Summer Days and Summer Nights (13 page)

The thing formerly known as Bryan Jenks jumped onto the counter in a crouch, ready to strike.

“Hey, Bryan! You want butter with that?” I shouted, just like I was the hero in an action movie. Together, Dani and I threw the bubbling vat of yellow yuck. Bryan screamed and thrashed as the hot oil blistered his skin into ribbons, and even though Bryan was a total douche bag I'd often wanted to finish off with a series of cool-looking karate moves I didn't actually know, I felt sick watching him suffer, demon or not.

Dave let loose with a slightly crazy laugh. “‘Hey, you want butter with that?' Dude, that was so fly.” He tried to high-five me.

I let his hand hang out in space. “Not now.”

“Nggzzzzraaahsss!” Creature Bryan screeched.

Dave's voice was choked with fear. “I think you pissed it off.”

I grabbed both Dave's and Dani's hands. “Plan C: theater, on three. One. Two—”

With a warrior's cry, Dave took off running, dragging us behind him into the theater. We slammed our bodies against the doors. Dani grabbed the broom resting against the back wall, snapped it over her knee, and jammed the broken stick through the big gold door handles.

I shoved Dave. “I said on
three,
dumbass!”

“I couldn't take it anymore. Those things look like frozen beef jerky. And they
smell
,” Dave panted. He kicked at an empty soda cup. “This is a bad way to die, man. God damn it, I had tickets for Comic-Con.”

This wasn't how tonight was supposed to go. I was supposed to ask Dani for a date. She was, hopefully, going to say yes. And now we were making a last stand in the Cinegore against a horde of soul-stealing, flesh-eating demons escaped from a cursed movie. The doors began to crack as the demon-zombies thumped against them. Soon, they'd break through the flimsy broom lock.

“This is for real, Kevin. Think,” I said. All those horror movies in my head, and now, when it counted, I couldn't come up with a way out of this mess. And that's when the crazy idea hit me.

“Hey!” I shouted at the movie. “Hey, over here! Pay attention.”

“What are you doing?” Dani touched my arm, and I wished it were a different night so I could just enjoy the lightness of her fingers.

“I'm not going down without a fight,” I promised her. I yelled up at the screen again. “I know you can hear me.
Look. At. Me!
”

Natalia Marcova glanced in my direction. She'd been dead for five decades, but her image lived on, burning brightly, a beautiful, preserved fossil.

“I saw that! Yes! Over here,” I said, waving my arms.

She gave me a little wave. “Hello.”

“Help us. Please,” I said. “You've seen this happen before—isn't that what you said, Jimmy?”

“Gee. I guess I did.” He raked a hand through his wavy, 1960s, swoon-worthy hair. “I kinda got caught up in the emotion of the moment, y'know? I'm method.”

“Why should we help you brats? You don't even know how to dress properly,” Alastair Findlay-Cushing said from the sofa, nursing his tumbler of liquor.

“Because we're the future,” I said. “In every movie, somebody has to live on to tell the story. Or else … or else there's no point.”

“Not necessarily,” Jimmy Reynolds said. “What about
Sunset Boulevard
? It's narrated by a dead man.”

“Thanks for the spoilers, ghost of John-O,” Dave whispered irritably.

“Gee, honey. I want to tell you,” Natalia purred, her native Brooklyn accent shining through. “But if I do, he'll send me to the bad place.”

“Who?” I asked.

Natalia's eyes fixed on a point somewhere behind me. “Him.”

Slow clapping echoed from the back of the theater. He emerged from the shadows, wearing the same sharkskin suit as in the photograph. “Bravo. Well done. I must say, this is quite a surprise.”

“Mr. Scratsche?” I peered out through the haze-dust thrown off by the screen and into those dark, soulless eyes. He didn't look a day older than he had in 1963.

Mr. Scratsche gave a courtly bow. “At your service. In a manner of speaking.”

His hand went up like a conductor's. The broken broomstick shot free of the door handles. The hungry, growling creatures staggered inside, shuffling into the rows, taking their seats, mesmerized by the flickering images.

Scratsche smiled. “Ah, you people. You never tire of staring up at that screen, imagining yourselves there—better, beautiful, immortal. Everywhere, it's always the same: people sitting in the dark, hungry for the light, for validation, for the idea that good defeats evil, for the smug safety of thinking that they will win in the end.”

“You belong here with us, Scratsche, and you know it!” Jimmy Reynolds shouted, falling to his knees. “You escaped only by damning us
all
!”

“Whoa. Chill, Marlon Brando,” Dani muttered.

“Jimmy, Jimmy.” Mr. Scratsche shook his head like a mildly put out headmaster. “True, I offered all of you up in return for my escape. But you all signed the contract of your own free will.” Like a magician's trick, Scratsche produced a scroll that unrolled to reveal hundreds of signatures. Another snap and the scroll rolled up and dropped back into his pocket. “I heard you earlier, Jimmy. You tried to warn people. Didn't I tell you last time that there would be consequences?”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Scratsche. I'm just awfully tired of being trapped in this movie.” Jimmy sounded scared and tired. “I've been wearing this cravat for fifty-six years. It makes me look like an asshole.”

“Understood.” Mr. Scratsche flicked his fingers toward the screen and sudden flames consumed Jimmy Reynolds. Seconds later, all that remained was the singed cravat and a burned patch on the carpet. “
That's
for going off script.”

Dave's eyes had a glazed look. He'd started humming the
Care Bears Movie
theme song. It was what he did when the world was too much.

“What do you want from us?” I shouted.

“I believe the question is what do
you
want, Kevin? What do you all want? Oh. That's rhetorical. I've read your questionnaires.”

Mr. Scratsche strode down the center aisle with the grace of a leopard. He threaded his fingers together. His fingernails were long and curved. “I've been thinking that the time is right to bring the film out of retirement. You're correct that someone needs to keep the story alive. To be its caretaker, hmm?
I Walk This Earth
—a new version for a new audience, directed by Kevin Grant. How does that sound?”

No adult had ever said anything like that to me before, like they saw me. Like I was worth seeing. “Me? Why me?”

“I've been watching you for months. I know what lives inside you. The longing for what you cannot have.” His eyes flicked to Dani, and she looked at me quizzically. My face went hot. “The world is hungry for new thrills. In the past, distribution was a problem. But, my goodness! The things you can find nowadays, right there on your devices. Imagine it, Kevin: Your take on
I Walk This Earth
, available on demand. Downloadable. Shareable. It only requires a bit of sacrifice.”

The scroll was out again. In Scratsche's other clawed hand was a pen.

“That didn't seem to work out too well for these guys.” I jerked my thumb at the screen.

Dave nodded. “You tell him, bro.”

“They don't have your
vision
.” Scratsche smiled. I knew it was a trick, but somewhere inside me it was like somebody had opened a bank vault and said,
Go ahead. Take what you want.
His smile hardened. “Or did you just want to stay home and look after your mother, like a good boy? Maybe end up at the bottom of a bottle like her?”

“Fuck you,” I said, even though my voice trembled. “That's not my only choice.” And I didn't know if that was true or if I just wanted it to be true.

Mr. Scratsche laughed. “Haven't you been paying attention, Kevin? The vampire rises again. The scientist revives the killer's brain. The zombie horde is reinfected. That's what accounts for all of those sequels and remakes.
You can't win against evil.
Oh, sure. If you were to destroy this last remaining print of the film now, before you'd committed your soul, you would. But the projector is all the way up there.” Scratsche pointed to the thick glass of the narrow projection booth window. “Out of reach. Like your dreams.” Scratsche's dark eyes blazed. “You've been out of options for some time, Mr. Grant. Deep down, you know that. Join me … or you'll all die. Have you ever been torn apart by demons? I'm told it hurts. Quite a lot.”

On-screen, the fireplace hissed. I looked over my shoulder at the swirling circle of flame and the endless darkness inside, devoid of shape, like my futureless future. My eyes locked on Natalia's. “Please,” I begged. “Just a hint.”

For a moment, she stared at the floor. Then she whispered, “The movie feeds on your fear. That's what gives it power.”

Mr. Scratsche put a hand to his chest. Tiny horns had sprouted at the top of his forehead, and his teeth had lengthened. “Ah, me. I really should have cast Yvonne De Carlo.”

He flicked his fingers once more, and Natalia screamed in terror as she flew backward, pinned to the mansion wall, a dagger hovering inches from her neck.

“Be good, now, my dear,” Scratsche said. “I know you'd hate to play out the rest of your contract with a slashed throat. Messy.”

Dave shut his eyes tight and rocked. “Stop feeling fear. Stop feeling fear. Stop feeling fear.”

I pulled the three of us into a tight huddle, draping my arms over both of their backs. I'd never been this physically close to Dani before. We were nearly nose to nose, and suddenly I was flooded with want for that future she'd asked me about under the tree. A future with her. “The movie lives on fear, right? So we have to stop feeding it. Quick! What's the opposite of fear?”

“Taylor Swift?” Dave said. Dani and I glared. “What? Taylor Swift makes me happy.”

I turned to Dani. “What's a
normal
opposite of fear?”

Dani let out a shaky breath. “Um, courage? Joy. Love. Altruism. Hope.”

“That's it,” I said.

“What's it? That was, like, five things.”

Shadows and light played across her face. I brushed a drop of popcorn oil from her cheek.

“Hope,” I said.

The old movie's hazy glow turned me into a ghost of myself as I stepped to the front of the theater. “If these are going to be my last few minutes on earth, then I have something to say.”

“Oh. He's one of those ‘last profound words' kids.
Won-n-nderful,
” Alastair mumbled into his glass.

“You know, you're kind of a dick,” Dave said. “I revoke your hotness status. I might clap when you go back to hell.”

Alastair shrugged. “I'm a B movie actor. Hell's redundant, kid.” He drained his glass, which immediately refilled. “This isn't even real booze.”

“Mr. Grant. This protracted endgame has begun to bore me. I'm not pleasant when bored,” Scratsche threatened.

“Just a sec, okay?” I faced Dani. In those movies I'd made inside my head, I was always cocky and cool, because there were no stakes. I'd been guilty of the very thing I'd railed against. But now, looking into her big brown eyes—seeing the fear and the anger and the worry—I felt all of my emotions at once. I hated that I'd wasted so much time, and I wished more than anything that I could be the hero I wanted to be, the hero worthy of her.

I cleared my throat. “Dani, I know this is really bad timing, considering we're about to be either eaten by demons or consigned to hell, neither of which is how I would've planned our first date. But the truth is, I'm crazy about you. Totally. Madly. Completely. And I know this is stupid, but I have to know: If this were a normal Saturday night, and I asked you out, would you say yes?”

Dani stared at me. I couldn't tell if she was mad or happy or sad or all of the above. “Wow. Your timing sucks.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” My heart plummeted. “Sorry. Forget I said anything.”

“Would you shut up for a second, Kevin?” She came closer. “For, like,
forever,
I've been waiting for you to ask me out, but you never did. You're the reason I took this stupid job. And now—
now
—when we're about to be sacrificed to hell, you finally work up the courage?”

“I—Wait. You like me?”

“Oh. My. God.” Dani lifted up her arms in frustration and let them fall to her sides again. “Seriously? You mean you couldn't tell?”

“Not … really?”

“Damn, boys are dumb.”

“Sexist.”

“Sorry. I meant to say, ‘Damn, Kevin is dumb.'”

“Better. So how come
you
didn't just ask
me
out?”

“Because…” Dani's brows furrowed. “Because it's scary putting yourself out there?”

“Yeah,” I said, smiling in spite of everything. “It really, really is.”

“Aw-w-w. You two are awfully cute,” Natalia said. “I feel real bad that you'll either get eaten by demons or lose your souls.”

“Thanks?” I said, and then I added, “ma'am,” because I was inside a theater full of revenants led by the devil's henchman on my first and possibly last date with the girl of my dreams, and my mouth had given up trying to make sense of things.

“Kev!” Dave said, sounding panicked. “The hope thing's not working!”

Mr. Scratsche laughed. “You see, Kevin. There really is no way to stop it.” He held out the scroll again. “Accept your fate.”

“No! Wait!” I paced. Stopped. “Unless we destroy the movie.”

“Yes, yes, but you can't,” Scratsche said, impatient. “And even if you
could,
I doubt that someone like you would destroy the last remaining print of a rare film. After all, you know what it is to be thrown away.”