I’ve been working at my local movie theater for a few months now. I needed a job very suddenly after being laid off unexpectedly. It wasn’t really the pay I was worried about, I just needed something to do other than sitting on my ass all day, and the theater was what came to mind. I’d always wished I’d worked at a movie theater when I was younger, so I figured now was as good a time as any. After a few weeks working there, I had really started to love it, way more than I had ever anticipated. I even stopped dreading interacting with customers and started to look forward to helping people out. But mostly it was the routine, the rhythm almost, of crisscrossing across the lobby as efficiently as possible, cleaning and sweeping every theater in whatever order had been laid out for me. It was simple, it kept me busy, and that was all that mattered to me.
Pretty soon after starting, I was getting looped in on all the workplace gossip. This included normal stuff like who people thought got an undeserved promotion, or which manager was the most annoying to work under. But the gossip spread even further than that too. I quickly learned about the rats that had taken up residence behind the concessions area or the back hallway stairs that supposedly were bad luck. While all of those stories were lighthearted and told to anyone and everyone just to fill time while we were on a break, one story I heard was treated entirely differently.
My supervisor, a really laid-back guy who loved to gossip about anything and everything, pulled me aside one day out of nowhere. With the look of concern on his face, I was worried I had seriously fucked something up earlier today and was racking my brain for what I could have possibly done to be in this much trouble when he just came right out and said it, “some people believe that theater nine is haunted.” He told me that many employees had had supernatural experiences when in theater nine alone, often late at night on a slower day. They had seen things that terrified them into quitting out of the blue or heard people inside only to enter the theater and find no one. He said one long-time manager was so convinced there was “something unnatural” living in theater nine that he refused to step foot inside at all. He’d rather be fired, he said. He told me all of this with such seriousness etched into his face, with such a stern look that didn’t suit his usually casual and jovial demeanor. It almost sounded like a warning. This had gone far past the realm of ordinary office gossip, this was to be taken seriously. Of course, after he told me this, I didn’t really believe him. Apart from the vague and generic nature of the story, I just couldn’t believe that such a normal and put-together guy like my boss would believe in something stupid like this. “Besides,” I would tell him “I’ve been in there a million times and nothing’s happened to me!” He paused for a moment, a soft smile creeping across his face, “Yet.” He would say. “Nothing has happened to you yet.” While those words shook me a little, I largely chalked up the interaction to some bizarre new-guy hazing ritual or some sort of new brand of comedy he was experimenting with. I paid no special attention to Theater nine, and it paid none to me.
The building I worked in was divided into two main hallways, connected by a central lobby area where guests would enter to purchase concessions and tickets. The left hallway was much wider and larger, containing our premium theaters and formats on both sides of the hall, eight theaters in total. The right side hallway was much narrower, housing the remaining six theaters spread out sparsely along the right side of the hallway. Since both hallways stretched the same length but had a different number of theaters. The left side hallway felt much shorter as you walked down it, as theaters were spread out much more evenly along it. In contrast, the right hallway contained theaters 14-11 fairly close together, then a noticeable break as you walked down to reach theater 10, and then finally, at the very end of the hallway, nestled away behind a piece of the wall that jutted out halfway into the hallway, located right next to the emergency exit doors, was theater nine. It was where the absolute lowest priority movies were shown, as the walk to get there was so inconvenient and confusing, and it was so isolated from every other theater. I used to enjoy cleaning theater nine, honestly, I enjoyed its quiet isolation, there was never a huge mess left behind, and I always got a good laugh out of checking what movie had been relegated to the sad and lonely theater nine. I don’t anymore. I don’t think I can ever step foot in there again after what I saw.
Last Wednesday was slow. Unbelievably so. I was practically pulling my hair out all shift long, and it was a long shift too. I was dragging my feet back and forth between theaters, trying to kill as much time as possible when I realized I was running a few minutes behind. It wasn’t a huge deal, theater’s on a slow day like today would take no more than 5 minutes to clean. But I always liked to be on top of the schedule in case it got busy later. Glancing down at my schedule, I made my way to the right-side hallway and began the long trek toward theater nine. I passed a couple in the hallway leaving theater nine as I walked toward it. “Have a nice night!” I called out to them with a warm smile. They ignored me completely.
As I passed the long stretch of bare wall and turned towards the door to the theater, I realized just how slow today was. Turning slightly to loom over my shoulder down the hallway, I saw absolutely nothing. There was no one around at all. The couple I had passed must’ve taken off running or something, as there was just no sign of them at all. Brushing it off, I wrapped my hand firmly around the cold metal handle and yanked open the door. Immediately I noticed something was off. The credits were still rolling, but double-checking the schedule reaffirmed that I was right and that the movie should’ve been finished by now. Furrowing my brow, I continued to stare at the schedule. “END TIME: 12:15 am” It read, and then it was just… blank. No start time, and no movie name. I had never seen anything like it before and was debating whether to radio in and ask about it, ultimately deciding it could wait until after I had cleaned up here. As I stood in the doorway, listening to the soft piano track playing softly over the credits, I began to think about what my boss had told me just a few weeks earlier. Pushing down the growing sense of unease, I stepped into the theater.
It was cold in here. I wished for the millionth time that day that I’d brought a jacket to work. I was always cold at work and yet even after a month, I had yet to remember a jacket even one time. Cursing under my breath as I took a few steps in, gripping my broom tightly, and taking quiet steps in case there was anyone still in there. As I meandered down the narrow entrance hallway, more and more of the screen came into view ahead of me, as the wall to my right where the rows of seats were located began to fall away. Reaching a point where the wall was low enough to see into the rows of seats to my right, I commenced my usual routine of peeking discretely over the wall to check for anyone who was staying through the credits. If there were people still seated inside, I would need to turn around and wait outside until the credits ended or they left, if not, I could turn on the lights and get started straight away.
As I scanned the still dark theater row by row, I thought I saw someone. Seated in the back row it looked like there was a man, he had to have been seven, eight feet tall at least, hunched over in a painful-looking way with his head pushed as far forward as possible toward the screen. Just as I began to focus on his face, I heard my radio crackle to life, and he was gone. “Does anyone know if a regular popcorn refill is free?” was the question that came through my earpiece. I pulled the mic up to my mouth and answered “yes it’s free.” When I checked the seat again, all that remained was an upturned popcorn bucket someone had graciously left behind for me. Relieved, I sighed softly to myself, the darkness of the theater has more than once made me see something that wasn’t there, I must’ve seen the popcorn bucket from a weird angle and maybe I was a little sleep deprived too. Relaxing slightly, I turned back down the hallway to hit the lights so I could begin cleaning.
As light flooded the theater, my uneasiness faded away. I began to go over the rest of the schedule in my head, dreading the closing tasks I would inevitably be assigned right after I finished up here. As I stepped past the first row, checking for any trash, I realized I still hadn’t figured out what movie these credits belonged to. Ascending the stairs to the first row, I glanced at the credits while I swept, looking for any clues. The names scrolling by gave me no information, and neither did the music, which had transitioned from soft piano notes to this gorgeous church choir-style song that I had never heard before. Fully devoted to this mystery, I took a break to sit and watch the credits for a bit. My eyes lazily tracked the flurry of names as they cascaded by, nothing standing out to me. I started to pay closer attention, there were no logos, no descriptions, or headings, it was just a furious scroll of meaningless names that seemed to be moving faster and faster toward the top of the screen. They kept hurtling faster and faster, with more and more names filling up the sides of the screen too. The sharp white text had begun to overlap, and the names seemed to reach for the edge of the screen, as if they were about to spill out into the theater.
Pretty soon the speed of the credits became too fast for me to track, the barrage of names was now just a blur of white that filled up the entire screen. I sat there completely motionless, eyes locked in front of me watching the screen fill with white. It was becoming less blurry now. I leaned forward in my seat. I could almost start to see something. I hunched forward as much as possible. Something beyond the white. I pushed my head forward as far as it would go. I saw a lake. Someone sat down next to me. I reached out to touch the water. He was impossibly tall. I waded carelessly through the lake. His skin was paper-thin. There was something on the other side. His bones made disgusting creaking and snapping noises as he leaned forward in his seat. It was a heavy steel door. He stuck out his face towards the screen. I stepped out of the lake. The white from the screen illuminated his translucent skin. I stood in front of the door. I could see straight through him. I reached for the handle. He began to shrink in size. I grazed the cold steel. His skin grew darker, less opaque. I grabbed the handle firmly. His bones creaked and snapped again, shrinking to fit his new form. I pulled hard but the handle didn’t budge. Hair began to sprout from the crown of his head. I pulled harder. His skin had gone from translucent to a muddled brown. I felt something pushing from the other side of the door. His new piercing brown eyes stared pointedly at me. I continued to pull, and the force from the other side pushed in turn. His face was almost fully formed, his legs began to snap into place like puzzle pieces. I pulled open the door just far enough to see inside. He was almost complete. I peered into the doorway and watched an imperfect copy of myself struggling to push open the door.
He stared down at his new fingers, as if unsure what to do with them. The copy looked up at me with a pleading expression plastered unfittingly onto its roughly formed face. He tried to lift himself up out of the seat but he was still too weak. I started desperately pushing on the door. His mouth began to form, etched onto his face was a mocking sneer. The copy started screaming “IT IS FREE IT IS FREE IT IS FREE” it repeated over and over again in a voice that began to sound increasingly like my own. He started to rise from the chair. I felt the door start to close as I put my full weight into it. He stumbled before he could rise, falling back into the chair. The door was almost closed, only the copy’s arm stuck halfway out of the door. Weakened, he leaned toward me slowly. I shoved my shoulder into the door, over and over, until I heard a sickening snap from the copy’s arm. He began to grow again, his skin becoming more and more opaque. The copy shrieked and removed its arm from the doorway. His bones were elongating, his hair falling out in clumps as he stood up and hobbled weakly toward the screen. The door finally closed shut with a heavy bang. I woke up in my seat momentarily. The only thing I saw was a pale white hand waving slowly to me from behind the projector screen. I passed out again right after.
The next thing I remember was a coworker shaking me. He told me I had been sleeping in here for an hour, and said that our boss was pissed I had missed out on helping with closing. Needless to say, I was terrified and skittish. I didn’t say a word to him as I ran out of the theater. I found the first set of doors and sprinted straight to my car. I drove like a madman the entire way home, half-expecting to see that thing everywhere I looked. I got to my apartment, locked the door, and sat petrified in the center of my room. I couldn’t sleep that night. Couldn’t eat for another day at least. Haven’t left my apartment in a week. But even after everything I saw, that story isn’t the reason I made this post. No, I made this post as a warning to all of you.
You see, after a week of not leaving my place I had begun to relax a little. I was almost ready to chalk the whole experience up to a complete and total mental breakdown or some sort of stress-induced hallucination. That’s when I remembered I had missed an entire week of work without calling. Absolutely kicking myself for screwing up the job I had come to love, I picked up my phone fully prepared to give them the classic unexpected family emergency routine and beg for forgiveness. But when my manager picked up and heard my voice he didn’t ask where I’d been or yell at me for missing shifts without calling. He didn’t seem upset in the slightest. He didn’t even seem to care I’d ditched work. Instead, he just said, “Hey, you were acting really weird at work yesterday man is everything okay?”