Andy had canvassed the city looking for jobs, applying,writing down fake addresses and the cell number of his still working phone. Hehad almost cried when he received a phone call for an interview. Stopping byone of the city's numerous fountains, he had cleaned himself up, and walked tothe interview, his heart thumping in his chest. He would like to say that hehad aced the interview, but the manager, a portly man with glasses, didn't evengrill him or serve up any hard questions. Just like that, he had become thenewest member of the Lloyd Cinema team. He had felt relieved. Had he known thatthe movie theater would potentially serve as his final resting place, he wouldhave felt differently. Even before his first paycheck had come in, the city hadstarted its plunge into chaos.
The first few days were nice actually. The boss phoned incomplaining of a cold, so he and another girl, whom he immediately developed a crushon, had run things. Andy sold and tore the tickets, and then ran behind thecounter to serve up concessions. Luckily, it was a slow day, which gave himplenty of time to try and work his charms on his co-worker. Apparently theexchange rate on charms in Portland were a little steep, because all he gotwere a couple of humoring looks and an awkward arm cross. The next day, he wasalone, and the paying customer total was somewhere in the range of ten. In thestreets, from behind the tinted windows of the movie theater, he heard sirensand saw cop cars prowling up and down the streets.
"What's going on?" the kid had wondered aloudwhile waiting for a batch of popcorn to pop.
"End of the world, kid," an old man inBirkenstocks and a tie-dyed t-shirt said, clutching his ticket to the latestsummer blockbuster, something with aliens and a bunch of CGI in it.
"What are you talking about?" Andy laughed.
The man looked at him, a very serious look on his face."The dead... they're coming back to life."
At first Andy could have sworn the man was joking, but theman's grim face never cracked. There was a haunted look in the man's eyes, butbefore he could press him on it more, the man asked, "Can I have someextra butter on my popcorn? Not much point in eating healthy now, isthere?"
After the conversation, Andy called his boss. There wasno answer. Having no place to go and being 3,000 miles away from his family, hedid the only thing he could think of. He hunkered down in the projection booth andcalled home. The conversation had been brief, loveless. Things at home had notchanged. His father, ever drunk, ever disinterested, had only told him to staysafe. As the day went on, no other employees had showed up for work, which wasfine with Andy as it gave him more hours and potentially more pay. Like a fool,he had stayed at the theater, hoping to get some sort of money out of the deal,waiting for his boss to call in or appear at the doors to tell him how great ajob he had done in keeping the theater open.
When no one showed up on Saturday, not even customers, heknew that something had gone egregiously wrong. In the parking lot, people hadbeen shambling towards the theater. With his dustpan and broom in hand, he stoodand watched as the first of them approached. When the creature was close enoughso that he could see the gaping wounds on its arms and legs, Andy ducked behinda cardboard display for some sort of cartoon adventure, a tall colorfulmonstrosity that employees would fight over, only to have the winner take ithome and immediately sell it on eBay. It was all true. The dead were alive.The man hadn't been joking.
He had locked the front doors and scrambled to plasterthe glass with movie posters and promotional items. Even after they could nolonger see him, they had banged on the doors for hours. Eventually, some timethe next day, they disappeared, perhaps drawn to easier prey.
After that day, he had spent his time making popcorn andwatching the same movies over and over again. The only break he had from thecheap grindhouse biker movie, the latest summer blockbuster, and the mostrecent remake was when he would try to sleep, napping on the floor of the projectionroom, dreaming that someone would come bursting through the front doors andsave him. Then the power had gone out. He began spending his evenings on theroof, wondering if he was going to die in the movie theater. Then he beganwondering if he could take his own life. Suicide was beginning to look like apretty good option when he saw the survivors running down the street.
Now, they were here. He couldn't believe his luck. It hadactually happened. He felt as if he had struck the lottery. If he hadn't beenon the roof at the exact right moment, he might have missed the passing groupof survivors; he might have missed his chance of escaping. He might have hunghimself in the projection booth with a noose made from film reels.
So why was he still sitting in the projection booth? Whywas he still sweating in the tiny room, while there were actual people belowthat he could be talking to? The fact was that nothing had changed. They werestill likely going to die. Only now, he would probably die hungry and thirstywhen they ran out of food. Candy bars and popcorn only went so far, and withthe
