The Remaking

by Clay McLeod Chapman

  The other actors milled about the craft table. They must have been cold. They were hardly wearing any clothes. Their costumes exposed so much skin. She couldn’t help but stare. All those shoulders. Those bare arms. And the lumps up front. Amber could feel her cheeks flush, even under all that latex. She had shot a few scenes with her adult co-stars already. They seemed much different then. Now that they were in the last week of production, everybody seemed tired. Less accessible. The actors treated her differently. They didn’t talk to her at all.

  Was it her costume? The makeup?

  Did they think she was really the Little Witch Girl?

  Were they scared of her?

  Her tongue found her loose tooth once more. She jabbed at it this time, forcing the tooth further than she ever had before, like a tree toppling over in the woods.

  Timmmberrrrrr!

  The rusty tang of blood mingled with her saliva. It was pooling in her mouth now. It tasted gross. Like pennies on her tongue. She wanted to spit, but where? You can’t spit in a church! She was supposed to sit still. But the flood of bloodied saliva was only rising, overwhelming her mouth. She had to get rid of it somehow. Get rid of it before her lips split—

  Amber swallowed.

  The warmth of it snaked down her gullet until it swelled up into her stomach.

  She felt like she was about to barf.

  Barf blood.

  Amber shifted in her seat again, the warped wood creaking and echoing through the church. She instantly regretted moving. She didn’t want to sit here by herself anymore.

  Where was her mother?

  Not her actual mother. The actress who played her mom in the movie.

  Ella Louise.

  Amber had spotted her on set earlier in the evening, before the sun had lowered over the surrounding tree line. She wasn’t technically filming tonight, but now that they were shooting on location, here in this small, small town, there wasn’t much else to do but hang around the set and help out however you could.

  The production had squeezed in three consecutive night shoots just for the end. Mr. Ketchum wanted to get it right. He had demanded they film the final scene at night. He refused to shoot day-for-night, absolutely refused. You couldn’t have the terrifying grand finale filtered through blue lenses! The audience would know it was shot in the middle of the day. Underexposing the shot in-camera might suggest the cool blue hue of moonlight, but the actors’ skin would look like they were in an aquarium! He wanted to create a bonfire effect that had to be captured at night. There was absolutely no way those flames would contrast against the afternoon sky.

  Amber wore a paper towel around her neck to keep her makeup from smearing. It felt like a bib. It was embarrassing. If she wanted to eat something, she had to ask a PA. So she didn’t. She didn’t want to seem like a baby in front of all the other actors, getting fed by somebody else, even if her stomach was churning, grumbling so loudly it echoed throughout the church.

  Did anyone hear that? Her tummy? It must have sounded like a monster to everyone else, like a zombie clawing its way out from the ground.

  Amber hadn’t seen the director all night. Or during the day. He was always elsewhere. Always exhausted. He looked tired no matter what time of day it was. Amber could tell that Mr. Ketchum had been losing sleep ever since they started shooting here in Pilot’s Creek. Always a disheveled mess. Unshaven. Purple bags under his eyes. He looked depleted to her. Drained.

  Amber had learned that the director was originally from here. This was his hometown. How strange it must be for him. To come home. To make this movie here. Mr. Ketchum had even managed to secure three nights in the same cemetery where the real Jessica Ford was buried. Amber had asked her mother if she could see the grave, see the fence of crosses, but Mom kept sidestepping the question. Pretending she hadn’t heard Amber, no matter how many times she asked. The grave had to be around here, somewhere. Maybe Amber could slip out and find it on her own. Nobody would notice, right? She could just sneak through the—

  The church doors squealed open behind her.

  There she was.

  Her mother.

  Not her real mother. Her cinematic one.

  Miss Lambert.

  Nora.

  Even out of costume, without any makeup on, she looked otherworldly to Amber. Bewitching. She certainly didn’t look like a lot of the women her flesh-and-blood mother hung around with. Her skin had a deeper hue to it. Not suntanned, but sun-kissed. She was stunning.

  It made Amber feel warm inside, imagining this preternatural actress as her mother. Even if it was just a movie. Even if it was just pretend.

  “Miss Lambert?”

  The woman turned. Looked down. When her eyes settled onto Amber, it felt as if she had been looking for her, only her, searching for Amber this whole time—and here she was.

  “Amber!” Miss Lambert smiled. Beamed. “Hello…You know, you can call me Nora now. Enough with this Miss Lambert stuff…You make me feel like my mother!”

  Amber giggled at this. “Okay. Nora.”

  “How are you? Not too tired?”

  Amber bashfully shook her head.

  “I’m exhausted.” Miss Lambert leaned in and whispered, mock-conspiratorially, as if the two of them were about to get up to something no good. “Ready for your spooky scene?”

  Amber liked the feeling of keeping a secret. Something just for the two of them. She grinned and the latex along her lips tugged. Was her skin cracking? Were her wounds ripping?

  “I wanted to come, just for you,” Miss Lambert said. “Would you mind if I watched?”

  Was she actually asking for Amber’s permission? Really? She didn’t know what to say. She was stunned. Honored. Amber shook her head: No, of course not. Of course. Please stay!

  “Great,” Miss Lambert said. “You’ll be great. Knock ’em dead.”

  Someone cleared their throat behind Amber.

  Nora noticed them first. Whatever mirth had played across her face washed away. She stood back up to her regular adult height and nodded.

  Amber turned and found her mother.

  The real one.

  “There you are.” Mom didn’t look happy. Acting as if she’d been racing around town, desperately searching for her daughter. But where else would Amber have been? She had been sitting in the church for hours, ever since the makeup techs were done with her, waiting—and waiting—for her call, just like she was supposed to. Amber’s mother knew she would be here, was sent here. Why was she acting like she’d lost her?

  “Hi,” Nora said, and nodded to Amber’s mother.

  Mom smiled back at Nora, even if it didn’t quite feel like a smile. She quickly zeroed in on Amber. “Come on, hon,” she said, taking her arm and pulling. “Time to go over your lines.”

  Amber didn’t move. She wanted to stay in the church. Close to Miss Lambert. “Do we have to?”

  This took Mom by surprise. Instead of looking to Amber, her eyes settled on Nora. A silent exchange passed between the women just over her head, some mysterious form of telepathic communication she herself had yet to master. The message was apparently received by Miss Lambert, loud and clear.

  Mom gave a tug on Amber’s arm. “Come,” she said. “We need to run through your lines.”

  “But I already know my lines…”

  Mom turned. Her eyes narrowed, taking Amber in. Her head turned ever so slightly to one shoulder, as if to assess this new willful streak. Where had this resistance come from?

  “Excuse me?”

  “But I want to stay.”

  She lowered herself to Amber’s height. Staring her right in the eye, she said, “Listen, Amber. Listen. You’re embarrassing yourself. You’re embarrassing me. In front of everybody here. You want to make a fool out of yourself? Fine. But not here. Not on set. Act like a professional, ’kay?”
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  “I am a professional!”

  Her words came out much louder than she intended. Poor Miss Lambert stepped back, away from Amber and her mother, silently excusing herself from the mounting tête-à-tête.

  Amber’s mother halted. “What did you just say?”

  “I am a professional.” Amber had a flash to all the auditions. Racing from one cattle call to another in Mom’s avocado-green Chevrolet Nova, speeding down the interstate. Mom would slam her palm onto the horn, cursing the traffic, swearing the entire way. As soon as they parked, they’d rush into whatever industrial building was holding the auditions, and then Mom would suddenly be all smiles again. Bright and beaming. Like nothing had happened.

  The second they were back in the Chevy, it was nothing but panic. Outright chaos. Speeding down the streets. Running red lights. Just to get to the next audition.

  Always the next audition.

  Mom had been pulled over once. She had chewed the officer out as he wrote a ticket. Don’t you see we’re running late here, she’d berated the policeman from behind the wheel. My daughter’s got a callback across town and I have to get on the 405. And here you are, making her miss her chance. Happy now? Are you, officer? I bet you are. Asshole. Thanks, thanks so much.

  Amber had sunk into her seat, her cheeks flushed, praying she would disappear. She slid so far down that every inch of her made full contact with the leatherette. When she shifted, her skin had peeled away with a sticky sound.

  Amber always prayed from the back of their Chevy that one day her mom might lose control of the wheel, simply glance away from the road for a moment, and ease into incoming traffic. Meet the fender of another car. An eighteen-wheeler careening toward them.

  No more auditions. No more cattle calls.

  Amber would be free.

  Finally free.

  But here, now, in the small church nestled deep within Pilot’s Creek Cemetery, Amber realized that she would never be free. Free of family. This was her life. This was her mother.

  “You done now?” Mom asked. “You done with your little hissy fit?”

  “Mommy, please…”

  “Enough. You listen to me, okay? We’re going over your lines.”

  Even at nine, Amber knew this had nothing to do with going over her lines. Nothing at all. This had everything to do with the fact that she had been talking to Miss Lambert.

  “I don’t want to…”

  “Amber.”

  “No.”

  “Amber!”

  “NO!”

  Their voices reverberated through the church, bouncing off the wooden rafters.

  “You do as I say,” Mom seethed. She’d had enough. She clutched Amber’s arm and began to drag her away. Amber leaned the other way, pulling back.

  “Let me go.”

  Amber felt the strain in her wrist. Her shoulder was about to pop out of its socket.

  “Let go!”

  Amber yanked her arm back. Hard. As hard as she could. Amber’s mother let go, releasing her, both of them stumbling backward. She fell onto her back. Picking herself up as quickly as she could, she ran down the aisle. Away from her mother.

  “Amber!”

  Her shoulder struck the church doors and pushed them open, racing out into the darkness.

  Into the cemetery.

  FIVE

  The sun. The sun was waiting for her outside. She ran right into it, straight out from the church and into the blindingly bright white light of a supernova. She brought her arms up to her face, shielding her eyes. It felt so close, so hot against her cheeks, she couldn’t help but wonder if the intense glare was enough to peel her skin right off. Burn straight through.

  Wait, she thought. Wasn’t it midnight? Where had the sun come from?

  Her eyes slowly adjusted. Back to the night.

  To the dark.

  There were several suns now. Not just one. An entire constellation of hot white spots hung throughout the cemetery, suspended over the graves on their own telescopic stands.

  For the last few hours, the gaffer and his crew had busied themselves by setting up a handful of ground-mounted lighting fixtures all around the outer perimeter of the cemetery, illuminating the graves. Each headstone cast its own severe shadow. In the film, in the very celluloid itself, it would look like moonlight. But here, on set, they burned with an intensity that caused Amber to wince.

  The cemetery wasn’t so big. A town as small as this one, there weren’t that many bodies to bury. Pilot’s Creek hadn’t expanded beyond its few stoplights. There were no plans to extend the city limits and there were certainly no plans to cut through the surrounding woods to make way for more graves. There was more than enough room to bury this town’s own without ever setting foot into the neighboring pines, which was just the way the locals liked it. Preferred it. Nobody set foot in those woods. That much was clear.

  But at night, in the dark, the graveyard lost its shape. The contours of it loosened within the shadows, bleeding into the surrounding trees. As far as Amber was concerned, it felt as if the cemetery went on for miles and miles. There could have been hundreds of graves, a thousand graves, lingering beyond these lighting fixtures. The crew had only set up their kit in the northern corner of the cemetery, isolating a row of graves directly in front of the church. Whoever was buried beyond the light’s reach was anybody’s guess. Amber didn’t know.

  “Finally,” a man’s voice beckoned from beyond the grave. “There you are.”

  Amber froze.

  Mr. Ketchum marched straight for her. His breath fogged up before him, puffs of steam dissipating into the night air at a quick clip, as if he were breathing fire. She simply stood there, intensely aware of the fact that Mr. Ketchum didn’t seem happy with her. Happy at all. With anything. The arc lamps cast a stark silhouette over his face. Amber had a hard time seeing his eyes. They had sunk back farther into his sockets, lost in shadows. He kept chewing. From where Amber was standing, staring up, it looked like he was gnawing on his own tongue.

  “Let’s get going, shall we?”

  There were so few men in Amber’s life. She’d never met her father. Any opinions of him were filtered through her mother’s point of view. Mom occasionally dated, bringing home the odd boyfriend now and then. But none of them lasted. None of the men ever lasted. Their names, their faces—some with mustaches, some not—all blurred together.

  Mr. Ketchum had been around longer than any other man in Amber’s life. She couldn’t help but feel he just might be the closest thing to a father figure she had.

  Telling her what to do.

  Where to stand.

  How to talk.

  Demanding the most out of her.

  Only the best.

  And right now Mr. Ketchum was very, very disappointed in her.

  “We’re burning moonlight here, people,” he announced, clapping his hands. “Let’s get this shot before the sun comes, okay? We’ve got to bang out five pages before dawn…”

  The setup was simple.

  All Amber had to do was walk through a row of headstones.

  Simple. A monkey could do it.

  Cassandra and her hippie boyfriend were sitting on her grave, toking up after a little postcoital séancing. Their backs pressed against Jessica Ford’s headstone. The boyfriend would stand up and mumble something about needing to relieve himself, leaving Cassandra alone.

  The spirit of Jessica Ford would rise from the earth, out from her grave. Cassandra wouldn’t be the wiser, wouldn’t know Jessica was closing in on her, until it was too late.

  It all seemed simple enough. They blocked the whole scene. Mr. Ketchum pointed to Amber’s marks, where she had to walk. Where to stop and stand and look so the camera could see her. Where to say her line.

  Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy.

  But as soon as
Mr. Ketchum was standing behind the camera, muttering to the cinematographer about how to frame the shot, as soon as he pressed his eyes against the viewfinder to see how it all looked, as soon as the boom operator lifted the mic over Amber’s head, as soon as Amber was standing alone, waiting alone, as soon as the intense glare of the lamp spread over her face, the heat from the bulbs causing her to sweat, her makeup starting to slicken, the perspiration chilling against her skin…she felt her skin prickle.

  How could she be hot and cold at the same time? It made no sense to her.

  “Sound,” the sound tech called out.

  “Camera.”

  “Rolling.”

  A young man stepped up with a clapboard in hand. He lifted it directly in front of Amber’s face. The glare of the lights was suddenly off her eyes. Amber’s attention drifted, her eyes wandering over the row of graves. So many bodies buried here. The light kits. The camera. The crew waltzing over their coffins. This didn’t seem right. Didn’t seem appropriate. Being here, like this. Making a movie, like this. Wouldn’t the dead think they were making fun of them? Teasing them? Dancing over their graves? Amber couldn’t help but feel guilty. Culpable.

  “Don’t Tread on Jessica’s Grave,” he announced. “Scene forty-three. Take one.”

  CLACK.

  The arm on the clapboard came down so hard, so fast, it snapped Amber out of her daydream. She gave a start, wincing from the harsh smack of the wooden wand slicing down. Like a guillotine. Like a mousetrap. She needed a moment to settle her nerves. Settle down.

  “And…action.”

  All eyes were suddenly on Amber. She felt them staring at her. The cast. The crew. The director. Mom. Nora. All of them. Watching her. Waiting for her to say her line. Her one line.

  It should’ve been so simple.

  All she had to do was waltz down the graves. Lift her arm and reach out to Cassandra. Point an accusing finger at the young woman and her frizzy-haired boyfriend and say…

  And say…

  What was her line again?

  Her mind had gone blank. The words weren’t there anymore. They all evaporated. They had just been there, only a moment ago. And now…