Cinema of Shadows Read online

Kim thoughts returned to the dead cell phone in her pocket, to what Burke had said about entities siphoning energy in order to manifest. Using other spirits like batteries? Was it possible?

  “If you take me with you, I can give you power too, help you face it, protect you.”

  Kim’s mind summoned up Anna’s father, recalled the knife. At first, it had sliced her skin as if it had been a true blade, but as the energy around her swelled and intensified, the weapon had faded until it became nothing at all. But could she really stand against a demon? A demon?!?! Kim gripped Shelly’s hand a bit tighter, and the waves of electricity that moved up her arm convinced her it was possible.

  “Please,” Shelly begged, “don’t leave me here alone!”

  “I’m not gonna leave you here,” Kim told her. “I’m not leaving anybody here. Now come on.”

  They moved across the lobby to the stairs, Kim’s right hand on her crucifix, Shelly’s right hand holding tightly to Kim, and the blue-white light of spectral fire swallowed both of them whole.

  Kim felt no fear as she mounted the steps. There was no time for fear. Joss was hurt, broken and bleeding on the floor of the auditorium. She had to have those keys.

  They reached the top of the stairs, and the moment they stepped into the narrow service hall, the lights went out.

  37

  Tashima could not seem to shake the feeling of being watched. She glanced up at the auditorium walls, her eyes moving from one golden column to the next, studying the gargoyles. They stared back at her with vacant, sculpted eyes, fangs bared, mouths open in voiceless roars. Some had dog-like features; others possessed faces more akin to bats. She’d once heard that such beasts had been created to ward off evil spirits, which explained why their hideous forms could be found perched atop so many cathedrals, but why would evil fear such ugliness? Would it not embrace it instead?

  “You ... okay?” Joss asked, breaking the unearthly silence of the cinema. His head was in her lap, his eyes gazing up at her with concern.

  “Me? I’m fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”

  “You’re wor-worried about me?”

  Tashima nodded.

  He tried to smile up at her, but it was a poor attempt. Every so often, he would stiffen and wince, and she could only imagine the pain he must be in. Had he broken his arms, his legs? Did he have a concussion? And what about those cuts? He’d lost a lot of blood. How much, Tashima couldn’t say, and she had no idea how much he could lose.

  She frowned and looked up at the auditorium doors. Had Kim found the phone yet? Did it work?

  Tashima glanced up at the gargoyles again and they stared right back at her. Had they always looked down like that? When she first walked into the auditorium, she could have sworn their poses had been different somehow. It was as if they had moved when her back was turned. Their narrow, golden eyes were now fixed upon her, watching her, watching Joss, like vultures, patiently waiting for the hand of death to arrive. And if she stared into their gaping mouths long enough, she thought she could almost see the drool.

  Jesus, just ... stop! They’re fuckin’ statues. Things are crazy enough up in here without you hallucinatin’ shit that isn’t there.

  She nodded and turned back to Joss. “It’s gonna be okay.”

  His eyes glistened from the pain; his face was pale, ghost-like.

  Tashima cringed at the comparison. She liked him. She really did. He was handsome and fun to be around. Why had she always given him so much shit?

  Stop talkin’ about him like he’s dead! He’s gonna be fine. He’s gonna —

  Tears, hot, unbidden and unwanted, flowed from her eyes and streamed down her cheeks. Her lower lip trembled. The skin on her arms turned to gooseflesh and her whole body shuddered against a sudden draft of cold air.

  Joss reached up with his left hand and wiped his thumb across her cheek, glazing her skin. “Tashima ... it’s okay. You saved my life.”

  “Yeah?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “But you look like you’re in so much pain.”

  “That’s ’cause it fuckin’ hurts. I stuck my arm out like an idiot to break my fall and probably broke it instead.”

  Tashima uttered a shaky laugh, but it was lost beneath the shrill screech of grinding metal.

  She looked up, and this time it was not her imagination, this time there was no doubt at all. One of the gargoyles moved. It leaned forward on its perch, as if it were about to pounce.

  The flickering wall lamps picked that moment to abandon them to darkness.

  Tashima fought the urge to scream. Joss still had his head in her lap. She felt for his hand, found it, and held on tight. “Joss, we gotta move.”

  “I-I can’t.”

  “I know.”

  They were coming, these animated gargoyles. The deafening grind of their movements reverberated through the entire auditorium. Tashima imagined the sculptures climbing down from their roosts, closing in on them with metal claws and teeth. Impossible as it was, they were real, and for her to sit there and deny it any further would do little more than get both of them killed.

  She wondered if the creatures could see in the gloom, shook her head at the absurdity of it all. They shouldn’t be able to see at all. They had no real eyes, only gold plated metal forged to resemble eyes. Of course, it should have been impossible for them to move as well. Yes. They were looking at her right now, stalking her the way a pride of lions might stalk gazelle that had come to the river to drink, ready to pick off the weak and the injured.

  Tashima had always scoffed at horror movie vixens, at characters that ran up a flight of stairs instead of bolting out the door, who curled up in a corner waiting to be slaughtered. She would not go out like that. If she were to be killed, it would not be while she cowered helpless in the dark, and it would not be without one hell of a fight.

  The squealing metal was closer now.

  “At least they won’t sneak up on us,” Joss said, but there was no humor in his voice.

  Tashima swallowed, fresh tears burning her eyes. “Joss, I’m sorry ... this is gonna hurt.”

  There was no time to be gentle. She stood up; pushed Joss forward. He cried out in agony as she wrapped her arms around him, laced her fingers across his slashed chest, and pulled. She dragged him across the floor in an awkward, stumbling manner, moving as fast as she could, hauling his weight toward the aisle.

  The gargoyles would have the advantage. Even if they could not see through the din, the auditorium was theirs and they would know its terrain better than she. Her legs banged against countless armrests before blindly finding the empty aisle.

  She tried to quicken her pace.

  A stack of loose cinema chairs had fallen, littering the floor behind them. Tashima’s right foot landed on the pile and the top seat slid to one side. She lost her footing, fell backward, and landed hard.

  The gargoyles closed in, the scream of metal grinding on metal drowning out Tashima’s terrified squeal.

  38

  The darkness was absolute.

  Geoffrey Burke tried to feel his way through the void, but there were no walls to hold onto, no floor to stand on, no ceiling to touch. He felt nothing but bitter cold, as if he’d been sealed within a glacial cavern, and worse still, the thing had been sealed in there with him. It was no nightmare culled from memory this time. No. He could see it.

  A bright flash, like lightning on a moonless night, revealing too much and not enough at the same time.

  He caught glimpses of anatomy, bits to a horrid puzzle of flesh his mind refused to solve; slithering tails, flapping wings; long, bony limbs that clawed at the dark as if it were swimming through this world of shadow; shimmering claws and teeth, far too many teeth. It was above him, then below him — or was it behind him and in front of him? Whatever it was, this demon, it kept its distance, and yet Burke could tell it drove him deeper into the abyss.

  Why doesn’t the bloody —

  Blood.

 
; Kevin’s blood.

  Burke’s hands.

  Back in London, he’d once interviewed a murderess, tried to determine her fitness to plead under British law. She’d killed her own husband, had been found with the hunting rifle still clutched in her hand, yet she’d claimed to have no knowledge of the crime itself. During their session together, three distinct personalities had each had their turn with Burke. Dissociative Identity Disorder, sometimes mispronounced Dissassociative Identity Disorder. Her primary identity was meek, shy, but the others were far more assertive, and the one who’d actually pulled the trigger was quite aggressive indeed. They were her defense mechanism. Whenever she perceived a threat, either real or imagined, one or more would leap into the fray to act on her behalf, to protect her. Later, when her original personality was allowed to resurface, the woman claimed to have simply lost the time. She had no knowledge of the others’ affairs. She wasn’t even aware they existed.

  His own situation was quite different.

  Burke’s loss of control was not the result of a fractured psyche. His body had been hijacked, his intellect swept aside to make room for this ... thing that now circled him in the darkness of his own mind, and the knife he’d held in his grasp to save the young man’s life had been used instead to end it. He felt every passing second of the time; saw every vile act his body had committed. What he could not seem to grasp was why?

  Another flash, a bolt of energy illuminating the endless night. Neurons firing, sending electrical discharges from his brain to the rest of his body, whispering secret commands, keeping him out of the loop entirely.

  Burke yelled into the void, asked the same question he’d asked the darkened corner of his bedroom as a child. What do you want from me?

  The darkness growled in reply, a deep, rolling sound that reverberated through the caverns of his mind like thunder to the neurons’ lightning.

  He asked it again, trying to sound as forceful as possible. What do you want?

  The voice that came back at him was full of feral rage, full of power. You brought her here.

  Her? Burke recalled his conversation with the managers. You mean Miss Saunders?

  Its scarlet eyes gleamed fiercely in the blackness. The plundering cunt. They’re mine. Mine!

  What? What is yours?

  A malicious chuckle. You are, my dear Burke. My bitch.

  Possession? Had that been its game all along — the reason for the attacks, the scars? It had been trying to claw its way into him as a child, to set up house in his brain, and now, after all these years, it had finally succeeded.

  The thing chuckled again, its eyes sparkling with secret delight. You’ve spent your whole life pursuing the one who tasted your young flesh?

  Yes.

  And you think that you’ve found it, don’t you?

  Burke thought of the scratches he’d seen on the apparitions in the office, the marks that matched his own. I know I have.

  The thing cackled with glee. For someone who claims to be so intelligent, you really are a stupid fuck, Burke.

  He drifted, stunned, felt the cold coil around him, pulling him deeper into the abyss like the firm grasp of an anaconda. The demon broke off its laughter and held him in its mocking gaze.

  Yes, just a foolish prick, jousting one windmill after another. It would have been easier for you to recover a lost grain of sand from the desert than to find one of my brothers again. We are like the stars. We are Legion.

  Disturbed, Burke peered deeper into the veil, trying to find that thing’s face, however horrible it might be. It was the same creature that violated him in Wolverhampton. It had to be. Had to be. You’re a liar!

  Yes, the thing admitted, but not about this, Professor, not about this. And then it chuckled again. You actually thought this was all about you? What glorious conceit!

  A moment ago, you said you wanted me.

  Did I?

  You most certainly did.

  Another flash of light. Another glimpse. Gray skin that seemed to writhe and squirm. A toothy grin floating out there in the murk. Forgive me. I just need to borrow your body for a bit. I need a suit of armor, you see. A little meat puppet I can move about the board. A pawn. Since one of my brothers has marked you, I thought you would make as good a vessel as any. Idle hands, as they say.

  Burke thought again of his sleek hands, thrusting, bathing in Kevin’s blood. If it was so powerful ... why use him? Why a knife?

  The demon laughed maniacally, reading his thoughts like an open diary. Yes, it’s crude, I know, but necessary. They say the spirit is strong, but the flesh is weak? It’s true, well, mostly true. In this case, however, the flesh may prove stronger.

  I don’t understand.

  You never did, it growled. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Burke, there’s a little piggy running around in my theater, a cunt I need to bleed.

  Burke felt the demon withdraw, felt it swim to the surface of this black sea, crawling out of the subconscious onto the shores of his conscious mind. There, the thing would work the controls, pilot his body like a weapon of bone and sinew. He wanted to cry, wanted to scream. Instead, he sank helplessly into the dark.

  39

  Kim’s left hand held fast to Shelly, their connection fueling spectral flames that burned through the darkness ahead. The hallway was lined with doors, all of them closed, concealing what might lurk within. Kim’s thoughts were not on her own safety, however; she worried for Joss.

  She stared at the various doors, indecisive, then turned to Shelly. “Where is he? Where’s Harvey?”

  The apparition nodded down the hall. “Furnace room.”

  They moved rapidly through the corridor, Kim’s right hand sweating against the metal of her crucifix. Her eyes darted left and right, waiting for each passing door to fly open and spring some horrid nightmare at her. Her pulse thumped a steady beat against her temples and the walls of her throat. She glanced back across her shoulder, afraid she would see something stealing up from behind, but she found only empty shadows.

  And what would I have done if some monster were back there?

  No time to fret about it now. Too many other, more pressing concerns. Lights. Keys. Ambulance. She looked down the corridor again, focused on her destination.

  Kim turned the knob and the door to the furnace room creaked open. She hesitated, but Shelly gave her hand a gentle squeeze, urging her on. They stepped into the chamber together, side-by-side, the air crackling with a static charge as Shelly passed through the wall.

  Kim looked around, wondering if it was wise for her to call out, wondering if it would attract the thing from the auditorium. She kept her voice low. “Mr. Harvey?”

  No answer.

  She frowned.

  The heating unit sat dormant at the back of the room, bathed in the wavy glow of Kim and Shelly’s combined aura. Large ducts extended from its body and snaked their way across the ceiling, as if the furnace were a huge metal squid turned on its head. And to her right, Kim found a row of fuse boxes.

  She tugged on Shelly’s hand, her breath fogging the room. “Come on.”

  They rushed over to the fuses.

  Kim released her grip on the crucifix, threw open the access panels, and found every breaker in the “off” position. She flipped them all, not caring where they routed power, and the lights came on.

  Shelly held her left hand like a vise. “It’s close. I can feel it.”

  Kim felt it too; a heaviness to the air, the sensation that their every move was being monitored from a distance, and she knew that distance was closing fast.

  “You said Mr. Harvey was in here. Where’s —”

  When she turned to look around, the old projectionist was behind her, his thin, deeply furrowed face mere inches from her nose. She flinched, recognized almost immediately that he was dead, and fought back tears.

  “I’m sorry ’bout what happened down in the lobby,” the Harvey-phantom told her, his white hair ruffled into odd monuments atop his skull; skin s
tretched so tight across his cheekbones that Kim thought it would tear from the strain. His eyes shone from the wells of deep sockets, lost, full of sorrow. “I didn’t mean to scare your friend.”

  “That was you? You pulled Tashima’s hair?”

  Harvey nodded. “I was just tryin’ to warn her ... get her to leave ’fore it was too late, ’fore it got all o’ you too.”

  Kim lowered her eyes and tried to rein in her revulsion. Harvey’s shirt was slashed to ribbons, huge bite marks and scratches still visible in the ragged bits of flesh left beneath. One of his denim shoulder straps had been chewed through, its frayed halves trailing; the other remained intact, holding up his blood-soaked overalls. His ribs had been cracked open and pried apart, granting his hungry attacker access to the organs within. Whatever the creature had been, it devoured everything, leaving nothing but a bloody spine to tether Harvey’s bust to his hips.

  “Oh ... God,” she whispered, allowing a single tear to chart a course down her cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

  Kim reached out with her free hand, her hooked fingers trembling, and when she grabbed the old man’s apparition by the arm, a rush of new power came over her like a crashing wave, throwing her head back, pinching her eyelids shut. Her muscles contracted, then relaxed as the initial surge rapidly faded to a pleasant, tingling heat.

  “Thank you,” Harvey told her.

  When Kim’s eyes fluttered open, she saw that he’d been made whole again. She smiled, but the memory of Joss bleeding on the auditorium floor made it brief. “The keys. I need the keys to the front doors.”

  Harvey turned his head and nodded at the far corner of the room. “They’d be in my pockets.”

  Kim followed his gaze to a pair of shoes protruding from the darkness. She swallowed, knowing what she would find when she got there. Her eyes went from the shoes to Harvey and Shelly and then back again. “Put your hands on my shoulders and hold on tight.”

  Shelly released her handhold and felt her way up Kim’s arm, never breaking contact. Mr. Harvey did the same and they moved across the chamber. Spectral flames whirled around them, growing in intensity, chasing shadows from the savaged body on the floor.