Midnight Special by Phoef Sutton Page A

gnome said. “You are my replacement. You’re the new projectionist.”
    Matt pounded the walls, looking for a way out.
    “Relax and watch the movie,” Zander said. “You’re going to be watching it for a long time.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
    Barnabas was getting kind of bored. The movie had been going on for twenty minutes, and nada. Bupkes. Zero. No attacks. No smell of decay coming from the audience—although, with the overwhelming scent of eighty years’ worth of stale Jujubes and old hand jobs, it might have been masked.
    If he could turn around and watch the screen, time would pass a little more quickly. But he didn’t want to chance missing a signal.
    At the back of the house, Matt the Cowboy stuck his head in again, this time holding an iPhone to his ear. Taking personal calls on the job? He’d have to talk with that boy.
    Barnabas gave him a bored thumbs-up, but he wasn’t sure if Matt saw it or not, what with the way he turned on his heels and booked it out of there. As the door swung shut, he could see Matt grab his ax and head up the stairs. Right on schedule.
    He considered following Matt and talking with him, but that would mean leaving his post. And theirs not to reason why, he quoted in his mind (because he was more well-read in the classics than he let on), theirs but to do and…
    A tall man with gray hair in a gray suit got up and started walking up the aisle toward the exit. Was he leaving? Was he going to the bathroom? Was he going to kill somebody?
    Inquiring minds want to know ,thought Barnabas. It was his job to check it out. His duty and all that.
    Barnabas sprinted up the aisle, glad to be moving. This standing like a Beefeater at Buckingham Palace was getting old.
    Pushing his way through the swinging doors to the lobby, he was surprised to see Eva behind the concession stand, selling the man some popcorn.
    “What are you doing here, Evangeline?” Barnabas asked, ignoring the tall man at the counter.
    “Just doing my job, boss,” Eva answered.
    “I think you’re worried about me; that’s what I think. I’m touched.”
    “Maybe it’s not you I’m worried about. Did you ever think of that?”
    Barnabas glanced upstairs. “The lumberjack? I didn’t know you could be swayed by a nice pair of pecs. I’m a little disappointed in you.”
    She pumped the Golden Flavoring all over the popcorn. “Hey, the heart wants what it wants.”
    The tall man, whose gray hair hung wildly about his head, stuck his hand out, waiting for the change. Barnabas could see, on his wrist, the rotting sores of infection. Without missing a beat, Barnabas swooped down and grabbed his samurai sword from behind the concession stand.
    The tall man saw him move, though. He reacted with a swiftness that startled Eva. He grabbed her arm and yanked her over the glass counter, pressing her body close to his, using it as a shield.
    When Barnabas came up with the sword, he was confronted with Eva’s startled expression over the tall man’s arm wrapped around her throat.
    “Well played,” Barnabas said to the tall man.
    The tall man just grunted. He glanced back at the theater.
    “You want to get back there, don’t you?” Barnabas said to him. “That’s where the people are. That’s where the action is. OK. Fine. But you’ll have to go through me first.” He hefted the sword the way he’d seen it done in a thousand movies. It felt good. It felt real.
    But instead of rushing him and obligingly impaling himself on the sword, the tall man thrust Eva forward toward the point of the blade. Barnabas pulled it aside just in time and she stumbled into him, knocking him off his feet.
    Eva sprang up just as the tall man leaped over the counter and pulled the popcorn machine over, making it crash across the doorway into the theater, effectively blocking that way out. She dodged around and ran up the stairs. The tall man brushed stray popcorn kernels off his suit, looked at Barnabas lying on the floor, then turned and