Hotter Blood: More Tales of Erotic Horror

and should be able to spot any variations. Somehow he would have to devise a method of tracing these changes back to their source. He passed the night restlessly trying to develop a strategy to deal with the situation.

Disappointingly, Sunday's screening passed without event, as did those throughout the week. Scott was ready to chalk everything up to fatigue and tension when he showed up for work on Saturday.

The Blob passed uneventfully enough, Steve McQueen saving the day in the final moments. The classic was followed by the darkly humorous sequel Beware the Blob, one of the few Scott had not seen before. His unfamiliarity caused him to miss some subtle divergences from the original, the highly revealing dress Carol Lynley wore during the party sequence, the dissolving of Cindy Williams's clothing during her death scene. The third feature, however, was another of his favorites.

Originally, Bradford had ordered The Stuff, another Blob-like film to complete the triple feature. The distributor had accidentally substituted Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which, while mismatched, was to Scott's thinking a far superior movie.

His enjoyment turned to excitement during the scene in which Richard Dreyfuss and Teri Garr had a hysterical argument in the bathroom. Frustrated, confused, even frightened, Dreyfuss/Roy struck out at his wife. Garr/ Ronnie fell back against the bathroom wall in astonishment, then began to struggle as her distraught husband tore at her bathrobe and began making violent love to her. They were both naked when their children arrived to investigate the disturbance.

Scott rushed downstairs as the film was ending to ensure that he could surreptitiously watch the patrons on their way out. To his disappointment, everyone looked perfectly ordinary. There were several young couples who came regularly to neck in the back row, two young males who appeared to have arrived separately, a couple of elderly men, one distracted woman who constantly subvocalized to herself, and the kid with the glasses.

Scott crossed to intercept him, trying to be casual. 'How'd you like the show?'

The kid peered up at him dubiously. 'I don't know where you get these cuts, mister, but if my mom finds out what you're showing here, she'll never let me come again.'

'Let's not tell her then, right?'

When the theater was empty, Candy locked the door from the inside. She hadn't forgiven him his churlishness. 'Don't you have things to do?' She glared at him until he turned away, but he hadn't even noticed. His mind was racing at full speed.

Just to be certain, he rechecked the tape before leaving for the night. The film now displayed the original version.

Obviously, whatever device was being used was quite small, virtually undetectable. Even if it was some kind of hallucinatory gas, it would have to be contained in something. Perhaps he could at least identify who was bringing it into the theater. Scott began paying more attention to the movies he showed, but as he had expected, nothing happened during the next several days. He had concluded by now that whoever was responsible came on Saturday nights only, for the science-fiction program.

The following Saturday, a notebook and pen were at hand. Scott knew few customers by name, but most of them were familiar enough that he could mark down some significant characteristic by which to separate one from another. He made twenty-seven entries in all, either while taking tickets, or later, during a leisurely stroll through the theater before bringing down the house lights.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon passed uneventfully, but Barbarella was transformed.

Scott knew something was up right from the opening sequence when the nude Jane Fonda received her assignment. He couldn't remember how explicit the original had been, but this screening was downright lewd. Judging by the murmuring from the audience, the explicit sex on screen had even attracted the attention of the back-row patrons. And it didn't end there. Each encounter was altered in some fashion, always designed to provide longer and more revealing glimpses of Barbarella's body. The scene involving the now transparent pleasure machine was so erotic that it evoked a shocked outcry from someone in the audience.

The kid gave him a strange look at the end of the show, but rushed out of the lobby without speaking.

The next several weeks involved a painful process of elimination. Scott had decided to drop from his original list anyone who was absent during a subsequent incident. David Warner's rape of Mary Steenburgen in Time After Time eliminated seven people the very next weekend, but it took two more films to eliminate another five, and there were still eleven contenders. Confusing the issue was an influx of new viewers, primarily high school students lured by rumors of X-rated films. Scott's quarry must have noticed something amiss as well, because there were no alterations for almost a month, long enough for attendance to dip back to its usual level.

Scott was on the verge of giving up when the changes resumed. They had been growing increasingly daring all along, and the single-mindedly sexual nature of the alterations continued. But now the sex was frequently distorted, even violent. The mute girl, Nova, was subjected to some sort of painful electrical stimulation in Planet of the Apes. and the Morlocks tied Weena over an open fire for a prolonged sequence in The Time Machine.

For three straight weeks, Scott was unable to eliminate any of his candidates, the list of whom now consisted of two teenagers, the woman who talked to herself, an elderly man who seemed to fall asleep frequently, a man in his mid-twenties suffering from the worst case of acne Scott had ever seen, and an overweight middle-aged man whom Scott had chosen for no particular reason as the most likely culprit. The kid with the glasses stopped coming after Dian the Beautiful was brutally ravished in At the Earth's Core.

On the last Saturday in November, Scott got lucky.

For one thing, it was sleeting and promised to get worse. Candy had been glancing nervously outdoors ever since she arrived, even though she lived only six blocks away. Only seven people bought tickets, and two of them were among those whom Scott had already eliminated. There was also a middle-aged couple he'd never seen before. That left the acne case, the middle-aged man, and one teenage boy, the only one who always sat by himself.

The first feature was Night of the Comet. For a long time, Scott was afraid that there would be no change in the script, that this would be another fruitless night. But when the insane stockboys stripped and spanked the two sisters before tying them up, he knew his quarry was in the theater.

But there were still three possibilities.

Then the middle-aged man rose and walked up the aisle to the door, zipping his coat as he did so. Scott ran quickly downstairs and confirmed that the man had indeed left the theater. Two suspects remained, Acne Face and the quiet boy.

The second feature was Wavelength, a relatively low-key story about a young couple who stumble on a secret military base where three extraterrestrials are imprisoned. Scott watched intently but with growing unease. If nothing changed, did that mean the older man was his quarry? The brief nude scene early in the movie passed without alteration, and Scott settled back in his chair thoughtfully, trying to decide how best to approach the man.

The story unrolled before him, but Scott's mind was elsewhere as Robert Carradine and Cherie Currie made their way through the tunnels, eventually to be discovered and captured. He was so preoccupied, in fact, that he never did see how the girl's sweater was lost during the struggle with the guard, and only the brutality of the beating administered afterward was enough stimulus to startle him from his reverie.

Scott was downstairs waiting even before the closing credits began to scroll across the screen. Just possibly something in the demeanor of one of the two remaining suspects would tip him off. Acne Face walked by, eyes downcast, hands tucked into coat pockets, and never even looked in Scott's direction.

The quiet boy never came out at all.

Scott checked the theater thoroughly, but there was no sign of him. Something of his perplexity must have shown because Candy asked him what was wrong.

'One of the customers never came out,' he explained. 'That mousy little kid with the glasses who's in here all the time. Maybe I should check the rest room again.'

'Don't bother.' She sighed. 'He took off right after the first picture ended. I heard him asking for a ride.'

Reality seemed to freeze in place. 'Are you sure? He left before the second feature started?'

She shrugged. 'About then, yeah. The older guy who comes in here a lot is his neighbor, I guess. What difference does it make?'