Tim Meyer - The Switch House

No coming back.

No coming back!

He turned back to the screen and faced Brianne, who was now standing in the row before him dressed in the Frenchwoman’s attire, that silky satin robe.

“NO COMING BACK!” Brianne shouted in a voice that wasn’t her own, and possibly belonged to some foul soul residing in the deepest depths of Hell.

Rob backed away as Brianne’s mouth remained open, displaying rotted teeth, a tongue comprised of writhing maggots, which spilled over her lower lip as she continued to shout. “NO COMING BACK! NO COMING BACK!”

Rob jumped backwards expecting to clear the seat, but there was nothing left of the theater behind him except the dark abyss. Icy hands grabbed him and pulled him under, taking him to—

Rob flailed and cried out. Gasping for fresh air, he lunged forward. Brianne screamed and jerked the wheel, causing the tires to wail beneath them.

“What the fuck, dude?” she asked, flipping off the horn-honking driver to her left.

“I’m sorry,” Rob said instinctively. “What-where? Where am I?”

“Um, you’re in my car. On the way to IHOP. Like we said. Like two minutes ago. Before you passed out and went all Jacob’s Ladder on me.”

Rob wiped a layer of cold sweat from his brow. “I thought… the movie.”

“What movie? Jacob’s Ladder?”

He shook his head and suffered a sudden wave of dizziness. He fought off the urge to puke all over the glove box. “The one we were watching.” He swallowed and tasted acid, the bile in the back of his throat. “The French flick.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” She took turns between eyeing him warily and concentrating on the road. “We left work and decided to go to IHOP. There was never any movie.”

“No,” he said, shivering. A fever worked over him, and he could feel a sickness crawling through his veins, infecting each organ as it traveled deeper and deeper into his body. The sudden notion to rip his hair out became strong, and he found himself fingering around his scalp. “No, we were watching…”

“Are you feeling all right?” She felt his forehead. “Jesus, you’re burning up. Maybe I should just take you home.”

“No. Home.” The highway lights became a shifting kaleidoscope of bright colors. He took another spin on the fever carousel.

“Fuck that,” she said.

“No.” But he had no choice in the matter. She had already pulled off the main drag and was heading down Green Street, toward Rob’s parent’s house.

The next morning he felt much better, at least physically. He went to work with his head in a cloud, his brain polluted with weird thoughts, but his body felt all right. He wasn’t hot or sweating pellets of ice; he was good. But his head, on the other hand, felt like someone had set off a fog machine in there, pumping ghostly images of things that should not exist directly into his mind’s projector. He tried to remember the previous night in its entirety; the film, what happened during the viewing, the bizarre events that had followed. But he couldn’t do it. It wasn’t there, not all of it. There were fragments, just pieces. Broken images and shattered visions. Tidbits of a good bad dream, there somewhere beyond the veil of reality. Enough to verify what he’d seen was real, but enough to doubt its authenticity.

When he arrived at work, he decided what had happened last night was real. The film was real. The viewing was real. Everything that had happened was real right up until he’d awoken in Brianne’s car, screaming like a newborn baby thirsting for the teat.

But what was real?

The movie he hardly remembered?

The reels in his mind began to spin, projecting the Frenchwoman while she pleaded for help. But it hadn’t been her, right? No, it had been Brianne.

He remembered the sick, nasty scenes spliced between those involving the Frenchwoman. Yes, it was all coming back to him. Slowly. Fragments. Dirty, twisted concepts weaving together like fine threads until they had come together and become one complete garment. The closer he got to the projection booth, the more he remembered. By the time he passed theater six, he had recalled everything.

He found Dan sitting behind his desk, awkwardly slumped. He lifted his head from the blank wooden space before him, and smiled. His teeth had seemingly rotted completely black overnight. His eyes and the tone of his skin had yellowed with jaundice. Most of his hair had fallen out, leaving behind noticeable patches of scalp. A dozen or so clumps of silver strands remained.

Dan coughed. “You like the movie, kid?”

Rob had approached with no apprehension, but once he set eyes on the old projectionist, he found himself backing away. “What happened to you?”

“I watched it,” he said with a bright smile. “I finally watched it.”

“Jesus, your face.”

“My face is beautiful.” He touched a spot on his face where a boil had formed. The tumor-like growth had filled to the point where Rob thought it might break and discharge pink, toxic juices. “I’m transforming. Becoming one with the other side.”

“What other side?” Rob trembled. “What are you talking about?”

Leaning forward, Dan squinted. “You didn’t see it? You didn’t stare into the abyss?”

“I saw…” What had he seen? He remembered gazing into the black and seeing nothing but the endless void. “I saw nothing.”

Dan shook his head violently. “Oh no. You saw what I saw. You saw into the aperture. Into the dark world. And you know what?”

Rob was too terrified to respond.

“The dark world saw you.”

He wanted to turn and run, but fear rooted him to the floor.

“You can’t run,” Dan said as if he’d read the kid’s mind. “You can’t outrun what is everywhere. The dark world is everywhere now, hidden behind the veil of our own precious domain. There. Hidden. Waiting. Gaining traction. The film,” he nodded to the three reels sitting on the desk, “will be shown to the masses.”

Rob found enough courage to speak but he was still trembling. “N-no. It can’t.”

“Yes, it can. And it will.”

“W-we can stop it.”

“Too late. Darkness is like wildfire; it spreads quickly. And this film is pure darkness.”

“P-please.”

“Go now,” Dan suggested, sweeping the three reels closer to him so he could rest his head on them. “Go and live your life. What’s left of it. Live until the darkness catches up with you. It’s not far behind. In the meantime, I will protect the film, as I always have.” He perked up. “Funny, how I’ve never watched it before. After all the years I’ve had it in my possession, I picked now to view it. Curious.”

Rob thought it was curious too, but kept quiet. Too many of his thoughts were bumping into each other, fumbling.

“I never watched it until I met you,” he added, before putting his head back down, where it would remain for a good long while.

Rob went downstairs, handed in his immediate resignation, and walked out the doors of Orchid 10 for the last time.

He thought he felt a cold darkness saunter after him and follow him into the parking lot.

Rob grabbed the door handle and pulled.

“Where do you think you’re going, hot stuff?” Brianne asked from behind him.

Rob turned, and the sudden movement brought a sickly sensation to his stomach. Brianne strolled toward him casually, twisting her body with each step. Overhead, roiling gray clouds closed off the sky. The atmosphere reeked of damp air. Rain was on the way. Lots of it.

“Didn’t think you could quit and not say goodbye to me,” she said with a friendly, welcoming smile that almost erased his uneasiness. “Did you?”