The two of them had been playing this little flirty game over the last week, basically since Brianne Welker’s orientation. On her first day, she had told Rob that she had broken it off with her boyfriend and was looking forward to spending the summer before senior year single. He thought that info was a little too much to reveal on her first day, but he didn’t mind; they had shared a strong connection from the second he had laid eyes on her, the second he had opened his mouth. Their first conversation felt like it would never end, be consumed by awkward silences or grow dull. They shared likes and dislikes and discovered they loved the same movies. They spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning theaters, discussing their favorite films, albums they’d require if stranded on a desert island, and which books they’d read over and over again. She was a little too much of a Harry Potter nerd for his tastes, but that was okay; he liked the books too and told her Universal was supposedly opening up a Harry Potter theme park, which she already knew about and claimed she’d be first in line when it opened next fall.
They talked for hours even though their exchange only seemed like minutes. And when the day was over, they continued their conversation via text message.
They next day they were making out in the ice room. Rob had her back pressed against the ice machine. She jumped up on his hips and wrapped her legs around his waist. It was a scene out of every romantic comedy he’d ever seen. They’d spent the next ten minutes swapping saliva until one of the other ushers had barged in. The usher’s face had twisted with alarm and embarrassment, and he’d immediately thrown his arm over his eyes and backed out of the room.
Since then, they had made sure to carve out at least ten minutes of every shift to make kissy-face in the maintenance closet.
“What are you thinking about?” Brianne asked him.
“Nothing?”
Her eyes slimmed. Cocking her head, she said, “You’re thinking about the broom closet again, aren’t you?”
“No…” Rob winked and held the pose. “Okay, I was. Sue me. Wanna go?”
“I have to finish cleaning the popper. Then sweep and mop the stand. You know the routine.”
“Yeah, I sure do.”
“Plus, I was thinking we could do something else. You know, besides making out.”
“Oh?” Rob perked up. His pants suddenly felt a little tighter. Sweat crawled down his inner leg. “Like what, pray tell, did you have in mind?”
Buffing the counter with a clean rag, she shrugged. “I dunno. Dinner? The diner on 37? IHOP? I’ll even let you pay the bill.”
“How gracious of you.” Rob folded his arms. “Got a better idea. Dan just invited me to a movie tonight. A sneak peek.”
Brianne’s brow spiked with interest. “Oh? The new Nolan?”
He shook his head. “No, something a little more obscure.”
She seemed almost disappointed.
“Some foreign film,” Rob said, filling up the napkin dispenser. “It’s French. Aperture, or something. Says it’s supposed to be scary as fuck.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“I do like French films. Ever see Chocolat?”
“No. God, no. And I don’t plan on it either.”
“It’s so good. Plus, you know—Johnny Depp and stuff.”
“Terrible.” He slammed the top down on the napkin dispenser and tugged the first one through. “So… you in?”
“I don’t know. Sounds weird. And creepy. And that guy Dan gives me the willies. He should invest in some deodorant.”
“Come on. He’s not so bad.”
“He never comes down from up there. I met him once, my first day. I said ‘hello’ and he grunted something back that wasn’t even English.”
Rob squeaked with laughter. “Yeah, that’s Dan. Man’s a bit of a recluse. He’s harmless. And a good guy once you get to know him. This theater will suffer without him.”
Brianne finished the counter, and then bent over to put the lid back on the candy case. “Fine. We’ll watch your French flick. But can we get food? Fuck, I’m starving.”
Two minutes to midnight and Dan Galloway had finished threading Ouverture. The sensation in his fingers while placing the film on the rollers had been too strong to ignore. They’d gone rigid a few times, especially while he’d fed the film through the brain, the piece stationed in the center of the print that controlled the speed of the platter. Numbness ruled his hands, down to the bone, every nerve shredded. When the tingling sensation abated, a shooting pain took its place and shot up his arm, needling his elbow. Nerves swam like a school of sharks in a feeding frenzy. His brain felt cloudy and empty, like a veil draped over his thoughts, preventing any original content from forming. He got the sense that, if he tried to speak, his words would come out as inarticulate syllables.
When finished, he took a seat next to the projector. He inhaled slowly, heard himself wheeze with each breath. A funny tingle fingered his heart, and he wondered if this was it, if this was the big heart attack that had ended many other Galloways before him.
He rested, but, as the seconds ticked on, he felt no better.
Eventually, he pulled himself up. Looking through the porthole, he spotted his protégé, the kid who’d replace him in a week’s time, and the kid’s new squeeze, the saucy new girl who served up one hell of a number two combo.
His lips spread into a smile, but the emotion behind the action quickly faltered. The realization of his successor’s dim future hit him hard. His mood suddenly soured and he felt awful for Rob. In a few years, this job would be gone. What was once a pretty decent-paying job complete with benefits and union perks, would give way to part-time minimum wage work only. True projectionists were a dying breed and he was the last of his kind. Dan predicted digital hardware would replace film in two year’s time, maybe less depending on the market. Soon, any two-bit numbskull with the brave ability to press a button could start a projector. Projectionists were trending toward obsolete, like the clockmakers and switchboard operators before them, and that bent Dan’s smile, crushed his high spirits.
Dan pressed the green button. The motor buzzed to life. The rollers fed the film along. The lamphouse glowed bright, projecting images on the screen. Dan raised his vision and focused on the front of the theater. Some French words were written in white against a black background.
Dan felt a presence behind him. A figure. Standing tall in the booth, looming over him, stretching like some indefinable shape, free from the constraints of gravity and other earthly restrictions.
He turned and saw nothing. No floating shape. No dim, jellylike figure reaching for his neck. Nothing but shadows and the small cone of light looking down at his workstation.
Silly, he thought, you’re being silly.
He returned to the film. The black and white images appeared before him, changing within a few seconds of showing themselves. They were of random things. Grotesque things. Things he’d seen before, once, when he first acquired the film from some junkie ex-actor who’d stolen it from some big-wig Hollywood executive twenty years prior. He’d made it about five minutes in before having to shut the damned thing off; he wondered how long he’d last the second time around.
The feeling returned. Something behind him. Some unspeakable horror, some gangrenous creature dripping with black, vile fluids, reeking of death and disease, a limitless mouth filled with tiny white shards of teeth, motivated to destroy and defile all that made the human world good and perfect, all that made it human.