My hands shook as I held the film reel in my hands.
This is the source of it all, I thought. The reason Lacey went missing. The reason any of this shit had happened at all.
As determined as I was to see this operation through, a lingering feeling of fear and hesitance never left my side.
“What’s the film like, exactly?” I asked, my voice shaking just a tad.
Collin shook his head. “I dunno. Not like I ever watched it. Can’t really prepare you for much there, sorry.”
That was more or less the response I was expecting. Collin sighed, starting to look anxious.
“We don’t have time, though. He could come back at any moment,” he looked at Jimmy. “You still got ammo?”
Jimmy tapped his belt proudly. “Silly question. No monster’s getting the jump on me.”
The haphazard plan that we’d formulated went as follows:
We’d rush over to the theater where everything had started, since that was the only place where we’d actually be able to play the film. Since it was still likely being monitored by the police, we’d have to rely on Sven’s FBI badge to dissolve that suspicion. According to Collin, if Mr. Blank’s projection hadn’t come back to attack us before we managed to enter the theater, it sure as hell was going to be there once we did. And of course… it was going to be aggressive. That’s where Jimmy comes in. He was going to keep it distracted while Collin set up the film. Once he did, Sven and I would be the ones to watch it. He wanted to save his wife. I wanted to save Lacey. Neither of us were backing down.
Collin also gave us some very-much needed details regarding the film itself, even though a lot of it was just speculation on his part.
Supposedly, the film does something strange to the viewer’s state of mind. The film exists in one plane of existence – Mr. Blank’s. We exist in our own. So how does somebody traverse this gap and move from one to the other? Well, we could really only theorize there. Collin claimed it was about emotions. The range of human emotions are a spectrum, obviously. But not a two-dimensional one, with happiness and sadness, distress and calm, pain and pleasure at their respective extremes. Nearly every feeling spurred on by activities in our daily lives are different. Some are more similar to each other than others, but no two distinct feelings are truly identical. Even the same emotion that you perceive experiencing thousands of times over the course of your life is actually an entirely new experience each and every time.
I’m getting off track here. Look, emotions are complicated. And according to Collin’s theory, they also acted as a catalyst that could move conscious thoughts between different realities. If some kind of impulse evoked a strong and specific enough emotion, that could act as said catalyst.
But if it were only their thoughts that had been moved, then what the hell had happened to their bodies? That mystery remained. However, Collin was quite certain that the people who’d been transported were all still alive. Can’t feed off a dead person’s emotions, after all.
“There’s something else that you’d probably like to know,” Collin said. “Something really interesting.”
My ears perked up.
“I did know a few people that crossed over into Mr. Blank’s realm that managed to make it back out. They all told me that they felt themselves crossing over a certain threshold of “fear” before they left our own world. However… they were still somewhat cognizant of what had happened. They knew that they were still in the theater. That this wasn’t the world that they belonged to. They weren’t petrified to the point where they lost all sense of their past reality. Because of this, they always kept themselves grounded, convincing themselves that none of it was real, despite what Mr. Blank threw at them. Eventually, they got back using the sheer will of their mind alone.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. At the moment, there was nothing that I needed to hear more.
“But, you should also know that they all committed suicide within the next 3 months.”
“You could’ve just left that part out.” I said.
“This is not going to be easy, but now that you know this going in, you’ll have an advantage. Try and be ready for anything, cause nothing’s off the table here.”
With our asses on the clock, we began making our way to the theater.
When we arrived, there was a single, bored-looking cop sitting in his vehicle near the entrance. He didn’t ask any questions when Sven flashed his badge. In fact, he looked pretty eager to leave.
We didn’t waste any time once we got in. Collin began setting up the film while we waited anxiously in the theater. We offered to help with the process, but he told us that we’d just slow him down. I wasn’t gonna argue with him there.
I sat down in one of the seats, burying my hands into my face. I was nervous, there was no second-guessing that fact.
Can I even do this? I thought to myself. Fuck. I have to do this.
I felt somebody put a hand on my lap. At first, I thought it was Sven trying to comfort me. But then I realized… that didn’t seem like something he’d really do.
“Well, I’ll be,” Jimmy spoke up. “The varmint’s back.”
Against my better judgement, I snapped my head to the side, staring at what appeared to be a mask composed of a variety of segmented human faces.
“Don’t move kid!” Jimmy’s voice boomed from across the theater. Before I knew it, the ghoulish face was blown to the side, blood exploding from the other side of its temple. My ears were ringing from the shot as I looked towards Jimmy, who was holding some kind of oversized pistol.
“You’re welcome.” He smiled at me.
“Jeez…” I muttered, still trying to regain my bearings.
A few seconds later, I heard Sven curse. I looked over, watching as a feral-beast looking creature grabbed him by the neck. Once again, Jimmy blasted it away. My brain rang some more.
It looked like Mr. Blank had regained his stamina, and I sure as hell wasn’t excited about it.
“GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKER!”
This time, Jimmy was the one cursing. Mr. Blank, now in the form of an oversized zombie wearing brass knuckles, had gotten the jump on him, forcing him to resort to a fistfight.
But… he was holding up surprisingly well, dodging, parrying and countering each of the zombie’s strikes. Jimmy ended up pummeling it within a minute.
“How the hell…? Where did you…” I began asking, dumbfounded at his apparently vast array of combat skills.
“I fought in the evisceration matches on a planet you wouldn’t dare step foot on, partner. I know my shit.” He said, grinning, as if I were supposed to understand remotely what the hell he was talking about.
I didn’t have time to ask, though. I could hear something breathing down my neck once again.
C’mon Collin, I thought to myself. Hurry the fuck up.
And then it happened. The projector suddenly flicked on, and the breathing stopped. I scanned the theater, but Mr. Blank was nowhere to be seen. I locked eyes with Sven for a moment. This was it. This was the culmination of everything we’d been through.
“Well…” Jimmy spoke up. “Looks like this it. I bid good luck to you both.”
The lights began to dim. I laughed to myself. Was this really necessary?
The reaction was more of a coping mechanism than anything else. I was utterly frozen in terror.
Sven and I were silent as we took our seats. For the first few seconds, I closed my eyes, afraid to open them even little bit. But I knew that eventually, I had to.
So I did.
And I cannot begin to describe what I saw in front of me.
---
Credits
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