I kept waiting for someone to attack Massimo, for the crowd to rush him and take their revenge. He had used them like puppets, and I could feel their outrage like a physical force, and yet no one moved. I looked around and saw in their shocked faces that there was at least a kernel of truth in what the magician said. Though they had not been in control of themselves at the time of the boy’s death, a residue of the madness remained and would never let go.
“Well, I believe my work here is done,” Massimo said. “I appreciate all the hospitality I was shown during my stay here. The adulation and insanity you offered up to me will sustain me for years to come. And I guarantee this, none of you will ever forget me.”
With an elaborate wave of his hands, Massimo disappeared. There was no puff of smoke, no gradual fading out of his body. One second he was there, and the next he simply…wasn’t.
Viola began to wail again, and Horace knelt next to her, placing a hand on her shoulder, the stunned look still in his eyes. I imagined at that moment that he wished for insanity, wanting to wrap it around him like a blanket. Others in the crowd came forward to offer their support to the grieving couple, while others backed away, perhaps driven by guilt to distance themselves. The bodies of those in the aisles were unclaimed and left where they were, as if they were merely toys that had been broken and discarded.
I made my way slowly down the aisle. Tarantino and Jorgan both approached me, but I passed them without a word, ignoring them as they called to me. I walked out of the tent into the night. The air smelled of electricity and ozone, and I knew it would rain soon, but I did not seek shelter. I bypassed the Hall of Freaks as well as the trailer that had been my home. This was not my home anymore. I left the midway, turning right at the first road I came to and walking toward town. I left the carnival behind me.
And I have never been back.
An Excerpt from SEQUEL
by
Mark Allan Gunnells
Belinda Lovelace exited the theater feeling nauseated.
She’d never seen Class of ‘93 before, had never even heard of the film until her agent had convinced her to take a role in its sequel. She couldn’t understand why Trent had been so insistent she do the movie, but he had repeatedly told her that it was going to be big, maybe one of the biggest movies of the year, and that Belinda would be fabulously wealthy as a result. Besides, Trent had said, it would be a perfect vehicle for her to make the transition to the big screen.
Why Belinda should be so eager to make the transition to the big screen, she didn’t know. She was happy where she was, a regular on Home Is Where the Heart Is. It was steady work, a nice paycheck, and a hell of a lot of fun. Everyday she played dress-up and make-believe and got paid for it. What more could a girl ask for?
But Belinda knew from experience that Trent would not stop hounding her until he got his way, so she simplified things by just agreeing. Now she was having to take a five-month hiatus from the soap to run around and scream like a ninny. The writers of Home Is Where the Heart Is were writing out Belinda’s character, Selena Sharpe, by having her lost and presumed dead in an avalanche during a ski trip. After Belinda finished filming Class of ‘93: The Reunion, Selena would be discovered alive, with amnesia, living with a tribe of Eskimos.
Belinda had intended to rent the original Class of ‘93 sometime before the sequel began filming just to get some idea of what she was getting herself into, but when she learned that a theater a few blocks from her apartment was having a special midnight showing, she decided she’d attend.
A circus. A zoo. A madhouse. These were the words that came to mind when Belinda thought about the screening. People running up and down and around the aisles, throwing popcorn and paper at the screen, shouting at the characters in the movie as if they would be heard. The theater was a scene of such utter chaos that Belinda had been reminded of the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona. And yet it was not the commotion of the theater that was making Belinda feel sick now.
How to describe Class of ‘93? Adjectives such as “putrid,” “revolting,” “loathsome” somehow didn’t seem powerful enough. Belinda had begun to wonder if this were a practical joke, if Trent was playing some elaborate prank. Surely they didn’t really make movies this bad.
Trent had said Class of ‘93 was wildly popular and that people enjoyed it immensely, but that didn’t seem to be the case exactly. The film might be popular, but people didn’t seem to enjoy it so much as they enjoyed making fun of it, which wasn’t the same thing in Belinda’s book, not the same thing at all. Rather than an object of affection, the movie was more an object of gleeful scorn and parody.
Forty-five minutes into the film, as one of the characters was impaled on an unrealistically long ruler, Belinda had decided she’d had quite enough. She pushed her way through the mob—who, she was disturbed to note, brandished rulers of their own—and out onto the street. The stinging chill of the night was like a slap to the face and exactly what she needed. It alleviated the churning in her stomach a bit.
As Belinda began the trek back to her apartment, she wondered what Trent had gotten her into. Over the years, she had grown to trust her agent’s judgment. After all, he had gotten her the audition for Home Is Where the Heart Is and given her the encouragement she’d needed to land the part. At heart, Belinda was still the same naïve, wide-eyed farm girl from Iowa she’d been when she’d first arrived in Hollywood at eighteen; she’d feared she wouldn’t be able to portray a character as wicked and shamelessly nasty as Selena Sharpe. Trent had coached her through it, however, and a three-week commitment had turned into a five-year contract. And Belinda had discovered that she could not only play Selena, but she loved it as well. It was freeing to play a character with so few morals and no remorse. And she had Trent Rinehart to thank for making all of this happen.
But Class of ‘93: The Reunion? That was stretching trust to its limits. What could he have been thinking when he’d signed her on for this? True, Belinda had not yet read the script for Class of ‘93: The Reunion, but if it was anything like the original, Belinda would be a laughingstock.
Half a block from her apartment, Belinda stopped at the little newspaper stand that looked like something from a bygone age. The Pakistani gentleman who operated the stand was nice and Belinda enjoyed making chitchat with him.
“Evening, Miss Belinda. You out late tonight.”
“Yes, I was at the movies.”
“Ah, anything good?”
“A resounding no. How about a paper?”
“Tomorrow’s edition not out yet.”
“That’s okay, I haven’t read today’s paper.”
Belinda saw him quickly slide something underneath a stack of papers. He had an expression on his face that was at once sneaky and guilty.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Is nothing, Miss Belinda. Here is paper for you.”
Without a word, Belinda reached under the stack of papers and pulled out a copy of the National Tattle-Tell, the country’s trashiest tabloid rag. A grainy photo of Belinda was splashed across the cover with the caption “Soap Diva Steals Costar’s Husband” beneath it.
“Is terrible, Miss Belinda. They keep picking on you, saying bad lies. Why they want to do such things to such a nice lady?”
Silently, Belinda slid the tabloid back under the stack and walked away without her paper. The Pakistani called after her but she walked on, lost in her own suddenly melancholy thoughts.
It had started three months ago. The Enquirer had run a small article charging that Belinda had thrown a temper tantrum on set and had a costume designer fired for dressing Belinda in horizontal stripes. Belinda had been shocked by the article—which was a complete fabrication—but also a bit amused. The costume designer on Home Is Where the Heart Is was a lovely German immigrant named Greta, and she and Belinda got along wonderfully. Where did the tabloids come up with these stories? The other actors on the soap assured Belinda that it happened to all celebrities; she sh
ould be flattered the Enquirer considered her famous enough to make up a story about.
Two weeks later a story appeared in the Star stating that Belinda had stormed off the set because the writers had Belinda’s character beginning a love affair with an actor Belinda considered too unattractive to kiss, causing the writers to frantically rewrite the storyline. Belinda was dumbfounded. She had never questioned any of the scripts; it was her job to do whatever they asked of her, not to second guess the writers’ judgment. A sense of indignation was taking form, but her coworkers still told her not to take it too seriously. Belinda had decided to laugh it off and take the high road.
Belinda got her first cover story a week and a half later in the National Tattle-Tell. According to the article, Belinda threatened to quit if she didn’t get more money, pressuring the network executives into giving her the highest salary of any actor on the soap. The article came complete with quotes from an unnamed “source from the set.” The cover photo was a tight, unflattering close-up of Belinda, eyes bulging, nostrils flaring, mouth gaping in a frozen shout, veins popping, the perfect picture of rage and borderline madness. At first, Belinda had been unable to figure out where the picture had come from, but she’d finally recognized it as a shot from the set, snapped while Belinda was acting out a scene as Selena Sharpe. The tabloid was passing the photo off as Belinda, not Selena, making Belinda out to be some heartless witch.
As upset and heartsick as the story had made Belinda, she’d made a conscious effort not to let it get to her. She would laugh about the article with her friends at work, maybe even frame the cover photo and mount it in her dressing room. But when Belinda had arrived at work the next day there had been a subtle change in the air. Hard to detect, but Belinda had sensed it all the same. A certain coldness from her coworkers, the awkward silences that sprouted up wherever she went, the sideways glances and whispered comments just out of earshot. At lunch no one sat with her. Surely no one could believe the story in the Tattle-Tell. Her coworkers were the ones who had assured her that it was no big deal, they’d all been through it themselves. But they treated Belinda differently, that was for sure. Nothing overt, just a lack of smiles and easy exchanges which used to be plentiful.
Similar stories of bitchery had continued to appear in the tabloids over the following weeks. They painted Belinda as a woman as vile as the character she portrayed, blurring the line between reality and fantasy.
She continued to be ostracized at work. Everyone was pleasant enough, it wasn’t a question of that, but there were no more invitations to dinner parties or other activities outside of work. The mainstream press had even begun to make reference to the tabloid stories as gospel.
Belinda still enjoyed her work, still had a blast playing pretend, but it was beginning to become a bit disillusioning, the public’s difficulty separating Belinda from the character she played. Just because they saw her face on TV every day, they thought they knew her. But she was not Selena Sharpe; she was Belinda Anne Lovelace, a kind woman with a big heart. No one acknowledged that side of her these days. She was what was written about her, or so everyone seemed to believe.
Belinda had considered suing the tabloids, had even consulted her agent about it, but Trent had advised her against a lawsuit. He seemed to think it was great free publicity for Belinda, even called her “the darling of the tabloids.” Belinda wasn’t sure, but Trent usually knew what he was talking about. He told Belinda to enjoy it while it lasted, that the tabloids would move on to someone else soon enough. God, she hoped so.
“Hey, Selena! Selena Sharpe!”
Belinda turned just in time to see the rolled-up newspaper hurtling at her before it smacked into the side of her face. Belinda stumbled back, hand to her stinging cheek. Before her stood a short, middle-aged woman with a sloppy mop of blonde curls and a shapeless overcoat. The lady brandished the paper like a baseball bat.
“How could you?” the lady said, advancing on Belinda.
“Excuse me?”
“You whore! Not only did you sleep with Diana’s husband while married to her father, but to steal her son and sell him on the black market. You should be shot.”
The lady raised the newspaper again, but it was snatched from her hand before she could complete its downward arc.
“Get away, bad lady,” the Pakistani newspaper vendor said, wagging the confiscated paper at the woman.
She pointed an accusatory finger at Belinda before scurrying across the street. “You’re going to burn in hell!”
“You okay, Miss Belinda? Did bad lady hurt you?”
“Thank you,” Belinda said through numb lips. Beneath her fingers she could feel a welt rising on her cheek. “I appreciate your help.” Belinda turned, stumbled, put a hand to a nearby street lamp to steady herself, and hurried off. All she wanted was to get home. Everything about this night had been a disaster.
As Belinda approached the steps of her apartment building, she began rummaging in her purse for the keys. She stood shivering in the brisk March night for several minutes; her purse seemed to possess a magical quality in that the inside was larger than the outside, an entire world of lipstick, brushes, coins, business cards, reading glasses, jewelry, tissue, and keys all contained in the red leather pocket book.
“Hi there,” Timothy, one of Belinda’s downstairs neighbors, called pleasantly as he passed her on the steps. He opened the door to the lobby without aid of keys and went inside, smiling over his shoulder at Belinda.
“Idiot,” she muttered to herself, and then followed Timothy into the lobby. Belinda kept forgetting that the lock to the lobby door was broken, making keys unnecessary. It also meant anyone off the street could gain access to the building without being buzzed in by any of the tenants. Belinda and several of her neighbors had called the super about the broken lock, but so far he seemed unmotivated to fix it.
She walked through the lobby and headed up to her apartment on the third floor. The hallway was deserted, rock music blaring from one of the apartments at the end of the hall, much too loud for this hour. Belinda leaned against the doorjamb of her apartment and began digging through her purse again. Luck was with her this time, and she laid hands on her keys right away.
As Belinda unlocked the door and pushed it open, someone suddenly grabbed her from behind, clamping a gloved hand firmly over her mouth, and shoved her through the doorway. Belinda began flailing, arms and legs kicking. In her panic, she dropped her purse, realizing too late her mistake; she kept her mace in the purse.
Her attacker kicked the door shut with his foot, dragging Belinda further into the darkened living room. She tried to wiggle out of the attacker’s hold, but he was too strong. One hand still covered her mouth, while the other arm was wrapped tightly around Belinda’s waist. She reached behind her, intending to scratch at her attacker’s eyes, but her fingers merely scraped along something hard, smooth, and unyielding.
Belinda became frantic, her primal survival instincts kicking in. She began bucking wildly in the attacker’s hold, kicking at his shins, and biting at his flesh through the glove. The attacker suddenly let go of her waist, grabbed her by the back of the neck, and shoved her head down onto the coffee table. She struck the corner of the marble, glass-topped table with a dull thud and collapsed onto the carpet.
Dazed from the blow, Belinda managed to roll herself over and look up at her attacker. In the gloom and through the blood that ran into her eyes, she could make out a glowing skull-and crossbones and the gleam of a knife’s blade. The blade arced through the air, and she realized the trajectory would plunge it straight into her chest. Summoning what strength she could through the pain, she kicked out, aiming for his crotch but she missed, catching him instead in the thigh. It was still enough to knock him off balance and he stumbled back.
Scrambling to her feet, she maneuvered her way around the coffee table, just wanting an obstacle between her and this maniac. Her attacker did not hesitate, merely kicked out at the table, sending it scooting
across the floor. It struck Belinda in the legs, and she fell back on the sofa. The attacker launched himself over the table, slashing out with his knife. Belinda moved quickly, darting out of the way, but she felt the wind from the knife buffet her face. And as she bolted back toward the door, she felt a sticky trickling down her cheek that suggested she hadn’t been totally unscathed.
She reached the door, not looking back but expecting the attacker to grab her at any moment. Much to her relief, she made it out the door and into the hallway. Hers was the last apartment on the floor, and the apartment just next to her own was unoccupied. She started further down the hall, screaming for help but fearing her voice could not be heard over the pulsing music that filled the air. She was halfway to the next apartment, preparing to pound on the door, when her hair was snatched from behind and she felt herself being dragged back toward her apartment.
Her screams intensified, and she kept praying that someone would step out of one of the apartments and help her…but her prayers went unanswered. Her attacker pulled her back inside the apartment and kicked the door closed.
Belinda twisted and yanked her head, gritting her teeth against the pain as some of her hair was pulled out by the root, trailing from the attacker’s hand. But at least she was free and she broke for her bedroom at the end of a short hallway. She dashed inside and tried to slam the door behind her, but the attacker was there, a large boot wedged in and preventing the door from closing. She let go, allowing the door to burst open, and turned to her dresser, picking up the cosmetics that littered it and throwing them at the attacker. When she had exhausted her Maybelline arsenal, she yanked out one of the dresser drawers and tossed it at the attacker as well, who simply swatted it aside like it was a pesky fly. Bras and panties scattered across the floor like shrapnel.
Tales From the Midnight Shift Vol. 1 Page 22