Michael’s private viewing of The Scarlet Pimpernel was interrupted by bright, strobing lights and loud screams of terror from below. He leaned forward and pressed his pudgy face against the glass and looked out into the theater. The seats below were filled with teenagers who had cut their teeth on movies that he hadn’t watched until they came out on video because he was too scared to sit in a dark theater to watch them (much safer to sit at home with all the lights on), teenagers who laughed at the reruns when Jamie Lee Curtis fought off Michael Myers in that horrible hockey mask.

For a moment, he couldn’t distinguish between the giant silver screen and the darkened theater filled with teenagers. His brain couldn’t process the image.

It wasn’t right.

It wasn’t normal.

The movie playing as loud and dark, very little color on the screen. Clouds of dust, swirls of dirt and screams that echoed. The image of a Viking-like man – but was it really a man? Not quite, thought Michael – a great giant of a man with a silver helmet that had two thick, curving horns coming out of it. His skin was leathery, dark and lined deeply. He was swathed in thick furs of animals and sat astride a beast like Michael had never seen before. It had the body of a bull and the head of a horse, with a thicker face than normal and wide nostrils that flared so that the blood red tissue inside showed. Its eyes rolled wild,whites showing around irises the color of the setting sun. The bull-horse galloped, thundering across the screen, as the Viking man snapped his whip at the people who cowered in front of him.