Sisyphean Attempts at Self-Improvement

Scary Movies

The Regal Cinema 6 had been closed for seven years, but Jamie still had the keys.

"Just a quick look," she told her friends. "My dad was the manager. I practically grew up in there."

The lobby smelled of mildew and old popcorn. Their flashlights swept across faded movie posters; films from 2018 frozen in time, promising thrills that would never be delivered.

"This is creepy as hell," Mark said, but he was grinning.

They made their way to Theater 3, the smallest screening room. Jamie remembered watching countless movies here after hours, her father running films just for her.

"Check this out." She flipped a switch behind the projection booth. Emergency lighting flickered on, bathing everything in a sick green glow.

The projector was still there, and somehow, against all odds, it hummed to life when Jamie hit the power button.

"No way that should work," Anna said.

A beam of light shot out, hitting the screen. No film was loaded, but images began to appear anyway.

It was security footage. The lobby they'd just walked through, but from seven years ago. Jamie's father was there, locking up for the night. They watched him check each theater, methodical and careful.

"How is this possible?" Mark whispered.

The footage jumped. Now her father was in Theater 3. This very room, and he wasn't alone. A customer sat in the middle row, perfectly still.

"We're closed," Jamie's father said in the footage.

The customer didn't move.

Her father approached, flashlight raised. "Sir? We're closed."

The customer's head turned slowly, unnaturally, like a door on rusty hinges. Even in the grainy footage, they could see something was wrong with his face. It seemed to shift and writhe, as if there were things crawling beneath the skin.

"Do you like scary movies?" the customer asked. The voice came not from the projection, but from the speakers around them in the present.

Jamie's father backed away in the footage. "You need to leave."

"I asked you a question."

"Please, just go."

"Wrong answer."

The footage cut to static. When it returned, the theater was empty except for a dark stain on the floor where Jamie's father had been standing.

"Jamie," Anna said, her voice shaking. "There's someone sitting in the middle row."

They all turned. A figure sat exactly where the customer had been in the footage, head facing the screen.

"We should go," Mark said.

They started backing toward the exit, but the figure spoke. The same voice from the footage, now coming from the shape in the darkness.

"Do you like scary movies?"

Nobody answered. They kept moving toward the door.

"I do," the figure continued. "Especially the ones that come true."

The projector beam suddenly swept across the audience, illuminating the figure for just a moment. It was Jamie's father, still wearing his manager's uniform. But his face was wrong. It moved and shifted like something was trying to break out from inside.

"Run," he said in a voice that wasn't quite his. "The movie's about to start."

They ran. Behind them, they could hear the projector running. And screams emitting from speakers for a movie that hadn't been filmed yet.


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530 words

PROMPT: “Do you like scary movies?” — from Scream (1996)

Written for ""13" - 2025 Edition"