In the lonely darkness of the projector room, dust motes hanging in the silvered light, the effect was truly eerie.  Charlie chewed nervously at his lower lip, his eyes widening as he studied the small image on the projection screen, trying to take in every little detail. 

At first it had been little more than an errant flicker in the celluloid, but as Charlie paused the film, freezing the tiny image, he could make out the disconcerting figure of a long-eared, loose limbed shadow with a head shaped like a bullet, but it was only as the creature crept forward that its finer details became clear; the hideously thick taloned claws; the rows of razored stiletto teeth and those terrible eyes, with their large, lifeless, intensely black pupils. 

And in those awful moments Charlie was prepared to believe every word of the animated legend of Zodo was true. 

***

In the beginning, when animation was in its infancy, there was only Zomo and whilst the name is similar to that of Zodo they could not have been more different in temperament. 

Almost from the outset Zomo was world famous.  A small grey, lop eared, African folk-rabbit; more well known in his day than Bosko, Betty Boop and even the Great Corporate Mouse himself, combined. 

But times and tastes change and by the mid-twenties a tall thin animator named Walt had reinvented cartoon shorts as wholesome family entertainment and in the process the true mystical darkness of the medium was lost.  So now to have heard of Zomo you would have to be either a cartoon historian or an exceptionally old cineaste; and there are very few of either group remaining.  Zomo is forgotten and the few oxidised tins that contain his moments of popularity are scattered to the four corners of Ebay.  All that remains is a myth; a dark urban myth, surrounding one particular short and the only known appearance of Zomo’s nightmarish doppelganger; Zodo the black rabbit. 

***

Zodo; Charlie let the twin syllables trip across his tongue, even repeating the name caused him a delicious shiver of anticipation. 

Zodo never existed; officially.  Nowhere in the annals of animation history was his name to be found.  He was a rumour; Internet gossip; like the ghost in Three Men and a Baby or the hanging Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz.  A water cooler tale for cartoon geeks with a strong sense of the macabre; a story of madness, death and disappearance, where not a single animator, key frame illustrator or colourist remained from the original production company.  Only legend persisted, glimpses in sketch books, distorted photographs of frames purporting to show dark images and the disconcerting whisper that Zodo had ability to steal men’s souls straight through the screen itself.  And now before Charlie’s disbelieving eyes there was Zodo crouching in the shadowed recesses of a tall mopane tree.  A lynx eyed shadow, barely glimpsed, skulking amid the clinging tendrils of Spanish moss. 

Charlie bit his bottom lip, his large overbite denting the soft flesh.  It was a nervous habit.  His ex-wife said it made him look like a fat chipmunk.  Charlie, in return, offered similar anthropomorphic views of his wife’s pear shaped physiology and unsurprisingly their short lived marriage languished. 

To Charlie this was less of a loss than it might have seemed.  There had always been three in Charlie’s marriage; Charlie, his wife and Charlie’s love, bordering on obsession, of animation. 

Charlie had wanted all his life to be a great animator but he lacked any of the necessary skills and application for success.  Instead he became a collector of the works of those more gifted than himself.  So determined and successful was Charlie that he was able to build an outstanding reputation for animated rarities amidst the collecting community.  Eventually he was able to trade his hobby into a full time profession even parlaying it into a senior role in the animation section in the gothic shell of the Museum of the Moving Image. 

Charlie relished all things connected with animation and it was true, as his ex-wife had often remarked, he really would rather spend more time with animated creatures than real people; particularly when it came to her friends. 

Charlie’s passion was his private collection; an eclectic mix of memorabilia and marginalia.  Amid the endless shelves and box’s of books, posters, films and even Super 8’s there dwelt some real rarities; an original production key master from "Steamboat Willie"; graphite sketches from a once famous Russian animator, who perished in an archipelago, and a gentleman’s smoker by way of Tijuana which featured Popeye, Bluto and Olive Oyl, in a set of scenes that the censor most certainly would not have approved.  Many of these Charlie altruistically donated to the museum for public display, keeping for his own purposes only the more adult fare. 

But today his collecting had reached its apogee.  In his fat trembling fingers he held a silver canister of film that purported to contain the Zomo short that had been missing for over eighty years.  The one that legend held contained the images of Zodo.  Charlie had spent many years not even daring to believe he would find a single frame and then one day, much to his astonishment, he had found a small ad on a collector’s website.  A reference to the house clearance of the wife of a long since disappeared minor film archivist, and there amidst the junk of an individuals life was a one line reference to an oddly titled Zomo short; one copy only. 

And now for thirty-five dollars, including postage and packaging, it lay in Charlie’s clammy hands. 

***

Nervously, Charlie visited the museum the next day to run through the film in private, arriving early, long before the parties of school children filled the foyer and the box office opened, and before his assistant, Mark, was due.  With trepidation he dimmed the lights and ran the film, hearing the heart stopping soft susurration and hiss of the first sound short to reputedly use the Powers sound system, a whole year ahead of its official debut.  Then with a growing grin of smug self-satisfaction Charlie leaned back in the plush screening seat and watched the opening credits crackle in monochromic black and white onto the screen. 

The story started out pretty much as all Zomo shorts began.  Two Rotoscoped, spear carrying, Jolson-faced, tribesmen with white bones set in cornrow hair, out hunting for food, stumble across our picaresque hero.  The usual shenanigans and hijinks follow but part way into the film Zomo slips from view and never reappears.  Then, suddenly, something else is there in the shadows, like a flaw in the frame; a flickering pitch black imperfection. 

The film continues.  The tribesmen stare at the tree where Zomo has disappeared.  Something scuttles before them in the undergrowth.  They began to panic, though what they observe exactly is lost from sight of the viewer.  Their eyes pop and it seems that their hearts hammer visibly at their breasts.  And all the while something occupies the darkness at their feet.  Something that terrifies them utterly.  The foliage twitches, they turn and flee in disarray, the same endless backdrop of trees and animals rolls repetitively behind them.  Finally, exhausted, palpably shaking in a way that gives a lie to their live action souls they fall to their knees.  They turn to face their pursuer, prostrating themselves in abased worship before him.  A menacing jungle dance begins; the beat is tribal and brooding, it booms from the small screening room speakers, filling Charlie’s chest with the vibration.  A menagerie of jungle animals throbs back and forth, hypnotically, ebbing and flowing.  Centre stage the poor pickaninnies, hands raised on either side of their faces appear to be screaming, though no vocalised sounds of their terror scar the booming, hissing soundtrack.  And all the while, at the edge of the jungle, a small black animated rabbit sits back on hard spurred haunches, watching the action. 

***

Charlie ran the film several times slowing the projector so that the individual frames of Zodo ran through the gate one at a time. 

With each successive viewing the images of Zodo grew clearer. 

At some point Charlie became aware that Zodo was now approaching the rear of the throng of dancers.  Charlie was sure he was seeing this aspect for the first time.  He was certain he had not noticed Zodo move towards the other animals previously.  The pitch of movement intensified as Zodo, his mangy body fearfully thin and ragged neared his first victim. 

Charlie leaned forward, his breathing laboured, he felt unbearably hot in the small viewing room, anxiously he chewed his lip again.  The sequence continued, its intensity and brutality almost unwatchable; his hands to his eyes he saw Zodo slash at the throat of a schoolboy hippopotamus, the blood gouted thick and black then Zodo moved inexorably through the pulsing tide of creatures, his razor sharp talons quick as knives, his dark presence invoking paroxysms of fear in all he passed.  Cravenly they cowered at the edges of the frame, terror-stricken, nowhere to run, anguish etched on their comical faces.  So disturbing and pitiful was their plight that Charlie looked away.  When he looked back Zodo was at the edge of the frame peering at him intently. 

***

The loose end of film slapped loudly against the projector casing.  Dust burnt away from the hot lamp filling the room with pungent incense.  The projector beam spilled harsh white light on to the vacant screen.  Mark Reynolds snapped the equipment off.  He touched his hand tentatively to the projector’s grill plate withdrawing it quickly from the intense heat.  The projector must have been running for hours.  It wasn’t like Charlie to leave equipment lying around let alone leave it running. 

Mark had spent the morning preparing for the usual rounds of visitors; parties of sticky fingered schoolchildren, WI outings consisting of twill-jacketed women trying to recapture memories of lost fumbles in back row love seats and the usual ranks of know-it-alls complete with anoraks and memorised paragraphs from Halliwell’s.  He opened up each of the different viewing rooms, carefully working his way through the ring of keys that were his responsibility.  He noticed Charlie’s car in the car park but there was no sign of the big man, which was unusual, whilst Charlie had a tendency towards laziness it wasn’t like him to bunk off for a whole morning.  Mark checked his watch, the first tour parties were due in less than an hour, he stepped back into the long corridor and called for Charlie but only the echoes of his voice answered him. 

He checked the empty film canister on the table, the title, "Zomo: Jungle Jackanape", handwritten and spiky ran across a piece of yellowed tape.  The reel of film still sat I the projector.  Mark clicked the on switch and ran it through the projector one more time.  As far as he could see it was the kind of dumb scratchy old time cartoon Charlie preferred; one of those weird mixes of animation and live action.  Mark looped one long leg over the arm of the chair and slumped back in his eat like a kid at a matinee.  The film seemed no different to a hundred other shorts of the period.  It even appeared to be damaged, possibly water had crept in and created some of the blurring and black smudge marks in some of the frames.  Mark watched the film build to a climax which consisted of some kind of massed mammalian carnival, until unexpectedly, something leapt into the foreground. 

***

Charlie was exhausted.  It felt as if he had been running for ever, desperately, wildly trying to escape the equatorial gloom of the jungle.  But like a nightmare it was as if he were barely moving through the endless undergrowth and clinging vines.  Suddenly he spied a light ahead.  He ran forward bursting from the tree line into a plain of pure white.  There before him was the darkened viewing room, his one hope of sanctuary.  He ran towards it and slammed into an oblique invisible barrier.  He hammered against the invisible shield screaming for help. 

***

Mark sat forward, alarmed at first, then slowly grinned.  A creature had leapt into the foreground, a fat chipmunk with a ridiculously large overbite.  Astonishingly it ran towards the centre of the frame and there it remained, silently screaming and hammering with both fists, blocking out all view of the action that continued behind. 

Mark peered at the animated figure.  It looked familiar.  Perhaps it had been a try out for something that had become more famous.  Whatever it became it couldn’t be as ugly as it appeared now.  Mark leaned closer.  There was something more than familiar about the creature.  Something that unnerved him.  Sweat dripped from the chipmunk’s brow.  Chipmunks didn’t sweat.  Even animated ones.  Not like that.  Not rolling beads that ran into the tiny crevices and fissures of an all too human face.  And the look in those eyes; trapped, terrified, hopeless like a man caught under a sheet of thick ice. 

The chipmunk screamed silently again, glancing around itself anxiously, as if it were pursued.  Then the chipmunk spied Mark, its pupils dilated in alarm, its mouth forming a comical O, before recognition dawned.  Mark struggled to take in the sight before him, the animated mouth appeared to be forming his name, over and over again.  It hammered at the screen and under its small fists the membrane of the canvas rattled and shimmered.  Then the chipmunk bit its lip in anxiety as it recognised that it could not break through and a tear of frustration rolled down one fat cheek.  And Mark could clearly see Charlie beneath the anthropomorphised features. 

Mark ran to the screen and placed his hands against the rectangle of light.  He could feel the vibrations of the canvas and as his fingertips met those of Charlie’s through the thin membrane he jerked back in shock.  He searched around him for something to cut the screen, but he could see nothing save the projector, he turned back to Charlie helplessly just in time to see him rapidly diminish as if jerked backwards suddenly. 

Desperately Mark searched his pockets, coming up with only the set of keys he carried.  A small security box Yale looked like it might be sharp enough; he slipped it between his knuckles, with the point forward and punched the screen as hard as he could. 

A breath of stale air, fetid with the smell of blood and Charlie’s scream carried to him simultaneously. 

Mark tore at the hole making it larger. 

The heat and odours of the jungle embraced him, he could see Charlie lying prone in the near distance but something stood over him.  It was covered in coarse matted black hair.  Its body was skeletal, its ribs and carcass cadaverously exposed.  It struck at Charlie the tips of its claws rending thick white lines in Charlie’s flesh that then ran black.  Then the claws slashed harder, rising and falling, filling the scene with a fine miasma of blood which drifted through the tear in the screen. 

Mark fell back from the opening and stared in astonishment at the bleak rent in the screen.  From the darkness a sinuous black paw emerged.  It snaked through the opening, then yellow claws gripped and peeled back the skein of canvas and a deathly black eye peered out into the world.  Blood dripped from one talon, dropping onto the projection room floor.  Zodo regarded this new Technicolor marvel with curiosity letting the bright blood roll and flow in the swirling light of the projector.  It grinned and forced a long nose, scarred and crusted with blood, into the room.  Then it became caught, it grimaced, the gap was tight and its teeth shone cruelly yellow as it hitched its muscular shoulders through the opening, before slithering through into this new, more colourful world.