Movie Night
The air is thin and cold, I’m glad I remembered to bring my coat with me this time. Always feels like a waste, wearing such a heavy item of clothing to only become humid and uncomfortable enough to endure lugging it over my arm for the rest of the evening. Tonight, I do not bear that same notion as I step out into the late october night, icy air twisting my pale skin into goose flesh. The drive into town is as pleasant as sitting in an old tin can with no radio or AC could be. The usual static stirring from the unfixable old radio blurs with sounds from other passing cars, almost nostalgic, a sound reminiscent of falling asleep in front of the television as a child and waking up to black and grey specs erratic on the screen.
I pull up to an empty parking lot rear to the old cinema. The asphalt looks slimy from the relentless rain that seems to possess each and every waking moment here. Slick puddles flash with neon red lights as I pass through the parking lot to the main street. Quiet as always, scattered with tired lights and dead leaves, overflowing trash cans line the footpath. A street left abandoned though inhabited. Carnivals and shopping malls decorate the neighbouring suburbs, obnoxious teens walk huddled in their groups, mothers and children frequent the shops, and I come here. My quiet place, familiar and predictable. Though left ugly and unclean, decaying film posters and mouldy carpet adorn every square foot of the building, this is a place I come to feel at peace. Muddy footprints and sticky substances left unwashed on counters, relics of a time when this place was infested with young families and couples on first dates who have now moved on to marble floored and candy stocked theatres streets away.
The retro sign is still blinking tiredly above the double doors leading to the old cinema. “PET CEMETERY” reads in black block letters. I’m surprised to see underneath another film title is displayed “DEAD AND AWAKE”. The cinema plays one movie every Friday night, to which I am often the only patron. I decide to practise some spontaneity and purchase a ticket for the latter film, of which I have not seen. I approach the candy bar where the same employee stands every week.
“One ticket for dead and alive” I flash a smile that he does not reciprocate, as per usual. Under the yellowing static lights his face is almost too smooth, despite his sunken dark eyes, upturned nose and thin mouth, he appears featureless. Like someone, or something, trying to look human.
I take my movie ticket and bucket of stale popcorn to cinema 2. I’m glad to see it empty as I mount the carpeted stairs to the back row. I find my usual seat, J12, right in the corner, and settle in. My excitement steadies a little when I notice there is in fact another person in the cinema, right at the front. Strange, wanting to sit that close to the slightly rotted screen. They hold their gaze at an unnatural angle to the point I can’t quite decipher where their neck ends and their head begins. Unease creeps down my spine, I fiddle with my rusted wedding ring that I once wore for my late wife. Since her passing I have not taken it off, its cheap brass edges dig and slice into my fattened and aged fingers, yet I cannot bring myself to remove it.
The lights fade and the old screen flickers on. The same anticipation I always get here fills my gut and I sink into my chair. I can no longer see the figure at the front of the screen, relieved at the notion they may have decided to leave and I can enjoy the film alone. The opening scene is bleak, a low quality camera being held at a neck bending angle. The video is jagged and accompanied by nothing but the dead silence of the streets ahead and a deep breathing coming from behind the lens. A sense of unease quivers through my nerves and I fight the tension building up inside my muscles, ashamed of my sudden panic.
A half hour passes and nothing but the point of view of a shaky camera lens plays over the theatre. Frustration starts to flood my entire being, presumably masking the discomposure I'm now displaying as I sit and watch the shaky video on the screen before me. To display such a low budget film, to actually charge money for something that I could shoot on my old iphone, it’s insulting. And as I sit and stare, unable to admit to myself although knowing deep down I am too paralysed by my own mind to leave the theatre, a shape shifts its weight in front of the screen. I hadn’t been alone as I had thought. Sitting crooked and janky, same as before, is the other audience member. They still have their head bent at an odd angle, staring up at the film with an unnerving concentration for such a boring, long scene. It’s as if they’re anticipating something they know is about to happen, almost smuggish.
That’s it. I convince my body to force its way up, It’s not too late to catch Pet Cemetery instead. I won’t spend my evening watching this cheap snuff film, not alone with this creep of a figure. I make my way down the soft carpeted stairs once more and head for the exit. I lean into the doors and I find myself not moving any further than where my shoulder lands. I feel around for a handle or lever. Nothing. It’s dark and i'm clearly more dishevelled than I’d like to admit, I’ve gone the wrong way. Silly me. At my age these things can happen I suppose. I use the light emitting from the large screen and walk towards the other side of the theatre, willing my mind not to focus on the person in here with me. I can feel an unreasonable amount of panic arise in my chest, to be trapped in a dark stinking room with a jagged mute stranger lurking in the shadows. Now is not the time to let my imagination run wild.
I see the old dimmed green exit lamp and the panic subsides. I do feel a little embarrassed for getting so worked up over such a thing. I’ve been coming here my entire life, no need to be afraid - Oh. Same as before, I lean into the black abyss, expecting it to give way and lead me to the flickering candy bar. It doesn’t. Same as before, my shoulder hits a wall and nothing happens. I have to steady myself against it and feel around for a handle or something of the sort. Nothing, again. I pull out my phone, cringing at the fact that I’m about to turn on a flashlight in a dark cinema. I would roll my eyes into the back of my head if I saw someone doing the same! And it’s flat. Perhaps I had left it on during the drive over? Or butt dialled someone and was leaving them an extensive voicemail?
Returning the dead rectangle to my pocket, I feel around once more for a door handle, a crease in the wall, anything to prove there is an exit here. Deep breaths, I tell myself. I’ll have to ask the person sitting up front where the exit is.. Forcefully, I shove down my feelings of unease towards the fellow patron and spin round to face the front of the theatre. The light from the screen shines onto old footprints, dented into the carpet. All the same size, hundreds, going the same way. With that I look up to find myself alone again, the once occupied chair empty. My stomach drops a little and I’m starting to wish I stayed home tonight. They’re playing Scream 2 on cable, how close I was to staying in and watching that instead. Fireplace lit, a cigar and a bottle of whiskey to keep me company. I summon the courage to scan the back of the theatre, empty rows of seats lined one by one, barely visible in the darkness of the large room. I think about going back to my seat and finishing the film, the lights will come back on once its over. I may just have to endure it for the next hour or so. I gaze up to my usual spot in the corner and- what is that? A shade darker than the rest of the shadowed seats, hardly noticeable, the person has moved to my spot. I’m still yet to see any recognisable features that you would find in a person. No outline of shoulders or hair, just..something. I can’t bring myself to look away, do they move everytime I turn my gaze? My body starts to tense up more and more as I notice a gleam in the otherwise pitch black shape. Smiling. They’re smiling at me. Two rows of teeth stacked on top of each other, grinning at me from ear to ear. Completely still and shapeless, beaming down at me.
My heart palpitates as I stand paralysed under the leering stranger. My body is frozen, some small voice in my head says if I don’t move at all, if I stay completely still and silent, this will be over. I’ll blink and be back in my living room. Dissociation clouds my mind as I suddenly become all too aware that this is real, this is happening, and I cannot stand here forever. Someone is going to move. Swallowing hard, gulping down the terror that has risen in my throat, I wave my hand and nod. Nothing. The pair of floating teeth stay baring themselves to me.
“Ah, sorry to interrupt the film. I can’t seem to find the exit”
The screen changes scenes and a bright flash invades the theatre. The shadowy figure solidifies for a moment, and I pray that the room stays dark, I pray to a god I have not once believed in, that I never again have to see what I saw under that beam of light. A face too physically disturbed to distinguish anything other than the same wide grin that has been looming over me for what feels like an eternity. It’s skin, so smooth it looks as if it were incorrectly grafted from another person. It reminds me of the creepy pinatas my mother would make when I was a kid; always dull in colour, emotionless under a twisted face made of paper mache. I had nightmares about them throughout my childhood, though out of guilt I never asked my mother to stop making them.
I would cover my eyes and prepare to beat candy out of the sad figure hanging from the large oak in our yard, when my surroundings would abruptly go dead silent. I would peel the bandana off my face and the pinata man would be gone, as was everyone else. I would notice him poking his head out from either side of the tree, smiling at me, he’d stick his hand out comically and wave slowly. No matter where I went, he would be there. I would come to find there was no one else around, just me. I would curl up on the sofa under a blanket and catch glimpses of him poking his head around the corner of a door. Sometimes I would see him dramatically tiptoe towards me through the sheerness of the blanket, he’d move as if he was a mime or a clown in a circus. I’d shut my eyes and feel him sit next to me, feel his eyes burning into me and his enthusiastic grin growing wider and wider. Often I would wake up at this point, sweat soaked and trembling, every casting shadow in my dark bedroom a version of the pinata man.
But this is real, and there is no way out.
I want to run, but where would I go? A couple metres to the right? I’d still be in this room, the smell of which I’m only starting to realise how putrid and rotten it really is. Does it ever get cleaned? It’s probably a hazard sitting in a carpeted, poorly ventilated room compacted with mould and god knows what else. Another scene changes, and for the first time since getting out of my seat I focus my attention on the screen at the front. It’s me. A dark pixelated view from one corner of the room in night vision, I’m looking at myself. My eyes are glowing back at me, the only thing that isn’t discoloured in shades of black and grey, as if they're emitting light. I’m standing in the same spot, but my friend has moved again. I scan the screen and- there it is.
Sitting 2 rows behind me is a perfectly still silhouette grinning right at me through the screen. I can smell its breath now. I realise the rotting stench was never coming from the theatre itself, but something that has been festering here for who knows how long. A ripe mixture of stomach bile and stale flesh wafts through my nostrils, it takes everything in me not to throw up the barely buttered old popcorn I had scoffed earlier. Kernels and unpopped corn climb up the softness of my throat and cling to the wet flesh at the top while my stomach twists into knots as the smell thickens around me.
A soggy limb drapes over my shoulder, wet and heavy. Terror restricts my muscles and I close my eyes to find the vivid memory of the things face under the harsh light of the bright screen. Melted skin, waxy, grinning ecstatically, eyes flooded with some kind of horrifying primal desperation. I feel a hand-like appendage slide over my other shoulder and I catch a glimpse under the dim light. What looks like melted candle sticks moulded to one large webbed clump of protruding flesh like points snakes down from my shoulder before digging its cold wet stumps into my arm. I gargle through bile and popcorn, pleading with my body to let me scream. It’s repulsive fleshy fingers make their way to my face, peeling off stubbled skin and sliding across raw flesh up to my eye sockets. My skinned face burns under hot tears as it slowly widens my gaze, lifting the skin from my eyeballs and baring them to the rancid air engulfing me.
Instinctively, I try to blink away the dryness now singeing my eyes and it digs harder into my eyelids, almost pinning them to my forehead with jagged rotten fingernails coloured in browns and yellows, dripping dark pus over my pupils and into my bared sockets. The stench is ripe and I can feel it moving through me, under my skin and over my flesh, encasing me in a thick layer of its musk. The screen in front of us crackles and the scene changes again. I see it’s pale flesh peek around from behind me, still fucking smiling. It looks at me eagerly, and its dewy eyes flicker back and forth between me and the screen while its grin stays pointed at me. I have to watch the film. That’s all it wants.
I keep my eyes on the screen, struggling to see anything other than blurred light through the pool of tears that have built up against the damp air that has now completely enveloped them. A few fall into the gaping wounds decorating my shredded face and I can just make out the figures on the screen;
It’s filmed from someone's point of view. Rough, aged hands turn keys in an ignition and the sound of an engine settles. The person climbs out of a truck and walks down a dark driveway towards a red brick house. I catch a glimpse of the person through the reflection of a cracked window. A short overweight man with a round bulbous gut and thinning hair scarce over his scalp, a thick moustache drapes over his dry mouth lined with hardened saliva. Calloused hands turn a door handle and we enter a dark room. He punches a switch and the room is flooded with dim static light. A woman sits smallened on a chair in the corner wrapped in dark hair, sticking to her face in wet chunks. Shaky hands smooth the hairs away and she looks up at us - at him. Lips swollen from crying, eyes red and raw. She shrinks at the sight of him. Everything is quiet. Moments pass and she moves from the chair, slowly making her way to another room. The man follows soon after. He walks down a hallway lined with crooked framed pictures of the same woman, she’s beautiful. Her hair lies thick over her shoulders and a wide smile spreads across her delicate face.
The walls behind the pictures are chipped and painted with black mould. He reaches an old wooden door at the end of the dark hall and halts. It’s still for a moment. A piercing crack echoes through the speakers and he kicks the door down with his wide stocky leg. The woman is in there, her frail frame hunched over next to the bed. She screams at the sudden intrusion and with one fat hand he pulls her from the floor and drags her to the hall before returning to look under the bed. A leather suitcase, underwear, coats, and pants are overflowing out of the broken zipper. He pulls it out from under the bed and throws it through the thin panel wall. The woman screams again, she rolls onto her stomach and drags her body away from the man, the back of her head is missing chunks of hair and I can see crusted blood covering her scalp.
I try to look away but its clammy palms are wrapped around both sides of my head, my eyes are still bared to the screen with no relief of blinking. The man raises his left arm and in his hand a rusted old hammer sits wedged. I flick my eyeballs side to side, desperately trying to avoid witnessing the attack. I stare into the corner of the screen, letting my eyes blur to block out the scene playing out before me. It’s really no use, the screen is as wide as the wall itself. The man brings the hammer down, she can’t beg him to stop so I do. God please make him stop, let her go, let me look away.
My eyes burn as the dry jelly dampens beneath my tears, I swear I can hear them sizzling. The thing jerks my head so that I focus my vision back on the screen. Playfully, it taps its retched nails against the smooth meat of my eyes and I can feel the jelly start to split with each jab. Hair and blood and god knows what else smeared into a once beige carpet, the man finishes with the hammer and places it gently next to the woman's lifeless body. A cheap ring stained with blood and innards wraps around his fat finger and creases the skin as he flexes his hands casually. He looks up, there's a mirror. It’s cracked down the centre but I can make out his face, and I wish I couldn’t. I wish I never came here. I want to go home but I can’t remember where home is, I can’t remember the last time I was there. I can’t remember being anywhere other than here.
Its sharp fingers retreat, letting my eyelids return to their place. My eyes sting as the skin covers them, wetting the dryness they were exposed to. I blink moisture back into my sockets until my vision clears. Wiping the tears from my face I glance at my hands, the hands I've looked at all my life. The scars and the calluses, all evidence of a life I lived. The silver band is still wrapped around my finger, bulging flesh cushions around it and I notice a small dark stain on the edge of the cheap metal.
Blood.