A Fountain Filled With Blood

you’ll understand.”

“Yeah? Well…maybe. Look, I gotta run. It’s almost closing time, and the store’s a mess.”

“I love you, Oddball.”

“I love you, too, Fish Face. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“With the candles!”

“With the candles.”

Todd MacPherson understood the power of fantasy. He had viewed every single one of the movies for sale or rent in his video store, and, just like when he was a kid, they still had the power to sweep him away into another world, where people were better-looking, danger was an aphrodisiac, and problems could be solved in a two-hour running time.

His own problems were more intractable. As he methodically reshelved the returns and straightened racks jumbled by the usual Friday-evening rush of renters, he considered where he was going after closing up shop. Supposing, that is, he didn’t just crawl home and collapse in front of the tube. There was a little hole-in-the-wall bar in Hudson Falls, but he knew every guy who would be there on a Friday night, and he couldn’t stomach the thought of the same complaints and conversations he had heard a hundred times before. There was a bigger, more open place in Saratoga, where he might see some new faces, but that meant a forty-minute drive each way, an awfully late night when he had to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the next morning for Trisha’s wedding. And to be perfectly honest with himself, he had never yet come up lucky there. The guys who paired off there were lean and tan and knew how to wear sweaters tied around their shoulders, if they looked rich, or military gear, if they looked sexy. Todd’s wardrobe consisted of jeans that bagged in the wrong way and T-shirts sporting old movie posters and film festival schedules.

He wiped a dusty copy of The Green Berets on his jeans and reshelved it in the John Wayne section. His best friend, Janine, had moved to New York City four years ago, after getting an associate’s degree at Adirondack Community College. Now she was working as a gofer in Rockefeller Center, hanging lights for Off-Off-Broadway productions, and taking the occasional film class at NYU. Every weekend, she called and ordered him to get the hell out of Millers Kill and come share an apartment with her. They had both been teens from another planet in high school, completely unable to fit in with the kids around them. They’d been alternately tormented and ignored because if it. But now Janine had a whole circle of friends and was dating some aspiring playwright, while he was still a geek—a celibate geek.

He picked up a copy of Truly Madly Deeply off the floor and examined Alan Rickman’s face. He thought he sort of resembled Alan Rickman, younger, of course, and with longer hair. Those snotty Saratoga summer boys just never got close enough to notice. He tossed the video in his hand. Maybe he wouldn’t go out anywhere. Maybe he’d stay a little late and put together an Alan Rickman display on his film-festival shelf.

The bell over the door tinkled, and he heard blended voices, yelping laughter. Sounded like Nintendo customers, here to pick up a weekend’s worth of bloody shoot-outs and pneumatically breasted women. That was the crux of his problem, the store. He had sunk so much time and money into it, and it was starting to do good business. Better than good. He had turned a profit the last two years. The loan officer at his bank loved him. How was he supposed to chuck it all on the chance that he might find something better in the city? What if he never found anything better? What if this was as good as it got?

“Hey, man, you got any Jujubes?”

Todd shelved Truly Madly Deeply under T and slid through the narrow aisle to the checkout counter. Two guys his own age lounged in front of the candy display, one of them leafing through this month’s Cinemagic magazine. They wore low-slung, wide-legged jeans cropped at the shins and backward-facing baseball caps, which made them look, in Todd’s opinion, like morons. “Didn’t see any there?” He glanced at the rack. “Hang on—I got some more in the back. If you guys are checking anything out, Friday’s our three-for-two special. Rent any two, get the third for free. Limit on one new release only.”

The Jujube guy grinned. “Hell yes, we’re checking something out.” He swaggered toward Todd, leading with his pelvis, looking him up and down. It was an overt, exaggeratedly sexual gesture, which made the hair on the back of Todd’s neck rise. He licked his upper lip and glanced at the other guy, who still leaned against the counter, flipping the magazine’s pages, opening and closing the cover so that Patrick Stewart appeared and disappeared between flashes of the other guy’s smirking face. Todd had been beaten up too many times in high school not to recognize what these guys wanted.

“We heard you got something special in the back room,” Jujube guy said. He was close enough that Todd could feel the heat and excitement radiating off his body. “Some special movies.”

Patrick Stewart appeared and disappeared, his face grave. Todd thought he might be saying that he should beam the hell out of this scene.

“Like those old gladiator flicks,” the guy with the magazine said. “Except for grown-ups.”

“So, whaddaya say?” Jujube guy reached both arms over his head and cracked his back. “Gonna show us some of that gay-bo porn? I always wondered how guys do guys.”

“I’d rather see chicks on chicks myself,” the other guy said.

“That ain’t gay, asshole. You can see that in any porn flick. You’re missin’ the point.”

Todd backed away slowly, keeping his trembling arms relaxed, forcing his face into an unalarmed expression. He thought he might throw up at any moment. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t carry any X-rated stock. There’s a convenience store outside Fort Henry that rents videos; they have a small selection.” If he could get to the back room, he could lock the door and call the cops. “Let me grab you those Jujubes and I can show you the address in the phone—” His words were choked off as an arm circled around his neck, clamping him tightly against an unseen chest. Oh, sweet God, there had been a third one in the store and he hadn’t even realized. He flailed against the man behind him, kicking backward, clawing at his head.

“Ow! Help me with this pussy, you assholes!”

Jujube guy punched Todd in the stomach, and he lunched forward, retching. The man behind him let go of his neck, clenching his hair in a fist and twisting one arm behind his back. Todd cried out. His wrist was forced higher, wrenching every joint in his arm. Todd bowed forward, straining on tiptoe to loosen the grip that was forcing his muscles and tendons to their limits, but the fist in his hair held him tightly against his invisible tormentor as he vibrated between pain and pain. “I got money in my cash register,” he said, his voice reedy and desperate. “Please, just take it. Take whatever you want and go. Please.” The last word cracked.