B-Movie War (4 page)

“Catch you at a bad time?”

Mr. Frankfurt babbled, trying to get out more than a syllable.

“Don't talk. It'd only be excuses. Why aren't you showing any quality movies at this theatre? Like
Blood Suckers
or
Cinder Block Rock
?”

Mr. Frankfurt was stuck on Mr. Ratchet's entrance. “You, you just APPEARED. The door didn't open, or close, or anything. H-how did you do that?”

“Calm down, please, Mr. Frankfurt. Shall we step outside and have a smoke? Then we can talk like two businessmen.”

“Yeah, great. I mean yes. Of course we can. Sounds good, pal. Whatever you want. Just don't sneak up on me like that again. Whoever you are.”

Mr. Ratchet guided him to the back exit. They were outside. Before Mr. Frankfurt could fish out a pack of cigarettes, a man in a brown trench coat with a rough stubble beard, red rimmed eyes like he just drank a jar of bad hooch, and dirty pants approached them. He was also holding an orange balloon by a long string in his right hand.

The bum asked Mr. Frankfurt, “Do you like balloons?”

“Damn homeless people, they either sneak into the theatre or they camp out in the bathrooms. They stink up my fine theatre and scare off the clean, paying customers. Be off, or I'll call the police.”

The bum was at arm's length with Mr. Frankfurt. “Do you like balloons? I like balloons.”

“Get off the property, you freeloading bum. I'll call the police. You can spend the night in a cozy cell. Maybe you'd like that? Free room and board on the taxpayers' dime? You filthy ingrate. You'd love it.”

Mr. Ratchet was edgy. “The man asked you a question. Answer it.”

“What?” Mr. Frankfurt eyed Mr. Ratchet angrily. “Both of you have issues. You're both whackos. I'm going to call the police if you don't get off my property. I don't care if you caught me watching porn. Get out of here!”

The bum asked again, “Do you like balloons?”

Mr. Ratchet, “Well, do you?”

“Who doesn't like balloons, that's a silly quest—”

The bum tied the string around Mr. Frankfurt's wrist in four precise moves. Up the fat man floated. Mr. Frankfurt was speeding toward the sky. Mr. Ratchet and the bum arched their necks to watch the diminishing spec be carried higher and higher. The bum removed a Beretta pistol from his trench coat and clasped it in both arms to take aim.

“Hey, can I do the honors?”

The bum handed over the gun to him.

Mr. Ratchet's shot missed.

“Damn.”

Another shot.

It hit Mr. Frankfurt's toe.

The bum just kept watching the man float up higher and higher. Soon, he would be out of range of the bullet, not that it mattered. The bum wasn't real. The gun wasn't real. As long as the reels were playing in “Blood-O-Vision” in some corner of the world, the rules of reality didn't apply. Only horror rules.

Mr. Ratchet didn't aim. He shot blindly. And POP! The balloon exploded and down plummeted Mr. Frankfurt. He was higher than the skyscrapers. Fluttering, spinning and screaming, Mr. Frankfurt landed headfirst into the Main Street intersection. Mr. Ratchet could hear the splatter/crunch from here.

The bum took his gun back and already had another balloon in his hand. Moving on, he was already searching for the next person to ask if they liked balloons.

Alone, Mr. Ratchet noticed rats the size of show ponies were rooting through the trash, crunching on trash bags full of stale popcorn. Seeing him, the dozen rodent monsters with gray fur and red eyes followed Mr. Ratchet out to the front of the building.

The real show was about to begin.

Shambling through the parking lot from all corners arrived the undead in tattered clothes and flesh. Mr. Ratchet summoned them all to the theatre. The dead corpses clutched flaming jars in their hands. The fifty zombies tossed them at the theatre, some even going inside to light up the lobby that much faster. The commotion delivered the patrons and workers out into the parking lot crying out for their lives. The rats were lying in wait, rising up between vehicles to chomp them into halves, and fourths, and less. The zombies were there to eat what remained. As police and ambulance sirens carried on in pockets of the city, Mr. Ratchet flitted and disappeared.

The rats and zombies stayed behind, moving on to wreak new havoc on the police who soon arrived at the scene.

Chapter Five

Penny slept hard in the hotel room. She didn't mean to drink so hard from the bottle of vodka. Add to that, she hadn't had a good night's sleep in forever. Waking up and seeing that it was still light outside, she had slept for nearly six hours. It was five in the afternoon. Groggy, but unable to go back to sleep, she showered, downed a soda and perked up. She didn't worry about leaving Chad to his own devices. Her uncle was another story. She owed Jules a chance to tell his side of things. She would try to have an honest conversation with her uncle about the business one more time. Jules was having a nervous breakdown. Of course he wasn't going to be nice to her. He needed serious help. She had to be more persistent.

Before she would do anything else, Penny needed a cigarette, and her pack was empty. She left the hotel room and walked across the street to the all-night grocery store. Bright white lights glowed from the window panes. She passed the floral department. Nobody was working there. If Penny would've looked behind the counter, she would've found “Florence” sprawled out behind the floral department desk with her throat deeply cut and many roses jammed into her mouth and eyes. The Slitter was sitting in the dining area in a chair sharpening the blades of his shears with a carving stone, minding his own business.

Penny was too focused on reaching the counter with cigarettes to pay attention to anybody else. The grocery was mostly empty. Elevator music hummed from the ceilings. She passed the meat department and caught a burly man hunched over a meat slicer. It seemed the man knew she was watching him. He leered at her. The guy had a piggish fat face and his skin was shiny with a layer of sweat. All he said to her in a deep grunt was
“My cuts are the finest,”
and stomped toward the back room.

She didn't look close enough at the meat display.

A man's corpse was laid out on a bed of lettuce and garnishes.

Penny walked up to the cigarette counter behind the row of main registers. Nobody was at the counter. The registers were unmanned. She scanned the entire store. No people, only aisles of merchandise.

“Okay,” Penny said out loud. “I'm going to take a pack of cigarettes and leave the money on the counter. I'm not stealing.”

She grabbed a pack of cigarettes and placed five dollars on the counter. “That's with tax and a ten cent tip, since nobody's here to break my change. Okay, I'm leaving now.”

Penny headed towards the exit and stopped at the placard sign in the aisle.

Manager's Special

Hands and Feet Only

99cents a Pound

Some joke.

She didn't like being here anymore. Taking the cigarettes, even though she'd paid, made her feel like everybody was watching her. If anybody was here to watch her.

Near the exit, Penny was grabbed by the arm. A man in a red sweater, khakis, and blue bags under his eyes shook her by both arms. He spoke with staggering conviction. “The grocery store is where it ends and begins. You need food, you come here. You need supplies, you come here. You want safety, these bright lights give it to you. When the end comes, we'll eventually run out of food. So many mouths to feed. So many needs. It's my job to see everybody gets what they need. I'll feed the town no matter what it takes. Any means necessary. It's justified. I'm the manager, and what I did is justified. You understand, don't you? You'll be the last to go, ma'am. You think like me. I know you do. You think like a survivor. Stay with me. Stay here where it's safe. Don't go out there. Bad things are out there.”

She didn't scream. She didn't resist his hold. She didn't ask questions.

Penny pumped her knee and pounded him in the nuts.

The scary grocery manger guy toppled front first onto the ground cupping his balls.

Penny sprinted as fast as she could out of the store.

What was that about?
That guy sounds like he is gearing up for an apocalypse.

Penny could still feel the store manager's hands seize her arms. They might bruise, she thought. The psycho had given her the vice clamp grips. A kick to the nuts was all it took to bring him down. Best rule of thumb ever, she thought, in self-defense.

Returning to the hotel, Penny once again decided to give Jules one last chance to talk to her. The man needed serious help. If she couldn't talk him out of his office, she'd axe the damn door down.

On her way now to the theatre in her truck, a big yellow van sped right past her at eighty miles an hour, at least. The funny thing, it was an ice cream truck. Creepy toy box music was playing. It sounded like the speaker was melting, how it droned on with disharmonious notes. She only caught one decal on the back door that showed a cartoon kid biting into a bomb pop that had red explosion marks drawn around the kid's face. FREE BOMB POPS FOR KIDS ONLY. Barbed wire was wrapped around the entire vehicle. Pieces of clothing hung from the barbs, wildly flapping in the wind. The roof had a creepy lit up clown face that looked like a wino with powdered sugar for make-up and runny blue mascara at its eyes. Penny saw the profile of the driver in passing. He had green puffy clown hair. The visual stopped her from flipping the clown the bird.

“I hate clowns,” she whispered to herself, afraid the driver would somehow hear her. “You drive as fast as you want as long as it's away from me.”

Penny decided it was some guy who was out late having some fun. There were some very weird people who lived in this part of New Jersey.

The drive to The Odyssey Theatre was short. The spectacle could be seen from miles out. The rundown theatre was busy with activity. Bright dome lights signaled the theatre was open. Crowds of people were filing into the place. The parking lot was packed with cars. On the streets that led to the theatre, Penny noticed the various wood signs with paint slathered on advertising: FREE ADMISSION. FREE CONCESSIONS. ALL NIGHT HORROR FEST. NON-STOP PULSE POUNDING TERROR. GORY BLOODY HORROR. THE WORLD PREMIERE OF THE FINAL FLESH IS HERE. Whatever publicity stunt her uncle had pulled out of his ass was working. But free admission meant no money to help his financial situation. He'd totally lost his mind.

Penny didn't drive to the main entrance to catch the festivities. Instead, she drove around the back way near the rear exit. She didn't want to deal with hordes of customers who were probably tearing up the place in the wake of free concessions and free tickets.

The nervous feeling in Penny kept building. Why was she so nervous? Something just didn't feel right. She really had to talk to Jules.

Unlocking the door, she noticed the backroom area was a dumping ground for junk. Old placards for movies that had been shown in the past that Jules didn't want to trash.
Wizard of Oz
,
A Christmas Carol
,
Tora! Tora! Tora!
displays were mixed in with
Axe to Grind Part II
,
Jorg: The Hungry Butcher
,
Blood Boulevard
and
The Pickler
. Old theatre seats were stacked up high, discarded. The ones whose fabric were too torn for public use. A busted popcorn machine collected dust in the corner. The glass was frosted black from when it caught on fire. A newbie worker had left the machine on overnight and nearly burned the place down. Her nose turned at the awful smell.

What is going on back here?

Soaking in what could've been hundreds of large plastic tubs were strips of film reels. The reels were steeped in blood and human organs. There was no mistaking it; the smell cut her sinuses. Drying reels caked in blood, and hunks of clotted flesh hung from clotheslines. The room was filled with the reels. Reels projected various horror films. Dozens. She had to read the empty reel casings to identify them:
Mutant Crabs Attack Manhattan, Hitler Drinks Vampire Blood, Lightening of the Dead, Surgery Buffet 4: Dr. Scalpel's Revenge, Viper Rampage
,
You Will Bleed
and
Autopsy Sisters
. Sounds of various horror movies layered over each other, dialogue over screams, disharmonious music mixed with synthesizers, and creepy organ music each caused Penny to break out in a fearful sweat.

One projector especially caught her attention.

It wasn't playing film reels.

The projector rolled with human intestines. The pink coils fed into the projector unending from a giant heap of viscera, sickening her even more. Penny held back her gorge to understand what her eyes were telling her. The projector cast an image on the wall of living human autopsies. The screams, the terror on the faces of those being opened up on a metal slab, caused Penny to recoil from the sight.

Impossible, Penny kept thinking. She wanted to emphatically believe her uncle wasn't involved with the hideous things in this room. The problem, there was too much room for doubt. But could the guts and blood possibly be fake? No way, she told herself. There was no lying to herself about this. The answer was in the heavy air. The organs stank of ripeness. This was very much the real thing. What her uncle was up to in this theatre mystified and sickened her. Not wasting another second in this terrible room, Penny turned to the exit door to get the hell out of there when the exit doorknob turned from the other side.

Somebody was coming in.

Chapter Six

Two lines of people extended from The Odyssey Theatre building's entrance. Tony Rinaldi was in one of those long lines, among those waiting to get their free tickets from the main booth. He was on his way home from work when he caught the guy dressed up in a black trash bag and carrying an axe holding up the sign FREE CONCESSIONS and FREE TICKETS for the ALL NIGHT HORROR-THON. The price of popcorn and snacks at the CineHall would cost him his left nut, and add his wife and two kids in the mix, they might as well take his right nut too. Being a bachelor for a night, while his wife and kids were staying at their grandma's, he decided a late night movie wouldn't hurt, plus free popcorn and a drink, consider his butt already in the seat.

After waiting ten minutes standing in the parking lot and gradually getting closer to the building, Tony finally made it to the ticket booth. An old woman sat in a rocking chair knitting a sweater. Her voice was a creak, “Hello, young man. Want a ticket to the free show? If you wouldn't mind reaching under the glass and grabbing the ticket for me…”

Tony put his hand under the Plexiglas window to grab the ticket. After he accepted it, the old woman said, “If you enjoy the movie, you should clap after the show. Here, take these with you. You'll need them.”

She handed him two severed hands bleeding at the wrist.

Within eyeshot of the ticket seller's booth, Mr. Ratchet offered the man in his mid-twenties two hundred bucks to get on his knees and stick his head in the guillotine slot. The guy's friends, each of them good and inebriated from an evening of shooting pool and guzzling cheap pitchers at a local pub, were cheering him on. “Yeah, Mickey. Show 'em how it's done. Show 'em you got balls of steel.” The sexy woman dressed in fishnets and a tight red bodice helped Mickey down onto his knees and eased his head in the guillotine slot.

Mr. Ratchet asked Mickey, “You comfortable in there?” He held the string that suspended the blade. “When your head falls in the basket, blink if you're still alive.”

He released the rope.

The blade lopped Mickey's head off. Mickey's friends screamed in horror. Mr. Ratchet checked the head in the basket. “Well, he's not blinking. Must be dead.”

He stuffed two hundred dollar bills into Mickey's back pocket. “Well, as I promised. Two hundred big ones. Who's next, folks?”

“Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Gideon, your guide to grand illusion.”

The crowd watched the magician dressed in a purple silk shirt and black leather pants dance about juggling flaming cards from one hand to the other, then making them poof into dust.

“I won't patronize you with gags from kids' books.” Gideon unhooked his left hand from the wrist with a click and gave it to a middle aged woman. “Feels real, doesn't it?”

Startled at the way the hand felt warm, the woman declared, “Yes, it feels real. But how did you do that? How does it feel so real?”

“That's because it is real, ma'am.”

Gideon clicked his hand back into the wrist. “No tricks of light, no diversion tactics…here, you look like a brave guy. Why don't you try on this straightjacket?” Gideon snapped his fingers twice and
poof
, down came a straightjacket as if it dropped from the sky. Snapping his fingers again twice, the jacket strapped itself to the guy who was wearing a Green Bay Packer's jersey.

“Wow! Neat trick, guy. Where's the strings?”

“I'll coach you how to escape the straightjacket of doom.”

The crowd cheered the Packer's guy on.

“But first, let us tighten those straps a tad…”

Snapping his fingers twice, the straps tightened so hard, the blood forced to his head made the man's brains pop out of his skull.

Packers guy dropped to his knees with the base of his skull textured with brains.

“Who's next?” Gideon asked the crowd. “I promise it'll work right the second time, folks.”

Sarah Hatterfield was ready to visit her beloved theatre for the last time before it would close down forever. Beside the front entrance was a table where a woman dressed as a construction worker greeted her. On top of the table were six plastic buckets. There was a hole cut out of the tops.

The construction woman said, “Guess what's in the bucket, you win fifty dollars. Easy money, if you're a good guess.”

Sarah loved theatrics. She was lured into the gimmick without having to think about it. Her sister was in the “stick your head in the guillotine” for two hundred dollars line, but that line was so damn long, she decided to take a look around inside the theatre instead. And that's when she came upon this booth.

The construction worker said, “Stick your hand in, kiddo. Fifty dollars for the correct guess.”

Sarah decided to go for it. She guided her hand deep into the first bucket. “Wait…wait. It's soft. It's cold. It's squishy. It's got a rough texture. It's grapes, isn't it?”

The woman gave a maniacal smile. “Sorry! You guessed wrong.”

Sarah screamed when she took back her hand and noticed it was covered in blood.

Then a knife was driven into her back. She screamed out in terror as the construction worker shouted,
“And a wrong guess costs you fifty stabs in the back!”

Mr. Ratchet supervised tonight's show outside the theatre. Screams were ringing out as people realized what was really happening to them. Those who ran from the parking lot, fleeing in terror, the theatre workers chased them with their flashlights. The flashlights cast a molten hot beam and sliced anyone in half who dared to leave the spectacle.

Across from him, Mr. Ratchet watched Baron Black, dressed in a black cape and black suit, help six people into separate coffins. He dumped gasoline over the coffins and lit them up with one of his flaming torches. Baron Black then said to the scrambling crowd, “Did I forget to say for one hundred bucks that I'd ALSO have to set FIRE to the coffins?”

The tall standing glass box nearby had an eager woman ready for the money tank to start spitting cash at her when up from the grates at her feet came rat monkeys. The rabid beasts removed her flesh in minutes.

A longer line stood on a red carpet when the carpet starting rolling itself back up. Hundreds were squished and squashed as the carpet disappeared back inside the theatre's main doors like a tongue drawing back into a mouth.

What mattered most were the two pillars of steel that looked like a metal detector at the airport that stood at the main entrance. The sign above the post said “The Gut Checker”. Those who walked through it became zombiefied. Their eyes were cataract blue. Their smiles pasted on nice and big. Mr. Ratchet followed the crowds that went through the “The Gut Checker” and into the main theatre to grab refreshments and enjoy the upcoming show alongside the zombiefied audience.

The people who walked through “The Gut Checker” were now enjoying the concession stands. Hotdogs made of Chad, Wilma, Steve, Jerry, Parker, Olive, Annie, and hundreds more were cooking on the spinning wheel plump and juicy. Patrons slathered chopped liver and kidneys for relish, blood mixed with bile and bodily humors for ketchup, and brains for sauerkraut. A family of four were enjoying carbonated offal soft drinks and eyeball popcorn, what was crunchy, steaming hot and coated in human fat for butter. The crowds were eating voraciously before they even stepped into the theatres.

Things were going as planned, Mr. Ratchet thought, as he eyed the tall glass thermometer full of bright red blood. It was lightly simmering. The Sado-Meter was growing closer to boiling point. When midnight struck it would shatter.

Hell on earth would begin.

Death to all those living.

Posters hung about the walls taped crooked and covering every inch of negative space:
Caveman Terror
,
Octo-Squid
,
Gasm
,
The Pickler vs. The Embalmer
,
Syringe
,
Cannibalistic Flies
,
Acid Rain Melts Finland
,
Rabid Vermin
,
Probe Goons from Mars
,
Lethal Injection Mama
,
Hell Bus
and
Sever School
.

Mr. Ratchet walked beyond the lobby to Jules Baxter's office. He turned the doorknob and entered. Scattered about the floor were snippets of film and empty reel canisters. This is where it all had begun. Their return. The beginning of the end. On top of Jules's desk were rubber tubs stocked with blood. Above the desk hung two headless victims being drained of every drop. An Orion projector played a film on the wall.

A valley girl was asking her professor in his office, “But Professor Hatchet, how do you sever the carotid artery? I just need an example, then surely I'll pass this Friday's test. If I don't, my parents will kill me. If only I had an example.”

Professor Hatchet said, “Your mind is thirsty for knowledge. Mine is thirsty for blood.” He removed a small hatchet from his briefcase and slashed her carotid artery in one clean swipe. As the girl bled on the floor clutching her neck and gasping, he asked her, “Now are you taking notes? This will be on Friday's examination.”

Hunched over Jules's desk was a naked female with long flowing black hair and a shapely body. One of the vampire tramps. She worked tirelessly splicing, cutting and connecting what would complete the film
The Final Flesh
.

The monster was occupied by the ghost of Jules's wife, Darlene. She was key to Mr. Ratchet's existence. The war effort itself.

“Is it almost ready?”

Darlene grunted. “
Almost.
Now leave me be. Go back to what you were doing. I can't be distracted.”

Mr. Ratchet agreed that she couldn't be distracted. He moved on to Jules who was tied up and standing up on a metal dolly. His mouth was duct taped shut. Darlene had tied him up and left him there. Jules's eyes doubled at the sight of Mr. Ratchet.

“It's almost show time, Mr. Baxter. I'm so glad you let us use your fine theatre to show our movie.”

Mr. Ratchet lifted the dolly and began pushing Jules out of the room. “Keep up the good work,” he said to vampire Darlene as they made their exit. The vampire said nothing. She kept laboring at her task. She cared nothing about her husband. Only the war.

Jules was moaning and grunting beneath the duct tape.

Mr. Ratchet was delighted to hear his suffering.

“I guess you've figured it out, Mr. Baxter. It's so easy to trick the living. You know nothing about yourself until you've survived death, like I have. Don't beat yourself up too bad, Mr. Baxter. Theatres like yours across the entire world are being seized. Theatre owners have been put to work just like you have. From Boston to Barcelona, we're using your facilities to fuel the war. Fools like you have all succumbed to our tricks and traps. The real tragedy of your mistake is involving the ones you love.

“But do you really love your niece? Even before I came along, you'd allowed the death of your wife to overshadow everything else. Selfishly wallowing in pity, you've forgotten Penny. She's run the business for you while you checked out. Even when your staff quit after not being paid, Penny hung in there. She loved you unconditionally, but a person can only take so much dejection before they give up. The poor woman even stayed in a horrible relationship because she worked so hard at this theatre. It's because of you, Mr. Baxter, that your niece will die right here in this theatre alongside you. Maybe that will quiet your begging and sniveling for a minute?”

Mr. Baxter indeed went quiet. The facts were sinking in nice and deep. His life was flashing before his eyes. He didn't like what he saw.

The reaction brought great pleasure to Mr. Ratchet as he wheeled the man into Theatre 4 for the showing of
The Final Flesh
that was perhaps only minutes from being completed and finally shown to the masses.

Lucky Lester ran the projection booth for Theatre 3. His final job here was playing the film
The Final Flesh
. A man named Mr. Ratchet paid him double time to perform his duties. The man went as far as saying three other people were being brought in to run the other projection booths.

None of that mattered. Tonight was the final night. He had pulled some shit in his day, Lucky Lester reminisced. He enjoyed another pull from his bottle of cheap bourbon. They didn't call him “Lucky” for nothing. For his eleven year run at this theatre, he'd sneak his wife up into the projectionist's box for a little hugging and kissing. He was worse about playing with the ladies when he was in his late twenties. He would have a new girl in his “hot box” every other night. Lucky Lester had been fired for failing to change out the reels during features before because of the ladies.

That wouldn't happen tonight. He was alone. Lucky Lester checked his watch. Quarter until midnight. Lucky was ready to prep the first reel into the projector when a knock rapped on the door. He was about to hide his bottle of booze when he thought the hell with it. Mr. Baxter couldn't fire him. His job wouldn't exist in a matter of hours.

Lucky swigged from the bottle defiantly and opened the door.

It wasn't Mr. Baxter.

The stranger wore a slimming black dress. Her long blonde hair was in her face in long golden tresses. Blue eyes beheld him. She had the look. Enough slut and enough pretty to keep him interested. She wanted sex and lots of it. Her eyes were begging for it.

“So baby, what brings you up here in Lucky's box? You a fan of the movies? You want to see the magic that happens in this booth?”

In a Brooklyn accent, she said, “Mr. Ratchet says you're paid up. I'm all yours, mister, but don't take too long. I've got a living to make.”

She removed the gum she was chomping on and stuck it to the wall over the poster of
The Clothesline Killer
.