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ticket stubs strewn on the floor and no bills lying
unattended. Another thought occurred to her then and she reached for a register
lying on the table. ‘Show timings’ was labeled on it and Melissa knew what she
would find even before she had opened it.
     
    The ticket seller had obviously
kept the register for his own record because the pages inside were written in
casual handwriting rather than printed neatly. She turned the pages to
yesterday’s show and frowned.
     
    There were no shows scheduled after
the afternoon show and the next show listed in the register was scheduled for
next week. She closed the register and put it back on the table. Everything was
planned, after all.
     
    The barricades, the police officer,
the shutting down of all the shops, restaurants and the theatres, had all been
carefully schemed and executed. The people in this city had waited patiently
for new visitors who wouldn’t know about the legend and then ‘feed them to the
wolves’- just the way Rafe had said. Only the gullible population hadn’t known
that who they thought were demons were only a group of cruel and adventurous
guys who enjoyed slaying innocents for their pleasure.
     
    “How could you Mark?” Melissa
sobbed. “How could I be so wrong about you?”
     
    She took several deep breaths to
calm herself down. This wasn’t the time to dwell on these things. She had to
find a way to escape. There was always a way out of any adversity.
     
    Melissa reached for the phone in
the ticket counter and put it up to her ear. No dial tone. She found herself
starting to cry again and slammed the phone down.
     
    Her head was starting to ache and
the theatre was getting hotter by the second. The power was out so she couldn’t
switch on the air conditioners and if she opened a window, the movement would
catch the attention of the riders who were next door to her.
     
    She crawled on the floor and peered
out the window, towards the restaurant where she had seen all the riders go in.
It was too quiet out there and she had half expected the riders to start
looking for her so that they could kill her. There weren’t a lot of places she
could hide, so why weren’t they looking for her?
     
    Melissa wiped a bead of sweat of
her forehead and rolled up the sleeves of her t-shirt. Her head was starting to
swim and although food was the last thing on her mind, she knew she would have
to eat and get some rest while she still could.
     
    She walked towards the snack
counter and picked up a candy bar. As she tore open the wrapper and started to
eat, her eyes scanned the sandwiches packed in plastic containers. The bread
looked too stale and since the refrigeration was off and the theatre was hot
and stuffy, the sandwiches would probably end up giving her food poisoning. She
wrinkled her nose as she saw the mayonnaise dripping into a small puddle inside
the container.
     
    She instead picked up a big packet
of chips and sat down on the floor, leaning her head against the counter. As
she bit on a sour and cream crisp, her mind started to race. Her first thought
was where Jennifer was. Mark had told her that he had found her alone on the
artificial land. But that was a lie. Jennifer was sleeping beside her, Fiona
beside Jennifer and Rafe on the other side.
     
    Melissa reached for a bottle of
water from the counter and uncapped. The water was as warm as the room was, but
nevertheless it quenched her thirst to some extent.
     
    The last thing she was going to do
was to believe Mark. He had lied to her and she could have lived with all his
faults, but how could she forgive him for killing Shane and Sara? Keith had
died because of him too. If he hadn’t concocted the whole tale about a ghostly
gang looking for revenge, the police wouldn’t have been too scared and helped
them all.
     
    Melissa gagged then and spit out
the morsel in her mouth. The sour cream and onion flavored crisp was starting
to nauseate her now, and the heat was now spreading all