Night On Terror Island

Philip Caveney

Chapter 1: The Paramount Picture Palace

Kip McCall let himself out of the house and walked in to the village. It was a warm Friday evening in July and school was out for the summer. He stood for a moment, looking up at the Paramount Picture Palace, thinking how much he loved it and how lucky he was that his dad owned a cinema. Not that Dad ever looked at it that way. He was forever telling Kip how difficult it was to make ends meet and that he might not be able to keep the old place running much longer.

Mind you, he’d been saying that for as long as Kip could remember.

The Paramount was a scruffy, single-screen cinema, one of the last of its kind in an age when multiplexes rule the earth. It had been built back in the 1920s by Dad’s great-grandfather and had been in the McCall family ever since. These days it was looking pretty ropey. The front of the building was badly in need of a paint job and there were several tiles missing from the walls, but Kip couldn’t have been prouder if it had been built from twenty-two carat gold.

Ever since he’d been old enough to walk and talk, he’d spent most of his spare time at the Paramount, helping his dad run things. Maybe that was why he was so mad about films. He didn’t think he was exactly a geek, though plenty of people had accused him of being one – he just loved to watch movies and when he wasn’t watching them, he was reading about them, or talking about them or looking forward to seeing the next one. So it was fortunate that Dad owned the cinema because it meant that during the holidays, and most weekends, he got to help out there and see all the films for free.

He’d always imagined that, one day, the Paramount would be his. But he realised now how unlikely that was. Dad was always talking gloomily about the coming of digital films and how, when that happened, it would all be over for the Paramount. A digital projector cost something like fifty-thousand pounds, Dad said, money he simply didn’t have and besides, the tiny projection room over the front entrance wouldn’t be big enough to house the equipment, so at best they had a few years left of struggling along, doing it the old fashioned way.

Kip looked up at the shiny black letters clipped to the board above the entrance. PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE, a brand new film for the start of a brand new week. Kip had been looking forward to this one, the reviews had been excellent.

He went in through the entrance doors and found Dad sitting in the ticket office. He was going through a stack of paperwork, pausing every now and then to shake his head.

‘How’s it looking?’ asked Kip. As usual, the paperwork seemed to consist of unpaid bills.

‘Not good,’ said Dad, gloomily. ‘We didn’t even break even last week.’

‘They’ll come flooding in for this new one,’ Kip assured him. ‘It’s got Russell Raven in it. His films always do well.’

‘Can’t do any worse than Love Reigns,’ said Dad, referring to the film they’d had last week. ‘I can’t understand it, it had Oscar nominations and everything.’

Kip frowned. He’d tried to talk Dad out of booking that one. It had been unbelievably soppy, a costume drama about young Queen Victoria and her romance with Prince Albert. On Tuesday night, they’d had exactly six people in to watch it. Kip felt fairly confident that Public Enemy Number One would do better as, judging by the trailer, it featured some of his favourite things – action, suspense, car chases and big explosions.

‘Any news about a replacement for Norman?’ asked Kip.

Norman was the Paramount’s projectionist. He didn’t go back to the 1920s or anything, but he had certainly been there for fifty years. He hadn’t been in the best of health lately and last week, he’d announced that he had decided to retire to his sister’s house in Alderly Edge and that he was giving notice of one week.

This was the worst news they could have had. Dad knew a little bit about projecting films, but not enough to cope if some problem arose, something that seemed to happen every other night. So Dad had put a frantic advert in the Manchester Evening News, hoping that there would be somebody out there who could help him. For five days there had been nothing and it was beginning to look as though they were in real trouble; but now Dad was handing Kip a letter.

‘That was pushed under the door when I came in,’ he said. ‘What do you make of it?’

It was written in black ink in a weird, squirly kind of writing, the kind of thing you just didn’t see anymore. Kip read it with interest.

Dear Mr McCall

I read of your recent predicament in the Evening News. No cinema can afford to be without a projectionist. Fortunately, I am a master of the profession, and have worked at cinemas all over the world, including Il Fantoccini in Venice. I would be interested in the advertised post and shall call upon you soon, to offer my services.

Yours Faithfully

Mr Lazarus

Kip looked at his dad, then turned the letter over, wondering if there was anything else. ‘There’s no address or phone number,’ he noted. ‘Mr Lazarus. Cool name. And what’s this Il Fantowotsit?’

‘Il Fantoccini,’ said Dad helpfully. He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Search me. A cinema, I suppose.’

‘We’ll Google it when we get home,’ suggested Kip.

Dad dropped the letter onto his desk. ‘Who writes a letter and doesn’t leave an address or a phone number?’ he muttered.

‘Or an email address,’ added Kip.

‘Exactly.’ Dad glanced at his watch. ‘Maybe you’d better get the popcorn on, it’s seven thirty.’