Satan’s Drive - In
by Rex Hurst
The Earth had spun its course again that year and once more it was May 1st, the feast of Beltane. A day of relaxation and enjoyed in Satan’s unholy calendar, a sort of Labor Day for the undead. This year a great celebration was planned on the plains of Armageddo, a celebration of the monsters, the demons, and the demented. A space for them to put down their bloody axes and eat popcorn.
It was to be a drive-in movie experience of the damned - by invitation only. No expense was spared. A mile wide screen had been erected. The local officials bribed to look the other way, or killed if they objected. State-of-the-art sound system directed through tiny earpieces. A concession stand filled with junk food from all across the globe was provided. Satan himself would run the projector.
And they came. You bet they came. Creeps and critters, spirits and spooks, deadly hippies and frenzied cultists from the planet’s four corners and nine sub-basements. In beat-up vans, atop ominous herses, on bat’s wings, and ghostly boats, they all arrived. Happily settling down for the night’s entertainment, which they had been promised would be a unique experience for them all.
The devil, in the shape of the Goat of Mendes, towered above all smiling patiently, waiting for the assembled to gobble their fill of slimy hotdogs and limp fries. Once the sun fell, the movie would begin an the they would see,
“Something truly different,” the Devil bellowed, “beyond the scope of your existence. Something you would otherwise never experience.”
The film opens with a happy suburban family, blonde-haired and white-teethed, playing on the beach side. Mom, Dad, Sister, and Brother, happy together. The sea-monsters, and krakens, and semi-sentient sharks start to chortle. One of the little dainties will wander too far out, then snap, off with their legs. Or one of the brats would spot something shiny at the sea bottom and swim down to grab it, when a scaly arm or sucker-filled tentacle snakes and grapples the kid until they drown. Then the others will scream and cry delicious tears.
But no. The kids enjoy their little swim, encounter sea life no larger than a minnow, when their parents call them in to eat. Happily the family comes together. Ah ha! The crusty insane castaways, and salty sea-crones, and water demons, think. Here we go. Now, they’ll spot a message in a bottle with directions to a treasure, or a cursed ring, or a monkey’s paw. They take it and their lives are forever ruined by the family’s own avarice. Either they turn on each other or are granted wishes that they word poorly.
Again, no. What’s going on here? This is the wildest film the servants of Satan had ever been shown.
One by one each group’s guess is proven to be inaccurate. The cannibals and Sawney Bean rip-offs thought the take-out joint where the family eats would be run by their own kind and all the helpless ones would be force-fed long-pig and then harvested for their meat.
No.
The BDSM bikers and sadistic truckers figured the family station wagon would be driven off the road. Then compelled to commit unnatural acts and chased naked through the woods for sport.
No?
When the family arrived at their newly purchased house, all the spirits, and poltergeists, and ghosts of madmen sighed in relief. Of course the pale would be cursed. The old recipients wouldn’t be too keen on these interlopers and kill them, or sacer them out, or drive them insane.
No!
At the very least, there would be an old Ouiji board in the basement which one of the kids would play with and open their souls for demonic possession. The kid would steal a steak knife and do horrible things in the dark. All together now …
NO?!
Flabbergasted, the assembled couldn't tear their eyes from the screen. What was going to happen next? How would this family of normies be torn apart?
The kids were put to bed without a psycho bursting from the closet, or crawling up from under the bed, or a beloved toy now possessed by evil coming to life. Father and Mother went to bed. Father pulled off his socks, while Mother went about her ablutions.
The Mother emerged from the bathroom, now decked in a frilly pink nightie. Slowly, she danced towards her man. Swaying this way and that like a seductive snake. Coo-coo-ca-choo Mrs. Robinson. The sex perverts and serial killers and the lonely drowned resident of Camp Crystal Lake started to get riled up. Finally something for them.
How was she gonna get it? Before, during, after? A spear through both bodies. A fun decapitation when the wife was on top, and the man keeps going unawares, until her head falls on him? Or maybe the bed was one giant trap, and it would snap shut from the middle, crushing and suffocating the couple?
But no, by the time she reaches the bed and rubs her fingers across his chest hair, the Father has passed out, exhausted from the day's excursions. A few still held out hoped, she would smother him in his sleep or perform some voodoo ritual and castrate him, but again no. She simply rolled over, yawning a little herself, and turned off the light.
Nothing pounced then, or slowly emerged from the closet with glowing red eyes, or rose up from beneath the bed to enact some ancient revenge. The couple both began to snore lightly and the credits rolled.
Whoa, did not see that coming! What a twist ending.
The night was over and the film clipped off. The fiends and freaks and assorted monstrosities shuffled off, back to their dirty pits and dusty attics, their black lagoons and forgotten cities. Their heads abuzz with the strange visions they had seen that night. What a weird look at the world. Such things couldn’t be real.
Could they?
