"WHO BRINGS A BABY?"

Ghoulish fiction from Clay McLeod Chapman

Hello, ghouls! Let’s end the weekend with a little extra touch of ghoulishness, what do you say? How about a short story by Clay McLeod Chapman about the ultimate movie theater nightmare?

This story is included in the debut issue of Ghoulish Tales, which is out now and available to purchase via our webstore, B&N, or Amazon. You can also SUBSCRIBE. Additionally, copies are in stock at our bookstore (Ghoulish Books, 9330 Corporate Drive, Suite 702, Selma, TX 78154).

And now, Clay McLeod Chapman’s Ghoulish Tales contribution. Stay tuned after the story for an exclusive interview with the author.

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“WHO BRINGS A BABY?”

by Clay McLeod Chapman

What kind of parent brings their baby to a horror movie? A nine o’clock screening on a Monday night, no less… If you can’t afford a sitter, then I’m sorry, you shouldn’t shell out fifteen bucks for a flick. Put that money aside for this kid’s therapy bills, which will no doubt be coming, thanks to mom and dad dragging their child’s diapered ass to some slasher rehash and ruining the movie for the rest of us.

Remember when theaters used to be a sacred space? Holy temples for celluloid? The point is to immerse yourself in the filmgoing experience. The world outside the cineplex simply melts away as soon as the lights go down. You are now lost in that tenebrous cosmos, your very soul elevating itself out of your body, drifting along with everyone else from the audience and entering that vast expanse of the silver screen, as if the pearly gates just opened up to us all.

We go for that cinematic rapture.

But now we have cell phones to contend with. Texting and blooping and bleeping all through the movie. Once I was forced to listen to some preteen drama queen prattle on with her gal pal from the seat behind me, gossiping over the phone rather than watch the movie we all paid to see—that I paid to see. Why piss over the film for the rest of us? I shouted over my shoulder so that everyone in the theater could hear. Why not just stay at home, young lady? Netflix and chill out somewhere else? Do something—anything—other than step into my temple and blather on about whose boyfriend is cuter than whose during my cinematic sermon.

Guess who received their own round of applause from the audience after sending that girl out of the auditorium in tears?

Someone needs to protect this hallowed space from unruly customers. Someone needs to hold the line. The very integrity of the filmgoing experience is at stake and if you won’t risk your life to defend it, then what in God’s name is the point of going to the movies anymore?

But nothing—I mean nothing—desecrates a film quite like listening to the four alarm fire of some wailing baby overtake an entire auditorium. Sound carries differently in a theater. It doesn’t matter where you sit: if your kid is bawling in the back row, we’re all going to hear it. 

Case in point: Tonight, less than ten minutes into the film, I sense this sniveling infant from somewhere deep in the darkness. I can’t pinpoint the exact location. The whimpering is coming from somewhere in the rear of the theater. It begins with a chainsaw sputter, just a few tugs from this kid’s lungs, like yanking back on the pull-chord of a power tool. But once that wet engine gets revving, I know in my bones this little bastard is going to roar all through the movie.

Where is it? I peer over my shoulder to try pinpointing this family. All I see are the silhouettes of heads. The theater is practically empty, save for a few scattered shadows. No bouncing baby bopping along in the darkness, even if I can hear it. Am I the only one bothered by its staccato sobbing? It’s only growing in volume now, gaining momentum with every clenched breath. At a certain point, just as a courtesy, you’d think mom or dad might heft their newborn foghorn into the lobby. Just don’t, you know, stay. Don’t sit in your seat and act like nothing’s happening, nothing wrong here at all, as your kid shrieks and shrieks and shrieks.

Who’s following the storyline anymore? I certainly can’t. Is anyone paying attention to the movie? I could alert the manager and complain, but that pimple-faced excuse for a spine won’t do more than stutter through some scripted excuse for a scolding. They never do a thing.

No, I’ll take matters into my own hands. I’ll answer that baby with my own battle-cry:

Sssh! I hiss over my shoulder. That should do it. Loud and clear. I’m completely anonymous here. Mom and dad will never know it was me, sitting in the third row, second from the aisle, but they’ll know that we the people of this movie theater have collectively spoken.

 But this baby…

It won’t stop bawling. Jesus, how big are this kid’s lungs? The sound of its crying expands and contracts, eclipsing everything onscreen. We’ve now entered a new phase of wailing—short, glottal retorts that pepper the theater in these auditory depth charges. If this were a war movie, I’d imagine the crying was just another sound effect. But no—these sonic hand grenades are coming from behind me, blasting at my ears. Total surround sound.

So I do what any rational-minded moviegoer would do. I simply turn to the back of the theater and shout: Some of us are trying to watch the movie! That’ll shut it up. Take that, tyke!

But this baby…

Now the crying is closer. Where the hell are they? It’s as if the fam has moved forward a few rows, just to mess with me. Toy with me. The blackened space compresses itself so it now sounds like that caterwauling kid is sitting in the row right behind me, bawling just at my back.

Over my shoulder.

At my neck.

Something nicks my left ear. Just the slightest slice over the lobe. It stings, my shoulder springing up in a defensive reflex. There’s a warm trickle dribbling down the length of my neck.  

I’m bleeding. How am I bleeding?

This baby…

Now the crying creeps into my right ear. There’s a thin wriggle against the lobe and I can’t help but imagine a worm working its way through the canal. I turn in time to catch a passing glance at a pale, pudgy pinkie finger reeling back into the blackness behind me.

Now the crying comes from up front. In the aisle. The baby just won’t stay still. I can’t nail down the sound anymore. It’s everywhere and nowhere all at once, circling around me.

Closing in.

Something brushes against my right ankle, slicing through my sock. Both my legs pitch upwards as I scream, sending popcorn into the air.

Sssh! Other audience members hiss back, as if I’m the problem. But there’s something strange about the timber to it. It doesn’t sound like a pissed off patron. They’re mocking me.

Somebody help, I shout. But no one answers. Searching the theater, I notice none of the silhouettes I’d spotted before are there anymore. Where did everyone go? Everyone else in the audience has disappeared… if they were even there at all. A very cold thought enters my mind: What if those shadows weren’t actually people? What if I’ve got the whole theater to myself?

I plunge into the row of folding seats. Old soda seeps through my pants. Or maybe it’s blood. I’ve got a good view of the floor now, covered in candy wrappers and shriveled popcorn.

I’m going to wait for that baby. This time, I’ll see it coming. This time, I’ll be ready.

Where is it where is it where is it where… I hear the soft pads of its paws peeling off the sticky floor, all covered in coagulated cola, but I can’t see it. Where is it where is it where…

The vaguest shape slips past me. An albino flash. Was that a rat? Are there mice in the movie theater? It’s not too late to escape. I can just crawl into the aisle and run for the exit.

Where is it where…

There! A pair of eyes glint in the dark, as gleaming as the silver screen. It’s a baby alright, crawling on its hands and knees, but not like any newborn I’ve ever laid eyes on before. I don’t think this child has ever seen the sun in its entire life. Its skin is practically translucent, mottled in multicolored tumors. The cysts shimmer in the dim glow cast from the movie projector.

Wait—those aren’t tumors. Those are Jujubes. That gelatinous candy that always gets caught in your molars. Teens toss them at the screen to see if they’ll stick, but this pustulating infant is covered in them. A rainbow-hued leper. There’s a speckling of stale popcorn flecking its limbs, nodules of kernels clustered across its shoulders, like lopsided vertebrae all over its back.

The baby’s blistered lips—Do I still think this is a baby?—are dusted in white nonpareils—those are Sno-Caps—and I can’t help but think it’s erupting in abscesses.

Something slashes the backside of my hand. I cry out in pain and the crowd hisses, Sssh! But it’s not coming from the audience. There is no audience. This is an imitation of a shush, a cruel mimicry of my own hiss getting echoed back at me… and it’s coming from all around. Sssh!

There’s another baby in the aisle now.

And another.

Their eyes are silver, as blinding as the screen itself. I count three of them—no, make that four—five—each scabbed in candy from the concession stand, Swedish Fish and Mike & Ikes and Junior Mints and Raisinettes and Goobers and Skittles and Gobstoppers and M&Ms…

There was never just one.

They’re closing in on me now, slowly crawling across the floor on their hands and knees, each inch forward punctuated with the tacky peeling of their skin.

They’re not crying anymore.

Oh God, they’re giggling.

Sssh… Sssh… Sssh…

This theater was never my temple… It’s their hunting ground.

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Read the other stories in Ghoulish Tales Issue #1 HERE.

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A GHOULISH INTERVIEW WITH CLAY MCLEOD CHAPMAN

Is there an origin story you can share for “Who Brings a Baby?”

I’m not gonna lie… I remember going to a 11 PM screening of Halloween (2018) and there was a baby wailing away somewhere in the theater. I remember thinking to myself, “Man, that kid’s going to be dealing with some trauma”—and then I felt like a total jerk because babysitters cost money and if finances aren’t on your side, you just might have to take your infant to the movies.

Then I tried to remember how old I was when I first saw Halloween (1978) and I had to’ve been young. Like really young. Not like baby young, but like five or six years old. And it messed me. So who am I to complain?

But I remember in the moment, the entire audience just completely turned on this mother. It was awful. It started off with the “shushing” stuff, and then when that didn’t work, people started shouting “Get that baby out of here” and so on… and then this mother started shouting back! “Mind your damn business!” Suddenly, there was this shouting match in the theater between patrons, all while this baby wailed away and Michael Myers was slashing onscreen.

Have you had any particularly terrible movie theater experiences you can tell us about?

So in the 8^th grade Brandon H. wanted to fight me because he thought I said something about his girlfriend (I hadn’t). Me and my friends Andy and Andrew were at the Chesterfield Towne Center to see The Gate II and in walks this other guy named Andrew, who was Brandon’s lieutenant, and he was all like, “Yo, you got to fight Brandon now…” But we’d only watched thirty minutes of The Gate II! But me, Andy and Andrew had to follow Andrew out of the theater and leave the mall so I could fight with Brandon in the parking lot behind 17^th Street Surf Shop. Neither of us knew how to fight so we ended up just kind of slapping each other.

Let’s flip it. What’s the best theater experience you’ve had?

This is a little vain, forgive me… but when my first feature film I wrote—The Boy (2015)—premiered at SXSW, and I got to go to Austin and be in the theater with a sold out crowd and see my name pop up on the big screen was just… just like the best feeling in whole wide world.

What’s your go-to theater snack?

As a kid, it was Junior Mints. But they had to be chilled. What a dick move, right? But when Junior Mints are too warm, they’re too soft! They get squishy and melty too quickly. If your movie theater is not air conditioned, you are so screwed when it comes to Junior Mints.  

Let’s say someone adapts your story into a film, and you get the responsibility of casting the titular baby. Who’s playing that baby? And what kind of performance directions are you giving them?

In my head, I’ve always had both the animated dancing baby from Ally McBeal and the baby from Larry Cohen’s It’s Alive! cast as the titular baby… My direction: Once more with feeling!

Any final words you’d like to share about “Who Brings a Baby?”

I’m really happy people are returning to the movies for that magical theatrical experience! Be nice to parents who can’t afford babysitters! We’re all trying to figure this world out together!

Please use this space to promote anything else you might have coming out that our ghouls should be excited about.

I’ve got a new novel called WHAT KIND OF MOTHER coming out in September that I’d really love for folks to check out: https://bit.ly/3xIZMDV And if you get into that one, the book before was called GHOST EATERS and that’s a spooky one too: https://bit.ly/3nasNTA

Plus I’ve got a website that I’m trying to keep up-to-date:

https://claymcleodchapman.com/

Thanks again for having me on to chat about spooky stuff!

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ABOUT CLAY MCLEOD CHAPMAN

Clay McLeod Chapman writes books, comic books, children's books, and
for film/TV. You can find him at www.claymcleodchapman.com.