason, they haven’t passed on to the next world. They remain with us on this plain of existence. Many harbor feelings of guilt about something they’ve done or perhaps something they failed to do. Some may be trying to deliver a message to or look after a loved one. Most don’t even realize they’re dead.
“If we are lucky enough to encounter these spirits here, please keep in mind that they will act just as they did when they were living. They can do good things. They can do bad things. And if threatened or provoked, they may get upset — just like people. But they’re generally not to be thought of as dangerous.”
Tashima nodded at Kevin’s splint. “Tell that to Kevin’s hand.”
Kim swallowed. She felt her own arm tingle, remembering the moist grip of the dead girl from the bridge.
Burke looked at her. “The truth of the matter is, Miss Ishmail, most entities can’t or won’t hurt you. Those who live with a presence in their home sometimes report incidents of people being hurt. In these cases, however, the injuries occurred because said entity became psychically bonded with the occupants. As I said, ghosts are just like people. If you upset them enough, you never know what could happen. You should be respectful at all times, and if you hear something growl ‘get out!’ and you know it wasn’t someone else in the group —” His eyes shot to Joss, then returned to Tashima. “— just turn around and leave.”
Kim frowned. “You mentioned two types of spirits. What’s the second?”
Burke nodded at her and went on, “The second type of entity is the spirit that has never existed as a mortal being. Some call them ‘evil’ spirits. A more common term might be demons. These are particularly nasty. The chances of running into one are slim at best, but before we begin our investigation, it’s customary to ask for protection from these entities. Now, I’m not going to stand up here and give a benediction, but I do encourage everyone to take a moment to privately ask whatever god or good deity you worship for protection. This will keep all the non-human spirits at bay.”
“Won’t they ...?” Kim looked around. “I don’t know ...”
Tashima knew. “Get all mad at us and start throwin’ shit?”
Burke shook his head. His voice was calm and reassuring, “Ask any demonologist and they’ll tell you that this won’t provoke an attack of any kind. We’re not doing an exorcism. They would fight that kicking and screaming. We’re merely telling any evil spirits here to let us be.”
And then the professor closed his eyes and bowed his head. Tashima did the same. Joss hesitated, but followed their lead. Kim looked to Kevin. His head was tilted toward the crumbling ceiling, but his eyes were also shut.
Kim closed her own eyes and struggled to find the appropriate words. It had been years since she had said a real prayer.
God, she began, protect me from all harm, all evil and please ... please give me the strength to face all of my fears.
When her eyelids slid open, Kim found the others were already finished and staring at her. She blushed as the circle disbanded.
“All right then, let’s go upstairs, shall we?” Burke moved toward the staircase at the far end of the lobby, the rest of the group falling in line behind him.
Halfway up the steps, Kim’s neck and arms began to itch. She scratched, realizing even the strength of her prescription couldn’t defend her from the amount of dust in the Woodfield.
Great ... next comes the hives and the burning eyes. I should’ve prayed for allergy relief while I was at it.
When he reached the top, Burke turned into a hallway. Fixtures along the wall held darkened or flickering bulbs in their sockets, making it very dim. Kim could make out the familiar symbols for MEN’s and WOMEN’s restrooms and a third door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.
“We’ll start at the top, behind the scenes, as it were, and then work our way down.” There was great enthusiasm in Burke’s voice. He pushed down on the handle of the employee entrance and its hinges cried out in a long, loud creak as it swung inward. “Welcome to The Inner Sanctum.”
When he saw their blank stares and puzzled expressions, the forming grin wilted from his face.
“Before your time,” he told them.
It took only a few moments to walk up the steep stairs. They rose into a service hall holding more doors. Kim thought for a moment about what they might find behind them and a clear picture of the drowned girl surfaced in her mind. She blinked, willing it away, following the team through the first door on the right.
And then the smell hit her.
Tashima noticed it too. Her face crinkled. “Oh ... that is foul. Should I note that? That is foul.”
Burke nodded. “Yes, note the smell. Most likely an animal got in and couldn’t find its way out.”
Kevin pointed to the broken window in the corner, the one Kim had seen from the parking lot. “Probably a bird.”
“Or the rat that left its droppings in the candy case downstairs,” Kim said. She opened her steno pad, made notes, then looked around the room.
It was the projection booth. Film canisters of various sizes were stacked on metal shelving beside her, covered by gossamer and grime. Kim blew the dust from one of the labels. “What’s Opera Doc?”(1.33:1) ... Warner Bros. 1957 ... Jones ... Color. She wondered what a film collector might pay for the print of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
Some of the canisters had spilled their cargo onto the concrete floor of the booth. A huge pile of celluloid had been pushed into a corner. There it lay exposed, slowly decomposing in the alternating cold and heat of the seasons — images held captive within its frames becoming lost for all time.
“I’m getting a cold spot here,” Burke announced, pointing his thermal scanner.
Kim’s eyes flew around the room, searching for signs of a spirit. Instead, she saw Mr. Harvey, alive and well, inspecting the equipment he once operated. He turned to them and offered a warm grin and wave that brought a smile to her face despite her fears.
“Miss Saunders,” the professor said calmly, “please note that AC vent in the ceiling.”
She looked up to see a frayed strip of cloth tied to a metal grate, twisting like a kite tail in the artificial breeze. Relieved, she marked it on her map, then moved over to Mr. Harvey.
The old man opened the gate of his projector and blew dust from the sprockets. “Damn shame,” he said. “This here’s the Christie ‘Xenolite’ xenon/mercury illuminator. Model K31. Serial 03F6661CD. I know her better than I know my own wife. Lotta film moved through this little lady. Some of it better than others. Any day now, they’ll come yank her out and that’ll be that.”
Kim pointed to what looked like a tower of old-style turntables to the right. “And what’s this thing here?”
“Those are the platters,” he told her. “Use to be, film came in separate reels and you ran it on multiple projectors. When one projector got to the tail end, you started up another one and did a reel change. Now, you cut the whole film together into one big ol’ reel and wind it up on this metal platter. The film runs through ol’ Christie —”
He traced the path it would take with his withered finger, his joints swollen into marbles be
neath the skin.
“— and then down here to the next platter on the stack, where it coils up again nice as you please.”
“Have you seen the new digital projectors?” Joss asked. “They download the whole film and project it right onto the screen. I saw the last Pirates of the Caribbean down in Indianapolis and the picture and sound quality just blew me away. No more bad prints. Hell, no prints at all.”
He started to laugh, but Harvey’s expression killed it.
“Son,” the old man said. “They been sayin’ for years that they was gonna replace actors with these digital people and I ain’t seen that fella Brad Pitt lose any parts ’cause of it.”
He walked over to the shelves, grabbed a tightly rolled reel and raised it toward a dingy orange light bulb on the wall.
“This you can touch. You can hold it up to the light and see that there person as they was when they was young and alive, what they was wearin’, the way they felt, the direction the wind was blowin’ and the sun was shinin’. If you take care of it like they does in that Library of Congress, it’ll last forever. Some file on some computer somewhere can’t compare to that. And nothin’ can ever replace the feeling people got when they came to this place.”
Harvey pointed out a glass window into the auditorium beyond, speaking in an earnest tone.
“I threw a lot o’ stuff out there on that screen. This was where people found out about The War, about that Russian satellite goin’ up, and them missiles down in Cuba. And this is where they came to forget all o’ that crap, where they laughed and cried and had their first date, their first kiss ... hell, I seen kids cop their first feel right here under this window, saw ’em do even more than that when we showed them skin flicks. They can tear this place down and put up somethin’ bigger or newer, but it will never be better. Never in a million years.”
Joss stared at him, his mouth slightly ajar.
Burke spoke up, “Mr. Harvey has been with the Woodfield a very long time. Perhaps you could show us around these other rooms?”
“Sure thing,” Harvey said, turning cheerful. He tossed the rolled trailer reel to Joss, who nearly fumbled it, then gave his Christie a final pat and led the professor off through the next door.
Tashima elbowed Joss in the ribs.
“Ow!” He rubbed his side. “What the hell was that for?”
“Why’d you have to go and get him started?” She scowled, her voice growing deep, “Back in the day I’d walk out to Hollywood in the snow and get the damn movies myself.”
“I was just makin’ conversation.” Joss rubbed his side. “I didn’t know he’d go all ‘fight the future’ on me.”
“You guys.” Kim turned, backing up toward the open doorway. “He’s a sweet old man who’s spent most of his life here, and now they’re gonna tear it all down. How would you feel?”
“He’s not gonna chain himself to the front door, is he?” Joss asked, looking at the label of the trailer in his hands.
Tashima smiled. “Maybe he’ll chain you to the front door.”
“Hey ...” Joss spun the title around to show her, his eyebrows bobbing. “Jungle Fever.”
“You keep dreamin’,” Tashima huffed, then followed Kim out.
Mr. Harvey opened the door across the service hall. He reached in and flipped a switch, illuminating huge kettles beneath a hooded vent in the ceiling. “This here’s the poppin’ room. This is where they popped all the bags of popcorn and caramel corn to take downstairs.”
“What about the old-fashioned poppers I saw on the concession stand?” Kim asked. The room was hot and smelled sickening sweet.
“Them poppers downstairs were fine in a pinch,” Harvey began, “but they took forever to heat up and then they didn’t make a whole helluva lot. Delbert mainly got them for show. Most of the poppin’ was done right in here. We’d use 25 pound bags of corn and these here boxes.”
He pointed to another metal shelving unit. This one was filled with oblong boxes. A golden drop with a smiley face was etched on the side and what looked like a plastic faucet jutted from the end.
“Oil,” he told them. “We’d fill the kettles full and pop two, maybe three trash bags full of corn at a time, then we’d haul it downstairs to fill the bins. The kids used to hate comin’ up here to pop. That oil just hangs in the air and made ’em break out in all kinds of zits.”
Kevin looked at the fire extinguisher. “Is this where the fire started, the one that killed all those people?”
Harvey licked his lips. “No. They say somebody started that with a cigarette. But we did have some flame-ups.” He chuckled at a private memory, then he glanced back at Kevin and his face turned serious, his tone grave. “Nothin’ like that big blaze, though. Folks around here ain’t likely to forget that even after this place is long gone.”
“And what are these other rooms?” Burke prodded as if trying to change the subject.
Harvey shrugged. “Offices and storage for the most part.”
He moved down the narrow hall and Kim followed. Gray floor tiles were chipped or missing all together. Gray paint peeled and flaked off the walls. Ceiling tiles were discolored by leaks and growing mold.
If this place isn’t haunted, it sure is dressed for the part.
Harvey opened the next door, and it swung open on a man standing in the shadows.
Kim jumped, but luckily, she managed not to scream.
The projectionist flipped on a light, revealing a cardboard cutout of Norman Bates. It looked like a huge screw had been driven through Norman’s head, but Kim stepped forward and saw that it was actually an illusion — two halves of a plastic screw attached to a headband. Ruthless People was written across the side of the screw, and it took her a moment to realize that had been the title of some old movie.
Joss and Kevin laughed.
Tashima put her hand over her heart. “That shit ain’t funny.”
Even Mr. Harvey gave a chuckle as he entered the cramped room. There were boxes stacked from floor to ceiling. Some were marked at the factory, others with a Sharpie. Open containers in the center were tightly filled with old posters and banners.
Joss took one and unrolled it. “Free Willy!”
“Which one?” Kevin asked, looking through a box of old popcorn buckets.
“The first one.” Joss turned the poster around for their inspection — a boy, his arm outstretched, standing beneath a leaping orca. “Anybody else think it looks like the kid’s throwin’ the whale?”
Tashima snickered. “How many of those did they make? — like three, four? I say if Willy’s dumb enough to get caught that many times, harpoon his ass!”
Mr. Harvey led them out, deliberately passing over the next door. It was marked Manager. She felt a sudden chill and wondered if she should write it down.
Burke stopped and placed his hand on the knob. “Mr. King’s office?”
Harvey nodded without looking back. “That’s it.”
Burke pushed the door open and raised his thermal scanner. He reached blindly along the wall for a switch, igniting a fluorescent fixture in the ceiling. One bar was dim and black at either end. The other was overly bright, as if it were trying to make up for its sickly neighbor. A dust-covered desk sat in the far corner of the room, and on the floor, a high-backed executive chair lay overturned beside a smashed computer monitor.
The professor walked inside with Kevin in tow. They took their sample readings, noted them, then compared notes.
“Miss Ishmail?” Burke called.
“Yeah?”
“Why don’t you start taking photos now.”
Tashima did as the professor asked, blasting the room with the Olympus flash. She looked at the digital screen on the back of the camera, her face growing an odd expression. “Um ... these orb thingies ... they’re just like ... balls of light?”
He smiled. “Yes, dear. Please, don’t assume anything. If you think you see something, continue taking pictures. Miss Saunders, please note the reflecti
ve surfaces in the room.”
Kim nodded absently, wondering what Tashima saw. She logged the broken monitor on the floor and the framed movie posters on the wall. The glass turned white with reflected light from every flash.
“Mr. Giler, I’d like some video as well.”
Joss turned on his camera and aimed it. Would something be visible through his eyepiece that was hidden from Kim’s natural eye — or would such things only appear later, when the footage was viewed far away from here?
When Kevin walked by the closet, he opened it.
A creature leapt from the darkness, teeth bared, claws outstretched.
Kevin stumbled back as the beast ran across the office floor and around the corner in the blink of an eye, its long pink tail whipping against the doorframe.
Tashima hopped back, screaming, “Rat!”
Kim held up her clipboard, ready to swat the creature if it came near her.
“It’s only a possum,” Joss said with a laugh, following it down the hall with the camcorder. “I wish you guys coulda seen your faces.”
Kevin chuckled as well. He carefully re-opened the closet door, finding the Woodfield’s safe within. With more than a little trepidation, he gave the metal door a tug and was surprised to find it swung open. “Empty,” he announced.
Burke appeared totally unaffected by the incident. He lowered his scanner and followed the possum’s path out of the room. “Let’s move on, shall we?”
Mr. Harvey was way ahead of him. He opened the last door, showing them a furnace room where the fuse boxes had been before leading them down steps to the second floor.
The balcony level.
•••
When she stepped out onto the gallery, Kim could not believe her eyes. Even after years of neglect, the grandeur was beyond anything she’d ever seen. Seven golden female statues hung above the silver screen. Three faced left, three right, and the one in the center was staring straight ahead, looking right at her with its vacant, gilded eyes. One held grapes. Another carried a harp. The center nymph pointed a sword outward as if leading a charge. Gargoyles of various shapes and sizes sat perched atop the Greco-Roman pillars that lined the walls, their golden eyes staring down at the rows of seats below them. An ornate, tulip-patterned border surrounded a huge, black domed ceiling. Tiny lights flickered across the surface of the dome, creating the illusion of twinkling stars.