...of enthral

She scrunches down in her seat, feeling a strange chill and wishing she'd brought along a sweater or something, not to mention some spare bluejeans and an extra pair of shoes. Her teeth start to chatter and her flesh goes all shivery, but it can't be that cold in here, probably its just nerves (she's never sat this close to one of these seats before, so to speak), so she tries to focus on the cartoon to calm herself down. But there's something odd. One of the animals has been twisted into a kind of coiled spring and is boing-boinging around in a way that usually has people hooting and yipping and rolling around in the aisles - but no one's laughing. No one's making any kind of sound whatsoever. She twists around uneasily and peeks over the back of her seat: the auditorium, lit only by the light from the projector, is full of people, all right, but they're all sitting stiffly in their seats with weird flattened-out faces, their dilated eyes locked onto the screen like they're hypnotised or dead or something. Uh oh. She reaches back and taps her friend to ask her what she thinks is going on, and her friend, jostled, slides lifelessly off the guy's lap onto the floor between the seats. There's a soft bump, clearly audible under the tinny whistle and crash up on the screen, the burlesque rattle up there as of things tumbling down a thousand stairs. The guy's not looking too great either, just sprawled out there with his cowboy hat down over his nose, his slobbery mouth hanging open, his belt buckle undone, his hand cupped rigidly around a skinny behind that isn't there anymore. She's about to let out a yell, when she feels this icy claw-like grip on her shoulder, and she can't even speak. The claw twists her around in her seat until she's facing the screen again and holds her there, peering up in the creepy silence at all that hollow tomfoolery and wondering how she's going to get out of this one. If how is the word. It's like some kind of spell, and there's probably a way to break it, but right now she can't think of it, she almost can't think at all: it's like that hoodoo behind her has stuck one of those bony fingers deep in her ear and pushed the "OFF" button. So what can she do, she stares up at the screen and pretends to watch the mayhem (one of the animals, having been pressed into an ice-cube tray, is now being emptied out in cubes: there are exaggerated pops and clunks as various bodily parts tumble from the tray), wishing only that she'd at least picked up that soft drink on the way in, or better yet, a tub of popcorn and a half-dozen chillidogs, it might be a long night. Like her friend would say, if she were still alive: "Sometimes, sweetie, you just have to hunker down, spread your cheeks, and let nature take its curse." Anyway, as far as she can tell, the claw only wants her to watch the movie, and, hey, she's been watching movies all her life, so why stop now, right? Besides, isn't there always a happy ending? Has to be. It comes with the price of the ticket...

[Intermission from A Night at the Movies: or, You Must Remember This, Coover, R.]