The Reel Life Of Zara Kregg by Brad Barkley (EXCERPT)

Hello, readers! We have a treat for you today with an excerpt from a sensitive coming-of-age tale, as a young girl must come out of the shadows in order to embrace a whole life.

The closest that 16 year-old Zara Kegg has to friendships in her coastal North Carolina town is with the regulars she watches from the projection booth of the movie theater where she works. The Palace Theater shows pretty much only cult classics, and when Zara isn’t watching the movie or the regulars over whom she feels a protective sort of interest, she’s busy trying — more or less — to figure her way out of her existential crisis. Her mom died three years ago and her dad has been sliding further and further into depression and bad coping mechanisms. Zara has Real Problems, and no time for friends, much less romance.

That changes when her flaky boss asks her to organize a Valentine’s Day marathon of Godzilla movies. As she scrambles to deal with 150 inflatable Godzillas, she slowly begins to make new friends and, perhaps, more. But will she be able to emerge fully from her existence as a spectator in order to finally be the main character of her own life?

Read on for an immersive look at Zara’s perspective from the projection booth!

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In the dark, you can see more than you’d think.

I’m still ten minutes from changing over the projectors, not even close enough yet to watch for the warning light, but right now I’m just caught up in the movie, even though I’ve already seen it three times this week and could probably recite it from memory. But still, grab yourself some popcorn (no butter, lots of salt) and a cup of coffee, settle onto your stool, pull back the curtain, and a movie is still a movie. Something to watch, the way you watch a campfire burning down or waves crashing on the shore. It pulls you in, whether you want it to or not.

This week the Palace Theater is showing Carnival of Souls, from 1962, one of those weird, low-budget films that somehow ended up being way creepier than it had any right to be. It’s about this blond lady who plunges her car into a river but somehow survives, and afterward sort of drifts through life like she’s not really there, getting stalked by these pale, grinning ghouls that keep showing up in reflections and doorways, chasing her, trying to grab her. Eventually she ends up at an abandoned pavillion dancing with said ghouls. Or maybe zombies. Or maybe ghosts (I’ve kinda lost the plot). Organ music drones on, and everything feels like a bad dream you can’t wake up from.

My favorite part isn’t on the screen, though—it’s the way people in the audience still jump in their seats when they’re supposed to. I love how a million-year-old movie can still rattle a few jaded teenagers, or how some old lady near the back full-on screams, because she’s scared, or maybe just nostalgic for back in the day, when movies were the only scary thing in her life. Or like maybe she hasn’t had a chance to let loose in a good long while.

Every decade or so, you need to let loose, probably.

I really don’t know.

We have three tiny windows in the projection booth, two for the projectors and one for me. Mine is called the “courtesy window,” and I like calling it that, like that it has a miniature drape with a miniature pull-cord to open it. I keep my coffee and popcorn box on the splicing table beside me, and I sit and watch. Brightness spills from the projector’s cone of light, shining over everyone, and I know all our regulars by the backs of their heads.

There’s Mr. Surish, from Bangladesh, who wears a fedora hat with a feather in it. If someone asks him to take it off during the movie, he just gets up and changes seats.

There’s the middle-aged couple who come every week to sit near the front, and he always falls asleep and she always cries. I mean, we can be showing Attack of the Crab Monsters, and I’ll see her blotting mascara with napkins while he snores.

There’s another couple, probably older than my dad, who always sit in the back, cover themselves with their coats, and make out. I’m talking groping and tongues. Ew.

The mayor of Carolina Beach is usually there now, because it’s January and not a lot for him to do in the off-season, especially after a year when we dodged all the hurricanes.

Film students drive down from Chapel Hill most weekends and take over the front row, mostly these uber-hipsters with scraggly beards and bad eyesight. Always guys, none cute. Poor me.

And then there’s this one kid, probably my age, a local, and he’s there for seriously every single showing of every movie. He sees them as much as I do, and I can’t figure why anyone not getting paid would want to do that. Not that I’m getting rich or anything, but it’s a job. In my head I call this guy Mr. Inconsistent, despite how consistent he is about showing up. First because I don’t know his actual name—have never seen him at my high school—and second because of his whole look. Even now, in the dark, I can make it out pretty well because—this is the other thing—he keeps twisting in his seat, looking back at the projection booth, up at the light that spills out. He can’t see me, and I have no idea what he’s looking at, or looking for. Anyway, his look. Right now it’s khaki pants and chain wallet and Black Sabbath T-shirt and a fauxhawk. Just weird. But sometimes it’s ripped jeans and a Hawaiian shirt and what I call polite hair, like he’s a third-grader about to have his class picture taken. Or hiking boots and a sport coat and a baseball jersey. Or Chuck Taylors, camo shorts (in winter), and a leather jacket. It’s like his clothes have multiple personality disorder.

Right now, he’s still not watching the movie, even though it’s not a scary part or anything. The lady from the car wreck is just walking around town alone acting strange, and what’s Mr. Inconsistent doing? He’s got his head tipped back and is puffing out his cheeks, and it takes me a minute to clue it all together—he’s blowing the dust around in the light. Last night he was in here with a book and read it by the light of his phone. He had a soul patch for about a day. Sometimes he leaves in the middle, and I watch him walk up the aisle, his feet lit by the running lights, hair lit from above.

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From The Reel Life Of Zara Kregg by Brad Barkley. Copyright © 2026 by the author and reprinted by permission.

The Reel Life Of Zara Kregg by Brad Barkley was published today June 16 2026 by Fitzroy Books and is available from all good booksellers, including