Page 101 of Devil Inside

All those faces. On the street, in the theater. Devils drifting by me. Even now, I feel like their eyes are on me. Staring. Melting.

I’m losing it. I can’t stop shaking. I need someone to take the trembling away.

I need Lilith. Where is she?

Find me...

Going to the movies seemed like the right spot. The Byrd Theater is a second-run movie palace that’s been a Richmond staple ever since I was a kid. I remember my mom taking me here for the first time when I was little. I got to seeThe Never-Ending Storyon the big screen, the two of us sitting together. Mom always loved to take me to the movies. The Byrd was always the best. Two bucks for a flick. The popcorn was fresh. There was a history to this place. You could just feel it in the walls. Not like the cineplexes at the shopping mall.

Here was majesty. They honored films here. It’s the heart of this city, beating with screenings. The theater itself was built back in 1928 in the fashion of the vaudeville palaces. The very first film to fill its screen was calledWaterfront, a silent film that had a soundtrack provided by the one-person orchestra in the pit—The Mighty Wurlitzer Organ.

I haven’t been back in a while. Feels like ages. The place still holds onto its bygone luster. The seats are uncomfortable as hell, but for a couple bucks, you can catch movies on their way out. The midnight screenings are programmed for the college crowd. You’ll getRockyHorror, you’ll getEvil Dead. But tonight’s selection is something special...Vertigo.

I wonder if Lilith will get the message.

The management shuts down the balcony for the midnight screening, but I’m able to slip past the red velvet rope and sneak upstairs. I have the entire section to myself. The rest of the crowd sits below in the orchestra. No one’s noticed me. Or maybe they have. There’s only one person whose attention I want tonight. I’ve just got to wait and see if she finds me.

Find me, Lilith. Please. I need you...

The crowd below is growing, filling in. All those bodies. They don’t see me up here. I feel like I’m looking down on some pit, a chasm crammed with lost souls.

Is this what hell feels like?

Footsteps. I hear heels against the balcony floor. They echo against the steps like hooves and suddenly all I can think of is the four horsemen. Which one’s behind me?

I’m not alone. The heels clop louder, closing in, and now I’m picturing the devil drawing near, their hooves lifting the hairs on the back of my neck.

But I’m not about to turn. I focus on the audience below as this stranger sits in the row right behind me. I sense them, their body, as they take the seat just behind mine.

I don’t look, keeping my attention locked on the screen. The movie has yet to start, the lights still up, that open expanse of white yearning to be filled.

The person behind me doesn’t say a word. It’s her. It’s got to be her. There’s a current of electricity in the air now, I can feel it. Particles gathering. I hear that song I can’t sing.

The chandelier surges for just a second before the lights go dim, sapped of its color. We’re plunged into darkness. The projector is at the rear of the theater, up here, in the balcony, so I can hear the massive machine whir to life, its internal mechanisms reviving, teeth seizing the celluloid film strip and weaving it through, shining its light.

The beam reaches over our head. I can see it. The shaft is so close, directly above me, that I almost want to reach out andsee if I can touch it, graze my fingers through the beam, feel the warmth of it, maybe even touch the images themselves, feel the movie seep into my skin, its characters, its colors, its sound, letting it pour into me.

Whoever is behind me—

Lilith

—still hasn’t spoken. Maybe they are just as transfixed by the film as I am. This is something I want to share with her. This magic. This place is worth sharing.

The opening credits toVertigobegin. There’s the eye, the dizzying spiral spinning out from the iris and filling the screen, consuming us all.

The person behind me leans forward.

No words pass between us. I simply sense their presence, the proximity of their body to my own, as they close in. Draw near. The hairs on the back of my neck bristle.

Breath. I feel the warmth of their exhale spread down my spine.

Still, nothing. No words. I want to turn and look, but what’s the point? The body she’s possessing would distract me. Maybe it’s better I don’t see. Don’t look. This way, here, in the dark, in the shadows of the movie theater, we can just talk. The two of us. I don’t have to focus on whose body she’s in and she can simply speak to me from the pitch black.

“You found me,” I say.

“We did.”

Look at them fall. Bodies in endless descent. See how they plummet, eternally spiraling.