“What are those?” Rob asked, pointing to the partially-hidden canisters.
Dan arched his brow. “Those?” He waddled over to the old dented cans and bent down on one knee. “Well, one of them is Austin Powers and the Spy Who Shagged Me, and the other…” He knocked over the marketing materials like the trash they were. They spilled across the floor, mixing with other throwaway items of little to no importance. The first thing Rob wanted to do when he took over Dan’s job was to clean out the cage, make it look somewhat presentable. “The other is a rare print from my own personal collection.”
“You collect prints?”
Dan rotated his entire body toward the kid. His lips carved out an almost sinister smile. “Yes. Yes, I do.” A faint laugh lived and died in his throat. “Mostly foreign flicks. Rarities and B-sides. Stuff you’ve probably never heard of, stuff you might not even find on the Internet. Stuff that may or may not sell for a fortune if I live long enough.”
“What kinds of movies?”
Dan’s forehead bunched together, creating wrinkles and ripples across his pale stretch of skin. “Do you like horror movies, kid?”
Rob shrugged. “Sure. Rob Zombie’s first couple were good. I’ll see the new one.”
The projectionist scoffed. “Rob Zombie? The man wishes he could make the types of films I’m talking about. The types of films I collect are true masterpieces. They’re true art. They’re… how shall I put this?” He pressed the tip of his forefinger against his chin. His eyes expanded as the words came to him. “They are morbid perfections.”
Rob stared at him, unblinking. “Oh-kay, then.”
“Take this one for example.” He popped the latch on the orange canister and pulled back the lid. Inside sat three reels. “It’s a short flick. Only about an hour. French title. Ouverture. English translation: Aperture.”
“Like an aperture plate?”
Dan winked at him the way one might near the end of a flirty date. “Exactly. Guess you were paying attention after all. An aperture is an opening. In our biz, it’s the space that allows light to pass through the projector, allowing the image captured on film to project onto the screen. In this film’s case…” He stroked the reels as if they were the spine of his favorite cat. “…it’s… well.” He laughed incredulously. “Never mind, kid. You wouldn’t believe me. Not a thing like this.”
Rob folded his arms across his chest. He’d just turned eighteen and had learned a long time ago the difference between when someone was sincere and when someone was putting him on. But in this moment, he couldn’t decipher if Dan was serious or yanking his cord. At the very least, the old, nearly-retired projectionist believed in what he was talking about. He’d known Dan for about a year, since he’d started working at The Orchid 10 last summer. He’d only spoken to the man a handful of times since, and he hadn’t seemed too loony. A man of few words, sure, but not the bat-shit bonkers turd everyone made him out to be. The man was a hermit, a real recluse, and Rob didn’t know him any better than he knew the guy at Wawa who brewed his coffee every morning.
“Try me,” Rob said, his curiosity piqued.
Dan flashed him an excited, grinning look. “You want to see it?”
“Sure.” He didn’t know if he did or not, but the answer came forth anyway, as if there were no possible way he could stop it. “What’s it about, though?”
Dan rubbed his hands together in delight. “Oh boy. You’re in for a real treat. A reel treat,” he said, snatching a reel out of the canister and holding it up to illustrate his pun. “It’s a story about love and death. Life and what lies on the other side of death’s door. Some say,” he said, that sick grin still pasted across his face, “that one viewing will open up a portal in your mind, allow you to see what’s on the other side. A temporal gateway of sorts.”
“An aperture,” Rob mumbled.
“Yes, kid.” Grinning still, the hermit revealed gums that had blackened over the last sixty years. Teeth that were long overdue for repair, maybe past the point of restoration. “An aperture into another world.”
“So you’ve watched it?”
He looked down at the reel in his hand. “Well… no.”
“No?”
“No,” he said confidently. “Why would I? That sounds scary as shit.”
“You’ve never watched it?” Rob asked, almost angrily.
“No. Nope. Started to once. Got about five minutes in and had to shut it down. Gave me a headache something fierce.”
“What happened? What was on it?” Rob felt his obsession with Dan’s story grow, as if it were some living, palpable thing inside him. Feeding on him. Gnawing from within.
A crown of sweat dripped from Rob’s forehead. He felt lightheaded.
“You okay?” Dan asked.
“Fine. Tell me about the print. What happened?”
Dan shrugged. “It was just too… bizarre.”
“Isn’t that why you’d watch it?”
“Listen, kid. When did this turn into an interrogation?” Dan put the reel back in the canister and shut the case. “I just collect the shit, hoping it sells when I retire. Which is next week, by the way. Which means you’re going to be the new lead projectionist. Which means we need to learn your ass.”
“We should watch it.”
Dan’s smile danced off his face. His color paled. “You… really… want to?”
“Yes.” He’d called the old hermit’s bluff. “Yes, let’s watch it.”
“Oh… oh, okay. Tonight then. Midnight. I’ll thread theater one.”
“Perfect.”
He didn’t know why, but midnight couldn’t come fast enough.
The lobby of Orchid 10 was unsurprisingly vacant for a Monday night after the last show had gone in. Rob drifted toward the popcorn stand where the cute new girl stood behind the counter, prepping the popcorn popper for closing. She had already emptied it and was beginning to wipe down the greasy interior.
“Jumping on that a little prematurely, huh, new girl?” Rob asked, leaning on the candy counter.
She twisted her neck, continuing to spray down the stainless steel kettle. Flashing him a superficial smile, she said, “Dude, no one else is coming in.”
The second the words left her mouth, a couple stumbled through the front door, holding hands and giggling. They asked Rob if they were too late, if they had missed any part of the movie. While staring at the new girl, he simply said, “No,” and then proceeded over to the ticket booth.
“And be sure to try our number one combo,” he said loud enough so the new girl could hear, his lips pressed into a devious smile.
The new girl scowled, but when the couple came over to order a number one, she greeted them like the training videos instructed. “Anything else?” she bubbled and they shook their heads “no” and headed for the theater.
“There’s always one,” Rob said, winking at her.
She wriggled her lips and returned to her closing tasks, starting the process from the beginning.
Rob leaned on the counter again, the lower half of his face barely able to contain his grin. “Always one—”
“Cram it, Garland,” she said sharply. She turned to him and pretended to squirt cleaner at him, mimicking the squishy sounds it made when it shot from the nozzle. (pshoo-pshoo). She returned his goofy grin.