The Horror of the Crowford Empire Read online

  “Stop that!” she snapped.

  “Or what?” Angie asked.

  “Or -”

  Suddenly the screen fell dark, and when she looked up Susan realized that the film had stopped.

  “Now you've really done it,” she said, unable to ignore the sense of panic that was starting to rise through her chest. “Mr. Gough's going to kill me!”

  ***

  “What's going on down here?” Harry asked a few minutes later, making his way slowly and stiffly down the stairs. “I heard all manner of shouting. It sounded like pandemonium had broken out.”

  “It's fine,” Susan said, rushing over to meet him at the foot of the stairs, “I already -”

  “You've got a load of ruffians in there,” one of the men said angrily as he stormed out of the auditorium. “I was struck in the face by a cigarette pack!”

  “I don't understand,” Harry murmured, looking utterly lost as he glanced around the foyer. “None of this makes any sense.”

  “There are some people who've been causing a disturbance during the film,” Susan told him, “but I'm dealing with the problem.”

  “She's not dealing with anything!” the man said angrily. “I heard her talking to them, they're her friends!”

  “Is that true?” Harry asked.

  “No!” Susan blurted out. “I mean, one of them is, but -”

  “This is terrible,” Harry said, shaking his head. “I can't have hooligans causing trouble in my cinema.”

  “I'm going to throw them out right now,” Susan replied, turning and hurrying back along the corridor, desperate to cling to her job.

  Already, she could hear voices shouting in the auditorium, and by the time she made her way through the double doors she realized that a full-scale fight was on the verge of breaking out.

  “You don't know what you're talking about!” Angie was yelling at a man. “Why don't you shut your mouth and sit down and mind your own business?”

  “Stop that!” Susan hissed, rushing over to her and grabbing her arm. “You told me you were going to behave. You have to leave right now!”

  “No,” Angie replied, “that asshole over there has to leave, because apparently he's completely opposed to the idea of people having fun. He's obviously some priggish old fart who thinks everyone else should be like him and just coast through life like nothing actually matters.”

  She leaned toward one of the men.

  “You need to get out more, mate!” she shouted. “It might do you some good!”

  “Everyone, please, calm down,” Harry said, looking around at the others as he reached the auditorium. “This is absolutely dreadful, I've never seen anything so terrible happen in my cinema in all the years I've been here. I'm utterly mortified.”

  “I can't believe you're doing this to me,” Susan told her.

  “And I can't believe you're doing this to me,” Angie said, pulling free of her grip. “We're friends, Susie. Why are you trying to embarrass me?”

  “Do you think these people care about you?” Susan asked, as she saw Charlie laughing nearby. “Do you realize that your boyfriend Charlie Evans has been bringing other girls to the cinema? And before you try to deny it, I can assure you that I've been the one serving him.”

  Angie opened her mouth to reply, but then she hesitated for a moment, just as the lights flickered on in the auditorium.

  “I know he sees other girls,” she said after a few seconds. “We're not exclusive, Susie.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “It means that my relationships are none of your business,” Angie told her, “and I'd thank you for butting out. It's typical of you to start getting all moralistic on me, just because you're jealous and old-fashioned.”

  “Jealous?” Susan snapped. “Why the hell would I be jealous of you? You're a tramp!”

  As soon as those words had left her lips, Susan knew that she'd gone too far, but she also knew that there was no way to take back anything that she'd said. She looked around and realized that everyone was staring at her, and then – turning back to Angie – she saw that there were tears in her friend's eyes.

  “I might be a tramp,” Angie said after a moment, “but you're a bitch, so I guess that makes us even.”

  With that, she turned and began to walk away.

  “Come on, guys,” she continued. “We're not going to stick around here if we're not wanted.”

  The others started to file out, but Susan felt a growing sense of fury as she watched Angie stomping toward the doors. Although she tried to stay calm, she quickly realized that the anger seemed to be filling her thoughts, until finally she started clambering over the backs of the seats on her way to catch her friend. Several people tried to stop her, but she pushed them away and clambered off the far end of the row before grabbing Angie and spinning her round.

  “What did you call me?” she sneered.

  “Susan -”

  “Don't you ever call me that!” Susan screamed. “You have no right!”

  “I -”

  Suddenly Angie froze, staring at her, and after a moment she took a step back, bumping against the wall.

  “What the hell was that?” she stammered.

  “What was what?” Susan asked breathlessly.

  “Your face,” Angie replied, as all her color drained away and her voice began to tremble. “For a moment, Susie, that wasn't... I mean, it wasn't... you weren't... it was like...”

  “What are you talking about?” Susan asked.

  “You weren't you,” Angie continued, before turning and pushing several other people out of the way as she hurried away.

  “What do you mean?” Susan shouted after her, but Angie was already racing away along the corridor.

  “You're a freak,” one of the guys said, staring at her with a stunned expression. “I don't know what's wrong with you, but you need help.”

  “I don't know what you're talking about,” Susan told him, as the others all began to make their way out of the auditorium. She too had tears in her eyes now. “I didn't do anything wrong!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Down on her hands and knees in the empty auditorium, Susan grabbed more garbage and tossed it into a box. Angie and the others had left a huge mess, and for now Susan felt that her best option was to make sure that she cleaned up. At least that might prove to Harry that she wasn't completely hopeless.

  Finally, once she was done, she sat back and look at the fruits of her labor. Apart from a damp stain on the carpet, everything else had been cleared up, and she figured that the stain would dry soon enough. At least there was no permanent damage, so she grabbed the box and got to her feet, and then she began to make her way along the row of seats.

  Stopping at the double doors, she listened out for a moment for any hint of Harry, but the entire cinema had fallen silent. She'd last seen Harry about an hour earlier, when he'd been sitting in the office with his head in his hands. He'd seemed utterly exhausted following all the chaos, and he'd barely even responded when Susan had told him over and over that she was so terribly sorry about everything had happened.

  Now, as she tried to summon the courage to go and speak to him again, she felt tears welling in her eyes. All she could hope was that he wouldn't sack her, and that he'd give her another chance.

  She took a deep breath and waited until she could be sure the tears were gone, and then she began to make her way back through to the foyer. The time had come, she realized, to face the music.

  “Mr. Gough?” she said cautiously as she reached the door to the office and saw him looking through some papers at his desk. “I just wanted to...”

  Her voice trailed off. She briefly considered turning around and leaving, and just assuming that she'd been sacked, but she forced herself to stay.

  “Mr. Gough,” she continued, “I finished cleaning up in the auditorium. It's as good as new. Well, almost. And the bathrooms are clean, and I also took a moment to check outside and make sure that no
rubbish had been left on the pavement.”

  She waited, but he seemed not to have noticed anything she'd just told him. Either that, or he was ignoring her.

  “And I suppose I just wanted to say again how sorry I am,” she added, “and -”

  “What?” he asked, suddenly looking up at her. For a few seconds, he seemed somewhat befuddled. “Oh, Susan, there you are. Thank you, you've been very good, you can go home now.”

  “Okay,” she replied, still not quite catching his drift. “About tomorrow...”

  “We open at the usual time,” he told her.

  “And should I... be here?”

  “Are you asking for a day off?”

  Shocked that she might still be wanted, she wasn't sure how to answer that question.

  “If you're under the impression that I blame you for anything that happened tonight,” he continued, rubbing the side of his neck, “then you must think again. The brutes who ran amok in this cinema are entirely responsible for their own actions. I know who one or two of them are, and I can assure you that their parents will be receiving a very stern telephone call in the morning. You, on the other hand, did the best that you could in the circumstances. It's not easy to deal with such people.”

  He began to get up, although he seemed a little more hesitant than usual, and Susan quickly headed over to help him.

  “I'm fine, thank you,” he told her. “There's nothing else to do here tonight, so you can...”

  He paused, and after a moment he furrowed his brow.

  “Mr. Gough?” she said, worried that something seemed to be wrong. “Maybe you should sit back down.”

  “No, I have to check the doors,” he murmured, trying to push her away, only to hesitate once again.

  “I can do that,” she told him. “Please, just take it easy for a minute or two.”

  “Oh, I'm not quite as weak and doddery as I might look,” he said, slipping past her and shuffling toward the door. “I'm always telling Sam that, he thinks I'm some weak and feeble old thing. He doesn't remember that I fought in the war, and that I'm made of sterner stuff.” He stopped and looked around. “Speaking of which, where is that nephew of mine?”

  “I think... I think, didn't he quit the other week?”

  “He...”

  Harry stared at her for a moment, seemingly utterly lost.

  “Yes, that's right,” he said finally. “I must remember things like that, it's no good being a forgetful old soul, is it? One must...”

  He paused again, and this time he seemed even more troubled.

  “Ms. Jones,” he added after a few seconds, “would you mind awfully fetching a pillow from somewhere?”

  “A pillow?” she replied. “Why do you want a -”

  Before she could finish, Harry suddenly slumped over, falling to the floor and landing hard with a pained grunt. Rushing over, Susan dropped to her knees and rolled him onto his side, and she immediately saw that he was unconscious.

  “Harry?” she stammered, shaking him gently. “Harry, wake up. Harry say something!”

  She checked for a pulse, which she found, but when she touched the side of his face she realized that he seemed very cold and clammy.

  “Harry, I'm going to call for help,” she said, scrambling back up and rushing to the desk.

  Grabbing the phone, she quickly dialed and waited to be put through.

  “I need an ambulance!” she shouted as soon as someone answered on the other end of the line. “Please, you have to hurry!”

  A few minutes later, once she'd been assured that an ambulance was on its way, she rushed back over to Harry and knelt next to him. She reached out to check once more for a pulse, and this time she could tell that he was a little weaker than before.

  “Help's coming,” she told him. “It should only be a few minutes. I'm going to go and get the doors open so that there's no delay.” She hesitated, hoping against hope that he might respond. “Everything's going to be okay,” she continued. “I promise.”

  Getting back up, she raced out into the foyer and unbolted the main doors before pulling them open and stepping out onto the pavement. The ambulance hadn't arrived yet, and a cold breeze was blowing in from the sea as she looked both ways along the road. Hugging herself against the night air, she tried desperately to stay calm, even as she felt the panic rising through her chest.

  “Please hurry up,” she whispered, her teeth almost chattering, as she listened out for any hint of an ambulance's siren above the sound of the wind. “You have to get here in time.”

  She glanced back into the foyer.

  “You have to -”

  Stopping suddenly, she froze as she saw that Harry wasn't alone. Still slumped on the floor, he hadn't reacted at all to the woman who was now standing directly in front of him. The woman had her back to Susan, who could already tell that she was the same woman she'd seen a couple of times already in the cinema. Too shocked to do or say anything, Susan could only stare as the woman knelt next to Harry and reached out to put a hand on the side of his face.

  Hearing a siren, Susan turned and saw that an ambulance was barreling along the road. As the vehicle screeched to a halt, she looked back into the foyer and realized that the strange woman was already gone.

  “Did you call for an ambulance, love?” a man shouted as he rushed toward her. “Where is he?”

  “In there,” she stammered, as the two men hurried past and headed over to Harry. “His name's Mr. Gough. I mean, Harry Gough.”

  Stepping after them, Susan looked all around for any sign of the woman, who seemed to have vanished just as quickly as she's appeared. Once again there seemed to be nowhere for her to have gone, and Susan told herself that she must have imagined the whole thing, yet at the same time the woman's appearance had been so clear and vivid. She'd never considered herself to have a particularly vivid imagination before, and she wondered how she could possibly have imagined something that had appeared to be so real.

  “Mr. Gough, can you hear me?” one of the men from the ambulance said, as he and his colleague began to examine Harry. “Mr. Gough, if you can hear me, I need you to say something.”

  “Please save him,” Susan whispered, as fresh tears began to roll down his face. “This is all my fault. Please, you have to do something!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Hearing voices in the distance, Susan turned and looked along the corridor. Footsteps were moving along one of the hospital's other corridors and for a moment she hoped that someone was coming with news, but then the footsteps faded away and she leaned back in her chair.

  “Please,” she whispered, “God, I know I don't really talk to you, but if you can hear me, I'm begging you to let him live.”

  She wiped more tears away.

  “Take me instead,” she continued. “It's my fault that all of that madness happened tonight. If anyone should pay the price, it's me.”

  She heard more voices, but these too quickly drifted off into another part of the hospital. Looking up at the clock on the wall, she saw that it was already quarter past midnight.

  Suddenly a door swung open, and Susan turned to see that Sam was racing toward her.

  “Where is he?” he yelled. “What are they doing to him?”

  Getting to her feet, she reached out to grab his arm, but he shoved her aside and hurried to the next turn, and then he stopped and looked back at her.

  “Where is he?” he asked again, breathless and clearly in a state of panic. “All they told me on the phone was that he's here somewhere.”

  “I think they're still working on him,” she explained.

  “What happened?”

  “It's difficult to explain,” she replied.

  “I got a call that a bunch of yobs started trashing the cinema,” he continued, “and then when I got down there I heard that Harry had been brought here.”

  “He had a heart attack, I think,” she told him. “Something like that. Sam, I'm sorry but -”

  “Who
did this?” he snapped, before looking along the corridor. “I need to see him. Where are they treating him?”

  “I'm not sure,” she replied, following him as he set off to find his uncle. “They rushed him through these doors about an hour ago and they told me to wait on that chair, and since then I haven't heard a thing.”

  Sam pushed the doors open and made his way into the next corridor, and then he stopped to look around.

  “There was a kind of gang at the cinema,” Susan explained. “I tried to get them to leave. One of them was my friend Angie, I begged her to take them away but they just kept causing trouble until customers started complaining and then your uncle came down from the projection booth and -”

  “Wait, you're friends with these people?” he asked, turning to her.

  “Just Angie,” she replied. “Listen, you have to believe me, I did everything in my power to get them to stop, they just wouldn't listen to me.”

  “And now my uncle's somewhere in this hospital, fighting for his life.”

  “I -”

  “Because of your friends,” he sneered, stepping toward her. “Tell me, would they have been there if they hadn't known you were working? Did they show up precisely because they thought they could get away with more?”

  “No!”

  “Are you sure about that?” he asked. “Are you really, truly sure?”

  She opened her mouth to tell him that of course she was sure, but then she thought back to the grin on Angie's face. No matter how hard she tried to tell herself that she'd done nothing wrong, she couldn't escape the possibility that her presence might in some way have been a catalyst for everything that had happened at the cinema. A moment later, before she could try to defend herself, she heard a door swing open and she turned to see that the nurse from earlier had returned.

  “Ms. Jones?” the nurse said. “I've been asked to -”

  “Where's my uncle?” Sam asked, pushing Susan out of the way.