Rabbits(111)

I rode my bike over and ran into her just as she was pulling into her parking space.

“Did you end up getting a projector?”

“I actually got two. One’s 8 millimeter and the other is Super 8.”

“What’s the difference?”

“No idea. The guy said something about the size of the sprockets. He told me I could return whichever one doesn’t work.”

We each carried a projector up from Chloe’s car.

I opened the canister we’d found in the locker and took a look at the sprockets while Chloe pulled up images of 8 mm film online. It looked like what was in that canister was Super 8, with a magnetic stripe for sound.

“Does that projector play sound?” I asked.

“Don’t know. It’s got speakers.”

“If whoever recorded this footage had a microphone hooked up to their camera, there could be audio on there.”

“It’s too bright in here,” Chloe said, pointing at the huge windows. “Let’s do it in the bedroom.”



* * *



—

I set the Super 8 projector down on a cedar chest at the foot of Chloe’s bed, closed the thick set of blackout curtains that covered the windows, and switched off the lights. The room was suddenly completely black. It felt impossible to me that someplace this dark could exist in the middle of the day.

“Let’s see if the bulb works,” Chloe said, startling me.

I’d been so absorbed in cataloging the items in her room, I hadn’t noticed she’d entered and was standing beside me.

I felt the skin of her arm brush mine as she reached for the projector, but before she turned it on, she leaned back and kissed me. While we were kissing, she flipped a switch on the projector and the room exploded with light.

“Ouch,” I said.

Chloe laughed as she focused the light into a bright rectangle and guided it over to the giant Howard the Duck movie poster that filled one of her walls.

I jumped up and started taking down the poster.

“Careful,” Chloe said, “that’s a rare and valuable piece of cinema history.”

“Of course,” I said as I gently set the poster aside.

And just like that, we had a place to watch a movie—or whatever the hell was lurking inside that ancient can of Super 8 film.

It turns out this particular projector was a bit tricky to load. It took us about twenty minutes to figure it out. When we finally got it working, I switched off the lights again and Chloe started the projector.

The first thing that popped up on the wall was a name and logo: the Gatewick Institute, and the now familiar symbol of a triangle and circle, The Moonrise.

“Fuck,” Chloe said as she grabbed and squeezed my hand.

It was exciting.

The projector was loud, but I could hear what sounded like distant muted music coming from somewhere.

“Can you hear that?” I said.

At first I thought it was coming from a car outside, but it was actually the projector’s tiny built-in speakers.

The film had sound.

We turned the volume up as high as it could go. It was much better, but it still wasn’t very loud.



* * *



—

The movie opens on what appears to be an empty hallway. The muted piano music is coming from somewhere off-screen, probably upstairs.

After a few seconds, the subject of the film, a man in a long dark leather jacket, enters the frame and begins walking down the hall.

Whoever’s operating the camera remains behind the subject, keeping him in focus as he moves forward. Leather Jacket Man never turns around completely as he walks down the hall, so we can’t see his face. The camera follows as he turns and moves down another hallway to a door. He eventually reaches the door, opens it, steps inside a room, and switches on a light.

A dim bulb hanging from a thin wire in the ceiling illuminates a medium-size room. The walls are almost completely covered with graffiti. There are a few scattered chairs and tables sitting on a filthy gold-colored carpet. All of the furniture has been scratched and carved up with graffiti that matches the walls. There’s a framed sign hanging in the middle of the wall directly across from the door that reads: PERFORMERS THAT GO OVER THEIR SET TIMES BY MORE THAN TEN MINUTES WILL NOT BE PAID. NO SPITTING ON STAGE.

It looks like some kind of green room for bands, comedians, or other entertainers, probably located in the back of a sketchy live music venue somewhere.

It’s at this point that Leather Jacket Man turns around and we see his face for the first time.

As the man in the movie turned around, Chloe gasped and squeezed my hand really hard.

The man in the leather jacket was the Magician.

He looked similar to the last time we’d seen him, the same worn-out look in his eyes, his hair the same length and style. But there’s a calmness to his demeanor in the film. Whatever’s about to happen, he appears to be ready for it.

“Go on, now,” he says to whoever’s operating the camera. “But leave it rolling.”

After a few seconds, the Magician pulls out what appears to be a journal. Then he compares something in its pages with some of the graffiti on the wall in front of him, and just as he turns to check out one of the other walls, there’s a burst of static and light. It only lasts a millisecond, but in that time, something has happened.