Sunless Cinema [COMPLETE]

I: Lemoine Hardy

Lemoine Hardy was beautiful and everyone around her knew it. She was a living dream straight out of a talkie in peach-colored high-waisted pants and a middy blouse. The bounce of her curls was unbothered by the political climate and current economic depression. She seemed to be above it all.

Of course, she would have been more beautiful if she weren't tied to a chair and blindfolded.

Teddy supposed that couldn't be helped. He and Ralph McCrory needed the money. That's why he was in this whole mess.

"Are you two finally done moving me?" Her accent was genteel and Georgian.

Ralph spat, "It shouldn't matter to you."

"It does, though."

"Shut up. T, do you have the letter ready?"

Teddy nodded and tapped the envelope on the side table. Ralph squinted at him. He was always doing that. Ralph held the stare for a moment longer, then rolled his eyes.

"Fine. Give it here, I'll take it out. You watch the bread. Make sure no funny business happens. And don't let the boys in here, they don't need to see this."

Teddy nodded again, taking in every last instruction; he watched Ralph leave. It was always like this. Ralph took initiative and Teddy was forced to stay and watch. He was the look-out; he was the babysitter. He supposed that he didn't mind so much. It was easier to stay back. 

Teddy sat on one of the metal chairs by the wall opposite Lemoine. He was in an old editing room at Sunless Cinema Production Studios. Ralph had a buddy there-- a producer of some kind-- who was working on some new horror talkie and was all too happy to let them borrow space for a time, no questions asked. He rested an arm on the card table. 

There were no stacks of film canisters here. There used to be a Moviola on this card table (he can see marks on its surface from where it once sat), but it has since been moved to the floor. No one had used this room for a good year or two. 

That made sense to Teddy. Sunless Cinema wasn't doing so well. The horror shows made here were sub-par and poorly written. Even he could do better-- and he didn't even graduate high school. (That wasn't his fault.) 

As soon as Ralph was gone and the door was shut behind him with a gentle schnick, Lemoine Hardy smiled. It wasn't the shining grin on the front page of every newspaper from here to New York; it was something darker and more twisted, like she knew some horrible truth that he didn't. 

"Is he finally gone?" she asked. 

Teddy didn't know how to answer. Was she going to try to pull something if he said yes? This felt like a trap. 

His silence was all the answer she needed.

The corners of her mouth stretched more than anyone's should have been able to. "Good. It's just you and me, Teddy." 

He started, shaking enough that is was audible when he jumped. H had been careful not to say his name and Ralph was usually anal about not letting his identity get out there. Some guys sought fame in the kidnapping business, especially when it came to taking the wealthy for ransom, but that wasn't why either of them was doing this. 

For Teddy, it was for the money. For Ralph... Teddy wasn't sure. 

"How--" 

Lemoine cut him off. "I know everything about you." 

"That's not-- do all billionaires' daughters know-- how?" Teddy wasn't sure what he wanted to ask. He was too shocked. 

All the while, her grin grew wider. "Not all billionaires' daughters. Just me. Though, you could barely call me a daughter. No, I know everything about you, Theodore Beitel. You are the grandson of German immigrants. You have a younger sister. Your mother is a seamstress and your father is a drunk." 

He doesn't know how to respond to that. Even if he did, she wasn't done talking. She was just pausing to scrape her impossibly-long, violently-pink tongue across her lips. Was that a spot of black that was left behind? 

"You dropped out of high school to care for your family-- normally commendable, yes, especially in this economic climate-- but you could be doing better things than kidnapping," and she put on a fake, saccharine voice, "poor widdle ole me." 

"I-- It wasn't my idea." 

"Look at me, Theodore." Even with the blindfold on, it was like she was staring into his soul. Did he have any choice but to obey this starlet of the uncanny valley? She continued, "I have decided to spare you." 

"Spare me? What? Listen, dame, I'm the one with the gun, here." 

"It will take a lot more than that to stop me." Still, Lemoine seemed amused by his insistence. 

She was right, though. No amount of bullets could have stopped Lemoine Hardy as she stretched out her limbs like taffy, pulling them out of her bonds. The ropes fell away from her arms as she thinned; she lifted them over her head. She removed the blindfold, her eyes glowed with an odd peach-colored light. 

The creature that stood before Teddy was terrible and indescribable. Lemoine Hardy had not just fallen into the uncanny valley; she towered over it like a gigantic spruce that had lost its pine needles. Her skin was stretched thin and unnaturally rosy; her curls didn't lose their bounce. She was all at once inhuman, monstrous, and as statuesque as the Statue of Liberty. 

Lemoine smiled with her teeth. Something black leaked from between them, covering her lips and chin and making its way to her neck like slow, dripping molasses. Whatever this was, it was between blood and maple syrup in terms of texture. It was viscous and thick; something reeked of brine, cinnamon, and apples. 

Teddy cowered instinctively and pushed his chair along the thin carpet, directly into the wall. Just as he was unable to comprehend what Lemoine Hardy, who was, just a minute or two ago, his hostage, has become, he was unable to make an escape. Sure, he could have fallen off the chair, army-crawled under the table, and bolted out the door, but where would that have left him? Lemoine could have done anything to retaliate, too. Teddy had no idea what she was capable of. 

So he froze. 

And she grinned with slick black teeth, dripping ichor with every word. "There's a good boy." 

Then came-- without warning, without a chance to defend himself-- one of her hands with the long, skinny fingers; it clamped onto his skull. The pain was sharp and indescribable. Her nails immediately drew blood. 

"Now," she hissed, " I think you're funny. I think you're cute-- like a penguin, almost. I'm going to spare you. Be a good boy and go to sleep for me." 

When she slammed his head into the wall behind him with supernatural strength, he had no choice.