The Xinkalan Theatre was located in the old district and had been around for a long time. When it was built, private cars werenât yet widespread, so the theaterâs parking lot was small, and securing a spot inside required a bit of luck. Outside the theater, other old buildings also had limited parking, so if you missed the internal lot, you had to park far away.
Rebecca had learned this the hard way. Thanks to her prior warning, Everly and Old John, whose biological clocks were very regular, woke up early on Saturday morning and drove to the Xinkalan Theatre.
The theater wasnât open yet. Luckily, since Everly was there as a volunteer, the security guard at the entrance casually let her and Old John in after she explained the situation.
The easygoing Black guard told Everly and Old John that Susanna, the artistic director in charge of volunteers, hadnât arrived yet. They could enter the theater and wait inside, then gather at the entrance at the appointed time.
âGot it, thank you!â
Old John waved at the guard and, following the signs, parked his car in the lot on the east side of the theater. Just as they had heard, the parking lot was quite shabbyâroughly a hundred spacesâand the spaces were generally small. Old Johnâs Ford Mustang Jeep took up 1ÂŒ spots.
Limited spaces and small dimensionsâthis was a common problem in Americaâs older parking lots.
The Xinkalan Theatre itself wasnât very large. It had only one performance hallâthe two-story circular building directly facing the main entrance.
After getting out of the car, the grandfather and granddaughter followed the signs, walked along the internal road, and entered the waiting hall through a small door on the east side of the performance building.
The hall was semi-circular with a high ceiling, divided into functional areas: ticket counters, snack and souvenir shops, seating for waiting audience members, and a baggage check area. On both the left and right sides of the hall were spiral staircases leading up to the second-floor boxes.
This was where Everly would later gather as a volunteer.
There were still forty minutes until the scheduled time. The hall was completely empty, and the lights were off. Areas away from the windows looked pitch black.
Everly and Old John searched for a bit, found the theaterâs internal emergency evacuation map, snapped a quick photo with their phones, and then crossed the edge of the waiting and queuing area to continue inward, pushing open the door to the performance hall.
Horror Movie Survival Rule Three: always check the escape routes beforehand.
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Even if itâs not a horror scenario, this is never a bad habit in real life.
The performance hall was brightly lit.
The theater troupe had already arrived and were familiarizing themselves with the stage, practicing their movements. The stage lights shone brightly, music flowed, and the actors, dressed in colorful costumes, moved back and forth with expressive faces, focused and fully immersed in rehearsal. The combination of lights, music, and visuals was dazzling.
Everly and Old John casually found seats in the front row, watching the rehearsal while they waited. Over time, more volunteers arrived, taking seats in the hall just like Everly, waiting for their shifts. Among them, Everly unexpectedly ran into Misha, her classmate from elementary school.
In her memory, Misha had been a slightly short and chubby, shy little girl. In just three years, she had grown into a slim, graceful, and beautiful young woman.
All Lemot townspeople held a special admiration and closeness toward the four heroes who had once saved the town. Seeing Everly, Misha was unusually happy and immediately approached her, asking what her responsibilities were. Using her strong social skills, Misha quickly swapped positions with a boy responsible for maintaining the main floor order, moving into the same inner-floor team as Everly.
âThis way we can work together all day today,â Misha said, smiling as she sat back down next to Everly.
Everly nodded but said nothing.
After waiting at the front of the stage for more than half an hour, the scheduled gathering time finally arrived. Everly said goodbye to Old John and went with Misha and the other volunteers to the lobby to receive training from the artistic director, Susanna.
At this point, there were still 20 minutes before the theater doors opened and 40 minutes before the first performance began. Events like this were rare in a small city. Even through the closed lobby doors, they could already see people lining up outside the theater entrance.
Everly and Misha knew each other and were assigned to the northwest section of the first-floor auditorium. They stood one in front of the other along the aisle, responsible for stopping audience members if they made loud noises or stood up and blocked othersâ view. Old John had originally been seated in the best central seat in the front row, but seeing the situation, he took the initiative to move and sat closer to Everly.
After waiting a while longer in the performance hall, a buzzing murmur rose from the entrance. Guided by the volunteers and theater staff, the audience began entering early.
Everly wasnât responsible for ushering, so she had nothing to do for the moment. Leaning against Old Johnâs seat, she chatted idly with her grandfather while absentmindedly observing the audience filing in from outside. When her gaze swept over a thin figure dressed entirely in black with a hood pulled up, she froze.
A familiar sense of unease and fear surged over her like a tide, drowning her. Her fingers tightened abruptly around the back of the chair, her whole body tremblingâas if someone had shoved her, drenched in sweat in the height of summer, into a bottomless ice cavern.
Danger! That person is dangerousâshe had to leave immediately!
Everly stared hard at the figure. There were people blocking her view from front and back, so she couldnât see clearly. She could only vaguely make out a backpack slung over the personâs shoulders, bulging as if stuffed with something unknown.
It definitely couldnât be anything good⊠This was the downside of a small-city theaterâthere was no security check at the entrance!
Everly strongly suspected the backpack contained some kind of lethal weapon. Forcing herself to stay calm, she bent down and reported the situation to Old John. Grandfather and granddaughter hesitated briefly between subduing the suspect immediately or retreating firstâand chose the latter.
First, they didnât know what kind of weapon was inside the hooded personâs backpack. If it was only cold weapons, that would be one thingâbut if it was something like sulfuric acid or a bomb, rushing in to fight would be practically suicidal. Second, there were simply too many people in the theater. Even now, a steady stream of people was pouring in through the entrance. In such an environment, if a fight suddenly broke out, it could easily cause panic, leading to a crush or stampede. More people might end up dead.
So Everly pretended she needed to use the restroom. She and Old John left their seats one after the other and moved against the flow of the crowd toward a small door on the west side of the auditorium. This door led to the restrooms located on either side of the hall. Since admission was free for the entire venue today, the door hadnât been locked.
On the way, they passed Misha. Everly raised a finger to her lips in a gesture for silence, then tugged at her arm. After the cockroach disaster, the townspeople of Lemot had complete trust in the four heroes. Everly didnât need to explain anythingâMisha immediately understood. Pretending she had something to share with her good friend, she followed behind Everly and Old John, leaving the lively auditorium with them.
Most of the audience was still crowded at the main entrance waiting to get in, and the side corridor of the lobby was currently empty. As soon as they stepped out of the hall, Everly quickened her pace, almost breaking into a run toward the exit.
âWhatâs wrong? What happened, Everly?â Misha hurried to catch up, lowering her voice as she asked.
Everly tilted her head and glanced at Old John behind her. He was holding up his phone, speaking in a low voice to the police station. Since they couldnât handle this themselves, the first thing to do was, of course, to call the police.
As a former police detective, Old John knew very well how American police operated. If you didnât make the situation sound serious, they wouldnât treat it seriously. So right from the start, he dropped a bombshellâtelling the Micano police dispatcher that a dangerous individual carrying a bomb had appeared at Xinkalan Theater, and that they needed to send additional officers to investigate. He also gave a rough description of the suspect: dressed in black, wearing a hood, and carrying a backpack.
When Misha heard Old Johnâs words, she immediately shuddered in fright.
âDonât be scared. We just need to leave quicklyâŠâ Everly reassured her, gently patting the girl on the shoulder.
âMm.â Misha nodded, becoming even more alert as she followed closely behind Everly.
The three of them came out through the west-side corridor and were met with a vast, tightly packed crowd. The outer waiting lobbyâand even the stretch from the lobby to the theaterâs main entranceâwas filled everywhere with people who had come to watch the performance.
Everly understood the spectacle well. After all, Micano was relatively geographically isolated, and large-scale events like this were rare. Not to mention that the troupe performing this time was the fairly well-known âPipe Theater Companyâ from Yonah State. In the minds of Americans, Yonah State held a status similar to that of Paris in the hearts of the Frenchâa synonym for fashion and trendiness. As a result, nearly half the residents of Micano had been stirred into action, swarming toward Xinkalan.
The performance hall wasnât full yet. The audience had formed three lines and, under the guidance of volunteers and theater staff, were filing into the hall one after another. Everly had originally been considering whether to send some kind of signal to get people to leave before they enteredâbut soon, within the waiting crowd, she spotted several more people dressed in black with hoods pulled up.
Their attire was identical to the hooded figure inside the auditorium. If not for the differences in body build, she would have almost thought the one inside had mastered the art of cloning himself.
Although her sense of danger didnât react when she saw these people, that didnât mean they were safe. When facing multiple related sources of danger, her warning ability sometimes only triggered once. To be cautious, Everly quickly abandoned the idea of giving any alert. Together with Misha, she moved ahead, parting the surrounding crowd to clear a path for Old John behind them.
With theater staff uniforms on, this step went relatively smoothly.
After forcing their way through the crowd, the three finally reached the entrance of the performance building and stood on the steps. Everly looked up and saw that, across the internal road separating it from the performance building, seven or eight hooded figures dressed in black had, at some point, taken up scattered positions near the theaterâs main gate.
All of them were dressed exactly the same. And just as Everly was debating whether to pretend she hadnât seen anything and slip out through the main gate, the hooded figures seemed to receive some kind of signal. In unison, they pulled back their hoods, revealing animal masks of various kinds beneath.
âWhatâs this, are they actors from the theater?â Everly heard a passerby mutter.
But they were obviously not actors.
Under the stunned gaze of the security guard, a black-clad figure wearing a rabbit mask strode quickly to the security booth. From behind his waist, he drew a handgun fitted with a silencer. Before the guard could react, he raised the gun and fired a shot at the manâs head.
There was a dull âsplatterâ as thick blood sprayed out, staining the security boothâs window. Because of the angle, however, the people at the theater entrance did not notice the tragedy unfolding there.
At that moment, they were instead puzzled by why this group of hooded figuresâwho had appeared out of nowhereâwere closing the wrought-iron gate at the theater entrance.
âHey, you! Didnât you say the theater would be free for a week? Why are you closing the gate?â A middle-aged man who had just been about to enter found the gate suddenly shut in front of him. His face darkened as he raised his voice in complaint.
The masked figures said nothing. They turned their heads, their hidden faces meeting each otherâs gaze beneath the animal masks. Then one of them, wearing a goat mask, pulled back the bolt and opened the tightly shut iron gate just a crack, stepping aside to signal the middle-aged man to come in.
âThatâs more like it. How can you refuse customers in broad daylightâŠâ
The man grumbled as he stepped through the gate. The moment his front foot touched down inside, he heard a loud clang behind himâthe iron gate, which had just been open, slammed shut again.
Not only that, but a masked figure wearing an eagle mask took a lock from a pouch at his waist and, with a sharp click, secured the iron gate.
âHey, hey! Why does only he get to go in? We want to see the performance too!â
Behind the middle-aged man stood a couple. They had intended to enter together with him, but were roughly blocked outside. Instantly indignant, they began pounding on the iron gate and shouting.
Their cries froze in their throats almost at once.
In the next second, the masked figures surrounding the middle-aged man all lowered their heads in unison, looking down at the short, heavyset man as they revealed the weapons hidden behind their waists.
An axe. A hammer. A sickle. A daggerâŠ
The middle-aged man didnât even have time to let out a scream before one of the masked figures struck him down with an axe to the head. The others rushed forward with their weapons. Within moments, the man on the ground was reduced to a mangled, blood-soaked corpse.
âAaaahhhhhâ!â
The horrified scream came a beat too late, piercing the air at the theater entrance and tearing open the prelude to a massacre.