Moving Pictures - Terry Pratchett [113]
Supposing there was somewhere reality was a little thinner than usual? And supposing you did something there that weakened reality even more. Books wouldn’t do it. Even ordinary theater wouldn’t do it, because in your heart you knew it was just people in funny clothes on a stage. But Holy Wood went straight from the eye into the brain. In your heart you thought it was real. The clicks would do it.
That was what was under Holy Wood Hill. The people of the old city had used the hole in reality for entertainment. And then the Things had found them.
And now people were doing it again. It was like learning to juggle lighted torches in a firework factory. And the Things had been waiting…
But why was it still happening? He’d stopped Ginger.
The film clicked on. There seemed to be a fog around the picture throwing box, blurring its outline.
He snatched at the spinning handle. It resisted for a moment, and then broke. He gently pushed Bezam off his chair, picked it up and hit the throwing box with it. The chair exploded into splinters. He opened the cage at the back and took out the salamanders, and still the film danced on the distant screen.
The building shook again.
You only get one chance, he thought, and then you die.
He pulled off his shirt and wrapped it around his hand. Then he reached out for the flashing line of the film itself, and gripped it.
It snapped. The box jerked backward. Film went on unreeling in glittering coils which lunged at him briefly and then slithered down to the floor.
Clickaclick…a…click.
The reels spun to a halt.
Victor cautiously stirred the heap of film with his foot. He’d been half expecting it to attack him like a snake.
“Have we saved the day?” prompted Gaspode. “I’d appreciate knowing.”
Victor looked at the screen.
“No,” he said.
There were still images there. They weren’t very clear, but he could still make out the vague shapes of himself and Ginger, hanging onto existence. And the screen itself was moving. It bulged here and there, like ripples of a pool of dull mercury. It looked unpleasantly familiar.
“They’ve found us,” he said.
“Who have?” said Gaspode.
“You know those ghastly creatures you were talking about?”
Gaspode’s brow furrowed. “The ones from before the dawnatime?”
“Where they come from, there is no time,” said Victor. The audience was stirring.
“We must get everyone out of here,” he said. “But without panicking—”
There was a chorus of screams. The audience was waking up.
The screen Ginger was climbing out. She was three times normal size and flickered visibly. She was also vaguely transparent, but she had weight, because the floor buckled and splintered under her feet.
The audience was climbing over itself to get away. Victor fought his way down the aisle just as Poons’ wheelchair went past backward in the flow of people, its occupant flailing desperately and shouting, “Hey! Hey! It’s just getting good!”
The Chair grabbed Victor’s arm urgently.
“Is it meant to do this?” he demanded.
“No!”
“It’s not some sort of special kinematographic effect, then?” said the Chair hopefully.
“Not unless they’ve got really good in the last twenty-four hours,” said Victor. “I think it’s the Dungeon Dimensions.”
The Chair stared intently at him.
“You are young Victor, aren’t you,” he said.
“Yes. Excuse me,” said Victor. He pushed past the astonished wizard and climbed over the seats to where Ginger was still sitting, staring at her own image. The monster Ginger was looking around and blinking very slowly, like a lizard.
“That’s me?”
“No!” said Victor. “That is, yes. Maybe. Not really. Sort of. Come on.”
“But it looks just like me!” said Ginger, her voice modulated with hysteria.
“That’s because they’re having to use Holy Wood! It…it defines how they can appear, I think,” said Victor hurriedly. He tugged her out of the seat and into the air, his feet kicking up mist and scattering banged grains. She stumbled along after him, looking over her shoulder.
“There’s another one trying to come out of the screen,” she said.
“Come