Free B-Movie War by Alan Spencer

vomit. Okay, so take your barf bag and enjoy the show.”
    She had no choice but to obey. When she accepted the bag, it was wet and heavy. Holding it with shaking hands, a big rat crawled up from the mess and jumped off the side.
    Penny screamed, “ Gaa-wd that’s nasty!”
    â€œSorry, the bags are used. You’ll have to dump it out before the show. Sorry about the inconvenience. But ma’am,” the ticket taker laughed, “please save your screams for the show.”
    The vampires forced her into the theatre.
    Penny was seated.
    Barf bags were attached to the backs of each seat. A straight razor was taped to the seats just below the barf bags with the words “JUST SWIPE ACROSS WRISTS OR NECK IN THE CASE OF EXTREME PANIC.” A sign above the emergency door read: “FINAL EXIT” with a cartoon picture of a boy who’d peed his pants. Strobe lights flashed behind the exit’s curtain. Every time somebody escaped (and it only happened twice; people learned their lesson very fast), their screams erupted as the sound of saw blades scraping against concrete resounded. Ushers were dressed like hospital orderlies, though the orderlies could’ve passed for the most disturbed patients in an asylum with mean faces, nicotine colored skin and eyes that bragged of being able to perpetrate every death known to mankind. They held flashlights in one hand like the regular ushers did. In the other hand were various sharp implements, from potato peelers to crude shanks. Penny winced seeing one of their hands wrapped in barbed wire.
    Before she was seated, Penny took in the entire theatre of real people who eyed the screen with their faces locked in horror. If they moved, if they spoke too loud, if they screamed, the ushers would sever their vocal cords. Penny sensed their panic and absorbed their desperation. Random patrons were dead in their seats, their throats slit, or some without faces as if they’d been run through a paper shredder.
    The vampires ordered Penny to sit down in the front row, middle seat. The vampires returned to what they’d been doing earlier, leaving the theatre in a hurry. Penny wasn’t strapped in or restrained, but she knew any attempt to escape would be thwarted by the evil ushers.
    Penny eyed the screen, expecting horror and getting it.
    It was already minutes into Lunatic Receptionist .
    The ushers in Theatre 4 laughed uncontrollably at the scene where the secretary removed the manila folder from the file cabinet, opened it, and there was a decaying severed hand inside. Penny felt her body tense as the ushers’ callous amusement rang out among the quiet theatre goers. The watchers were silent during the showing of Lunatic Receptionist .
    When the woman on the screen finished screaming at the severed hand, she bumped into the mousy receptionist who had a steak knife in one hand. She was pale skinned, highlighting her red-framed, oversized glasses. The lunatic receptionist wedged the knife under the panicking woman’s throat and hissed, “You put the files out of alphabetical order. How would you like it if I cut you up and put you in different caskets? I’d be like doing the same thing, wouldn’t it? Or would that not bother you? It’s a lack of respect for the fine details that really gets under my skin. You’d be fine and dandy with misspellings in your mother’s obituary, wouldn’t you? Or what about your little girl? What if I misspelled her name on the honor roll chart? How about I slit your throat and forget to call for an ambulance!”
    The blade sank into the woman’s throat. “Whoops! Sorry! File that under “F” for “Fuck You.”
    Penny did her best to tune out the horrid scene.
    Please don’t cry . Y ou can’t cry. They’ll kill you if you make a single sound. Please — don’t — cry.
    There was nothing to be done, Penny thought. She could only sit and watch