B-Movie War by Alan Spencer

grabbing the ticket for me…”
    Tony put his hand under the Plexiglas window to grab the ticket. After he accepted it, the old woman said, “If you enjoy the movie, you should clap after the show. Here, take these with you. You’ll need them.”
    She handed him two severed hands bleeding at the wrist.
    Within eyeshot of the ticket seller’s booth, Mr. Ratchet offered the man in his mid-twenties two hundred bucks to get on his knees and stick his head in the guillotine slot. The guy’s friends, each of them good and inebriated from an evening of shooting pool and guzzling cheap pitchers at a local pub, were cheering him on. “Yeah, Mickey. Show ’em how it’s done. Show ’em you got balls of steel.” The sexy woman dressed in fishnets and a tight red bodice helped Mickey down onto his knees and eased his head in the guillotine slot.
    Mr. Ratchet asked Mickey, “You comfortable in there?” He held the string that suspended the blade. “When your head falls in the basket, blink if you’re still alive.”
    He released the rope.
    The blade lopped Mickey’s head off. Mickey’s friends screamed in horror. Mr. Ratchet checked the head in the basket. “Well, he’s not blinking. Must be dead.”
    He stuffed two hundred dollar bills into Mickey’s back pocket. “Well, as I promised. Two hundred big ones. Who’s next, folks?”
    â€œLadies and gentlemen, my name is Gideon, your guide to grand illusion.”
    The crowd watched the magician dressed in a purple silk shirt and black leather pants dance about juggling flaming cards from one hand to the other, then making them poof into dust.
    â€œI won’t patronize you with gags from kids’ books.” Gideon unhooked his left hand from the wrist with a click and gave it to a middle aged woman. “Feels real, doesn’t it?”
    Startled at the way the hand felt warm, the woman declared, “Yes, it feels real. But how did you do that? How does it feel so real?”
    â€œThat’s because it is real, ma’am.”
    Gideon clicked his hand back into the wrist. “No tricks of light, no diversion tactics…here, you look like a brave guy. Why don’t you try on this straightjacket?” Gideon snapped his fingers twice and poof , down came a straightjacket as if it dropped from the sky. Snapping his fingers again twice, the jacket strapped itself to the guy who was wearing a Green Bay Packer’s jersey.
    â€œWow! Neat trick, guy. Where’s the strings?”
    â€œI’ll coach you how to escape the straightjacket of doom.”
    The crowd cheered the Packer’s guy on.
    â€œBut first, let us tighten those straps a tad…”
    Snapping his fingers twice, the straps tightened so hard, the blood forced to his head made the man’s brains pop out of his skull.
    Packers guy dropped to his knees with the base of his skull textured with brains.
    â€œWho’s next?” Gideon asked the crowd. “I promise it’ll work right the second time, folks.”
    Sarah Hatterfield was ready to visit her beloved theatre for the last time before it would close down forever. Beside the front entrance was a table where a woman dressed as a construction worker greeted her. On top of the table were six plastic buckets. There was a hole cut out of the tops.
    The construction woman said, “Guess what’s in the bucket, you win fifty dollars. Easy money, if you’re a good guess.”
    Sarah loved theatrics. She was lured into the gimmick without having to think about it. Her sister was in the “stick your head in the guillotine” for two hundred dollars line, but that line was so damn long, she decided to take a look around inside the theatre instead. And that’s when she came upon this booth.
    The construction worker said, “Stick your hand in, kiddo. Fifty dollars for the correct guess.”
    Sarah decided to go