Disclaimer: Masters of Horror and its episode "Cigarette Burns" belongs to people far more famous and talented than me. This story is simply for my own amusement.

Kirby found himself sprawled in a chair with his head tilted back, gazing up at a darkened ceiling. There was a dim flickering light and strange noises. He straightened and saw he was in one of the front row seats of Bellinger's private theater. La Fin Absolue Du Monde was playing out on the screen. At least, he thought it was. Many of the images he saw made no sense, just random views of gruesome and disturbing acts. A naked woman clawed at a stone wall until her nails tore away. Another young woman struggled with the barbed wire coiled around her head while blood flowed out of dozens of small wounds. A man screamed up at a blood-red sky, one of the few instances of color in the mostly gray-scale film. Then Kirby saw the Willowy Being, that skinny pale wretch Bellinger kept chained up on a revolving platform as a "souvenir" from the film. The creature was younger and healthier looking then, and he still had the wings which now hung on Bellinger's wall. Kirby now saw how the creature lost them. He saw a man with a huge rusty knife sawing away at them while the Willowy Being cried out in helpless pain.

A cough shook Kirby's body and he tasted something thick and metallic. He wiped his mouth, then saw his fingers were coated in blood. Both hands and the front of his shirt. Where did all this blood come from?

It was then that he realized not all the screaming was coming from the movie. He turned his head away from the screen and blinked in confusion at the scene before him. Haley and Matthews were fighting. Both were struggling for control of the gun, and from the looks of things Haley had bitten Matthews's hands more than once, but the crazy bastard just wouldn't let go. Matthews suddenly drew back his fist and smashed it into Haley's face. Haley staggered back, banged her hip off a nearby armrest, and toppled to the floor. Matthews stood over her with the gun. His bloodshot eyes were wide, his teeth bared in a hateful grimace. It was obvious that whatever sanity he had left was now gone. He pointed the gun at the young woman's head. Haley raised a trembling hand in a pitiful attempt to shield herself from the inevitable.

"P-Please..." she whimpered, blood trickling from her mouth.

And for Kirby the realization finally sank in that she was going to die.

"No!" He jumped to his feet and ran at the startled man. Caught off guard, Matthews tried to swing his aim around when Kirby tackled him to the floor.

From where she lay a few feet away, Haley watched wide-eyed as Kirby straddled the older man, grabbed the sides of his head with both hands, and started slamming Matthews's head against the floor. Over and over, as hard as he could, his face twisted with years of pent up rage against the man and his endless threats and his blame for Annie's death. He slammed Matthews's head down until there was a sound like a giant egg cracking open and then the thumps against the floor became horrible squelching noises.

"Kirby," Haley choked.

Whether he heard her or not, he stopped. She watched him sit back on his heels, reach into his inner jacket pocket, and pull something out. "Here's your fucking money," he snarled, crumpling the check and stuffing it into Matthews's mouth. Kirby then rose shakily to his feet, saw the gun and picked it up, then staggered over to the nearest theater seat and lowered himself into it.

Haley blinked at him, still lying on the floor where Matthews knocked her down. It was like Kirby forgot she was even there. He was staring at the screen with a look on his face that was almost...peaceful. A sad smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "I love you," he whispered, while tears fell from his eyes, "I'm sorry."

Haley got up on her hands and knees and crawled over to him. She touched the hand that loosely held the gun. "Kirby?"

He blinked like he was waking from a daydream and finally looked at her. "Timpson?"

Haley gently took the gun from him and set it on the floor out of his reach. She cradled his face in both hands to make sure he stayed focused on her. "We gotta call you an ambulance, okay? I need your phone."

Kirby frowned, puzzled. "Ambulance?"

"Kirby, you were shot."

He looked down at himself, at all the blood. There was a hole in his shirt and a dull throb in his abdomen. A throb that was rapidly becoming more intense. Kirby hunched over and bit back a groan.

"Where's your cellphone?" Haley searched through his pockets until she found his cell. She flipped it open and dialed 911, then held the phone to her ear with her shoulder while she stripped off her outer shirt, leaving herself wearing only a short-sleeved T-shirt.. While she frantically blurted the address to the operator, she pressed her wadded shirt over Kirby's wound in an effort to stanch the bloodflow. Behind her, unnoticed, the movie screen went blank as the reel ended.

Movement from the corner of his eye made Kirby turn his head. He stared as a pale, slender figure slowly floated down the aisle towards them. Haley's jaw went slack and the cellphone slipped from her ear to clatter to the floor.

The Willowy Being paused before the stunned pair. His wrists and ankles were heavily bruised from the shackles he freed himself from and his eerie face was serene. Balanced in his hands like a couple of pizzas were two film reels. Neither of them had to guess which film it was.

"Thank you," the creature said to Kirby, indicating the reels with an elegant nod, "For this." The Willowy Being continued walking, vanishing through the screening room's exit without another word.

Haley was the only one the police were able to question at the scene, since she was the only living, uninjured, sane person left. Bellinger was dead, Matthews was dead, Kirby was being loaded into the ambulance, and the butler was missing (he was found hours later sitting in the middle of the highway and was carted of to the psych wing of the hospital, where he spent the rest of his life). Haley wasn't able to tell the cops much about what happened, other that everyone went completely batshit crazy. She did emphasize that Kirby killed Matthews while saving her life, however, and the police seemed willing to believe her. Especially after they learned of Matthews's increasingly erratic behavior over the last few months and his obsessive stalking of Kirby.

Once the questioning was finally done and Haley's minor wounds were treated, one of the cops gave her a ride home. She took the longest shower of her life, tossed the clothes she'd worn into the trash (she would have burned them if she could), then flopped into bed and promptly passed out. She was too exhausted to even dream that night, a minor blessing.

The next morning Haley dug out her spare car keys and had a friend give her a lift to the Vogue where her car was still parked. The theater's doors were still chained up from the night before. Haley made a mental note to get some bolt cutters later.

She drove down to the bank Kirby used both for his personal accounts and the business. The tellers were shocked by the huge bruise Matthews had left on her face, but recovered quickly. they greeted Haley by name, since she was usually the one who made all the deposits, such as they were. Today, though, she had something much bigger than the meager earnings from the Vogue.

Last night, just before the cops arrived, Haley snatched the check Kirby had stuffed into Matthews's mouth and put it in her pocket. It was already endorsed with Kirby's signature on the back, probably in anticipation of paying off the debt he owed Matthews. Now Haley was going to deposit it into the Vogue's account. They fucking earned that money after everything they'd been through. Hopefully, the authorities hadn't frozen Bellinger's assets yet.

They hadn't. The transfer went through without a hitch. Haley took the receipt from the smiling clerk and left the bank as quickly as possible without drawing attention.

Her next stop was the hospital. Even though she wasn't family, the doctor who'd treated Kirby told her everything. A couple of months ago, Kirby got the idea that since neither of them had any family, it might be a good idea to sign some papers giving them the right to make medical decisions for each other. Haley was never more grateful that she'd agreed to this than she was now. The doctor - a reassuringly calm Indian guy with an unpronounceable name - assured Haley that Kirby's gunshot wound wasn't life-threatening. He'd needed some surgery and a blood transfusion, but was now in stable condition and would probably be sent home in a few days.

"Can I see him?" Haley asked.

The doctor nodded. "He may not be very talkative due to the pain medication we put him on," he warned.

"That's okay. I just wanna see for myself that he's alright."

A nurse escorted her to Kirby's room, then left them in privacy. In spite of the doctor's earlier reassurances, Haley was alarmed at how her friend looked. Kirby's face was pale and drawn, and there was all kinds of monitoring equipment with wires and tubes running into him. Haley slowly crept into the room and stood beside the bed. Kirby appeared to be sleeping. His eyelids didn't even twitch when she touched his hand.

"Hey," she whispered.

Kirby's head lolled and he breathed in. His eyelids slowly drew back from his pale eyes. "Timpson," he murmured.

Haley smiled in relief. "How're you feeling?"

"Like I got shot in the gut. Oh wait," he smiled weakly, "I did."

Haley snorted at his attempt at humor. "Is it okay if I'm here? I mean, if you wanna sleep some more-"

"It's fine." Kirby shifted to a more comfortable position. "Pull up a chair."

Haley found an uncomfortable-looking plastic chair against the wall. She dragged over to the bedside and sat down. She rested her hands on her lap, absently tugging down the sleeves of her baggy shirt.

"How's the Vogue?" Kirby asked.

"Still chained up. But don't worry, I'll take care of it."

"As shitty as business has been, it might be better if you left it chained up," he muttered.

Haley smirked. "I don't think you'll have to worry about finances for a while." At Kirby's puzzled look, she explained about retrieving Bellinger's check. "So, unless the cops decide to confiscate it, you're now two hundred grand richer."

Kirby smiled weakly. "How could you even keep a level head with everything going down like it did?"

Her expression became somber. "What the hell did happen, Kirby? I keep trying to wrap my head around it, and it all starts unraveling. How could a movie drive everybody so crazy? And what the hell was that albino guy?"

Kirby lifted his head slightly. "You didn't tell the cops about him, did you?"

"Fuck no! They'd think I was crazy."

"He took the film." Kirby gazed up at the ceiling in thought. "Maybe he'll destroy it, or hide it somewhere."

"I don't care what he does with it," Haley said, "Long as nobody ever finds it again."

Kirby looked at her in concern. "Did you watch the film while it was playing?"

She shook her head.

Kirby sighed in relief, "Good."

"You watched it," Haley's voice was worried, "What'd it do to you?"

Kirby chewed the inside of his lip for a moment. "It digs out all your sins and makes you face them."

Haley thought about Bellinger disemboweling himself, the butler gouging out his own eyes, Kirby whispering that he was sorry while holding the gun he took from Matthews. What would he have done if she hadn't taken it away?

She took hold of his hand, gave it a squeeze. Kirby stared at their joined hands for a moment, then reached over with his other hand and started to peel back Haley's sleeve. Haley tensed, but didn't stop him. She chewed her bottom lip as more of her wrist was exposed.

"I saw this," Kirby murmured, "when you took your shirt off to stop my bleeding." He traced a finger along the scar that ran down the inside of her wrist. "Lengthwise," he observed quietly, "You meant business."

"I did," Haley admitted, "At the time, anyway. I did it in the morning after my mom left for work. She shouldn't have found me 'til it was way too late. Only she got a flat less than two blocks from home and came back to call her boss and tell him she was gonna be late. She saw my backpack by the door and knew I didn't go to school. Didn't take her long to find me."

Kirby's grip on her hand tightened. "Why'd you do it?"

Haley shook her head, shrugged. "No one reason. I just...wasn't happy. I was never happy, not since I was a little kid. The shrinks called it clinical depression. I didn't let it show, though. I didn't wanna upset my mom."

"And fuckin' killing yourself wasn't gonna upset her?"

Haley winced at the pain in Kirby's voice. "I was tired of hiding it by then. I'm better now. Mom was a rock. She got me through all the therapy and the meds. I still see a shrink once a week, and I tell myself every day that I'm lucky to be alive. Even after Mom died from cancer, I kept telling myself that, 'cause I know she wouldn't want me giving up." She looked down at the scar on her wrist. "I'm glad I have these scars. They remind me how far I've come."

"Then why hide them?"

"People freak out when they see 'em. I don't hide them from my friends," she explained, "I would've shown them to you, but..."

Kirby's face relaxed in understanding. "Annie."

Haley nodded. "I heard about how she died and...I thought it'd be too painful for you, seeing these scars."

Kirby looked at her wrist, then slowly pulled her sleeve back down. "Thanks for telling me."

She hesitated. "You okay?"

Kirby snorted. "No. But I'll work on it," he added. He looked at her. "I'm sorry I almost got you killed."

"It's not like we were handcuffed together," Haley argued, "I could've stayed out in the car, but I decided to follow you instead. It was my choice. Plus, you saved my life. So quit beating yourself up about it."

"About saving your life?" Kirby's mouth twitched.

Haley laughed and lightly punched his shoulder. "Smartass."

The nurse who'd showed her to the room stopped by to say that visiting hours were almost over. Haley sighed and got up from the uncomfortable chair. "My ass has gone numb," she grumbled.

Kirby smiled. His eyelids were growing heavy again, his energy wearing out. "You gonna come by tomorrow?"

"Every day 'til you get outta this place," Haley promised. "Get better, okay?"

"'Kay."

Haley paused at the door, then turned and asked, "You really think it's over?"

Kirby looked at her and slowly nodded. "Yeah."

Haley's smile held a touch of relief. When she was gone, Kirby's own smile faded. He hoped he wasn't lying, but how was he to know for sure?