Night of the Terrors

“This is going to be awesome!” shouts a teenager dressed like a punk with her hair up in brown spikes with one spike blue as she has several piercings on her ears, nose and eye brows that hang over her brown eyes as she is wearing a pair of torn blue jeans and a black tank top as her navel is pierced.

“Yeah it will be,” says another young woman next to her wearing  a yellow body suit with white forearms and thighs as a white and yellow domino mask covers her emerald green eyes as her black bowl cut hairdo sways in the slight breeze.  “Think you went with enough piercings Laura?”

“I’m a punk girl Carrie,” says Laura. “Punks have a lot of piercings you know.”

“Seems a bit dated if you ask me,” says Carrie.

“Says the girl dressed as Lastic Lass’s classic look,” deadpans Laura.

“Hey, you know I don’t like to show cleavage,” says Carrie while they wait in line with other people in various costumes at a movie theater on Halloween night.

“Still can’t believe they are going to show entire Terror Trilogy, especially the never before seen third movie Night of the Terrors, any idea why they never showed it in theaters in the 70’s?”

“No idea,” says Carrie when the doors open and the line moves inside.

“Thanks so much for the ticket Carrie,” says Laura with a smile.

“No prob Laura,” says Carrie as the two hand their tickets to the ticket taker and go into the theater and find some seats in the middle just as a  man in a skeleton suit walks up and stands in front of the audience.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for coming, I am your host George Bushwell, I am the son of the director of the three movies on our plate tonight, it was I who found the only existing reel of Night of the Terrors as I was cleaning up my father’s house after his untimely passing this past year, so please, I would like you to bow your heads and have a moment of silence out of respect for my father’s memory,” says George as he bows his head while everyone else does and the theater grows quiet.  

“STOP THIS!” shouts a voice breaking the moment of silence as a man with thinning gray hair wearing a gray jacket, blue jeans and a plaid shirt runs into the theater. “You must not show Night of the Terrors!”

“Now see here Mr. Grudson,” says George. “You may have been my father’s assistant but this has nothing to do with you, now leave or I will call the cops.”

“Please George,” says Mr. Grudson. “Don’t show the movie, there’s a reason why it was never shown in theaters and why your father never directed another movie again.”

“I doubt a movie my father directed had anything to do with his retiring from directing,” says George. “Now leave or I will call the police.”

“Fine, I’ll leave,” says Mr. Grudson. “But I wash my hands of this whole business.”

The audience watches Mr. Grudson walk thinking it was just an act as George says, “Let the terror begin!” He motions with his hands and as he sits down the theater’s lights go out and The Swamp Terror starts to play.

“What do you think that was about?” whispers Carrie to Laura as the movie plays.

“Probably just  a stunt,” whispers back Laura.

After a while, the movie ends with  the hero using a flare gun to ignite oil in the swamp, forming a wall of fire between him, the remaining members of the group and the Swamp Terror, a creature that appears to be an alligator in humanoid form with a long snout and a long tail. The fire keeps the Swamp Terror away as the group gets in a boat and leaves the swamp as the Terror sinks under the water to get away from the fire and the end credits roll, as the credits roll, George gets up and says, “there will be a 5 minute intermission before we start the next one.”

Various members of the audience get up including Carrie who asks, “I’m going to hit the head, want anything from the snack bar Laura, anything meaning one thing.”

“Get me a chocolate bar,” says Laura, Carrie nods and heads out of the theater to go about her business, after which, she returns to the theater with a bag of popcorn, a refilled drink and a chocolate bar for Laura.

Soon the second movie, The Winged Terror starts.  After a while, the hero winds up in a fight with a humanoid vulture, the Winged Terror, after he runs out of ammo, he runs into a cave which the Winged Terror lands and follows him, after managing to get past the Winged Terror, the hero runs to the entrance and causes a rockslide that seals the Winged Terror inside, the hero and his daughter start to walk off when some of the rocks start to fall down and open up a hole in the rocks, the Winged Terror screeches and the end credits start playing.

Soon the second intermission starts, this time both Carrie and Laura get up to use the facilities. Soon George is standing before the audience and says, “and now, Night of the Terrors!” The audience cheers as George sits down and the movie starts, the title card appears but then the film starts to distort and soon a hole of white starts to appear from the middle of the film and soon the screen is totally white as the audience complains but said complaints die down when a wind starts blowing from the screen and it ripples as soon, The Swamp Terror and  Winged Terror come out of the screen and roar at the audience who cheer at what they think is just an act until the Swamp Terror picks up a chair in the front row, making the occupant get out and throws it at the audience but the projectile is blocked by a stretched punch, courtesy of Carrie who shouts, “RUN!”

The audience starts to flee, leaving George, Carrie and Laura alone in the theater with the two movie monsters made flesh,  Laura walks up to Carrie and says, “that was a bonehead you just did Carrie.”

“Either that or let the chair hurt some people,” says Carrie.

“True, so who do you want, Swamp or Winged?” asks Laura.

“I’ll take Swamp, you get Winged,” says Carrie.

“Got it,” says Laura as she morphs her arms into clay maces.

The Swamp Terror roars charges the two when they stretch out of the way, Carrie lands and says, “ya missed!”  The Swamp Terror roars and charges Carrie again, Carrie dodges but the Swamp Terror smashes through the wall and winds up outside the theater. The Winged Terror uses this opportunity to fly out the hole as the Swamp Terror sniffs the air and both head off in one direction.
“Let’s go stop them!” shouts Laura as she and Carrie run out the hole.

Carrie stops Laura and says, “Laura, what do you plan to do when we catch up to them and we beat them?”

“Ah,” says Laura as she thinks.

“Just what I thought, come on, let’s find Mr. Grudson and find out what the hell just happened,” says Carrie as she and Laura run back inside the theater and see George. “Hey, where’s Mr. Grudson?”

“Why do you want to know?” asks George as he just stares at the white screen.

“Cause he probably knows how to beat these things,” says Laura.

“I don’t know,” says George.

“Do you have anyway to contact him?” asks Carrie. George reaches into his pocket and hands Carrie his cell phone, she scrolls through the contacts and soon comes across Mr. Grudson.

“George, I told you not to show Night of the Terrors, I told you!” shouts Mr. Grudson on the other end of the phone call.

“Ah, this isn’t George,” says Carrie.

“Oh, who are you and why are you calling from George’s cell phone?”

“George is out of it,” says Carrie as she looks at George as Laura waves her hands in his face to get a reaction but nothing.

“I see, you want to know how to stop the Terrors huh?” asks Mr. Grudson.

“Yeah, they got out of the theater,” says Carrie.

“They will head for food first,” says Mr. Grudson.  “Just like before, listen, get the film reel of Night of the Terrors and meet in front of the theater in ten minutes.”

“Got it, me and my friend will meet you out front,” says Carrie. “She’ll be dressed as a punk and I’ll be dressed in a yellow and white suit.”

“Got it, see ya soon,” says Mr. Grudson as he hangs up as Carrie and Laura get the film reel and wait outside for Mr. Grudson who drives up in his car and the two get in.

“So you going to start explaining how two movie monsters came to life?” asks Laura as Mr. Grudson starts driving.

“Mr. Bushwell was dating a young woman at the time we were shooting Night of the Terrors but he met his future wife and dumped the woman only to discover that she was a witch that cursed him that anything fictional he created would come alive,” says Mr. Grudson.

“So when you played the film to see how it looked,” says Carrie.

“The Terrors came alive,” says Mr. Grudson, “we tried everything to kill them, we shot them, poisoned them, hell, we even tried some grenades a Special Effects man on the crew got his hands on, nothing worked.”

“Than how did you,” says Laura.

“One of the crew, I forget who had the idea to run the film backwards with the Terrors in the room, since the Terrors came out when the movie went forward.”

“It going backward sucked them back in!” says Carrie in amazement.

“Right,” says Mr. Grudson. “After that, Mr. Bushwell retired so no more monsters would appear.”

“Why not just burn the film?” asks Laura. “Why hide it?”

“We were afraid that burning the film could unleash the Terrors for good,” says Mr. Grudson.

“Makes sense, so we just got to play the film backwards in front of the Terrors and away they go,” says Carrie.

“Right, I got a movie projector in the trunk,” says Mr. Grudson.

“Than we are good,” says Laura. “Now we just got to find them.”

“They will head for food, they hit the cafeteria first last time,” says Mr. Grudson.

“So where would they go to find food,” says Carrie. “A fast food place comes to mind first.”

“Yeah, wait a sec, the Halloween Carnival, remember, the flyer said there’s a BBQ!” shouts Laura.

“HANG ON!” shouts Mr. Grudson as he drives towards the Halloween Carnival.

At the Carnival, The Swamp Terror looks around and sees a whole plate of raw hamburgers, the Swamp Terror grabs the plate and drops the hamburgers into it’s mouth when it gets poked by the a police man who says, “hey, listen here buddy, those burgers are for everyone, so cough up those burgers or I will run you in no matter how great your costume is.  The Swamp Terror ignores him, “okay, you asked for it,” says the officer as he pulls out a taser and tries to tase the Swamp Terror but he gets knocked down by the Swamp Terror’s tail.

The Swamp Terror soon gets hit with a stretch punch from Carrie who shouts at the officer, “get out of there, that’s no guy in a costume!” The Swamp Terror turns to Carrie, roars at her and charges her, Carrie srunches her legs up a bit and jumps over the Swamp Terror’s charge but she gets knocked into a stall by the tail.

The Winged Terror is perched on a building looking down at the carnival when it gets smacked by a clay mass courtesy of Laura, who says, “too easy birdbrain.” The Winged Terror gets up screeches at Laura and takes to the air, it than flies down at Laura who throws a stretched clay first at the Winged Terror but it dodges and manages to hit Laura and knocks Laura off of the roof, “whoa!” She tries to use her stretched arm to stop herself from falling but the Winged Terror swipes at her arm with it’s claws on it’s arms and cuts Laura’s arm, making Laura fall to the ground and splat a bit.

“AHHHHH!” shouts Carrie as she gets knocked by the Swamp Terror near by Laura. “This sucks.”

“Tell me about it,” says Laura as she reforms. “How long do we need to do this?”

“Until Mr. Grudson gets everything set up,” says Carrie.

“Maybe we can borrow some help,” says Laura as she looks at the Winged Terror circling in the air.

“Get these two to fight?” asks Carrie.

“Bingo,” says Laura. “Which means we got to lure one of them into attacking the other.”

“I got an idea,” says Carrie as she stretches over to the Swamp Terror and pulls a piece of meat it was about to eat away from it, making it turn it’s attention to Carrie. “Come and get me!” She runs as the Swamp Terror chases her, she tears a small piece of meat off of the meat and throws it into the air and this gains the attention of the Winged Terror who flies at Carrie, “Enjoy,” she throws the meat to the ground and the Winged Terror lands and picks up the meat in it’s beak but before it can take off, it’s tackled by the Swamp Terror.
This causes the Terrors to start to fight each other, The Winged Terror tries to attack the Swamp Terror but it’s claws can’t pierce the Swamp Terror’s hide while the Swamp Terror’s attack are dodged, soon Mr. Grudson runs up with a movie projector in a wheelbarrow with an extension cord and says, “great job you two but we need a screen!”

“I got it,” says Carrie as she stretches herself out into a rubbery wall.

“That’ll work,” says Mr. Grudson as he positions the projector in front of Carrie and turns it on in reverse.

Soon the screen is all white as the white starts to recede to the middle and a wind kicks up that starts to pull the two still fighting Terrors into it, once they are sucked in, the projector is turned off. “That was Anticlimatic,” complains Laura.

“This is real life Laura, not a movie,” says Carrie as she reforms as Mr. Grudson unplugs the projector and puts the film back into it’s can.

“Thank you both,” says Mr. Grudson with a smile. “If you two hadn’t been there.”

“We know, just glad to help,” says Carrie with a smile.

“Yeah, just lock that film away somewhere were it will never be found,” says Laura.

“Don’t worry, I intend to, good night and Happy Halloween!” says Mr. Grudson with a smile.

“Happy Halloween!” shouts Carrie and Laura with a smile.