"There is someone living here—in this theater! I swear to God it's true!"
Hidden in the shadows of a passage behind the walls that I discovered when I first came here, I listen to their conversation. I recognize the voice that just spoke as that of a young man who has an annoying tendency to stick his nose where it does not belong. His name is Joe Macker, and while he is still a student at a local dramatic college, works occasionally as backstage help and as a scenery painter. Underneath my mask my thin lips form a nasty grimace. It's too bad that no one can see behind this mask—it would surely win any costume or make-up contest; or at least frighten the nosier people to death! Oh, how I would love to see these two's reactions… Would they run away screaming as a little girl, or faint away with shock? Sometime, before I am forced to leave this place—an eventuality that I know will come to pass—I must experience their reactions to my true face, and not this mask I wear.
How does he know I am here? I ask myself silently. I must remain silent, no matter how much my mind screams out to expose my presence to anyone that will listen ad care. After all, I can still be considered a teenager in some respects, and in some aspects of my mind and body, I may always be at that level—or even less—due to lack of social interaction when I was growing up. But there are more pressing matters at hand, such as the conversation upon which I am eavesdropping currently. The young man, Joe, that's his name, I shall have to deal with him soon, or I'll risk being caught again and imprisoned. And I know what imprisonment means: Once again, I'd be displayed for all to see or hidden away for the rest of my life, either way I'd spend the rest of my life in a cage—and I have simply had enough of cages to last a lifetime, to last several lifetimes, in fact.
"You have got to be kidding me, Joe," says the lanky, sandy-blonde thirty-year-old. He can barely contain his mirth. He's worked here for several years and has never heard of any ghost—except for the one that supposedly haunts the downstairs public restroom, although he suspects it's either faulty plumbing or some prankster. Joe is, after all, well known for his "stories" and wild imagination that he often employs to gain any attention that he can garner. The older man just dismisses this latest bit of shit as one of Joe's tales. When he speaks again, he can barely keep a note of humor from his voice. "Someone in this theater? Have you got a hold of some cannabis that you haven't told your old pal about?"
Joe looks perturbed, if one could say that boyish face could ever look like that, by the older male's comments. "No, man, you know I ain't touched no Mary Jane since that time I was in high school! One's got to be sharp to work backstage nowadays and keep their job; you ought to know that! Besides, I've seen it!"
"Seen what, Joe? Little green men again?" the man laughs a bit drunkenly.
"A zombie! A real, honest to God reanimated corpse walking around and haunting this building! I really did see it! And I'm not the only one who has… A couple of the actors and actresses that work here have seen it, too. Others have merely had small, odd things happen to them or the areas around them. And then there are the accidents…"
Behind the wall, the corpse-like "angel", Erik, winces. He thinks to himself, Have I really been that damn obvious or careless? He begins to wonder whether or not he should leave again… And, although it is painful for him, seeing this is his first chance of making his own choices, rules, and having more freedom than he ever had in his life, he knows that he really must move on. People are becoming suspicious and aware of his presence, and if it continues much longer, he knows that he will be caught.
"Well, what does 'it' look like? And is it male or female? 'Cause if it's a 'she', she might be hot, and I may just have to cool her off… Well? Inquiring minds want to know…" the blonde encourages Joe. The younger adult smacks the blonde upside the head. "What was that for?" He whines as he rubs his head.
"That was for your constant worrying over which babe you're going to bed next… I'll tell you what the zombie looks like, all right, and if you can't handle it, I told you so. The zombie, in the first place is male, I think, so unless you are bisexual, or a necrophiliac, I highly doubt you'd take this creature to bed. He wears all black, and his clothes hang off of his limbs and frame as though he is just a walking pile of bones! His face is too horrible to even mention! It appears to be rotting, dead… No, it is worse than that—his head resembles a skull! He does have hair, but it is long, black as a raven's wing, and hangs in long strands over that skull! The skin that is there is tightly stretched across the bones, like the original Mummy, but it is yellow, an awful, sickly yellow—like that of old, yellowed newspapers… He has a great black hole for a nose, as what there is of it is so little that a person looking at his profile cannot see it! Where his eyes are—there are black pits where they should be, and one can see them only in the dark, like cat's eyes or twin candle flames…"
Erik winces. When did anyone catch him in his ghoulish glory? He moves on already planning his next series of attempts to keep the rumor mill in check. After all, Erik thinks to himself, it would not do for someone to catch on to my presence and therefore become too curious for their own good…
"Suppose you are right, Joe," the older man starts. "Suppose those words you said were true? What would that mean? Who could we tell without people thinking we're crazy? I mean, doesn't your story sound ridiculous to yourself? What if this ghoul—or zombie, as you termed him—got wind of the fact that we know the truth, or even just more than we should? To what limit might the creature go to suppress the truth about himself? It might be possible that he would take out his anger on us! He might even kill us!"
Thinking back on those two stagehands' conversation, I realize how close I actually am coming to being found out, so to speak. No one should ever know I was here if ever I leave this place. It is important to my safety and me. Thinking on that, I push all thoughts but those necessary for survival out of my mind as I hole up again for the night in one of my "nests". I know exactly how to stop them from spreading the truth. Yes, I am going to kill them. No, it doesn't bother me in the least. Anyways, I shall make it look like a suicide from unrequited love… Heh heh he…
