Burke stood taller. “Yes, well, I don’t mind being recognized for my accomplishments. That makes me a bad one, does it?”
The stranger snickered. “I see the Woodfield was right about you.”
“What, the theater?”
Gorman chuckled. “Oh, my dear boy, it’s so much more than that.”
Utter amazement filled Burke’s mind. Men of different times, different eras, gathered together, conversing with one another, addressing him by name. Nothing like it had ever been documented. Burke glanced down at the monitor and frowned. It still showed only those dark, shadowy forms. Was it picking up their voices, or would he hear only a one-sided conversation when he played this back?
He returned his attention to the panel, and the third face finally sparked recognition. “Delbert King?”
The man nodded, impressed. “That’s right.”
“You killed your lover. Do you feel any —”
“Killed?” King threw his head back and laughed. “Oh no, Professor, you’ve got it all wrong. Shelly’s downstairs, working the booth, just like always.”
Burke nodded. It’s all true, he thought. They don’t realize they’re dead. “Right then, my mistake.” Is this what it’s like? he wondered. The managers meeting in congress, acting as if the Woodfield Movie Palace is still open for business, acting as if they still run the show?
He remembered Wilber Harvey’s aversion to this room. He’d tried to walk right by it during the tour. Could he sense these meetings? Had he seen what Burke now saw? He turned to Vernon Armstrong. “And Mr. Harvey? Where might he be?”
“I think you know,” Armstrong told him. “He’s around, like Shelly, like all the others who serve the Woodfield’s needs.”
Dead. But where was the body? Had it been a heart attack or stroke, as Mr. Heiliger had suggested, or had it been something else? These men spoke of the Woodfield Movie Palace as if it were alive, more than alive, as if it were somehow their superior, some unseen puppet master pulling their strings.
Gorman spoke up again, “You’ve brought someone with you, a young girl.”
Burke blinked. “Yes, quite right, I’ve brought two young ladies, actually. As we speak, they’re assisting —”
“We’re only interested in one. I believe her name is ...” Gorman glanced at the others, and then his eyes locked with Burke’s, his bushy eyebrows arching up. “Kimberly?”
“Miss Saunders, yes. What about her?”
King frowned. “She can ruin everything we’ve worked so hard for.”
“And how could she do that, exactly?”
“She’s special,” Gorman said, and then his bluish lips curled as if he’d just tasted something bitter. “She can set souls free.”
Burke gawked at them. “Yes, well, assuming that’s true, how could that possibly ruin your situation? Don’t you want to be free?”
All three laughed at that.
“Everything we’ve ever wanted is here,” King told him.
“I never wanted to leave the Woodfield,” Armstrong added. “They forced me to go, and I just couldn’t wait to get back.”
Burke’s eyes went to the ligature marks still visible on Armstrong’s neck. “Yes, I know.”
“We’ve made the Woodfield powerful,” King said, “and in return, the Woodfield has allowed us to share in that power.”
Gorman nodded. “In short, my dear professor, we’ve always taken care of the Woodfield, and it, in turn, has always taken care of us.”
Burke offered a patronizing grin. “How symbiotic.”
“The Woodfield would like to help you too, son,” Armstrong told him.
“In what way?”
“It can give you all the answers you seek,” Gorman promised. “All you have to do is one ... simple ... task.”
Burke looked into the camera monitor. He tried zooming in on the shadows, but he found no more detail. “And that would be ...?”
The three in unison, “Stop her.”
“You want me to send Miss Saunders home?”
King chuckled again. “Something like that.”
Their tone made Burke shudder. It wasn’t forceful, and yet it held a threatening connotation that chilled him. “And should I decline?”
Gorman’s eyebrows leapt up. “Excuse me?”
Vernon Armstrong leaned forward in his chair. “Son, it’s not wise to cross the Woodfield.”
It was Burke’s turn to chuckle. “Yes, well, forgive me gentlemen, but if the Woodfield is as powerful as you say, why would it need my help to do anything?”
The Gorman apparition stood. It raised its arm, pointed at Burke, and every button popped off the professor’s shirt. They flew across the room, struck the far wall, and Burke staggered back a few steps, stunned. The garment flapped open, revealing criss-crossed scars, a map of agony drawn across his flesh.
“Because you’ve been marked,” Gorman told him, still pointing.
The professor’s heart jumped and his eyes widened. He lowered the camera and stepped forward again, a fog exploding from his lips. “What do you know about it?”
The specters exchanged glances. The two that had remained seated now rose to their feet. They tugged at their ties, worked their buttons, and then one by one, they pulled their shirts open, displaying ashen chests covered in matching wounds.
Burke’s heart took another leap, then staggered a moment before jogging on at a normal clip. The entire room seemed to spin around them, as if this circle of the dead were the eye of a maelstrom.
I’m not alone, he thought with a sick sort of glee, and his mind kept repeating it, not alone ... not alone ...
“Did you see it?” Burke asked the apparitions. “Did you see the thing that did this to you? Did you see its eyes?”
“All of your questions will be answered in due course,” Gorman assured him.
Was it possible? Could the search that had given his life meaning finally be ending? And just like that, his anger and frustration were gone, replaced with an almost religious sort of joy.
“But first ...” Gorman held up his index finger. “You must help the Woodfield. You must help all of us.”
Burke’s eyes moved from one scarred chest to the next. The same three scratches. The same hand made them. “I’ll do what I can, of course.”
“Excellent.” Gorman smiled and clapped his hands together. “Go back to the booth, Professor. You’ll get your answers there.”
“The booth?” Burke looked over his shoulder at the open doorway, and when he turned around again, the room was empty.
The phantoms were gone.
Burke laughed out loud, ran a hand over his mouth and chin, his eyes darting from one vacant chair to the next. For one long moment, the insanity of it all hit him like a board to the back of the skull. His rational mind whispered to him, telling him to check the footage, to verify that he had quantifiable proof. He held up the camera; switched to “playback” mode. The stains had recorded. Shadow people. He had no headphones, but bits of the conversation still rang in his ears, and his mind tried to grasp what he’d seen ... his own scars mirrored on the chests of strangers. The screen turned black and he backed slowly out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Go back to the booth, Professor. You’ll get your answers there.
He nodded, took a deep breath, and sped down the hall toward the projection booth. The door was closed. He pushed it open.
Kevin lay on the floor in the corner of the room, covered in a writhing black mass of loose film. It flailed and slithered as if it were a living thing, coiling around his head and chest like a snake trapping a mouse.
This is incredible!
Burke lifted the camera, recording the phenomena, then he heard gagging sounds and realized the boy was choking. A workbench sat to the professor’s right, a place where reels were spliced together and then later broken down for shipping. A box cutter laid there, the word “Booth” written across it in black marker. Burke set his camera down on
the table, grabbed the razorblade knife, and moved across the room.
The professor started slashing.
He threw bits of film behind him, watching the pieces writhe a moment before laying still. A tentacle of celluloid slithered into Kevin’s mouth. Burke grabbed it, cut it loose from the rest of the print, then pulled with all his might, removing it and tossing it aside.
A glossy black tendril was still looped around the boy’s throat. The professor reached down and tried to pry it free. It was unbelievably strong. He took the blade and sawed at it until it snapped. Only then could he pry it free.
Kevin gasped for breath. The edge of the strip had sliced his neck. The cuts bled freely now that circulation was restored. Burke pulled the boy to his feet and dragged him away, still watching the wriggling film, afraid it might give chase.
Kevin coughed and rubbed his throat. “Thank you.”
Burke nodded, trying to catch his own breath. His hand was still wrapped around the knife, his fingers cramped and aching. “What the hell is —”
A growl. Deep, rumbling, and all too familiar.
Burke’s heart froze over in his chest. He looked up and a pair of glowing red eyes glared back at him from the darkened corner of the room. The professor held the box cutter out like a sword, shaking his head.
This is just another bloody nightmare, a memory.
The shadows sprang forward, pushing him back, pinning him against the cinderblock wall.
It’s here! It’s really here!
He felt as if he’d been buried beneath an avalanche of snow and ice. A sharp pain shot through his head as something penetrated his consciousness, forcing itself on his mind. He heard the growl again, angry, sanguine, but this time it reverberated through the inner chambers of his skull.
The knife.
Burke winced. The voice was not his, but it was in his head.
Use the knife, the strange voice begged.
Burke shook his head. I can’t. I won’t.
Oh here, let me help you.
•••
“Professor Burke!” Kevin saw the man fly back against the wall as if struck by an invisible freight train. He ran to him, put his hands on his shoulders, and looked him over.
Burke’s eyes were closed and his head hung limp. He appeared unconscious, and yet, he remained standing. His shirt was torn open, and Kevin saw the ridges of white scar that covered his chest. It looked as if a tiger had mauled him. Those old wounds were now re-opening, beads of blood welling up, growing heavy, then running down his torso in meandering streams.
The professor began making noises, his head wagging, and then he cried out, “No!” Over and over again, “No!”
Kevin grabbed the professor’s chin and lifted it up. “Professor, can you hear me? What is it? What’s wrong? Professor Burke?”
On the professor’s chest, the blood suddenly reversed course, climbing his skin, draining back into his wounds, and then it flowed out from his eyes. Scarlet tears ran down his cheeks into Kevin’s palm, and when his eyelids sprang open, they revealed black orbs beneath, as if two marbles had been shoved into the man’s sockets.
Burke’s right hand lunged forward.
Kevin felt a sharp pain in his chest. For a moment, he thought he’d been punched. When he looked down, however, he saw the hilt of the box cutter still clutched in the professor’s fingers. Kevin’s mouth hung open and he lifted his eyes to meet Burke’s black, vacant stare.
“Professor ...” Kevin shook his head, unable to comprehend what was happening. “W-why?”
Burke offered no explanation. He simply withdrew the blade, then stabbed Kevin again. Withdrew and stabbed. Withdrew and stabbed. Withdrew and stabbed.
Kevin tried to back away, tried to grab the professor’s arm and hold it off. But the thrusts were so forceful and they came so quickly that there was little he could do. He fell to the floor of the booth and the professor followed him down.
•••
Burke saw the look of confusion in the boy’s eyes, saw it melt instantly into fear, saw the blood. The images were distant, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope, and they continued on for what seemed like an eternity. Burke felt none of it.
He heard the far off sound of his own voice, but the words that came from his lips were not his own.
“You’re next, you little bitch.”
36
Kim sprinted across the dingy carpet and hard marble of the lobby floor, her dead cell phone still clutched in her hand. Burke had warned them about battery drains, said they were commonplace during ghost investigations, a way for spirits to gain energy, enough energy to affect the physical world. Still, there was part of her that believed this was intentional, a way to cut them off, to isolate them.
Her mind cried out with each step, 911, and then, ambulance, which brought her to, doctor, and finally to, Tyler. God, how she wished he was here.
She slammed into the exit doors on the right, expecting them to fly open, to allow her to run out onto the parking lot, but they didn’t budge. She frowned and chastised herself for her own stupidity; They swing in, not out! Then she pulled on the handles, but the doors still would not give.
Locked, she thought, how?
Kim slid the inert cell phone into her pocket, ran to the next set of doors, and found the same situation. She clawed at the brass handles, pounded on the wood, slapped the glass image of a filmstrip and the large “W” etched there in the frame, but it was pointless. She backed away, looked at both sets of doors again, cursing under her breath and wondering what to do.
The door to the ticket booth creaked open.
Kim gasped and her heart stuttered. Her hand leapt up to her chest, caressing her Grandmother’s crucifix, her crucifix. The doorway was a window to darkness. She saw something moving around in there. Was it the thing from the auditorium? The thing that drained power from the thermal scanner, from their phones? The thing that claimed it had never been human? Had it locked the doors as well — trapped them here? Yes. Yes, it must have. She thought of Anna’s father, of that fanged, moldy skull with the hollow, empty eyes. As awful as that apparition had been, she had the impression that the thing in the auditorium had been far worse. And now it was here in front of her, now it was stalking forward.
My, what big eyes you have ... what big teeth ...
“It won’t let you leave.” The voice from the dark was feminine, full of sorrow and despair. “It won’t let any of us leave.”
Kim’s breathing slowed a bit and the story Mr. Harvey had told them floated to the surface of her mind, the tale of the manager and the ticket girl. He’d put a shotgun to her head, hadn’t he? Blown her head off right there and turned that tiny room into her tomb. What was her name? Kim searched for it, then took a step forward. “Shelly?”
At the sound of her name, the dead woman shuffled out into the light.
After all these years, Shelly Wells still wore the uniform of a ticket girl, long black pants and dark vest, a collared shirt and bow tie beneath. The shirt had once been white, but no more. It was streaked and splattered with blood, dark clumps of brain matter resting on her shoulders and stuck to her chest. She had the face of a broken china doll. Her skin was pale as porcelain. Her right ear hung down, attached to a broken shard of her skull. A single eye rolled in a dark socket. Her lips and chin were rosy with blood from her nose. A few strands of blonde hair remained above her left ear, matted to her cheek. The rest of her head was gone.
“It wants to stop you,” Shelly croaked as she stepped onto the tile, her right foot clad in a black loafer, her left shoe missing. Her toenails were blue. “It wants to keep you from setting us free.”
“What is it?” Kim asked, the image of the Big Bad Wolf still prowling her thoughts.
“The demon,” Shelly answered, taking another wobbly step forward, and then she held out her hands to Kim. “Please ... free us. Save us from the demon.”
Kim did not take a step back or shy away fro
m the dead woman. Instead, she reached out, and her fingers began to shimmer almost immediately, throwing off the same blue-white radiance she’d seen with Anna. And when their fingers touched, there was another bright flash, only this time, it was far more powerful, and Kim gasped as the surge coursed through her entire body.
Above her head, the golden chandelier brightened until its bulbs exploded in a shower of glass and sparks. The small birds that had been nesting there took flight, filling the lobby with their surprised squawking. Some joined the rest of their flock on the next chandelier; others soared upstairs, leaving behind a few loose, drifting feathers.
Shelly’s shattered face instantly reassembled, as if the blast that took her life had been recorded and now ran in reverse. She opened her reunited eyes and smiled. She’d been a beautiful girl. “Thank you.”
Kim nodded, her skin tingling, her skeleton humming a pleasant tune. She suddenly remembered Joss and frowned. “My friend is hurt. I need to get out of here, get help.”
Shelly shook her head. “It won’t let you.”
Kim glanced back at the doors. She knew she could break the glass, but they were boarded from the outside. Thick plywood. Would she have the strength to push the nails out? She didn’t think so. She had to find the key. Her eyes rushed back to Shelly. “Is Mr. Harvey still here?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where he is?”
Shelly’s gaze climbed the stairs.
Kim nodded. She started to turn away, but Shelly would not allow it.
“You can’t go up there,” the woman warned. “That’s what it wants. It’s waiting for you.”
“Do you want me to take you out of here?”
“More than anything. I’ve waited so long. We all have.”
“Well, nobody’s going anywhere unless I get those doors open.”
Kim turned around again, and still Shelly refused to let go. This time, however, the spirit moved with her rather than holding her back.
“What are you doing?” Kim wondered aloud.
“I can help you.”
“How?”
“It drains us,” Shelly told her, “uses us to give it power.”