B-Movie War (3 page)

Penny sighed.
Why didn't he hire this dork years ago instead of waiting for the day we go out of business? Whatever. Tonight, I'm done.
“Do whatever you want, mister, um, what was your name again?”

“It's Mr. Ratchet. Pleased to meet you, young lady. I'll stay out of your way. My work's ahead of me, so if you could please excuse me?”

“Absolutely. Do what you want, sir. Soon, we're closed down for good. It's a bad time to show a movie never seen before.”

Mr. Ratchet's green eyes focused hard on her after she said that. “It's the perfect time to show this movie. The end is the start of many things, in some cases.”

Before Penny could ask him what the hell he meant, Mr. Ratchet skirted off toward Theatre 1 without another word. He lugged a tool box with him. Whatever he was doing, Jules had already ordered it. It was something that couldn't be undone. Penny didn't care. Mr. Ratchet could do whatever he wanted to this place.

The place would be torn down in no time.

Chapter Four

Penny walked to her uncle's office door shortly after talking to Mr. Ratchet. She knocked once, and said, “Since you won't let me in, will you at least talk to me through the door? A man came here. His name's Mr. Ratchet. Do you know anything about ordering his services?”

She waited.

No reply.

No surprise there
.

“Jules, hello? We're closing tonight. I know this is hard for you and all. I swear I only want to help you. Why won't you talk to me about it? Please. Say something.”

She was crying. Thinking about how she wouldn't have a job. Chad would stay at home while she job hunted. The mooch. The prick. It was one thing for Chad to treat her like this, but Uncle Jules too? They were family. Family was different.

Penny tried the door handle. Locked.

“Open the door, please. I'm your niece. You can tell me anything. Stop shutting me out.” She wept harder. Penny would've been embarrassed if anybody was nearby to hear her. “Fine. Forget you. Why I stuck with you when everybody else left you to your downfall I don't know. It's like every other man in my life. They're selfish assholes. I'm gone. Find yourself another idiot to work for you for free.”

Hands turning into fists, she wanted to pummel through the door and shake some sense into her uncle. Penny gave it another thirty seconds. Her speech didn't move her uncle.

Penny stormed out of the theatre.

Chad was too busy slathering nacho cheese on another hotdog to notice.

Penny tasted liberation and sweet freedom. Her anger had subsided into relief. The theatre could go to hell. She first drove to the bank and closed out her personal account. Chad knew her password, though Chad didn't know that she knew. He couldn't siphon money out of her account anymore. The next step was to pack up her stuff and get out of their apartment. Penny's guess, she had an hour or two tops before Chad returned home. He had to drive the limo back to work because he had officially quit. She would have part of an afternoon to accomplish her getaway. She could go to her sister's in Michigan, or maybe visit her parents in Atlanta. Anything was better than living with the slob called her boyfriend.

Correction, ex-boyfriend.

Penny arrived at her apartment. She worked fast to get what she needed.

If you're going to make a clean break, you can't leave anything to chance. Just take what you need and leave the rest. It's only stuff.

Penny stowed her clothes, still on the hangers, into the back seat. She used a suitcase to stuff underwear, panty hose, bras, her small collection of jewelry and shoes. Her toiletries she tossed into a plastic sack. She stole a bottle of vodka for the road. Why not, she thought. She had a lot of phone calls to make, arrangements to complete, but one thing she decided, she was checking into a hotel and taking a night off for herself.

After picking up lunch from a local grocery store, Penny chose “The Rest Inn” to spend the night and just relax. Room 6 was all hers. No men. No job. She would eat her sandwich, munch on an entire bag of chips, drink from the bottle of vodka, and take the longest bath in the history of bathing.

Chad ate behind the concessions counter, not having a clue to Penny's plan. He was enjoying another hot dog fresh off the wheel. So far, Chad had downed nine hotdogs and three cokes and was putting a good dent in a tub of popcorn. He laughed, noticing there wasn't a single soul in the theatre. This place was his to do with as he wished.

He could tell by Penny's face she would bitch him out about quitting his job, so he decided to take his sweet time coming home.
Give her time to cool off
, he thought,
and she won't be half as mad as she could be
. The plan worked every time.

The theatres were still running films. He thought about the posters on the outside of the building. He wouldn't mind seeing
Psycho with a Badge.
It
started in ten minutes. Chad decided to refill his tub of popcorn, load up a cardboard tray with hotdogs and the biggest Coke, and then he would enjoy some boobs and blood. Before he could load up the goods, an older guy in a cheap gray suit and red bow tie approached him. He was the guy who talked to Penny earlier, he recalled.

“You work here, sir?”

Chad swallowed a bite of hot dog. “Um, no…not really. My girlfriend works here.”

“May I ask you a question?”

Oh great. He's going to bust me.

“I'll see if I can answer it.”

“Are those hotdogs any good? And be honest.”

“Oh.” Chad let out a laugh. “I thought you were going to bust me or something for stealing. Here, try one.”

Chad prepped a dog. The guy named Mr. Ratchet accepted the hot dog without any condiments. He tasted it. His calm, professional face hardened. He spat out the bite into a napkin.

“No, no, no. This is bargain basement crap.” Mr. Ratchet slammed the hotdog into the nearby silver trashcan. “They fed these pigs cardboard. Artificial this and that. It won't feel good coming out your ass, be-lieve me. You want a real hotdog, you need to meet my chef. He's whipping up some hot dogs for tonight's showing of
The Final Flesh
.”

Mr. Ratchet dug his hand into his suit pocket and produced an oversized cardboard ticket that said FREE PASS. “This is for you, sir. A free ticket for tonight's show. All for a man who's going to taste test our newest hot dogs. Would you mind following me to the back? I'd be much obliged by your kindness.”

Chad shrugged his shoulders. Why not, he thought. He would miss a few minutes of
Psycho with a Badge
. He'd double up on refreshments and make it a double feature.
Tit Trance
sounded interesting. It would give him time to figure out how to sling the English at Penny and get himself back into her good graces.

Mr. Ratchet talked up his game on the way to the back storage room. The front lobby was full of random workers putting up decorations and promotions. They were people he had never seen before.

“Look here at this corner,” Mr. Ratchet said. “We've got The Sado-meter.” It was a plastic thermometer six feet tall and halfway filled with fake blood. “Every time something fiendishly evil occurs, the blood in the thermometer will rise and boil.”

Ratchet pointed at a guillotine stand. “Here's what we call the Slice-O-Win where a brave patron can stick their head in for ten seconds. If they're up for the challenge, they win a free popcorn and large drink. It's extreme.
The Final Flesh
is that scary. It's no bull. I've got other gags for outside the building tonight, but I can't ruin the surprise. So, kind sir, I will now have you taste test our finest quality hot dogs.”

Chad went where Mr. Ratchet lead him. The back room was cleared out of old movie posters and concession stock to make room for a large station. A meaty chef with the smallest head and the biggest block of a body was audibly breathing hard as he used a giant cleaver to split a bloody slab of meat into squares. On a smaller table was a row of six hotdogs already cooked and ready to eat.

Mr. Ratchet invited Chad to sit down on a steel chair. “When you try our hot dogs, really express your opinion. Don't hold back.”

Chad smiled. “Oh, I won't.”

Mr. Ratchet put one hotdog on a bun, set it down on a paper plate, and handed it off to Chad. He took a bite and was instantly hooked. He couldn't shove the red hot fast enough down his throat. Chomping with vigor, his hunger was insatiable. One down, his belly felt empty though he'd been eating hot dogs left and right. They were way better than the Jumbo Juicies the theatre sold. Through mouthfuls of fluffy bun and juicy hot dog, Chad sang hot dog kudos.

Mr. Ratchet smiled big. “So you like our hot dogs?”

Mouth full, Chad said, “Oh yeah. The best.”

“How long you been eating hot dogs?”

“All my life. Since I could chew food.”

Mr. Ratchet muttered,
“That's wonderful. Voracious appetite indeed.”

Chad belched. “What was that?”

Biting down on half a hot dog and swallowing it whole without chewing, Chad finally noticed what was tucked in the very back corner of the room. It just
appeared
right before his eyes. One blink,
not there
, one blink later,
there
. Frozen human torsos swung from the ceiling, hanging on hooks. The three hundred pound plus chef was going to town with a cleaver on a messed up corpse strewn on the ground. The person, a woman, was naked from head to toe. Her corpse was as plump as Chad. The body was sliced to pieces until all that was left of her was a rough skeleton. He gawked at the severed foot shackled to the wall. Then Chad gasped as the chef dumped a big bucket of guts into the mouth of a meat grinder. The meat grinder spat out gouts of red. The machine sounded like a monster truck's engine as the archaic metal device rattled and churned. This is where the Jumbo Juices were made.

This was the source of the hot dogs he'd been eating.

Mr. Ratchet said, “Our chef,
The Meat Man
, thinks you're going to make the best hot dogs in town.”

“Gaaaaack!”
Chad gagged. It felt like an entire hot dog was lodged in his throat. Gasping for air, going weak, losing air, becoming dizzy, he collapsed against the wall. Before he could attempt anything to save himself, the cleaver swooshed past his head and decapitated him.

Mr. Ratchet stood over the headless corpse. Out the neck, blood mushroomed in heavy red gouts. Mr. Ratchet tsk-tsked. “Don't eat so fast, boy. Our hotdogs are good to the last bite.”

The Meat Man retrieved Chad's head and tossed it into the grinder. Then the chef went about cutting his body into grind-able pieces. When the work was done, Mr. Ratchet patted the chef's back. “He was one fat boy. He'll make plenty of juicy red hots.”

Much work was still ahead of them. Mr. Ratchet rallied his troops to promote the showing of the film
The Final Flesh
. New Jersey was a big city. He knew others were promoting
The Final Flesh
in theatres in every city and town across the world. Promoters like Baron Von Cinema, Rusty Barbs, Hostess Inga, Jenny Abyss, Captain Curses, Bloody Betty, Groucho Ooze, and hundreds of others were working around the clock. This main event would come to fruition. This war would be something to behold.

Right now, Mr. Ratchet currently oversaw zombies who wore cardboard signs over themselves as they limped up and down highway overpasses and major thoroughfares. The signs were slathered in paint boasting: “Free Showing at Odyssey Theater.” “Free Concessions.” “Free Admission.” “One Night Only.” Scantily clad vampire tramps were adorned in skimpy bikinis handing out free tickets for
The Final Flesh
. The green rubber suited aliens from
Probe Goons in Suits
were parading at the Mega Mall downtown giving out free laser guns (which really fired deadly lasers; let the kids and parents find out the hard way!) and movie tickets. The mailman killer from
Postage Due
was sneaking tickets into mail boxes in-between cramming hacked up remains of his victims into those same slots. Mr. Baker from
Mr. Baker's Delights
was baking into his pies severed hands clutching onto plastic wrapped movie tickets. The monster from
Gutter Mouth
was living in the city's sewer spewing tickets out of every manhole and gutter like confetti. Maggots were eating the paper off billboards across the city. Once the billboards were blank, a mix of characters like The Clothesline Killer, Maggot Molly, Jorg: The Hungry Butcher, and Sally Sadism were painting new billboard ads to promote The Odyssey Theatre.

But now Mr. Ratchet had an extra special errand to complete. He didn't have to travel far to reach his destination. He imagined the place, and
poof
, there he was, his body a flitting image until it became solid again in front of the Cinehall 30 movie theatre. The huge theatre was open for business and doing well, and that only meant competition for
The Final Flesh
.

There was only one way to deal with competition.

Mr. Ratchet swung open the main doors and received a blast of air conditioning in the face. The lobby was expansive. He could barely see from one end of the place to the other. Advertisements for the current movies surrounded him. Movies without heart, spleen, gallbladders, or real blood. It put Mr. Ratchet off of his stomach just thinking about the injustice of it. Something had to be done, and he would be the one to take action.

What incensed him more was the buffet-style concession stand. Popcorn bags already popped were sitting under hot lights. Drinks and candy were up for grabs. The popcorn wasn't fresh, and you had to butter and salt it yourself. How it infuriated him! There was no artistry, only commerce. No heart, no soul, no spleen!

A bored teenager stood behind a register ready to ring people up. Mr. Ratchet rushed the concession stand to talk to the girl operating the station. Her nametag read “Reyna”. She was sixteen with braces and glistening acne on her cheeks. “How many I help you, sir?”

“I demand to see the owner. Not the manager, but the owner of this building.”

She was nervous from his biting tone. It got her on the phone asking for Mr. Frankfurt in a hurry. Reyna hung up and said, “You're in luck. The owner's hardly ever here. He's in the middle of one of his audits. If you'd like to make an appointment to talk to him—”

Poof.

Mr. Ratchet was gone.

Flickering out and flickering back on seconds later, Mr. Ratchet startled the fat man in a tight black suit whose bald head was running with sweat. He was hunched over a computer looking up lesbian porn. The office was cramped, so Mr. Ratchet was right behind the man. He had startled Mr. Frankfurt to the point the man had trouble zipping back up his hard-on in his pants.