 Welcome to Microterrorz. Scary stories for kids. Where it's always the spooky season. Full of chills. Thrills. And spine-tingling spooks. Microterrorz are family-friendly frights for those ages 8 and up. And while our stories are for younger years, we are still talking about things that go bump in the night. And some children may not be able to handle what others can. Parental consent is recommended. Now for tonight's Microterrorz. Spoiler alert. I was starting to get antsy as I stood in line at Wells Multiplex. I've been waiting to see this movie for over a year ever since it was announced. It was a slasher film, with a pig-faced villain tormenting a small farming community. Normally I'd have to wait until these kinds of movies come to a streaming service, since I wasn't old enough to see R-rated horror films in the theater by myself. But the pig-man cometh had somehow been trimmed back to a PG-13 only weeks before its release. Yeah, sure, I'd have to wait until the digital release to see all the carnage, but it still had everything I wanted in a slasher film. A body count, a masked killer, and hopefully one heck of a twist ending. The ticket line was crawling, and I kept checking my watch. I only had about five minutes until the previews started, and I didn't want to miss those either. They were part of the experience too, and I wanted to enjoy every second, right up to the moment the twist is revealed and I leave the theater with my jaw on the sticky theater floor. After I bought my ticket, I quickly rushed to the popcorn and soda line. There were only a couple of people in front of me. I looked at my watch, three minutes until showtime. I bounced anxiously behind an old man with white hair, wearing a long dark green coat. He stunk heavily of a musky cologne that my grandfather would have worn. Gross, yet somehow comfortingly familiar. Behind me, the line was starting to grow longer. I checked my watch. Two minutes. After the old man in front of me walked away with a box of Juicy Fruits, it was my turn. I bought a small popcorn and a medium cherry Coke. As I waited for the cashier to give me my change, I felt a light tap on my shoulder. I turned around and saw a man dressed in tan overalls with bud on his name tag. He pointed to my bag of popcorn, which featured a promotional image of the pig-man cometh. You're seeing that pig-man movie, he asked, very blandly. Yeah, I said, with an unintentional hint of annoyance in my voice. The man slowly bent down with a smirk on his face that I couldn't quite decipher. When he was close enough to me, he whispered, the villain dies at the end of the movie. My eyes widened, my jaw dropped. Did this janitor seriously just spoil the end of the movie for me? Did he really just say what I think he did? You gotta be kidding me, bud, I shouted. Spoiler alert, jeez! I grabbed my change from the cashier and stormed off down the hallway, completely livid. Why in the world would a complete stranger decide to ruin the ending in the movie for me? I'd been waiting on pins and needles for this movie for a year. Now I was less than a minute from sitting in the theater to watch it, knowing the killer doesn't make it in the end. There goes any hope I had at seeing the pig-man cometh part two next year. I sat down in my seat just as the lights dimmed and the previews began. I took a quick look around the theater. I couldn't see everything in detail, but it seemed like there were only a handful of people there. That's expected for a movie that has a pig-faced killer. It's not like this was a superhero movie of the week or anything. The previews chugged along, none of them really spiking my interest, and then the lights dimmed further as the movie began. The title card exploded onto the screen in big, bold, red letters, and I felt a quick burst of excitement before the spoiler crept back into my mind. I sat there and ate my popcorn and sipped my soda for the next 90 minutes. I watched a bloodless opening kill scene. I watched a group of teenagers arrive in an abandoned slaughterhouse and find the remains of said opening kill scene. I watched the teens all start accusing one another, and then I watched the titular pig-man show up with an axe and start taking them out one by one. Standard stuff for sure, but exciting nonetheless. The showdown between the final girl and the pig-man played out next to an oversized electric meat grinder. The spoilers crept back into my mind again, and I was just waiting for the hero to shove the pig-man into the deadly machine. But then a twist. The pig-man got the upper hand, and the girl fell into the grinder. My jaw dropped again for the second time that night. Ominous music began to play loudly as the pig-man watched his final act of horror play out all over the ground. He then turned around and walked out of the slaughterhouse. The screen went black, and the end credits began to roll. What in the world just happened, I thought? That janitor was just faking it? Was that how he was able to ensure I was surprised by the end? Why would he even do that in the first place, though? Some sort of last-minute marketing gimmick? I was still really annoyed, but relieved at the same time that the end had not been spoiled after all. The lights slowly came back on in the theater, and then, out of nowhere, a woman screamed behind me. I nearly jumped out of my skin and spun around to see a woman panicking two rows behind me. She stood over someone else who was still seated in their seat, although slumped over. The person in question was the old man with white hair in the green coat, who bought the juji fruits in front of me at the concession stand. I stood up and focused my eyes on the man as all the lights came on. The old man was dead. His body was twisted and contorted in a way that looked like a wrung-out rag. Employees rushed into the theater, one shouting to another to call 911. I froze in fear as the theater erupted in paranoia. I sat in the police station about an hour later. My parents were in the small interrogation room with me as I answered a detective's questions. He assured me I wasn't in any kind of trouble, and that they were simply just getting statements from everyone who was in the theater. Did you see or hear anything while in the theater that would have made you believe someone was being hurt? The detective asked me. No, I said, but there was a lot of screaming and loud noises in the movie to begin with, so I might have just blended in. While in the lobby, did you see anyone acting suspicious? Anyone who seemed out of place or like they were up to no good? The detective asked next. I shook my head. No, I was really just focused on getting into the movie on time. I wasn't paying too much attention to anyone else. The detective jotted down his notes. Well, there was one thing that was odd, I said. The janitor behind me in the popcorn line tried to spoil the movie for me, I said. What do you mean? The detective asked, scrunching his forehead. The guy behind me in line. But I think his name was. Whispered that the villain died at the end of the movie, I said. I was so annoyed, but then at the end, the villain didn't die. Bud? The detective asked. I noticed him go cold right before my eyes. He turned pale like he'd seen a ghost or something. The detective reached over and pulled a folder closer to him. He looked through the paper inside and pulled out a photo. It was the old man who had died. Only the photo was taken years ago. This is Thomas Wells, the owner of Wells Multiplex, the detective said. He financed that entire establishment when it was built in the 50s. Tonight was the 68th anniversary of its opening. A day before it opened in 1955, one other construction crew, Bud Carver, was assumed to have been killed in an accident on the property. The detective slid another photo across the table. It was a black and white photo of the man who falsely spoiled the movie for me. I looked at the detective, awaiting further answers. Bud Carver's body was never found, he continued. A rumor always was that Thomas Wells sealed over the body with concrete and just reported Bud missing. He didn't want such a horrible tragedy on the property to impact the grand opening the next night. That's terrible, I said. I agree, Thomas Wells was a bad man, but the police never had anything solid to charge him on. Bud's family was too scared to speak up and outright accuse him of covering up the death. He's kind of like a villain, I said. The word repeated over and over in my head. The villain dies at the end of the movie, I added, thinking back to Bud's words. He was never talking about the movie itself. He was talking about his villain. His villain died at the end of the movie. I hope you'll join me again soon. From Microterrorz, scary stories for kids.