Stranger Than You Dreamt It

Stranger than you dreamt it -
can you even dare to look or bear to
think of me:
this loathsome gargoyle, who
burns in hell, but secretly yearns for heaven,
secretly ...
secretly...

What was with the lights? The door swished shut behind her with a muffled click and suddenly all sound was cut off. It was so quiet that her ears were ringing from the strain of her trying to hear something, anything that would let her mind know that she was indeed still in the Multiplex and hadn't stepped into an alternate reality. After a tense moment she heard faintly the house music playing. Her eyes searched the blackness in vein, as her hand desperately flicked the light switch. This was perfect. Did I fall into a black hole? Blindly, Eva felt her way along the isle of seats, stumbling over garbage and the mop, all the while cursing theater two under her breath. Had no one even swept yet?

Feeling her outstretched hands finally come to rest on the smooth movie screen, she breathed a sigh of relief. She'd made it to the front without breaking her neck, so it was a start. The mop bucket was obediently waiting just within her reach, which was odd; she didn't remember bringing it in with her. She dipped a finger into it and the water was hot. Someone must have just recently filled this. But wouldn't she have heard them come in? Wouldn't light form the doors, have spilled into the theater? Come to think of it, she couldn't even see the light from the emergency exit sign. Just mop the floor and get the hell outta here.

Dipping the mop into the bucket and wringing it out was a challenge in itself. Her eyes were not adjusting to the dark at all. It was a dense blackness, like it had substance to it. The air felt heavy and it seemed to press itself around her, offer resistance as she moved through it. She mopped and hummed, singing in tune with the music piped in from the lobby. It had a strange crackling quality, like the speakers were blown, or the music was really being played on an old phonograph. Her only memories of her father were from when she was very young. He used to let her sit on this jazz band practices, he played the bass. Her favorite memories were of her father's smiling face as he listened to his six year old make up her own words to his instrumental pieces. She had no good memories of her mother. Her dad always said she had the voice of an angel but ever since He'd been diagnosed with cancer, there had been no music in her life anymore, now her mom was addicted to cocaine and Eva had to fight like mad to keep up a normal existence. It was hard to keep up normal appearances when her mother was slowly selling off furniture for blow; her home wasn't a lets-breakout-the-folk-guitars-and-have-a-campfire kind of place. In high school she'd been afraid to join the choir. Her father told her that when he got to heaven he would send her an Angel of Music, but the angel never came and Eva felt stupid now that she'd believed in such a thing. She didn't even know if she believed in God anymore. She sang along quietly with Sarah Mclachlan until the song ended and she heard the low steady sound of one person clapping a short distance away.

"Wayne?" She called, hating the way her voice shook. She squinted into the inky blackness infront of her. "Wayne, if you're trying to scare me I'm going to hurt you!" there was no response. She could hear nothing, not the sound of breathing or the rustle of clothing. All she could hear was the sound of her own heart hammering in her chest. "Wayne! This isn't funny!"

"Bravo… Angel….." Someone whispered from behind her, their voice soft and melodious. Then again from somewhere in the seats, then over by the emergency exit… Over and over, the voice whispered, until the words were all around her, blending together, coming from all directions. Like a crowd of mysterious strangers hiding in the shadows. Soft skin grazed her cheek; fingers touching her pale face; she realized was now tearstained. She screamed, and the door burst open. Light spilled in from the noisy Multiplex beyond and Eva knew the real world was back.

Wayne was running towards her and she tried to go to him, only she was in a heap on the ground. When had that happened? When had she started crying? He fell to his knees next to her, just on the edge of the light, the neon making his hair look like spun gold. A knight in shinning armor, or at least a candy striper uniform.

"Eva!" He pulled her into his arms and she trembled against him. "Oh my God, what happened to you?" But she couldn't speak, not yet. She just buried her face into his shoulder, and he stroked her long copper curls. Peter wasn't far behind, fiddling with the light switch, cursing, and pacing, then fiddling some more.

"Why doesn't this damn thing work!" He cried in frustration. Eva looked up and saw that employees were crowding the door, trying to see what happened, catch a glimpse of who had screamed. "Mike, go check the breaker." Peter said in exasperation. What had just happened to her? Had it really been the Ghost she heard? She put a hand to her left cheek, it still tingled where she'd felt the caress. It had been the touch of someone living, she knew that for sure. "What in the hell…."

Eva and Wayne broke apart at the sound of Peter's voice much closer, laced with horror. Resting on the mop bucket was a single long stemmed rose. Its petals colored a crimson so dark that the edges appeared to be black. It rested upon a cream colored note card that read only three words in scrolling black cursive: For My Angel…. Peter had gone white, sweat starting to bead at his hairline and he reached an unsteady hand out towards the gift. At that moment Mike must have found the breaker, for just as Peter's tiny hand had closed about the stem, theater two was filled with brilliant light as the house lights flashed on and everybody groaned, raising hands to shield their eyes.

A piercing scream ripped through the silence as one of the concession girls pointed toward the movie screen. No, Mike hadn't found the breaker, he was dead. Someone or something had hung him from the curtain rod, at the top of the screen. Eva screamed too, so did a lot of people, what they didn't know that this was only the beginning of what the Theater Ghost was capable of.

For my angel…..