FICTION BY REBECCA CUTHBERT

Rebecca Cuthbert writes dark fiction and poetry. She loves ghost stories, folklore, witchy women, and anything that involves nature getting revenge. Her books include In Memory of Exoskeletons, Creep This Way, Self-Made Monsters, and Down in the Dark Deep Where the Puddlers Dwell. For more, visit HERE 

RESTORING THE EMPIRE REVIEW
by Rebecca Cuthbert

On Friday evening, Barbara walked through the derelict Empire Review theater, thinking again that she could hear whispers coming from the balcony and the backstage wings.

Nothing distinct—never distinct, and surely her imagination—she had been obsessed with the theater for so long that it became a living thing to her. She strained to listen, but the sibilant sounds faded, and all she heard was her own heartbeat—the whooshing of blood through her ears, breath held.

She let it out.

The Empire Review. Such a grand name for a place that had been left to crumble in one of Buffalo’s most forgotten neighborhoods.

But it would fall no further.

As head of the Historical Preservation Society, Barbara had worked hard for the past five years, and finally she did it! She secured enough money to begin restoration of this Queen City gem.

The board had been hard to convince. But weren’t they always? She’d stood before them in meeting after meeting in high-buttoned blouses and steel-gray pantsuits, the very picture of poise and fiscal logic, delivering her proposal: if they brought the Empire Review back to its original glory, it would jump-start a neighborhood renewal that would spread like wildfire, making the rust-belt city a waterfront tourist destination.

Now, in March of the year 2000, it was finally happening. Permits were signed. Funds were in the bank. Utilities had been turned on and work would start Monday.

Barbara ran her hand lovingly over the tattered upholstery of an aisle seat, like she was petting a favorite cat. “We did it,” she said aloud to the empty theater. She felt that the building responded to her. She shook her head, blaming tiredness as she looked at her watch, then put on her coat.

Her footsteps echoed as she crossed through the lobby, its marble floors dirty but intact. Next she shut off the lights, murmured “good night,” locked the door, and stepped out into the trash-strewn street.

Her happy sigh fogged the air around her like smoke.

*****

Monday morning, Alan dogged her steps, like always.

He was a good assistant—careful, meticulous. He kept the books, drew up the contracts and liaised with other city departments. That left her free to concentrate on what she loved best: the buildings the way they used to be, or at least the way she imagined them. Sometimes, historical records proved a place’s dignity. Other times, Barbara had to make something up to give a building the past she felt it deserved.

She never lied outright. She was a historian so truth was important. Just, perhaps, not all of it.
The little theater she’d fallen in love with had noble beginnings.

A community theater built in the early years of the twentieth century, it brought the flair of Europe to Buffalo: concerts and operas and dramas. But it failed in the late 1920s—the stock market crash didn’t spare Buffalo—and became something less worthy of acclaim; a performance space for bargain-rate burlesque shows and foul-mouthed comedians, and downstairs—the board could never learn of it—a bordello.

Barbara had only learned herself through donated family documents—the woman’s great-grandmother had been a performer, she’d found them in an old trunk, chittering like a squirrel to Barbara on the phone: Aren’t they fabulous? Look at those feathers! Those stage names! Lovely Letty and Sugarbum Sherly. A real find!

It had hurt Barbara to bury the photos and playbills in the back of her bedroom closet, but what else could she do? She’d never get a grant to restore a whorehouse.

Then there was the fire in ’36. Omitting the nature of the costumes and the various states of undress of the performers, Barbara told the embellished story during the tours she gave to potential donors and city officials. Everyone loved a tragedy.

“The fire started in the basement dressing rooms,” she’d say. “The records don’t say what started it. Maybe cigarette ash, falling onto a starlet’s gown? Maybe a knocked-over candle in a space without enough electric light? But whatever started it, the fire smoldered and filled the basement with smoke. The audience members, upstairs, along with the performers onstage, were able to get out. But anyone downstairs…” Here she would trail off, let the tour group listen for a moment to the theater’s silence. “They died here in this building.”

“Can we go down there?” someone would always ask, eyes shining. Morbid fascination was present in every group.

“I’m sorry,” Barbara would sigh. “Though the main floor of the Empire Review was mostly spared, the basement is in ruins. For safety reasons, we can’t bring groups down there.”

Then she’d give another fundraising push. “It’s your generosity and hometown pride that will allow us to restore the theater, including the basement’s prop storage and dressing rooms. There’s a jar in the lobby to help jumpstart our efforts; when you leave, if you’d be so kind as to drop in a dollar, we’d appreciate it so much.”

Whenever Barbara said “we,” she meant herself and the theater. Its seats and its aisles and its walls and its stage, a thing once alive, a thing she’d resurrect.

She never let herself think too long about its ghosts.

*****

“Barbie? What do you say?”

Alan broke into her thoughts. She’d been staring at the ceiling, imagining the intricate whorls and leaf designs that she’d see soon enough, when the builders got to repairing the plasterwork.

“I’ve said before, don’t call me that.” It made her think of the boys in high school, the reputation she’s earned when she wasn’t careful enough. She smoothed the front of her blouse, making sure it was still tucked in tight, and turned to Alan. “Now what were you asking me?”

“Tonight? Drinks to celebrate?” She blinked at him. He raised his eyebrows. “Getting the grant, starting restoration?”

“Maybe another time,” she said, her usual answer to his many invitations. “Too much to do.”

And so she went home alone, also as usual.

That night, when Barbara arrived at her apartment—a mansion-turned-condos on the west side—she was looking forward to a soak in her bathtub. She peeled off her suit jacket and blouse, trouser socks and pleated slacks, and walked into the bathroom barefoot.

Like the theater, she had her own suppressed past. Dubbed “Boobie Barbie” as an Ohio teenager by the boys she’d let touch them, she’d become someone new in college. A serious scholar. Turtlenecks and French twists. President of the history club. A bright future. Respect.

But beneath the tweed and herringbone, she was still a woman. A lonely one. She remembered that, sometimes—even got a little sad about it. But what was the alternative? Bars and singles clubs? Awkward blind dates set up by well-meaning friends? Alan?

No thank you. She’d rather be alone—though she wasn’t, really. She had her buildings.
And they had her.

She slipped off her lace undergarments. In the bath, she was once again covered, this time by bubbles.

*****

The rest of the week was almost euphoric.

Barbara stopped in at the theater each day and watched as damaged walls were opened up and mildew-stained carpets were torn out. Bit by bit, demolition was erasing the theater’s shame and dark days. Its depravation. What was left would be clean and bare, ready for renewal. A future as bright as the Empire Review’s first hopeful, glitzy years.

Another Friday night, and once more she stayed late. The workers had gone. The seats were all in a state of disassembly, stripped of their old fabric and dry-rotted cushions, armrests removed. Barbara turned down the house lights and sat on the edge of the stage, her feet hanging over the space where, way back when, a small orchestra would have played.

She closed her eyes: pictured red velvet seats, chandeliers, polished brass and two hundred and twenty-six sets of clapping hands.

“I can see it,” she whispered.

“See us,” a voice from behind her whispered back.

Barbara’s eyes flew open and she jumped off the stage, spinning around as she did, trying to face whoever had snuck up on her in the dark.

She landed hard. Fell. Her left ankle twisted painfully and she cried out, but the ghosts were silent.

She blinked and her heart hammered. Alan had told her twenty times that she needed to get a cell phone, but they were expensive and felt too modern, like something from a science fiction story. She should have listened to him; she could have called for help.

She tried to stand, to put weight on her ankle; the pain shocked through her and she fell again. With groping hands, she collected her purse and coat from the edge of the stage, pulled the fabric over her shoulders and hitched her purse across her body so it dug into her armpit.

Without a phone to summon help, she was forced to crawl up the aisle and toward the doors that led to the lobby. It was slow, she had to avoid debris, and she ruined her slacks by dragging her knees across the floor.

By midpoint, she decided she hadn’t heard any voice at all—it was her mind playing tricks. Maybe it was the chemicals fogging her perception—wood stripper and paint thinner, hundred-year-old glue steamed loose when they removed the bubbled damask-style wallpaper.

At the lobby doors, she pulled herself up, and supporting her weight with a hand against the wall. She limped to the main entrance. Hopping on one foot out on the sidewalk, she pried her keys from her pocket.

Just before she pulled the door closed, she thought she heard that voice again, following her into the night: “See us.”

*****

She drove to the hospital’s ER after she left the theater. Over the weekend, she rested and ignored Alan’s calls. Took Monday and Tuesday off. Most of Wednesday, too. But late in the afternoon around four, she found herself obsessing about the Empire.

Feeling much better, she gathered her crutches and took a cab to the theater. She wanted to see if the builders had closed up the walls yet.

They had, mostly. But she saw wood scraps lying in heaps: MDF. Pressboard. Engineered materials. Not what should be used in historical restoration—not what the contracts mandated.

Barbara’s mind spun. What was this? Construction fraud? Cheaping out on materials to make a better profit? She’d call Alan. They’d have to fire the company. They’d already paid thousands. They’d have to take the contractor to court. What a mess.

She made her way to the stairs on stage left, dropped her crutches, and sat down to think. Then suddenly, the lobby doors swung open.

“Alan!” she said. She sat up straighter. He didn’t need to see her as even remotely vulnerable.

“Barbie?” he called. He had a plastic smile on his face. “Thought you were taking the day off.”

“Well I was, but—”

“Didn’t see your car,” he said, walking closer, still with that frozen smile.

“I took a cab.” He was making her uncomfortable. “We need to talk about these building materials, they’re—”

“I know,” he said. “That’s why I’m here, too.”

“Good!” she said, relieved. “Because—”

“I stopped in to clear away the evidence before you saw it tomorrow.” He walked over to a pile of wood scraps and kicked it.

Realization made her heart pound. “Are you saying you knew about this? The contract…”

“The contract I wrote?”

“That money,” she breathed. “Alan, it’s for…”

“For your precious theater? Of course,” he said. His voice was different. Louder, mocking. “But I’m just skimming a bit. I deserve it. I do so much for you. Ask for so little. A drink now and then. A date. A chance to—”

“Wait. Alan.” She blinked, disbelieving. A shock on top of shock. “You’re stealing funds because I won’t go out with you? That’s—”

“Fraud? Lechery?”

“Sick.”

He shrugged.

“You’ll get caught. The inspection. And the builders know—”

“They’ll keep their mouths shut, because they got paid.” He laughed. “As for the inspection…like I said. I came to clean up any evidence.” He pulled a can of lighter fluid from his pocket and shook it. Barbara heard the liquid slosh.

Her mouth went dry. She tried to get up. Alan lurched forward, grabbed her crutches, and threw them across the stage. They bounced and then fell into the orchestra pit.

“The thing with new materials. You know what’s wrong with them, don’t you, Barbie? You, with your love of old buildings. Dreary, dead old buildings and nothing else.” He squirted lighter fluid onto a pile of MDF, along the floor, onto the seats behind him.

“No…” she said.

“Say it. Beg me.”

“Please don’t do this,” she whispered.

“That’s a great start!” Alan said. “So hey, Smarty-pants. People used to have about twenty minutes to get out of a burning building. And now?” He waited.

She swallowed a sob. “Two.”

“Two. And that’s for people who have complete mobility. I bet it’s longer for someone who needs crutches. Even longer for someone who needs crutches and doesn’t have them.” He dropped the lighter fluid, took matches from his pocket.

“Please don’t,” she said. “If you want me to beg you, I will. Please.”

“Too late, Teaser,” he said. “You had your chance. It’s too late, now. For both you and this shit-heap theater.”

“Alan…”

“Too bad no one knew you were here,” he said. “I’ll cry so hard when they tell me. Until then, bye Barbie.”

He struck a match and dropped it. Flames raced and jumped. Alan’s retreating figure disappeared behind a wall of fire.

She pushed herself back—up the steps, and then hopped onto the stage. There was an alley exit back there—she just had to get to it. No time to find her crutches.

The smoke turned black, got thicker. She coughed and got down to crawl, hoping to remain underneath the penetrating smoke that wafted overhead in billows. Her eyes streamed tears. She found the door and pushed.

It was stuck. Wouldn’t budge. Had Alan wedged it shut?

She sobbed, beat her fists against it.

Then, above the crackling fire that gobbled the ruined seats, voices. Whispers. Calling her name from center stage. “Barbara. Over here. Hurry. This way.”

She turned.

The trapdoor. It was open. Hands reached out: women’s hands, women’s bare arms. Barbara got closer; the hands grabbed, pulled her down and shut the door. In the dark, she could just make out their charred faces. She counted six.

“Do you see us now?” rasped a woman with a red-painted mouth.

“Do you see us?” said a blonde with a black eye.

Barbara trembled and shivered despite the heat. It couldn’t be real, yet there they were. The dancers. The dancers and sex workers who had died in the 1936 fire. The ones Barbara had lied about, erased from her stories. Erased from history.

Fear and smoke closed her throat, but she nodded. Her ankle throbbed. The women wrapped their arms around her and pulled her close. They stood in a huddle, surrounding her. Their cold bodies protected her from the creeping heat, the forgiveness in their embrace Barbara knew she didn’t deserve.

“I’m sorry,” Barbara mumbled. “So sorry.”

They held her tighter. She buried her face in the collarbone of a redhead with soot on her cheeks.

“Shhh, shhh,” they hushed her, and the scent of their mingled perfume cut through the smoke. She tried to breathe them in—these women who lived and died, whose stories mattered.

She took one last, smoke-filled breath, and was gone.

She’d died there beneath the stage.

The doctor explained it to her once she was well enough to talk, when she was conscious enough to listen. He said it like it was no big deal—dying, coming back. Getting a second chance at everything.

“How long?” she wheezed. “How long was I gone?”

“Moments,” he said. “Not more. Not enough to do any brain damage. Getting beneath the stage kept you from breathing in more smoke than you did. Smart. Then the EMTs brought you back in the ambulance. What do you remember?”

Barbara thought of the women. The ones who’d rescued her.

“I—” she started. How to explain? To say she didn’t save herself? But she couldn’t leave them out of any more stories. She took a shaky breath and said, “The women called to me. The dancers. They helped me.”

“Dancers?” The doctor raised his eyebrows. Smiled. Told her the nurses would be in later. He didn’t believe her. Fuck him. He didn’t have to.

Over the next several days, Barbara talked to police, to fire investigators, to city officials. Alan was gone, they told her. So were the funds from the Empire’s accounts. But there would be a little money from an insurance policy Barbara had set up herself, and the theater wasn’t a total loss—the interior walls had burned, and there was smoke and water damage, but the stage was intact and so was the lobby.

All Barbara heard was “salvageable.”

She healed, gained strength, then got to work: she scheduled interviews with The Buffalo News, with Channels Two and Seven, with local magazines. She dug out the documents she’d stashed: Sugarbum Shirley was the redhead. Lovely Letty, the blonde with the black eye.

Online searches and community pleas revealed the others: Lucy the Legs, Honey Lee, Saint Ira, Stella Star. She still needed most of their real names, but she’d find them. Birthdays, biographies. Favorite songs. Signature moves.

And when her research was complete, the fundraising would start. She’d call for help and Buffalo would answer. She’d rebuild the theater with her own hands, if she had to—using the right materials this time, of course.

*****

Another Friday night. Mid-May, and springtime woke the city up. Buds burst forth on the trees and all the dirty snow melted. There was a freshness to the air that made Barbara feel like skipping down the street, now that she no longer needed crutches.

Instead, she unlocked the entrance to the Empire and stepped in. She turned on a work light and aimed it at the largest wall in the lobby—the one right between the twin doors of the theater.
She smiled, sketching it out in her mind, overlaying the water-bulged plaster with her vision: a memorial, their names in lights again, no more shame, no more hiding: To the Women of the Empire Review.

“I see you,” she whispered into the shadows.

And soon everyone else would, too, because she would finally take the tourists into the basement to visit the ghosts.