Magic at the drive-in

Rick was a misfit at school.

He was pretty nerdy, it is true, but there were other nerds and they had friendships. There were definite social circles in the school, but things were fairly friendly between them. Rick could have made friends, but was hampered by his overwhelming sense of utter superiority. It made it hard for him to enjoy other people, and for them to enjoy him.

Rick could have gotten involved with computers or chess or something with a club; that could have led to more socializing and even a potential career path, but that never happened. Instead he got into the occult. With the right coven, even the occult can be somewhat social, but in his case it wasn't.

It was the combination of Rick's superiority and his occult leanings that led Rick to the drive-in that night.

He had been having some minor success with divination and enchantment, but he wanted to do something bigger. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to create some mayhem. Not liking people may have increased his tendency toward the destructive, but also many of the source books he had been reading were relatively malevolent.

Orson Welles was an influence too. Rick knew the legends of the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast, and mass hysteria seemed appropriately big. That would make people take notice.

That also gave him the idea to capitalize on some kind of entertainment. An audience is already voluntarily submitting to the power of suggestion. If you could manipulate the suggestion - and exploit it - that should increase the impact.

It was October, and nearing Halloween. The drive-in theater was a popular hangout on weekends anyway, but this weekend there would be a horror movie featuring famous monsters. There wasn't an exact spell for what he had in mind, but there were enough similar ones that Rick believed he could adapt and create a ritual to make the horror real. That would do it. That would make for a night that everyone would remember.

Rick was off to a great start. It was a crisp fall night with a glorious moon. The football team had won their game the night before, so no one was moping or grounded. A night when everyone was free and wanted to be outdoors would really pack them in.

Rick arrived before the gates opened. There was some shrubbery along the back that provided him with ingress and shelter, and being in the back would give him an excellent view.

Obviously he needed to wait until the sun was down for maximum effect, and the movie should be well underway. It had to be after the dramatic tension was established and before it started to dissipate. Without having seen the movie before Rick had to guess, but really, it all seemed to work out. There they were on the screen: Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, and the Wolfman. Then there they were off the screen.

It had worked; now it was time for mayhem.

Dracula's main waking sensation was thirst, and he just happened to be situated near a car containing Jane Thompson.

Jane was an unusually tall girl. It was not currently fashionable to be quite that elongated, and she often felt awkward about it. Jane had never fully realized the elegance of her swan-like neck, but Dracula appreciated it right away.

Brett Cummings, the tallest member of the basketball team, had asked Jane out, and he was enjoying the height similarity. However, his metabolism was much faster, and this was already his second trip to the snack bar. That left Jane alone in Brett's convertible, convenient for the Count, but less so for Jane.

Dracula approached the car silently, stealthily. The maiden was completely unaware of his presence as he closed in on her, leering over her.

Rick never had time to understand the key shortcomings of his plan. The Frankenstein's Monster he'd conjured up was very literary, and thus obsessed with punishing his creator. Somehow he understood that in this case the responsible one was Rick, and not Dr. Frankenstein, but he still had all the resentment that he would have had against Dr. Frankenstein. The creature made a beeline for Rick, who got out a short scream just before the throttling began.

The Wolfman wasn't literary at all, but drawing from his movie roots he was tortured by his affliction. Seeing the full moon and finding himself once again clawed and fanged and hairy, he let out a howl of despair.

When Rick screamed, some heard it, but they were watching a scary movie and there had been little screams and gasps all along, so no one thought too much about it.

The howl was noticed. People turned and saw a wolf man in their midst, howling impressively. That was a shock. Now there were more screams and they were louder. What was going on?

Then there was the scream to end all screams. Jane may not have noticed Dracula sneaking up on her, but when he pounced it was impossible to ignore. Jane was a soprano in the choir; compared to Jane's scream Rick's was but a whimper. Every eye turned to Brett's convertible, and Dracula, bending over Jane's neck.

If the crowd hadn't been sure what the presence of the Wolfman meant, seeing Dracula there too made it obvious: this was the best movie promotion ever!

Everyone broke into a round of thunderous applause.

Rick's spell was based on the suspension of disbelief, but also on fear. The audience did believe in what they were seeing, but they believed it was actors and effects. As much as they loved it, they weren't afraid of it.

That ruined everything.

One moment the monsters were there, and the next they weren't. No one was quite sure where the monsters had gone, but that in itself just made it more amazing. It had all been carried off so smoothly!

It was the main topic of conversation for days. They shared details of where they had been parked, and what they saw. Almost everyone had seen both the Wolfman and Dracula. Some claimed to have seen Frankenstein attacking a guy, but the guy disappeared with them so he must have been in on it.

(And without Rick there, no one pedantically asked if they didn't really mean the monster that Dr. Frankenstein created, and not Frankenstein himself.)

They tried to find out more. Teens peppered the drive-in owner, Mr. Woolner, with questions about how he did it and whom he'd hired. The more he claimed ignorance of the entire thing, the more they thought he was a genius. Eventually his protests became less earnest, and more winking. "It was exciting, wasn't it? I can't tell you anything beyond that."

They asked Jane as well, and mostly believed her when she said she hadn't been in on the plan. It made her think, though. If the guy playing Dracula had picked her to be the victim - and she had seen so many beautiful victims in the movies - maybe she didn't need to worry so much. It raised regard for her, where both people who thought she was acting and those who didn't started thinking of her as more attractive. Jane was crowned homecoming queen just three weeks later.

It was fun to talk about through Halloween, but the excitement did die down. Homecoming, Thanksgiving, and then getting into Christmas kept everyone pretty busy. Life returned to normal in the way that it always does.

But there are also always some events that mean more, and stay with you more. That night was one of them.

In the rapidly approaching future, drive-ins were going to become much less popular, and yet that one thrived. The town had a fondness for it, and kept going back long after the other local drive-ins had closed down.

The night remained a golden memory - a legend of the town. Years later people would bring it up, "Do you remember?" After enough time had passed even people who hadn't been there would remember that they had.

Rick should have been proud, if he could have known.