Night of Obscene Horror – Chapter Twenty One

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Chapter Twenty One

15th November 2013

Henry closed the door of the projection booth behind him and let out a sharp breath. He was in control again, back in his own domain. He knew exactly what he needed to do and he knew that he could do it.

He walked to the desk in one corner of the small room and pulled a pen from a small pot that sat on top of it. There was a flier there for some previous all night show and Henry turned it over and started writing on the back.

The woman had given him a simple timeline to follow, a series of tasks that needed to be completed at certain times. He noted them down, eager to commit them to paper before they escaped his memory. Once the short list was completed, he neatly folded the paper and put it into his pocket. As he did so his fingers brushed against the smooth enamel of his wife’s tooth and he felt that panic rising in his chest again. He closed his eyes and pictured Mary.

“Please God,” he murmured, “please give me the strength to do this.” He couldn’t remember the last time he had prayed, but that simple act calmed him and he set to work.

Ray stood by the main doors of the Embassy, looking out at the waiting hordes. He felt like a character at the climax of a zombie movie, debating whether to end it all by letting the dead in.

He looked back at Jackson and Mark sitting side by side in the ticket booth.

“You ready?” he asked.

“As I’ll ever be,” Jackson replied. Mark nodded. He was quiet tonight, Ray noted, he’d keep an eye on him. As long as he did his job it didn’t really matter but he liked to think the people who worked for him didn’t hate the experience too much, even Henry who definitely had something else on his mind.

Ray turned back to the doors and bent down to raise the bolts at the bottom. His knees cracked as he did it, another reminder that he was getting older. He straightened and reached up to pull the top bolts down. He could feel the tension out there, the excitement radiating off the waiting fans. The next forty five minutes or so would be tough, getting everyone in, getting the tickets sold and the drinks and snacks bought, but once the audience were all seated and the lights went down the hard work would be over. As soon as the silver screen flickered from the kiss of the projector and the magic started happening Ray would relax. It was the people waiting outside he did it for, the ones like him who the multiplexes didn’t cater for.

Ray stepped back as he pulled the doors open and watched them parade into his empire, nodding at a few faces he knew, welcoming his customers. It felt good, tonight was going to be a good one, he could feel it.

Jackson watched Ray standing at the door and felt herself smile. It wasn’t voluntary, he just made her feel good. She hadn’t told any of her friends about him, not that she had many. Partly it was because she didn’t want to jinx it, whatever it was that they had. Partly it was the age thing.

She hadn’t told her mum either. She knew what the response would be, could almost see the words spewing out of her mother’s always painted lips. “He’s old enough to be your father.” That in itself would trigger a long silent reverie as her mum wept inside for her dead husband. Jackson had barely known him in person, he was present only in memories that never quite felt real and in the black absence he had left in their lives. She could have coped with that if the old woman hadn’t mentioned it daily, calling up the mythical memory of the man who could have solved every problem they had if he hadn’t been so selfish as to die.

Ray wasn’t a father figure, she told herself, just a man whose confidence gave her confidence. He was calm, kind and reassuring. Not strong in a physical sense, certainly not compared to some of the self-obsessed gym bunnies she’d dated, but totally in control of himself. When she was with him she was able to relax in a way that she couldn’t usually. She could give herself up to him and the moment, be herself with no fear of judgement. It wasn’t a feeling she was used to, certainly not one she’d experienced often in the first twenty years of her life.

She watched as Ray disappeared behind the wave of people entering the cinema, until just the top of his head was visible, then she turned her eyes to the queue in front of her and started serving them.

In the projection booth Henry opened the third of the film cans containing the print of ‘Notte di Orrore Osceno’. He carefully lifted the film out as he’d been told to and placed it on top of one of the other cans. He ran his fingers over the smooth metal base of the can, searching for something the woman on the phone had promised him was there. At last he found it, an almost imperceptible lip near the edge. He dug a fingernail under it and worked at it, pulling it up enough to grasp it with his fingertips and peel back the false bottom of the can. Beneath it lay a single compact disc. Henry stared at it. It looked so innocent, just an unlabelled disc like someone might have in their car or resting in an office drawer. For Henry it was far from innocent, it was part of the first thing the woman had asked him to do.

Mark sat in the ticket booth, taking cash and credit card payments and handing over tickets. There were faces he knew in the queue that stretched away from him and Jackson, a lot of them. They were people he’d met in other places, in darkened rooms, sitting with them and watching and listening. Planning. Waiting for the time to come, the time that was tonight. He felt a wave of nervous energy coursing through his body, an excitement like he’d never felt before. A sick thrill at the knowledge of what he had done earlier and what would happen later.

He’d been told it so many times that he believed it like he believed that the sky was blue and water was wet. Tonight was going to change the world.

Want to read on? The next chapter will be available on Wednesday 7th May