"The film will be shown at midnight, and if you're not here, you'll forfeit a piece of bacon. Do we understand each other?"
"We do." Answered Hauswirth. Shelley Hauswirth was average height for a female, she wore a small gold medallion round her neck and a silver crucifix dangling from her neck chain, her hair was blonde and her eyes brown. She was thin and elegant looking with a very attractive face, a long neck and narrow shoulders. She looked as if she had just stepped out of a magazine advertisement. She was attractive enough to attract male attention with her natural beauty, she had a natural flirtatiousness about her and could give the impression of having a good time.
"Good. Now, let's meet our very special guest, since it's his film we're borrowing," Hauswirth says, as a terrified young woman enters the room.
"And what is your name, young lady?" Hauswirth asks.
"Lisa," she answers softly. "You look like you've seen a ghost." Hauswirth remarks.
"I have," Lisa says. "It was... it was no dream."
"Well," Hauswirth says, "Wait what?" Hauswirth asks.
"I've seen a ghost. I swear to god, I saw one."
"That's... very interesting," Hauswirth says, before pausing. "But, you know, we'll have to see about this ghost business. It just might be a practical joke. Are you sure that you're... Oh!" Lisa slaps Hauswirth across the face.
"Stop mocking me!" she shouts. "I'm not crazy."
"I'm not mocking you," Hauswirth says, rubbing her face. "I'm just trying to be a good host. Now, it's our midnight show, so let's get it on!" Lisa rushes out of the room.
"She's a lovely girl, but a little... well, let's just say we have very different ideas of what's appropriate behavior," Hauswirth says. "Don't worry, she'll be on her best behavior when the film's on."
"I hope so. I don't want to ruin the surprise." Said Kenny the cameraman. "Shows on in five minutes!" One of the assistants alerted Shelley, "Ok!" Replied Shelley. "Let's get to work!"
Before the cameras rolled, Kenny asked one of the assistants, "You don't think our coverage of the murders is putting our dear Shelley Hauswirth at risk, do you? If we lose her, our ratings are going to plummet."
"Nothing so far has gotten past her," the assistant replies. "Besides, I think she looks a little too calm. I'd say she's about to get her freak on."
"Mmm... I guess you're right." Said Kenny.
The film began playing at midnight, as promised. The theater was filled with teenagers, as usual. A few giggled, and a couple shouted, "Yay for the film!" "Hello everybody! Are you ready for the film sensation of the century!?" Hauswirth excitedly yelled, "Showtime!"
The film began, as usual, with a title card that flashed before the title appeared: "A film by Rob Zombie."
It seemed to be the same old film, as it began with the same old plot of a typical Rob Zombie movie, except it felt a little off here because the film everyone in the theater came to see was Rob Zombie's version of "The Munster's." The film went on as normal, until the scene changed to a bunch of teenagers running and screaming, before the camera panned to a close up of a person's eye.
"What the f--k?" yelled a teenager.
"Turn it off!" screamed another.
"Shut it off! Now!" shouted a third.
The screen went black, and the theater went silent. "What the f--k was that!?" yelled a teenager. Suddenly, the screen turned on again, but what appeared horrified everyone in the theater: a bloody, dismembered corpse, with a jagged grin and vacant eyes, was shown.
"Is that what I think it is?" asked a girl in the back.
"No!" Hauswirth quickly put her hands over Kenny's eyes to cover him from the horrid sight.
"Turn it off! She demands.
With that, the bloody corpse vanished from the screen. Everyone in the theater went into immediate shock, not knowing what to think or say. "Well, that was a... disappointment." Shelley thought. Then a masked figure appeared on screen. The masked man's mask covered his whole face; it was modeled after a wendigo. He wore brown trousers, a long black coat with a high collar, a thick white wool scarf knotted round his throat, and over that a dark-blue handkerchief tied under the chin. He was big and broad, as if he was made to be a bullock, and his eyes were large and blue and frightening. "I'm here to tell you that there are no excuses for what you just saw. There is something very wrong with this picture, and that something is me."
"That's... creepy." Said a young girl.
"What... what does this mean?" asked a boy.
The masked figure spoke, "It means that this is one of the darkest endings we've seen for a long, long time. I hope you've all had as much fun as I have. I trust that you'll all be seeing my face again soon." And the figure disappeared, being replaced with a black screen with only the word "REVEAL" written on it in red letters. Hauswirth glanced over to Lisa, her eyes revealed she'd met that masked figure before, then Hauswirth looked back at the screen. The theater erupted into an uproar, as people yelled, screamed, and some even threw popcorn. Others just sat in stunned silence. "I don't... I can't believe it..." Said one teenager.
"There's no such thing as monsters!" cried Hauswirth, as she began to speak to the crowd. "Now, I want you to forget everything you just saw." Hauswirth stepped in front of the screen to reach everyone in the theater, "This is probably just some crazed pranker; it can't be real!" Everyone stared at Hauswirth, waiting for her to acknowledge what they just saw.
"It's... it's not real," she managed to say, "It must have been a..." Her eyes darted around as she looked for a word to describe what she just saw.
"You saw what you saw," said Peter, the theater's owner. "There's no explaining some of the things that people will see in their nightmares, or in the moments just before they go blind. I don't think you really want to mess with it, if you get my drift. It'll just scare the bejesus out of people and you'll probably lose the business."
"I'm not doing anything!" Hauswirth insisted.
"Then there's nothing we can do, is there?" Kenny replied.
"You can't just let a crazy man..."
"We're not talking about a'man,' we're talking about a creature.' Nobody has to get hurt!" Hauswirth was getting more and more disoriented.
"We should leave..." Pleaded Kenny.
Hauswirth realized that he was probably right, and she began to back away, towards the ticket window.
"Hauswirth, wait! Please!" cried a soft voice. The voice seemed to be beckoning to her, as if it knew Hauswirth's name. "I'm sorry." It was Lisa.
"I'm sorry, too," replied Hauswirth. They stood there, watching each other, neither one knowing what to say, until Hauswirth finally turned and ran out of the theater.
"She's just a woman, she can't help it..." Remarked Peter.
"She's a woman who can stop the monster in the basement..." Lisa stated.
"You can't stop the boogeyman..." Peter countered. They said nothing more, and soon the theater was once again empty.