by Ellen Datlow
The third and final scene is, of course, the movie’s climax. By now, the movie’s title has been realized, as the film crew has emerged from the cave to discover that their panicked flight has carried them off Isabelle’s map. Despite following several seemingly familiar paths, they have remained lost. Their complaints have grown more hysterical.
In the meantime, Carmen has succeeded in coaxing Isabelle out of the trancelike state into which she fell. The sclera of her left eye is still stained red with hemorrhages, but it’s no longer actively bleeding. Prompted by Carmen and Kristi, she has revealed some of the secrets we’ve suspected her of harboring. Her research on Agatha Merryweather, she says, led her to a website that’s kind of a clearinghouse of weird information. There was an entry for the Bound Woman of the Mine that sounded as if it might connect to the information she’d already gathered. The site kept crashing her computer, so she wasn’t able to read all of the listing, but the portion she finished was intriguing. It concerned a fourteen-year-old girl who had been responsible for a series of terrible murders in northwestern New Jersey during the early nineteen sixties. This was farm country, near the Pennsylvania line. For some reason, after her apprehension by the sheriff, the local Catholic priest was brought in to consult on the case. This led to another pair of priests being summoned, an older man and a younger one, whose accents no one recognized. They said they were members of a small order, the Perilaimio. Eventually, the girl was released into their custody on the condition she remain confined to her house. At some point thereafter, she, her parents, and the priests were discovered to have fled for an unknown destination. There was talk of a search for her, but it came to nothing.
When Kristi asks what any of this has to do with anything, Isabelle reveals that the website gave a name for the girl: Agatha Merryweather. Obviously, with the assistance of the Church, she and her family fled east, where they were resettled in Weehawken. The question was, why?
This Agatha was possessed, George says. That’s where the story is heading, isn’t it?
That is what she thought, Isabelle says, until she looked into the order to which the priests belonged, the Perilaimio. It’s an old, old group, maybe older than the Church itself.
What is she talking about? Megan wants to know. How can there be a part of the Church that came before it?
Like Christmas trees, Ben says, or Yule logs. Pagan things the Church folded into it.
That’s it exactly, Isabelle says. The Perilaimio were charged with managing the Keres.
Which means what? Kristi asks.
Death-spirits, Ben says.
Death-spirits? Megan says. How does he know this stuff?
He took Greek in high school, Ben says.
Does he mean ghosts? Megan says.
Sounds more like devils, George says.
No, Isabelle says. These are beings of the primordial dark, beyond the Church’s sway. They depend on blood to maintain their presence in this world. They can’t be cast out, or destroyed, only contained.
Which is what happened here, George says. Agatha Merryweather was brought to this place to imprison her.
That’s the theory, Isabelle says. At first, she read this entire story as a case of a mentally ill girl subjected to a prolonged victimization by religious maniacs. The mine, she assumed, was intended as a jail, primitive but low profile. Most likely, the men who transported her to upstate New York planned for her to die in these tunnels, of malnutrition or disease.
Why would they have thought this? Kristi says. Didn’t Isabelle just say the death-spirits couldn’t be killed?
It’s complicated, Isabelle says. The Keres are fundamentally violent; they can’t be killed by violent means. However, if their host dies of natural causes, they lose their hold on it.
This makes no sense, Kristi says. How does any of this make sense?
The point is, Carmen says, Isabelle thought they were dealing with a crazy person.
Honestly, Isabelle says, she was sure Agatha had been dead for years. The most she expected was to find her remains.
Instead, Kristi says, they have…this. What they have.
“Us,” George says, “lost. In the dark. With a monster.”
Their wandering has brought the crew to another unfamiliar location, a small chamber whose rough walls recede at regular intervals to what appear to be doorways.
This is the IMDb summary of what ensues:
Ben shines his flashlight on the recess farthest to the right. It shows solid rock. He swings the light to the left. The next recess opens on a passageway. He swings the light to the left, to the recess directly across from him. It is solid, too, but there is something on the rock at approximately head level. It is the same portrait the film crew saw at the beginning of the expedition, a woman’s face, the left half a skull. Megan shrieks. Kristi says, What the fuck? Ben says, It’s only another drawing, and crosses to it. He reaches out his free hand to touch it. He says, See?
His flashlight goes out. Megan shrieks again. Carmen says, Ben? George says, Now is not the time for screwing around, kid. He aims his flashlight at the recess.
There is a flurry of motion. Ben screams. George’s flashlight beam swings from side to side, trying to keep up with the action. Kristi shouts. Carmen points her flashlight in Ben’s direction. She says, There! There! Ben continues screaming. There is someone grabbing him from behind. White arms wrap around his neck and chest. White legs encircle his waist. A head with long black hair presses against his neck. Ben grabs at the arms. He slaps at the head. He stumbles back into the wall. Megan screams, Someone do something! Professor Price shouts, Agatha! Agatha, stop!
Agatha growls and tugs her head back. There is the sound of flesh tearing, followed by a hiss as blood sprays from Ben’s open throat. He drops to his knees, slaps at Agatha’s hands, and falls forward, Agatha still clinging to him. She drops her head to his neck. There is the sound of her slurping his blood. Kristi says, Holy shit. Megan screams, You fucking bitch! and runs at Agatha, raising her flashlight as a club. Agatha ducks her swing and leaps onto her. She knocks Megan onto her back, and rips her throat out. Kristi says, Jesus Christ.
George says, We have to get out of here. He runs from the chamber. Agatha jumps off Megan onto the wall. She hangs on it like a spider. Professor Price shouts, Agatha! Please! Agatha! Agatha scrambles up the wall and out of the light. Carmen sweeps her flashlight around the ceiling. Kristi shouts, Where did she go? Where is she? The professor shouts, Agatha! Please!
Agatha drops onto Carmen. Her flashlight spins away. She screams. Agatha growls. Kristi and Professor Price scramble out of the way. There is the sound of Carmen struggling. Kristi shouts, Come on! Let’s go! Now! Carmen shouts, Wait! Help me! Kristi says, I’m sorry, and runs through the passageway Ben discovered. Carmen shouts, Kristi! Agatha snarls. The professor says, Agatha, please, then follows Kristi. Carmen screams.
The screen goes black.
After five seconds, there is a clatter, and the screen fills with Kristi’s face, illuminated by the camera light. She says, I don’t know why I’m doing this. There’s no way either of us is getting out of here. I can hear her—Agatha. She’s coming closer. Kristi begins to cry. She says, I just wanted to say, I’m sorry about Carmen. I couldn’t do anything about Ben and Megan. Maybe I couldn’t have helped Carmen, either, but I’m sorry. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. She says, And George, if you make it out of this place, and somehow see this, fuck you, you chickenshit piece of shit.
The camera turns to show Isabelle Price’s face. Kristi says, You never told us everything, did you? Professor Price shakes her head. Kristi asks, Anything you want to say now? Isabelle shakes her head. Kristi says, You know this is all your fault. The professor nods. Kristi says, We’re going to leave this camera here, in hopes that someone will find it. Which is about as stupid as all the rest of this, but hey, why stop now? She sets the camera down, turned to light the tunnel she and Professor Price are headed down. She says, We
still have a flashlight. We’ll hold off using it as long as we can, to save the batteries. Professor Price starts along the tunnel. Kristi follows. When she is almost out of view, Kristi stops and turns. She says, I can hear her. Hurry.
The women disappear into the darkness. For the next three minutes, the credits roll over the scene. Once the credits are finished, the camera light dims. There is the sound of bare feet slapping stone. Agatha’s face fills the screen. Her features are those of a young woman, covered in blood. Her eyes are wide. Blood plasters her hair to her forehead and cheeks. The screen flickers. Agatha’s left eye is an empty socket, her left cheek sunken, her lips on this side drawn back from jagged teeth. The screen flickers again, goes to static, then goes dark.
III
IT’S THE TEACHER in me: I can’t help wanting to discuss all the things Lost in the Dark does right. The opening, for example, which imparts a substantial amount of background information to the viewer without sacrificing interest, as well as the Agatha Merryweather narrative, itself, which taps into the enduring fascination with the Catholic Church and its secrets (which, if I felt like being truly pedantic, I would point out is one of the ribs of the larger umbrella of the Gothic under which the movie shelters). Or the way the film suggests there’s even more to the Agatha narrative than we’ve been told, than anyone’s been told. Only Isabelle Price knows the full story, and to the end, she keeps back some portion of it. By making her the model for the portraits of Agatha the crew encounter, a similarity no one mentions, the movie visually suggests a connection between the women, which contributes to the audience’s growing sense that the characters are in a situation that’s much worse than they understand. (It’s one of the enduring conceits of the film that the identity of the actress who portrays Bad Agatha has never been revealed. The credits assign the part to Agatha Merryweather. I’m of the camp that would wager money Isabelle Router played the monster; it fits too well with the portrait ploy not to be the case.)
Were it not for Sarah Fiore’s interview in the Blu-ray extras, this article might address itself to exactly such a critical analysis. That interview, though, changed everything. According to Sarah, the trip into the mine to shoot footage for Isabelle Router’s documentary lasted much longer than they had planned, almost twenty hours. During that time, the crew became lost, wandering out of the mine into a series of natural tunnels and caves. While underground, they had a number of strange experiences, about half of which at least one member of the crew caught on film. They returned to the surface with a couple of hours of decent footage that was not what they had been planning on. After a rough edit, Sarah sat down with Larry Fessenden to watch the film. He loved it. He also thought she had abandoned her plan for a documentary in favor of an outright horror movie. Thinking quickly, Sarah responded to his enthusiasm by saying that yes, she had decided to go a different route. Fessenden offered to produce a feature-length version of what he’d seen, on the condition that Sarah revise the script to give it a more substantial narrative. Since there was no actual script at that moment, his request was both easier and harder to fulfill; nonetheless, she agreed to it. She also agreed that she should keep as much of what she’d shown him as they could in the longer film. This turned out to be about forty minutes of an hour-and-forty-minute movie. Isabelle Router was willing essentially to play herself, as were Kristi Nightingale and George Maltmore. The interns, Priya and Chad, had no interest in taking part in another expedition to the mine, so they were replaced by a pair of actors, Ben Formosa and Megan Park. Rather than juggle the roles of director, scriptwriter, and actor, Sarah hired Carmen Fuentes to play her. The rest is cinema history.
If we’re to believe Sarah, Lost in the Dark was built from another film, a piece of fiction constructed using a significant portion of nonfiction. I use the “if” because as soon as word of her interview got out, the question of its authenticity was raised. After all, this was a filmmaker who had started her career with a faux documentary. What better way to mark the ten-year anniversary of that production than with another instance of the form, one designed to send audiences back to pore over the original movie? By those who took this view of Sarah’s revelations, she was variously praised for her cleverness and decried for her cynicism. I’ve swung back and forth on the matter. I did my due diligence. The narrative Sarah relates, of the mysterious woman who stepped down from the train to Wiltwyck, the murdered men at the entrance to the mine, is true. You can read about it online, in the archives of the Wiltwyck Daily Freeman and the Poughkeepsie Journal. Confirming Isabelle Router’s uncle’s story proved more difficult. Richard Higgins died in Tampa three years ago. I located one of his former colleagues, Henry Ellison, who confirmed that Rich had gone into the mine to retrieve that dumbass high school kid. Of any more than that, Rich never spoke to him.
Still, there’s sufficient evidence that Sarah Fiore was telling at least some of the truth. This doesn’t mean there was a documentary shot between her discovery of this information and Lost in the Dark. Once again, I did some digging and came up with contact information for all but one of the members of the (supposed) original crew. Wherever Chad Singer currently resides, it’s beyond my rudimentary sleuthing abilities to locate. Of the remainder of those involved, Priya Subramani listened to my introduction, then hung up and blocked my number. Kristi Nightingale told me to go fuck myself; I’m not sure if she also blocked me, since there didn’t seem much point in calling back. George Maltmore instantly was angry, demanding to know who the hell I thought I was and what the hell I thought I was playing at. Despite my best efforts to reassure him, he became increasingly incensed, threatening to find out where I lived and show up at my front door with his shotgun. Finally, I hung up on him. Somewhat to my surprise, Larry Fessenden spoke to me for almost half an hour; although he did so without answering my question in a definitive way. Sure, he said, he remembered the film that Sarah had brought to him. It was a terrific piece of work. Was what he saw a documentary? I asked. Ah, he said, yeah, that was the story making the rounds, wasn’t it? He couldn’t remember Sarah saying that to him at the time, but it would be something if it turned out to be true, wouldn’t it?
Yes, I said, it would.
Even more unexpectedly, Isabelle Router agreed to talk. Once Lost in the Dark was done shooting, she and Sarah had an argument, which resulted in a falling-out that has lasted to this day. Isabelle returned to Albany, to work on her PhD at the state university, only to leave after a single semester. For the next few years, she said, she was kind of messed up. She moved around a lot, did…things. Eventually, she pulled herself together, settled in Boulder, where she became a yoga instructor. She asked me if I had spoken with anyone else, and what they had said. Isabelle was particularly interested to know if I’d talked to Sarah. That I had been her teacher was of great interest; she wanted to know what Sarah had been like as a student. When it came to the question of the documentary, her answers grew vague. Yes, they had done some preliminary filming in the mine. In fact, they’d gotten kind of lost down there. Did I know that the idea for the movie, for all of the supernatural stuff, was hers? It came out of the research she’d been doing for her dissertation. You did shoot a documentary first, I said.
“I don’t know that I’d go that far,” Isabelle said. “We were just lost in the dark. Sarah got that much right.”
Nor could I coax any more definitive statement from her. There was enough in Isabelle’s words for me to take them as supporting Sarah’s claims but not enough to settle the matter. Not to mention, the more I paged through the notes I’d taken from all of the interviews, the less certain I was that I wasn’t being played for a sucker. The extremity of Priya’s, Kristi’s, and George’s reactions—their theatricality—added to Fessenden’s bland non-answers, and Isabelle’s ambiguous replies seemed intended, scripted, to give the impression that not only had the documentary been filmed, it had recorded an experience singularly unpleasant. On the other hand, quite often, the truth looks glaringly
untrue; as Tolstoy said, God is a lousy novelist.
In the end, I would need to speak with my former student. Rather than a phone conversation or email exchange, Sarah suggested we meet in person. Halloween, she was scheduled to attend a special late-night screening of Lost in the Dark at the Joppenburgh Community Theater. Why didn’t we get together before that? She’d bring her laptop; there were clips she could show me that would prove interesting. I agreed, which has brought me here, seated at the back of Pete’s Corner Pub, while trick-or-treaters make their annual pilgrimage.
IV
SARAH FIORE ENTERS the bar as she used to enter my classroom—walking briskly, head down, oversize bag clutched to her side. The heels of her boots knock on the wood floor. She’s wearing a hip-length black leather coat over a white blouse and black jeans. With her head tilted forward, her long black hair curtains her face. Before the hostess on duty can approach her, she’s crossed to where I’m sitting and slid into the bench across from me. Since I didn’t meet her until she was in her midtwenties, I don’t see as dramatic a change in her as I often do with my former students. That said, time has passed, which I’ve no doubt she notices in the tide of white hairs that has swept both sides of my beard and is washing through what brown remains on my chin. We exchange greetings, Sarah orders a martini from the waitress who’s hurried to the booth, and she slides a gray laptop from her bag. She places it on the table in front of her, unopened. Hands flat on either side of it, she asks me if I’ve talked to the other members of the original crew.
With the exception of Chad Singer, I say, I have, and relay to her abbreviated versions of our conversations. She smirks at Kristi Nightingale’s cursing, drops her head in an attempt to conceal a laugh at George Maltmore’s furious show. Larry Fessenden’s noncommittal response receives a nod, as does Isabelle Router’s remark about them being lost in the dark. “She was intrigued to learn that I had been your teacher,” I add, but it draws no further response from Sarah.