Always a gaming enthusiast, Charles took second at the 2019 Montana X-wing Regional to an out-of-stater from Washington, making Charles the best pilot in Montana—at least for a little while. When he isn’t flying squadrons of X-wings, he works on his writing. He lives in Western Montana with his girlfriend, their dog, and the cat.
Motivating A Monster
Irene Radford
Motivating A Monster
Ruffle,” the make-up artiste du jour demanded. He brandished his airbrush as if it were a sword about to decapitate his prey.
Zillagon complied, filling the pockets beneath each of his scales with enough air to triple his size. “There!” he said with just a hint of disgust in his voice. A squiggle of natural sage green, more gray than green, showed beneath the first layer of paint. His natural coloring was perfect camouflage for desert living. Movie monsters need to be more colorful.
Five years and twelve movies in Hollywood had taught him that any deeper degree of menace in his voice would push his minions into quitting. He still needed this person to airbrush good color on him.
“If you want me to look like a damned bird, you need more red on that scale, and move the brush delicately so that it looks like a feather not a splotch of roadkill.” He shuddered at the years he’d been reduced to eating squashed coyotes and roadrunners. That was in his youth, before he realized the necessity of killing and then flaming his prey before they ran for the hills.
The make-up person—Zillagon decided he wasn’t worthy the designation of artiste—complied. He probably thought his life depended upon getting the effect just right. In a different lifetime, it might.
“Lookin’ good, Zilly baby,” Montrose, the director said, coming into the abandoned aircraft hangar that had become Zillagon’s dressing room. He was followed by his ubiquitous assistant, complete with glasses sliding down her nose, tablet in hand, and a stylus tucked behind her ear.
“You about ready? We’ve got the backdrop, sets, and special effects ready for you.” Montrose waved his arms wildly to demonstrate the size of the backdrop, sets, and special effects.
“Is there enough room to fully spread my wings?” Zillagon asked politely. Ten of his twelve films since coming to Hollywood had been directed by Montrose (no other name, just Montrose, as if he were as iconic as he thought he was in his beige jodhpurs and chocolate-brown boots, cream-colored poet shirt and black beret. All he needed to complete the outfit was a monocle and megaphone). Montrose’s films had earned Zillagon spectacular amounts of gold. His hoard was now almost as full as his belly. The first two movies with other directors had been enormous failures, soon to be consigned to Zillagon’s internal fire as had the directors when they demanded money from him to cover their financial losses. They’d soon learned not to mess with a dragon’s ire. (Add an ‘f’ to that and you got the real special effect of fire.)
Zillagon stretched his wing membranes a bit to emphasize the need for more room than this cramped hanger. The pen for milling sheep, goats, and a cow or six took up almost as much space as the pastry table—necessary supplies to keep his blood sugar stable.
“Of course, this studio is big enough. Ten stories high and as long and wide as a football field! No more wiping out the backdrop of New York City at sunset with the swipe of one wing. We want to burn that city to the ground this time,” Montrose explained with wide gestures and a red gleam of excitement in his eyes.
Maybe that murderous glare came from the sun coming through the skylight and glinting off the thirty-five fire extinguishers scattered around the room.
“Burning New York,” Zillagon mused flatly. “Why would I want to burn New York?”
“Because it’s in the script! Best screenplay ever written for you. We’ll make six fortunes this time.”
Zillagon glared at the director. “What’s my motivation?”
Montrose gulped and backed up, his throat working up enough moisture to reply. “Everyone wants to see the heart of the predatory financial institutions burn?”
“Oh, okay. Vicarious revenge on the banks that everyone thinks cheats them into the poorhouse.” Anger boiled in Zillagon’s fat belly. He’d been poor once, and starving. He’d been so angry at life he wanted to burn everyone.
Oooops. Did Montrose know about those wildfires the full length of the Interstate-5 corridor the year he’d made those first two awful movies?
“Yeah, yeah, now you got it Zilly baby. Let’s go burn New York.”
Zillagon waddled after Montrose, through the doorway big enough to accept a 747 with wings fully extended. He didn’t even have to close his wings to get through. Not that he could really fly anymore. His wings couldn’t support his weight. Maybe he should cut down on the pastries, a necessity on every set, not just the monster movie ones.
Cut down on his essential food stuffs, NEVER!
By the time he reached the filming studio, he was so angry at the banks that didn’t pay enough interest to keep his flock of sheep fed he was ready to burn the entire city for real, not just a projected backdrop. He wanted his flames to be real rather than computer generated.
“Easy, Zilly baby, remember the cost of insurance. Less profit for us if we have to rebuild the sets more than once. Keep your fire under control. Dribbles of flame, not full infernos.
“But … but …”
“Do it!” Montrose yelled.
Zillagon dropped his head in meek compliance. He still wanted to burn something. Maybe he should indulge in a trip to the trash dump when they finished for the day. The city always needed help reducing the mountain of garbage and the nice methane pockets flared with extraordinary beauty.
Yeah, he’d get to flame something later. But first he had to destroy New York.
“Beautiful, Zilly baby. Beautiful.” The director gazed fondly at the model skyscrapers outlined in flame by propane jets. “Now lift your snout and howl to the moon.”
“Huh?” Zillagon had never howled at the moon in his life. That was for werewolves. “Why would I do that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Because it looks cool on camera.”
“What’s my motivation?”
“You want the audience to love you. You want them on your side so that when it takes a squad of Marines to kill you, all those screaming teenagers will shed a tear for you. That way they’ll pay good money to see the movie again, and more money to see the next movie.”
“But what am I mourning? I burned the bankers because they cheated me on interest for my hoard. Why do I mourn them now?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because the bankers killed your girlfriend for her gold, and you can’t ever have her as your mate.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend. And girl dragons don’t have hoards. They sit on boy dragon’s hoard while they incubate eggs.” As big as Zillagon’s hoard had grown from his successful movies, he still didn’t have enough to attract a mate. But he would. One more film and he’d have enough. But he’d have to fly in order to mate.
He looked down at his sagging belly. It nearly touched the ground between his splayed feet. With a sharp snap he opened his wings as wide as they’d go and flapped, once, twice, three times while he ran toward the exit.
Air whooshed beneath his wings, caught the membranes and … and dashed elsewhere.
He couldn’t get off the ground.
Then he lifted his muzzle and roared—a decent dragon roar, not some puling wolf’s howl. He stretched his sinuous neck until his nostrils brushed the light crane and pulled his anguish up and out until the tin roof rattled. Flame followed sound. And he screamed his regret that he let acting fill his life so much that he ate himself into a fat old man without enough gold to find a mate.
“And cut!” Montrose called in a voice that resounded and echoed and shook the sound boom. “Perfect, Zilly baby. We’ll break for the night. “Everybody back here by six tomorrow morning, before six, not after. We’ve got the studio for one more day. We still have to stomp Tokyo and drown Detroit. So no dela
ys and no tardiness!”
“Why would I do that?” Zillagon reached for one of the dragon-sized Danish pastries. His paw shook as he forced himself not to grab the delicacy and gobble it in one bite.
“Aren’t you hungry, Zilly baby?” Montrose asked.
The thought of all the sugar melting on his tongue sent quivers of delicious anticipation through his body. Then he saw his belly making a barrier between him and the desert table.
“I’ll be in my trailer.” Cave actually. He lived in a cave carved out of the hillside behind the studio lot. His home was devoid of gold because the bankers had custody of his hoard. Why was he doing all this? “What’s my motivation?”
Last month, Montrose had fitted out Zillagon’s cave with electricity and Wi-Fi, and provided a desktop computer with a fifty-four inch monitor, so that far-sighted dragon eyes could focus on the screen while he streamed old monster movies. He liked the old prototypes of himself. The Japanese directors had done a good job of imitating him before they knew he really existed and that he loved making movies.
Zillagon had needed Montrose to find plastic tubing to sheath his talons so he didn’t shred the keyboards and trackpads. A tiny bubble of foam on the end of each tube made each claw a perfect stylus. He could type one hundred ten words per minute when he needed to complain to mail-order houses when the latest tools and gadgets weren’t up to his satisfaction. It seemed like he returned everything he bought. Human-sized tools never fit dragon-sized paws.
Out of curiosity, he checked the status of his hoard. Quarterly royalty payments from his previous movies should show up in his account today.
Three clicks brought him to the log-in. He typed a twelve character string of letters, numbers, and symbols that meant nothing in English but spelled out his name in Dragon perfectly.
January payment, check.
February interest, check.
March advance on signing new contract, check.
March deduction to Montrose as Media agent, WHAT? Fifty percent! That was not right. Never would Zillagon have authorized that kind of payment.
He opened a new file in the ether holding area. There was the contract that spelled out the percentage and his signature. He didn’t remember signing that.
Carefully he opened a new window for his private files from his hard drive. There was the contract. He compared them side by side, word for word. The only difference was that obscene amount of money going back to Montrose as his agent.
Somehow, Montrose had hacked his ether account.
His blood boiled and his gut churned.
He marched out to the garbage dump south of his cave entrance and loosed a long blast of flame. The methane exploded, turning the red flares to blue and back to white. Heat charred his face, but his scales deflected any damage. The airbrushed make-up might look a little smoky, but that’s what he paid the fumbling minion for.
Still not satisfied, he roared another bout of fire into the garbage. More methane exploded. Flames reached toward the dry hillside. Sparks shot toward the full moon.
Sirens erupted in the near distance.
Zillagon stomped back to his cave. Plans fermented in his brain as anger continued to distill in his gut.
He had lawyers and accountants to run errands for him. He began the slow process of converting all of his accounts to cash, then instructed people in five different cities to convert that paper money into gold bars, gold coins, gold jewelry, high-quality gems, and the gold toilet belonging to an orange muskrat.
Then he set about hacking into Montrose’s accounts to see what else had been stolen from the accounts of a dragon.
Morning came and went. Zillagon continued selling real estate and stock and buying treasures. Everything was for sale for the right price.
About noon, Montrose’s assistant, the pretty young woman with short and fluffy brown hair, no make-up, and tired walking shoes, arrived at Zillagon’s cave. She pulled the rope connected to a big bell at the entrance.
“Sir, you are needed on set,” she said in her squeaky and timid voice. What was her name? Tammy maybe. Tommie? Nattie, short for Natalia.
Zillagon ignored her. He was deep into recovering money that Montrose had stolen from him.
The bell rang again, longer and more insistently. “Sir, Mr. Montrose says that every minute is costing you money. We only have the rest of the day to shoot two destruction scenes before we wrap the whole movie. You have to come now, or he’ll cobble together shots from other movies with computer special effects.”
That penetrated Zillagon’s mind. He’d done what he could remotely. Now he had to confront the perpetrator of the crimes. Nattie wasn’t responsible. He wouldn’t punish her, or risk Montrose abusing his power over her.
“I’m coming.” He said simultaneously as he hit enter on the remote to roll up the metal door to his cave. The sun backlit little Nattie with her inevitable tablet and glasses resting atop her head like a headband. Meek she might sound, but her posture shouted that she was the true power behind Montrose. Without her determination and courage to face down even a dragon, the director would get nothing done.
She’d make a worthy mate if she weren’t a puny human.
Much to his delight the same sun that created a halo around Nattie glinted around the metal trailers attached to semi-trucks coming up the long, graded gravel road between Zillagon’s home and the studio. He gratefully counted six in today’s convoy.
Six semis loaded to the gills with treasure. He was really looking forward to presenting an antique Russian Orthodox silver chalice to Nattie as a thank you for her years of dedication to Montrose and therefore also to himself.
“Miss Natalia.” He bowed to the woman. “Would you please stay and organize the offloading of the coming cargo. I wish it to be arranged in the shape of a nest. When you are done, you may choose an item for yourself.” He really hoped she’d take the chalice. He’d selected it from an auction house with her in mind.
Then he stalked toward the studio. He hadn’t eaten since the day before and already felt lighter, less sluggish and surly. Fasting three days between meals was normal for a dragon. Why had he let Montrose convince him that gorging on donuts all day, every day, was what he needed?
He had chosen the right path. Now he just had to deal with Montrose.
“Zilly baby! You’re right on time. We had some problems with our permits from the Fire Marshall. I finally bought him off with promises of no fire today. Today you are going to stomp on Tokyo.”
“No, I am not.”
“Zilly baby, what’s wrong? We talked about this yesterday. You were fine with the idea of wiping out …”
“You were fine with me crushing the finest city in the world, the city that gave us the first and best monster movies.”
“Rubber puppets …”
“Prototypes.”
“Prototypes, smototypes. What’s important is that audiences love mass destruction, blood, and gore. They love you and how you end the tyranny of politicians over …”
“Politicians were the last movie. This script calls for the demise of bankers.”
“Yeah, yeah bankers, same difference. So, let’s get to it. The rest of the movie is finished. We just have these last two scenes …”
Zillagon felt his stomach roil and grumble.
“Hungry? Have a chocolate éclair. Get your blood sugar up and you’ll feel much more like the fine actor I know you to be.”
Zillagon scooped up the director and held him in a cage of his talons.
“Zilly baby, put me down. We’ve got work to do.” Montrose looked all around him with a degree of panic in his voice and the quivering of his chin. He dropped his megaphone on his way up to Zillagon’s eye level—only about six feet above ground, not high enough to kill him if he fell. But he’d probably break something and hurt badly for a long time.
“Time is money, Zilly! Put me down so we can get to work.”
That got the dragon’s attention.
“How much money will you lose if you do not finish this film today?” He squeezed his fist a little tighter.
“Ulp. Um, quite a lot. You’ll lose too. You invested heavily in the up-front production costs.”
“I did?”
“Yeah. You and me, halvsies. When the box office receipts roll in, we don’t have to share with anyone else.”
“Did I invest as much money as you have stolen from me?”
“Stolen? I haven’t stolen anything from you, Zilly baby.”
“Aside from my name. I am ‘Zillagon,’ a proud dragon name from a proud dragon heritage. You may not call me ‘Zilly baby.’”
“Okay, okay. A little familiarity. This is Hollywood, laid-back lifestyle and all. We’re all casual here. Now put me down so we can start work.”
“What about the change to my contract authorizing a fifty percent payment to you as my agent? I have the original contract. It specifies ten percent.” He brought his eyes closer to the wriggling figure of the director.
“No, no, no. You read the contract wrong. It’s a standard fifty percent.” Montrose looked everywhere but into Zillagon’s eyes … er … eye.
“I retained the original on my hard drive. Not subject to hacking by your internet robots. And ten percent is standard. I’ve filed a complaint with SAG.”
Montrose’s phone beeped an incoming email.
“And I’ve terminated the contract.”
“Okay, okay. Since you only act in my movies, you don’t really need an agent. Can we get back to work now?”
“I want to change the script.”
“You can’t do that!”
“I can or there will be no movie at all.” He squeezed his talons a little tighter.
“Change. What change?” Montrose squeaked.
“We leave Tokyo unscathed and I take a dip in Lake Michigan to wash off the stink of burning New York. The waves from my splashing with joy threatens a few waterfront villages. With children in inner tubes splashing with me.”
Monsters, Movies & Mayhem Page 27