Unknown Armies: Flicker

About two weeks elapsed from the time the members of The Classic Theatre Film Club first viewed the work of Max Castle until the events that drove them from Los Angeles for good--for their own safety. This information has never before been revealed, but as the parties concerned are either dead or living under yet another assumed identity, enough time has passed to keep them safe.

The time is April 1967, Los Angeles. Daniel Ransom, Anahata Shakti and Luke Flint formed the core of the Film Club, which met weekly at The Classic, a basement art house theatre built under the burned-out shell of a 1920s movie palace.

The Classic was co-owned by Clare (Clarissa) Swann--a former beatnik and graduate of the Paris Cinemathique--and Don Sharkey, a space case who nevertheless knew his movie history and who managed to keep the theatre's two ancient projectors running through a combination of prayer, chewing gum and stubbornness.

Thursday of that week fell on the 12th, and the three met at The Classic, only to find it empty. Moishe's Strictly Kosher Deli, across the alley, was the secondary meeting place of choice. They found Sharkey and one of the latest in a long line of young blonde girlfriends--this one named Saffron--in a booth discussing film during the Middle Ages. As he spun a tale of Templar secrecy, Daniel half-listened, wondering where the usually punctual Clare might be.