JV Hampton-VanSant

The flayed flesh droops, boneless as snake skin.

Your watcher looms, five seats away now.

The end of the key is just a tiny bar, nothing to grip.

So, you clamp it between your teeth and screw it into the nearest keyhole.

It works.

The left cuff slings open and falls off your wrist.

Two seats away now, you stand and pivot just as your watcher swipes at you.

Hideous hooked fingers scrape your shoulder.

Scrambling, you grab the unlocked shackle and swing the chain wildly at his pasty movie vamp face, hoping to smash those projector eyes.

Instead, that ghoulish, toothy leer shatters like porcelain.

You catch a shuddering glimpse of the hockey mask beneath and back away.

The chain cuffing your right hand snaps taut.

Shaking, fumbling, using your teeth, you frantically unlock the second cuff just as your watcher raises a machete.

Where in movie franchise hell did that spawn from?

Your watcher's new oversized blade splits the air near your spine and lodges in a seat cushion as you escape down the row.

Or almost escape.

Three seats deep, your right leg buckles.

You collapse sideways onto someone's cold, spectral lap.

In the furious projector spray of your watcher's glare, you discover a corpse dressed like a camp counselor with an arrow through one eye.

The Rialto's sticky popcorn floor turns verdant, outdoorsy.