The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Projection
by Elizabeth H. Smith

The reels began their spin and the film followed their motion. Projected light brightened the darkness, and moving pictures came alive against the living room wall. Emma watched the silent film with curiosity, wondering what it was about.

The movie began in the middle of a scene, the lack of color and high frame rate gave her a guess as to its age. It began with a man walking down a city street, hands in his pockets, a smile spread across his face. It then showed two men pulling a piano up with pulleys to get it to the top floor of a 5-story walk-up. Emma smiled, she was pretty sure she knew what came next; the story reminded her of other old films she’d seen, but she didn’t recognize any of the actors.

As the man approached the building, the workers lost their grip on the rope and the piano began its descent. Emma giggled. The piano’s timing was perfect, and it came crashing down on the unaware pedestrian.

But Emma’s smile faded as blood pooled from beneath the wreckage. It spilled down the curb and ran onto the street. The camera remained still, aimed at the tragic black-and-white character. Emma waited to see if another scene would unfold, but it remained locked on the gruesome sight. She checked the projector to see if the reels had stopped moving, but they continued to spin, pulling cellulose through the film gate. The image hadn’t frozen. It simply continued to show not only the death of the character, but its lingering aftermath.

The film then ended. No credits, no names; just nothingness.

She inspected the projector afterward, but found nothing out of place. When she viewed the film itself with a magnifying glass, she found the tiny frames didn’t match what she’d seen. There was no piano, no man, and no death. Only blank cells on which the projector could paint at will.

When she watched the film again, she found it did just that; paint its own picture.

This time the projector showed her something completely different. This time it was a first-person point of view. A man’s hands were outstretched, holding a cord pulled tight between them. He slowly made his way up a flight of stairs, down a hall, and into a dimly lit bedroom. A woman sat at a desk staring down at a typewriter, a half-filled sheet of paper sticking out from its roller.

He drew closer to his victim, and with every step Emma’s heart beat with tension as she watched the scene unfold. His arms extended and wrapped the cord around the woman’s throat and pulled tight. She struggled to get free, pulling at the makeshift garrote in vain. She thrashed until she ended up on the floor. She fought for her life, but not hard enough. When her body finally stopped moving, the assailant didn’t let loose. He continued his hold for an uncomfortably long time, long enough to make sure she would never get back up.

Eventually, the cord was removed and the murderer left, but the camera stayed focused on the dead woman lying on the floor. The film remained frozen on that shot until it eventually ended with a blank screen as it did before.

Emma scoured the film reel again, and again found nothing. The camera seemed to create each film as she watched. She wondered if she should be afraid, or at least nervous, given the nature of the films it showed. But the fact that it could do what it did in the first place was reason enough to keep watching. Fear was not in her heart. Nothing but primal curiosity made itself known to her. She wanted to see more. She wanted to see what else it might show. Were these films of any importance? Did they have any meaning? And why were they filled with violence? Did the projector have nothing else to show?

With no findings, she decided to inspect the reel while the film rolled. She thought maybe there would be something else to see, some clue as to what enabled this old machine to do what it did. She looked over the turning reels and then walked to the front end of the projector and stood in the light to see if there was something over the lens causing the effect.

Then everything went black.

Her first thought was that the power had gone out, but that idea was swiftly corrected by reality. Light gradually filled the darkness surrounding her. To her disbelief, the world had lost its color; it shifted to blacks, whites, and grays, just like the films it had previously played. She was no longer in her home, but instead in a small, dingy apartment.

The place was empty except for a round table in the center of the room. On it sat a revolver and an ash tray with a cigarette resting in it, burning away with no one to smoke it. Emma blinked a few times and rubbed her eyes hoping to wake.

Then realization hit her. She knew where she was. And from the films she’d already seen, she knew what happened next.

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Fiction © Copyright Elizabeth H. Smith
Image courtesy of Pixabay

More About Elizabeth H. Smith:
Elizabeth H. Smith is a storyteller who writes while trying to keep her cat, Luna off the keyboard. The musical group, Rasputina is her muse. She was born in the state of New York and would never feel at home anywhere else.