"All right, we're here."
Bruce spotted the restaurant ahead, found a parking space, and pulled over.
The two of them had dinner, talked through a mix of work and personal topics, and by seven that evening they were standing inside an AMC theater.
AMC might have been the biggest exhibitor in the country, and one of the companies that defined the modern multiplex, but through Bruce's eyes, the place still felt dated. This location sat in one of the busiest parts of San Francisco, yet the decor, service flow, and overall layout all felt behind the times. Back in China, even an ordinary theater in a third-tier city in 2019 would have looked cleaner, smarter, and far more modern than this.
Still, it made sense.
This building had been designed in the nineties. The assumptions behind theater design and customer service were completely different back then.
Bruce offered to buy popcorn, but Wendy turned him down immediately. She was trying to keep her figure, and once she refused, Bruce had no reason to insist. He had never cared much about popcorn anyway. In the end, they each bought a bottle of mineral water and sat down in the lounge area to wait.
Wendy glanced across the lobby and pointed toward a large display stand.
"Is that one of our posters? It really fits the mood of Paranormal Activity."
Bruce looked over.
The poster showed a terrified man and woman holding flashlights in the dark. Behind them, buried inside the night, was the faint outline of something ghostly. The design was restrained, but that restraint worked. The blood-red title at the bottom, the fear on the leads' faces, and the half-seen shape in the darkness all came together perfectly. It made people uneasy, then curious, which was exactly what a horror poster was supposed to do.
Bruce smiled.
"Not bad, right?"
Wendy turned to him, studying his expression.
"Wait. You designed it, didn't you?"
"Of course," Bruce said lightly. "I wrote the story. I know exactly what kind of image grabs people by the throat. Readers, viewers, same principle. Fear first. Curiosity second."
What he didn't say was that he had seen too many horror movie posters in his previous life. Once you had enough patterns stored in your head, making a strong one wasn't that hard.
A voice came over the theater speakers.
"The 7:30 showing of Paranormal Activity in Auditorium Three will begin shortly. Guests may now proceed to ticket check and enter the theater."
Bruce stood.
"Come on. Let's go."
Wendy nodded and got up with him.
This AMC location only had five screens, so Auditorium Three wasn't hard to find. Bruce had a habit of buying seats in the back, and tonight was no exception. The two of them settled into the last row.
Wendy looked around once the lights began to dim.
"Looks like the turnout's pretty good."
The room was close to sixty percent full.
Bruce nodded.
"Of course it is. The book's already sold 1.54 million copies. If even half those readers eventually walk into a theater, we recoup the production cost without any trouble. After that, international box office, DVD and VHS sales, TV licensing, all of it becomes upside."
Wendy smiled.
"So Matrix Pictures gets its first real win."
Bruce glanced at her.
"You know the phrase first real win?"
Wendy wrinkled her nose at him with an unexpectedly playful look.
"I know more than you think."
The expression caught him off guard.
She was usually elegant, composed, and deeply professional. Seeing that flash of youthful mischief on her face felt strangely fresh.
Then she quickly said, "Look, it's starting."
Bruce gave her one more look, then turned toward the screen.
Wendy quietly let out a breath of relief.
Lately she had been teaching herself Chinese, but she still hadn't told him. Her plan was to wait until she could actually speak it well, then surprise him properly. Just imagining the look on his face when that happened had become one of her private little pleasures, and it only made her study harder.
The music started.
At the center of the screen, countless little squares appeared, then shifted, locked together, and formed a full-sized rotating cube. After a few quick turns, the words Matrix Pictures appeared.
Bruce still liked the logo.
Then came the main credits.
Compared with the Paranormal Activity released eight years later, almost everything here was different. Different director. Different cast. Different production conditions. But with more money behind it, and James Wan already showing the instincts that would later make him famous, this version was actually stronger in Bruce's eyes.
Very quickly, the film settled into its opening.
A newly married couple moved into their dream house in the suburbs. At first the tone was almost relaxed. Then midnight came. Strange sounds started moving through the speakers. The setup James Wan had built began doing exactly what it was supposed to do. The whole room seemed to turn colder. Skin tightened. Goosebumps showed up whether people wanted them or not.
Bruce had already seen the movie multiple times, so while he still felt the rhythm of the tension rising and falling, he wasn't exactly scared.
Wendy had no such protection.
A few minutes in, Bruce felt something unexpected.
He looked down.
The right hand he'd been resting on the armrest was now being gripped tightly by Wendy's left hand.
He turned toward her.
Her face was beautiful as ever, but now it was also tense and pale with fear. Her eyes refused to leave the screen, even though every expression on her face said she wanted to.
Bruce smiled a little.
He didn't tease her. He didn't whisper reassurance. He simply turned his hand over and held hers properly.
The warmth of it, and the quiet steadiness in the grip, caught Wendy off guard.
She looked down once at their hands, then up at the tall, broad-shouldered man beside her. The fear didn't disappear, but something else came over it. A sense of safety she hadn't expected.
The film kept going, and the tension kept building.
By the time the story reached the twenty-first night, the whole theater had become tightly wound. The female lead wandered downstairs in a trance. The male lead followed her. Then came her scream from downstairs. Then his. Then silence.
A long silence.
Then the screen cut to the pitch-black staircase.
All you could hear was the sound of footsteps on wood, slowly climbing.
By then the theater was right on the edge. The earlier screams from the audience had never really stopped, but now they hit another level entirely. Wendy buried herself against Bruce without even thinking, but in that moment, Bruce had no space in his head to appreciate the fact that a beautiful woman was pressed against him.
Because something else had happened.
The man sitting a row ahead of him suddenly slumped sideways and slid to the floor.
"Sir? Sir, can you hear me?"
The shout snapped several people's attention away from the movie.
By the weak light from a phone screen, Bruce could see the man clearly enough. Mid-forties, maybe. Hispanic. Blue-and-white checkered shirt.
A young woman in a pink jacket hurried over and dropped beside him.
"I'm a nurse at Calver Hospital. I think he's having a cardiac episode."
Bruce was already moving.
"I called 9-1-1," he said quickly. "What do you need?"
"Help me get him out into the aisle. I need room to do CPR."
Bruce nodded immediately and called for help. Between him and a few others nearby, they got the man into a more open area near the front. The nurse went straight to work. By then, theater staff had also rushed in and turned the house lights up.
Roughly a minute later, the nurse wiped sweat from her forehead and finally smiled.
"Okay. His breathing's stabilizing. Does anyone have water?"
"I do."
Wendy hurriedly handed over her bottle of mineral water.
The nurse thanked her, found the emergency heart medication in the man's pocket, and had people help get it into him.
Six or seven minutes later, the ambulance arrived.
Once the man had been loaded in and the crisis looked under control, the crowd gradually dispersed.
Wendy turned back to Bruce.
"Bruce, should we go?"
He didn't answer right away.
He was still staring in the direction the ambulance had gone, expression locked in place, like something in his head had just connected at high speed.
"Wendy," he said suddenly, "call Buddy. Right now. Tell him to notify everyone in marketing that they need to be in the office within the hour. Every single one of them. If anyone gets the message and doesn't show up, fire them."
Wendy stared at him.
She had no idea what had just happened inside his head, but one look at his face told her this wasn't the moment to ask.
She pulled out her phone and started making the call.
Bruce stood.
"Come on. We're going to the airport."
Wendy looked up sharply.
"The airport? Right now?"
Bruce's eyes were bright in a way she recognized by now.
"Yes. We're flying to Los Angeles."
She wanted to ask why, but in the end she said nothing.
Air travel inside the U.S. was easy, and the distance between San Francisco and Los Angeles wasn't much by those standards. Bruce chartered a small business jet, and a little over an hour later they were on the ground in Santa Monica, heading straight for Matrix Pictures.
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