Midnight Movie: A Novel (15 page)

Yeah, I totally remember when Erick called about the whole disappearing thing. He was like, “Dude, get over here now.”

I was like, “I’m on my way to the shop, man.” I worked at Friends of Sound over on South Congress Street. My manager didn’t like it when I was late, and I was
always
late, so when I had the chance to be on time, I took it.

He was like, “Call in sick, man. I need you. I’m fucked-up, Theo.”

Me and Erick met in freshman year of high school, and we’ve been tight ever since. We’ve been through a lot of shit together, but he never told me that he needed me, so I knew something was up. I was like, “Okay, bro. Be over in fifteen.” My boss at the store was pissed until I told him it was a family emergency. Because that’s what it was. Laughlin was family, man.

I got to his crib in, like, five minutes. He buzzed me in, and I went up the stairs, and he looked a mess … at least for him. Unless he was wasted or hungover—or both—Erick was one put-together cat, like with his hair always in the right place, and his face always all shaven, et cetera. Not that morning. That morning, he looked … wild. Animalistic. Kind of creepy.

I was like, “What’s wrong, bro?”

He was like, “It’s this sleep thing.”

I was like, “What about it? How’d the camera work out?” He goes, “It’s fucked-up.”

I was like, “Dude, tell me you didn’t fuck up that camera. That shit was expensive.”

He says, “The camera isn’t fucked-up. The whole
thing
is fucked-up. Dig this.”

And then he showed me the video. It was him sitting there reading, then him falling asleep, then him disappearing. Poof. Gone.

I go, “Dude, that was some awesome editing!”

He was like, “I don’t have any video editing programs on my computer. What you see is what happened. I … fucking … disappeared.”

I was like, “Well, you’re back now. Did you look at the end?”

He goes, “Shit, no. I freaked. I didn’t want to watch alone. That’s why you’re here.”

I go, “Hell yeah, that’s why I’m here. Fire that shit up again.”

So he drags the cursor to the end of the recording, and
poof
, he reappears in the exact same position he was in when he disappeared. I was like, “WTF?”

He goes, “Yeah. WTF. Bro, you’re staying with me tonight.”

I was like, “Shit.”

Theo was not psyched. I can’t say that I blame him. I know if one of my friends was evaporating and asked me to babysit him, I’d probably be a little, um, let’s say trepidatious.

I couldn’t say no. He’d have done it for me.

So fast-forward to 9:33 that night. We’re sitting there yammering about John Bonham, and right in the middle of a sentence, the dude falls asleep, right on schedule, and then, right before my fucking eyes, the dude disappears. WTF, right?

I go to the bed and feel around, and yeah, sure e-fucking-nough, that bastard was gone. Gone, gone, gone, clothes and all. I grab his keys from his desk and go for a walk to see if I can track his invisible ass down. I didn’t know where to start. I mean, where the fuck was I supposed to go? His mom’s house? Our rehearsal space? A cemetery? No clue, so I went back to his crib, and lay down on his bed, and waited for 9:33.

Now that I think about it, it’s weird that we never discussed
why
this was happening to him, only how we could fix it. Hunh.

I opened my eyes at 9:33—of course—and there was good old Theo, crashed out right next to me. He rolled over, then said, “Yo. Welcome home, dude. Sleep well?”

I said, “Did I disappear?”

He said, “Yeah. You disappeared like a motherfucker. But I have an idea.”

I didn’t sleep for shit that night. I mean, would you? Your best bud disappears, and you’re supposed to be able to crash? No way, man. So I thought, and thought, and thought—what else was I going to do?—and came up with the best idea
ever
.

He said, “We’re going to use the camera.”

I said, “We already used the camera.”

He said, “No, we’re going to put the camera on you.”

I said, “We already put the camera on me.”

He said, “No, we’re going to put the camera
on
you.”

I said, “What’re you talking about?”

He said, “Dig it: Your clothes went with you when you pulled your fade, so maybe if we duct-tape the camera to your chest, it’ll go with you, too. We’ll hit the Record button before you go beddy-bye, and we’re good to go. It’ll pick up
something.
”

Theo was right about that. It sure as shit picked up something.

That camera weighed like fifty pounds, and it took an entire roll of duct tape to get that thing secure. It was probably uncomfortable as shit for Eric, but, you know, the dude wasn’t having trouble falling asleep, so that wasn’t an issue.

So he disappears at 9:33 at night
again
, and he comes back at 9:33 in the morning
again
, and when he gets up, I pull out a box cutter and start cutting off all the tape. He’s like, “Dude, slow down. My skin is under this tape.” So I slowed down, and I got the camera off, and I managed to cut him only once.

I’ve got to tell you, man, we were not psyched to watch the video. But we watched it.

Based on what we saw, I wasn’t disappearing, exactly. It was more that I became invisible and moved really fast.

At first, the picture was kind of a blur, but we could tell I was going down my stairs and out of my building, and then I made a left, which meant I was heading west. Beyond that, it was impossible to even guess where the fuck I was going.

About half an hour into my invisible run, or sprint, or whatever the hell it was, I came to a sudden stop in front of a mall, and it was light outside. Maybe that was a trick of the camera. Or maybe I went so far west that I caught up with the sunset. No clue.

I clearly still wasn’t visible to the world at large, because nobody looked directly at me, and if you saw some guy in the middle of a mall wandering around with a video camera duct-taped to his chest, you’d stare.

No staring. No nothing.

I was gliding smoothly through the mall—the picture never once became shaky; it was almost like the camera was on a dolly. The angle of the shot was relatively high, and since the camera had been strapped onto my chest, and I’m only five foot ten, it seemed like I was floating.

And then people started falling.

There were these red things shooting
out
of Erick, or from
behind
Erick, and when one would hit somebody, they’d stumble onto the ground, then they’d get right back up again, like nothing happened. It was totally random who was getting zitzed: some dudes, some chicks, some grown-ups, some kids, some African Americans, some white peeps, and some Asian folks. Wait, now that I think about it, it wasn’t
totally
random: All the people
getting shot were alone. The only zitz-ees were wandering the mall all by their lonesome. Weird. Or weird
er
.

After about an hour at the mall, Invisible Erick took off and glided along for another forty-five minutes. He ended up at a movie theater—no surprise there; Erick’s a film nerd, and that’s the way he rolls … even when he’s invisible, I guess—and then he went shooting that weird red shit at the loners again. That was when things got weird. Or weird
er
.

I didn’t know where the hell I was, so I didn’t know what the hell the local time was. It could’ve been ten, it could’ve been midnight, it could’ve been four
A.M
. No way to tell.

So I’m walking up and down the aisle of the movie theater, and that red stuff is still shooting out—still no idea where it was coming from—and unlike what was going on in the mall, the people who are getting shot have these brief seizures, then fall asleep. I don’t know when they woke up, because I went from theater to theater without hanging out for the aftermath.

And then the battery died.

And then, nothing.