The gray tar climbs over everything, and Rochester falls to his knees, trying to pound it to dust, but there’s just too much now. Too much of the decay from me and Bee, the things they put inside us.

The rot climbs up and over the projectors, leeching into the film spool. Outside, on the screens, the movies burn away to nothing, the pictures of Rochester and Nosferatu dissolving like cigarette burns, the blots on the celluloid reminding me for a moment of the liquid light shows in the Haight, everything splotchy and wild.

The decay seeps down the walls and into the electrical outlets, and heavy sparks explode in every direction. On the desiccated rafters. On the cache of crumbling film posters. On the unspooled nitrate film spilled across the floor.

We’ve always loved it here, but let’s face it, this dated drive-in is a tinderbox, and it only takes a moment, barely long enough to blink, before the whole projection booth is alight.

Another fire, the same as Thornfield all those years ago, the same as our beloved house. This should be Bee’s worst nightmare. But she doesn’t look afraid this time.

She looks ready.

“Hurry,” she says to me, and we push past the men, their clothes already starting to smolder, the two of them still trying to put out the fire, to chase off the decay.

The door is dripping thick with cobwebs and sludge, sealed tight at the edges, sealing us in. But there are still the windows, two of them, one for each projector. One for each of us, Bee and me.

The gray tar is fogging up the glass, caking in the corners, closing in around us. We don’t have much time, so we start climbing, folding our shoulders in, making ourselves as small as we can to fit through the opening, escaping through the same spot where all the films we’ve ever seen here have escaped too.

Jane and Michael are on the other side, flanked by girls and wolves, and they’re reaching for us, desperate to pull us free.

“Bee,” Jane says, sobbing, and their fingers entwine as we crawl through to freedom.

But these men won’t give up. Rochester’s fiery hand reaches out and grasps Bee’s thigh.

“We stay together,” he seethes, and though she kicks him square in the chest, he manages to grip her tight around the waist. Through the window, Bee stretches one last time and kisses Jane. It’s so quick, so sweet. It’s goodbye.

Then Rochester wrenches her back into the projection booth.

Outside, the wolves are whimpering, begging me to come to them. I could still make it through, I could still escape, but I won’t leave Bee. She would never leave me.