part0027

T he heat of late summer descends with the sun while a hazy full moon rises in the east. Melissa and Carter stand on copper-colored stone steps, waiting to enter Red Rocks with Ashley and Derek. The natural amphitheater is typically reserved for concerts but tonight is different—it fills with moviegoers for the final “Film on the Rocks” of the year.

Melissa made sure they got there early to get good seats but several dozen people are ahead of them in line, all carrying bags bulging with seat cushions and blankets. “Thriller” plays through hidden speakers while they wait.

“What’d you say the movie was tonight?” Ashley asks.

Carter glances at the tickets on his phone and says, “The Howling . It’s a classic.”

“For a classic, I’ve sure never heard of it,” Melissa says.

She gasps as Carter grabs her waist and wraps an arm across her chest, pulling her against him. A low snarl purrs from his throat as he bites at her neck, harder than she expects. She gently touches the spot and her finger comes away with a tiny dot of blood. Smirking, she turns and finds his lips on her own.

“It’s a werewolf classic,” he says. “You’ll love it.”

“Great,” Ashley says. “Just what I want, to watch a movie about wolves. Outside, in the mountains, in the dark. Thanks, Carter.”

He grins. “You’re welcome.”

“Didn’t we watch this once? When we were, like, in high school?” Derek asks.

“Yeah,” Carter says, “with those freaky chicks who kept trying to explain how right it all really is. Like how you have to survive the bite to become a werewolf. Or how the skin bubbles during the transformation from man to wolf.”

Derek chuckles, remembering.

Further up the line, a group of attractive teenagers on a double date laugh. Melissa watches one of the boys—tall and broad—spit on the stairs. His girlfriend, a blonde with a large chest, sneers as he does. Melissa can see the wet spot he leaves behind as the line crawls forward.

Derek watches them too, a dark look passing over his face as he says, “Fucking high schoolers. Always so fucking annoying and disrespectful.”

“Chill, man. Not tonight,” Carter says and places a hand on his shoulder.

Derek turns and looks at him for several seconds, then shakes his head to clear it.

Once through the ticket scanners, the heady scents of buttered popcorn and funnel cake draw Melissa toward the food stands.

“Have you guys eaten yet?” she asks.

“I never eat before I come to anything at Red Rocks,” Derek says. “There’s always this sausage place—” he pauses, searching among the food and drink until he spots it and points, “over there. They have normal brats but, like, other meats, too. I had elk last time. You want one?”

Melissa shakes her head vehemently, making Carter chuckle.

“C’mon, Derek,” he says, “You know your lady’s a much more adventurous eater than mine. But, honestly, these days, I’m avoiding red meat.”

“Suit yourself,” Derek says, taking Ashley’s hand and drawing her to the bratwursts.

“I’m gonna get popcorn,” Melissa says.

Carter nods and heads toward the Tex-Mex stand. “Nachos for me. And a beer. You want anything to drink?”

“Soda, please. Coke or Pepsi, you know, whatever’s fine.”

“Sixteen ounces of whatever, coming right up.”

Waiting in the snack line, Melissa listens to the crowd. Among the general hum of voices, two women discuss the merits of permed versus crimped hair in a side high pony tail. A middle-aged couple walks by, chattering about their animosity for another couple in their party. Melissa’s ears perk at a sudden burst of cackling from the same group of teens that had been ahead of them in the ticket line on the stairs. Though they’re at a distance, she spots the busty one with a bare midriff touching the arm of the boy who, Melissa assumes, is the high school quarterback. The other boy—smaller and wearing glasses—is basking in the laughter at his own joke. And the second girl, less showy than the other but just as pretty, covers her mouth as she giggles. Her eyes shift nervously, seeking confirmation from the flock that they aren’t drawing too much attention.

Melissa looks away, moving forward with the line. Above and below the symphony of voices and laughter, coughs and sneezes and grunts, there is a whisper of wind against stone and, she thinks, skittering feet through dirt. The earth and its quieter, endemic inhabitants fill the spaces between the milling audience and their unnatural world.

In the distance, a forlorn yowl calls but is not answered.

Melissa orders a large popcorn with extra butter. The grease glistens, coats her fingers so they’re slick. She grabs a couple of napkins and turns to leave, thinks better of it, and grabs a couple more.

Reunited with Carter, Ashley, and Derek, she sees they are halfway through their meals already. Carter holds a Coke out to her and she accepts it with a quick “thanks, babe.”

Derek leads them down to general admission. They’re early enough to have their pick of seats and they choose a section ten rows from the front, the screen looming large and centered before them.

It makes Melissa wary, being this close. She prefers more distance between herself and the horrors on screen. It makes them feel less real. Less imminent.

Still, they settle in, setting up their cushions and laying out blankets.

Derek peers among the stands. “You guys see where those kids ended up?”

Melissa notices two of the teens are situated behind them, looking exposed as everyone else huddles close to the dais, but doesn’t say anything. The crop top girl and the football player are gone and left a puddle of blankets waiting for their return.

“Seriously, Derek. Let it go,” Carter says.

“Fuck you, Carter. Someone needs to let them know they can’t go around acting like assholes.”

“Derek. Look at me… Not tonight. You get me?”

Derek stares at Carter but isn’t able to still the tremble in his hands. He takes his seat and lets Ashley snuggle against him.

The sun disappears behind the mountains yet continues to spread fingers of light into the darkening sky. The full moon glows through wisps of cloud.

Before the show starts, a Eurythmics cover duo plays a set that ends with “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).” A comedian attempts a classic Robin Williams bit from his show at The Met but doesn’t measure up.

Finally, the movie begins. “We are—repression. Repression is the father of neurosis, of self-hatred… We should never try to deny the beast, the animal within us… ”

Melissa curls her shoulder into Carter’s, places her hand on his thigh over the quilt they share. He feels tense, coiled, and she thinks he must recall a scary scene coming up soon. Derek and Ashley are cuddled together under their own blanket, staying warm as the temperature drops.

In the near distance, a troop of coyotes howl to one another.

“Nice of them to contribute,” Melissa whispers.

Carter kisses the top of her head but keeps his eyes on the movie. His face is oddly still.

She closes her eyes and listens for the wind and the creatures that are waking to explore the dark. Bats swoop overhead. She hears a scratching noise like padded feet and claws on dirt and rock yet, when she looks, she cannot find the source. The only difference she can see is that Derek has left, probably to use the bathroom.

A scream comes from behind her. Just one at first but more follow. The cries climb over one another in length and volume, their density compounding until they’re a physical weight pressing into her ears.

The rest of the audience turns to the source of the sound, ignoring the film. There’s a scuffle where Melissa saw the group of teens earlier.

An object flies into the air. It takes her a moment to realize it’s the shape of a human arm.

The screams continue.

“We have to move,” Carter says, his voice surprisingly steady. “Now.”

He grabs her bicep, right where someone would need to grip to tear her arm out of its socket, sever its tendons, rip flesh from flesh. He pulls her up, though she wants to stay down, near the ground where she can’t be seen.

Her eyes search for Ashley and Derek but they’ve run off already.

Melissa is moving fast but she can’t keep pace with Carter. Her legs trip over blankets and half-empty bags of popcorn and her own feet. Every time she thinks she’s about to go down for good, Carter pulls harder, urging her forward.

Her eyes look back. She can’t help herself.

A bloody mass of shredded clothes and body parts covers the ground. The jacket of the football player, missing an arm. The blonde hair of the girl in the crop top, clinging to scraps of scalp. The disembodied glasses of the funny boy.

A hairy, bipedal creature pursues the modest girl as she sprints down the empty row.

Melissa trips over a can of beer.

“Come on!” Carter growls, pulling her up.

A few more steps and they escape the amphitheater.

Carter propels her forward, not toward the parking lot, but into the mountains. She spots a handful of others doing the same, hoping to avoid the attention the throngs of people may attract.

She doesn’t know how far they ran or how they will find their way back.

Eventually, they stop. The screaming is a distant call.

Even the glow of the movie goes dark.

Carter pulls her tight against him. He doesn’t say anything. They stay like this, breathing heavily, and let the darkness wrap around them.

She doesn’t tell him that her gums and scalp have started to itch and assumes it’s just adrenaline.

Out here, in the trees and hills, the land is quiet. Only the wind and bats overhead.

Flood lights at Red Rocks come on.

“What do we do?” Melissa asks.

Carter takes a step away and gazes down the way they’d come.

“Wait until things calm down but we’ll have to go back,” he says.

She nods, though she knows he isn’t looking at her. Neither of them move.

Something shuffles in the brush.

It comes from behind. Mangy fur and scrabbling claws and mouth open wide.

Carter shoves her out of the way, his hand pulling at the meaty back of a massive wolf-thing. A guttural snarl lunges from Carter’s throat. He flings the monster aside and it skids on all fours, its paws scrabbling for purchase in the dirt.