here,” he whispered as the noises became louder and more pronounced.
“What do we do?” Nadia asked.
“I don’t know. Hey, you don’t suppose it’s your pot making us hallucinate or something, do you?”
She quickly dismissed that idea. “No, it’s not a hallucinogen. You’d have to get way beyond high to start seeing and hearing stuff from it.”
“I wouldn’t know,” he replied. “Never touch the stuff.”
She took that as a disparaging remark and shriveled her lips. Skip saw that he’d offended her and started to apologize but she cut him off.
Oh man, I’ve already screwed this up.
He decided the best way out of this dilemma was to tell the truth. “Look,” he started, flipping over and leaning against the low wall that separated them from a twenty foot fall to the floor below, “The reason I don’t touch the stuff is not because the guy that caused the accident that killed my parents was higher than a kite and drunk to boot. I haven’t touched any drug since. I couldn’t live with myself if someone else died because of my desire to get happy or stupid.” Oh Lord, shouldn’t have said stupid.
Nadia stared at him, determined that he was telling the truth and kissed him deeply. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” She reached into her pocket, pulled out a few more joints and tossed them over her shoulder. “None for me then, either,” she grinned.
They both wondered if it was just a gesture or if she could really kick the stuff. After all, the reason she’d failed out of school was because she had lost her ability to control her usage.
They peered over the edge together. Skip sensed something in his peripheral vision. On the left side of the stage, a shadow moved. Then, on the right side of the stage another shadow moved. He looked closer to see what was causing the shadows and was shocked to see men on either side of the stage.
Slowly, both men proceeded to the center of the stage, towards each other. The light shining from the hole in the roof above angled toward the back of the balcony, away from the stage, so it was difficult to make out anything other than the silhouettes of the men.
"Are you seeing this, too?" Skip whispered to Nadia.
"Yes," she whispered back. There was fear in her voice. "Are they in costumes?"
Skip shielded his eyes from the shaft of light from the hole in hopes of better determining what the men were wearing. "I can't tell, it kind of looks like they are in zombie outfits, doesn't it?"
"Mm-hmm,” Nadia muttered.
They watched silently as the two men reached the center of the stage and pressed the palms of their hands together. They raise them toward the ceiling as if to praise their God. And then a wave of bodies, some dressed as zombies, some dressed as skeletons, descended upon the stage. Several of them pushed a long rectangular table toward the center of the stage. From the sound of it, there were no wheels under the table. They were simply dragging wood across wood.
Nadia plunged her fingers into her ears to escape the horrible scraping noise of the table upon the stage. It was like fingernails upon a chalkboard to her. She ground her teeth and groaned.
There were others making their way up the aisles between the seats toward the stage.
When all was said and done, there were at least a dozen actors, if that was the appropriate word, on stage and another dozen in the space between the seats in the stage.
As Skip watched, the actors froze in place for a few moments and then in unison they began to move in what appeared to be some sort of dance. They paired off. Partners pressed their palms together and then slowly, awkwardly, they began to circle each other like drunken fighters in the last moments of a battle royale.
Nadia and Skip watched in growing fear of being caught. But both knew that their fears were more or less unfounded because there was no real evidence that they were inside the building. They had to have arrived before this strange troupe of actors and since they were so engrossed in their play, unless they happen to be looking directly at the spot where Nadia and Skip cowered, it would be nearly impossible to see them. Still, it did nothing to assuage their fears.
The dance dragged on for several minutes. There was a single zombie at the center of the altar. The others circled the stage in strange patterns reminiscent of square dancing. The more Skip looked at the table the more it looked like an altar to him.
Something deep inside him told him that they needed to leave and leave quickly. There was something about the performance that ate at the edges of his memory. There was something primal, something dark and evil, about the way that they were moving around this altar.
Finally, the actors stopped dancing and turned to face the obvious leader. He was now standing with both arms over his head with palms almost touching but not quite. He was holding something between his two index fingers. They couldn't make out what was.
Nadia gasped. She leaned a little further out over the edge of the railing and looked down. Quickly, she retracted her head and then lay on the floor and curled up in a ball.
"What's wrong?" Skip whispered.
Barely loud enough to be heard, Nadia whispered back, "I think he's holding up my joint."
Skip tried to see what it was between the man's fingers but it was impossible to tell from this distance and in the low lighting.
It was strange the way the actors had just stopped. And then he realized they were all peering up at the balcony. They were all staring directly back at them. Although he knew it was relatively impossible for them to see the pair of them in the shadows, he sensed that they were aware of them. And if it was in fact Nadia’s joint that he was holding up, then they were in trouble.
He dropped back down to the floor and whispered, "We need to get the heck out of here and fast. Whether it’s your joint or not, they know we’re here. I don't think they're very happy about it, either."
Nadia was so scared all she could do was nod. Skip grabbed her by the hand and pulled her up the aisle. There was no point in hiding anymore so they ran up the stairs to the nearest exit. They bounded down the narrow passage but at the bottom of the stairs were three actors awaiting them as if they had always been there. Had Skip kept going and just barreled through them, he might've knocked them to the floor and made it out the front door and to safety. But for a moment he really believed they were zombies because they were made up so well and that caused him to stop dead in his tracks. Nadia piled into him from behind with a grunt.
She managed to say, “What the,” before she saw why he stopped. Then she started screaming.
Skip spun her around and shoved her back up the steps. When they were halfway up the stairs, he turned back to see them coming up after them. They stayed in character, acting the way the real zombies would.
Creepy bastards, Skip thought.
They had nearly reached the top of the steps when Nadia stopped and screamed again. This time Skip piled into the back of her. Any other time burying his face in her tight backside would have been a pleasurable moment but not this time. He grunted in surprise. "What the…"
At the top of the steps were three more zombies. How in the heck had they gotten up there without being seen? Mentally, he traced the path that they could've followed. They could've come from three directions, which meant that all escape routes were cut most likely cut off.
As the zombies boxed them in from above and below, Skip tried to defuse the situation. "Okay, okay. You got us. I know we shouldn't be here but I was unaware that anybody else was allowed to be here, either. If you guys are the new owners, then if you let us go I promise we won't come back here anymore."
The zombies said nothing. They simply stared at their cornered quarry. Hands grabbed them just above their elbows and at first gently nudged them towards the bottom of the stairs. Skip and Nadia went begrudgingly and with no resistance. They both knew they were caught and they both knew that they would have to deal with the consequences. If in fact the lead actor had been holding up Nadia’s joint, then that was probably the thing that woul
d give them the most trouble. But they could always deny it. There was no real way to prove that it was her marijuana unless they had video of her chucking it onto the floor.
As they were led through the lobby and into the main theater, Nadia trailing behind Skip, she started to apologize and beg for mercy. "Okay look,” she said in a high-pitched girly voice, "I've kind of had a bad run of it lately and the last thing my parents need is to bail me out of jail. Isn't there some way that you guys could just overlook this little rendezvous and let us go?" Her captors said nothing.
She stopped moving but the men holding her did not. Like an irresistible force they just pushed her forward toward the stage. "Okay, come on now," she scolded them. "There's no need to be so forceful.”
Skip kept his mouth shut. He suspected that Nadia had a better chance of buying their freedom than he did. She was pretty and young and he figured if anybody could talk their way out of this mess, it was going to be her. He offered no resistance, although the men holding his arms gave him no quarter either.
They reached the front row. The actors who had been dancing there at the front of the stage backed up slowly. Skip's captors set him front row center. Nadia’s captors, on the other hand, handed her to other actors on the stage, who lifted her strongly and silently to her feet. They marched her over to the altar. She stood facing the lead actor, who in fact was