“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
This was a lie. Massarsky had a fairly encyclopedic knowledge of cinema, both the great films and the trash, but Ridley had been rude, and so he wasn’t going to give the guy the satisfaction.
Over his career as a studio executive and then as a producer, Massarsky had been involved in dozens of hugely successful films, including several that had earned Oscar nominations and one that had won Best Picture. The walls of his home were festooned with framed photos of himself with some of the great actors and directors of the past forty years, everyone from Robert De Niro to Denzel Washington to Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lawrence. In most of those photos, he had cropped out everyone who wasn’t either famous or his own family. His collection of Hollywood memorabilia—Hollywood ephemera—was a motley selection of rarities and one-of-a-kind items, many with particular significance to him. Chapel of Darkness was neither. The film had never been completed, but he knew the name Athena Ridley.
“You’ve seen the unfinished reels of the film, I assume,” Ridley said.
Massarsky sipped his scotch. “Of course. They showed up on YouTube years ago.”
“My mother is the woman strapped to the table in the ritual scene at the end of act two. I was born the same night. They hired her because she was nearly full-term in her pregnancy and they wouldn’t have to use makeup effects to make her look pregnant. I guess they didn’t expect her to go into labor in the middle of shooting, three weeks early.”
“No. I guess they didn’t.” Massarsky hesitated. “Did they really try to kill her on camera?”
* * *
Ridley had been warned about Massarsky. His legend painted him as a ruthless snake, drunk on power he hadn’t yet realized had begun to fade. Ridley didn’t care—all he knew was that he couldn’t leave here without the mask, and that meant pretending the question hadn’t made him want to knock Massarsky on his ass.
“This stuff is all fairly personal, Mr. Massarsky—”
“Call me James.”
“James. You can imagine that it’s painful to talk about,” Ridley went on. “I’ve never really known my mother, not the woman she was before she gave birth to me. The woman who filmed Chapel of Darkness. She’s been in and out of mental health facilities since 1961, the year they shot the film. All I know about the original Athena Ridley are things I’ve learned from relatives and family friends.”
He paused. How much could he share? How much, without making a man like Massarsky decide to double the price for the mask? Ridley saw a strange glint in the other man’s eyes and wondered how much he might already know.
“My mother had a psychotic break while filming that scene,” he went on. “You must know part of this. An actor named George Sumner was one of the masked cultists in the ritual scene. My mother went into labor, probably set a world record, gave birth to me in just over an hour. They kept shooting while she was screaming, sweating. Filming as if it were all part of the ritual. Later, she said they were really going to sacrifice her. That the ritual had been real, that the cult of Belial was real.”
“But George Sumner interfered,” Massarsky said.
Ridley paused. How much did he really know? He said he had investigated the provenance of the mask, and it seemed he really had.
“Yes, Sumner interfered. He fled the set and called the police. A camera operator named Olmos helped him get away and he was stabbed to death on set for his trouble. With Sumner gone, they didn’t have enough people to complete the ritual—the requisite number, according to my mother’s ravings, is thirteen. By the time the police arrived, the whole set was in flames. Several people died in the fire, including the director, but most escaped, my mother among them. Sumner did not die in the fire, but several months later he was struck by a car on Pico Boulevard and killed instantly.”
Massarsky tapped a finger against his chin in contemplation. “This is all fascinating, Tim. You mind me calling you Tim?”
“Of course not.”
“Good. Tim. It’s all fascinating, but it doesn’t tell me why your mother wants the mask.”
“It doesn’t matter, does it? I heard you were interested in selling.”
“Oh, I am. The thing gives me the fucking creeps. At first, I liked that, but I’ve owned it for eighteen months and every week it gets under my skin a little more. But satisfy my curiosity, if you don’t mind.”
“I told you—”
“Your mother wants to burn it. Yes. Now tell me why.”
Massarsky tossed back the rest of his scotch. Ridley’s mouth felt parched but he didn’t want to drink any more of this asshole’s pomegranate juice. He could taste only resentment now.
“You know all the other masks were destroyed in the fire.”
“Yes. That’s what makes this one valuable. According to police reports, it was the one George Sumner had been wearing.”
Ridley nodded. “So I’ve been told. Blythewood was a small UK company. They financed a ton of these trashy B movies in those days, but they worked on a lean budget. Shutting down Chapel of Darkness and never releasing it caused a financial burden that nearly ruined them. Some of the footage was used in other films, but most of it vanished into the vaults until the company was sold to Warner Brothers in 1992. Nobody knows what became of the surviving reels of Chapel of Darkness after that. I can’t show my mother any of that film, nothing to convince her that—”
“Convince her what? That it wasn’t real?” Massarsky asked.
“She’s an old woman. Forgotten by everyone but her family and diagnosed with schizophrenia. She wanted me to bring her the mask but she wouldn’t say why. I guess she thinks somehow it’ll prove to everyone she’s not as unstable as she seems. Athena’s not the one who wants to burn it, Mr. Massarsky. That’s my idea. I figure if I burn it in front of her maybe she’ll finally be able to put some of those old fears behind her. Even if the cult of Belial was real, they can’t hurt her anymore.”
Massarsky sat back in his chair, nodding slowly. “Wow. That’s just…Tim, that’s really sad. I’m honestly sorry.”
Ridley blinked in surprise. “Thank you. I do appreciate that. And I appreciate you letting me come here.”
They sat together in silence until Massarsky seemed to remember that the next move belonged to him.
“Right. Okay, well, let’s have a look at it,” he said, lumbering his awkward bulk up from the chair and ambling toward the door. “I should warn you, though, that there’s part of the story you don’t seem to know.”
Ridley followed him into the hall and down the corridor. “What do you mean?”
Massarsky stopped at a thick wooden door and tugged a key ring out of his pocket. “I’ll explain in a minute.”
He selected a key and slid it into the lock.
As they walked into the vast room, motion-sensitive lights flickered on. The illumination had a softness to it that could not have been accidental, and as Ridley glanced around, he realized just how seriously Massarsky took his collection. There were museum-quality displays inside clear cubes and behind locked glass cabinets. Some items were individually lit from within. Ridley spotted the rare poster for Revenge of the Jedi, the original name for the third Star Wars film, but based on what he saw displayed, he figured that was the least unique item in Massarsky’s collection.
“This is impressive,” he said, barely aware he’d spoken aloud.
“It’s my passion. Almost as much as making films. Sometimes even more so.”
Ridley glanced around, spotting a red balloon floating atop its string inside one case and a blood-encrusted sword inside another. He saw a car steering wheel mounted beside a photo of James Dean and didn’t dare ask. Rumor suggested Massarsky’s collection tended toward the morbid, and Ridley preferred not to know.
“Would you like a tour?” Massarsky asked.
“Maybe
another time. For now, I’d just like to see the mask.”
“I understand. You must be anxious to try this experiment with your mother.”
“I think of it as therapy.”
Massarsky nodded as he led Ridley up one aisle and then turned into a short, wide hallway that housed part of the collection. Overhead lights flickered on in this little annex. There were masks, pieces of costume wardrobe, and even a full-size head of the actor who had played a cyborg in the first Alien film. Oh, what was his name? Ridley couldn’t bring it to mind.
“Here it is,” Massarsky said, gesturing toward a glass case about waist high. Inside, stretched over a plastic mannequin head, George Sumner’s cult of Belial mask gazed out at them, eyeless but still somehow ominous.
For a second, Ridley thought it had seen him, and he shuddered.
“You’re sure this is it?” he asked.
Massarsky scowled as he used another key to open the glass case. “I can show you the paperwork. It’s been verified by the top Blythewood Studios scholar. More than that, it matches some of the still photos I’ve acquired from the shoot.”
The thing seemed dreadfully ordinary, reminiscent of one of those Carnival masks sold in Venice, but with a lovely simplicity. Its bone-white hue had been inscribed with black and red symbols that might have been runes or some kind of occult sigils.
“It doesn’t look like much.”
“And yet,” Massarsky said, “it’s what you came for. Now, please, Tim, I have work to do. If you don’t want a tour, that’s fine, but let’s wrap this up.”
Ridley approached the case. His breath froze in his chest as he reached out with both hands to retrieve the mask.
“The price we discussed?” he asked.
“Yes. Let’s just get it done,” Massarsky said, practically barking the words.
Ridley narrowed his eyes and studied the man. For the first time he realized that Massarsky hadn’t been lying. The mask really did unsettle him.
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “What the hell are you afraid of?”
Massarsky smiled thinly. “Just don’t put it on. I’ve let several people put it on, and it’s been a mistake every time. They’ve ended up with nightmares.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Ridley said.
But as he drew the mask from its case and felt the rough, dry-leather texture of the thing, he felt his pulse quicken. His heart thumped a bit harder. Unbidden, his hands lifted the mask toward his face and he bent his neck slightly.
“Ridley, wait,” Massarsky said, reaching for his arm. “I know how it sounds, but several people have had odd experiences. Said they’d seen—”
Somehow, Ridley managed to pause with the mask only inches from his face. He could see through the eyeholes, could make out a display case containing the derby hat Peter Lorre had worn as Moriarty in the ill-fated, never-completed 1933 German-language version of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The hat had caught Ridley’s attention in the instant before Massarsky had shown him the mask.
“What did they see?” Ridley asked.
“I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.”
“Have you ever put the mask on?”
“Once,” Massarsky admitted.
“And what did you see?”
“Nothing,” he said, but Ridley thought he might be lying.
The urge to don the mask felt so strong that his hands trembled until he surrendered. With a breath of relief, Ridley placed the mask over his face, tying its silk ribbons at the back of his head.
Massarsky and his collection were gone.
Ridley’s hands fell to his sides. His breathing sounded impossibly loud behind the mask. He felt the urge to turn and run, but his body would not obey. Instead he froze, a whispered profanity slithering inside the mask, and slowly scanned the darkened space around him. He had never been on the set of a movie before, but he saw the camera operator and the people swinging microphone booms around and adjusting lighting rigs and knew this couldn’t be anything but that.
Not just any movie, either.
The world seemed to tilt beneath him. Ridley nearly collapsed when he allowed his gaze to focus on the stone altar. A much younger version of his mother lay there, head thrown back in a silent cry of agony. A hooded man knelt between her splayed legs as a woman stood over her, an officiant with her arms lifted in mock ecstasy, chanting some guttural gibberish. The woman wore the mask of the cult of Belial, as did the robed extras gathered around the set. The young and beautiful Athena Ridley let out a roar, a kind of battle cry, and her face turned bright red beneath her cinema makeup. She was an actress, but this could not be a performance.
The whole cast took up the chant.
Even Ridley found himself chanting, his mouth moving of its own volition. His mind did not know these words or this language, yet he spoke all the same. A rare exultation soared in his heart, his skin felt flush, and if there had been any doubt that this ritual must be genuine, that joy erased it. The camera kept rolling.
The hooded man received the infant into his arms. Timothy Ridley stared at the newborn, its pink skin smeared with blood and birth fluids. When the hooded man turned, Ridley saw his mask, and the glint of silver from the blade of the ceremonial dagger in his hand. He wanted to scream.
Thoughts collided, fear battling reason. Here he stood, impossibly and yet inarguably viewing the past through the mask of a dead man.
The blade severed the umbilical cord. Robed figures moved into a circle around mother and child. Ridley found himself moving, too. From the corner of his eye, he saw the camera operator shift position—saw the director signaling with his hands, saw the boom microphone swing lower.
The officiant behind the altar reached into her robe and produced a dagger identical to the first. One by one, the cultists drew their blades and raised them high. Ridley’s own fingers slithered inside the folds of his robe and found a sheathed dagger. He felt the unaccountably icy cold of its handle, and he drew the blade out, against his will.
His eyes welled with tears.
“No,” he managed to whisper, even as this body stepped toward the altar. Toward his mother, and toward the newborn that already had his brown eyes, already had the little furrow of the brow that would mark his every adult expression.
Within the vault of his thoughts, Ridley fought back. Mustering his will, he forced his eyes closed. For a moment he felt torn between worlds, times, realities. He could hear, as if from the bottom of a well, Massarsky’s voice speaking his name. “Mr. Ridley. Mr. Ridley, are you all right?” Even the temperature of the room shifted, turning into the cool of Massarsky’s air-conditioned palace in the Hollywood Hills instead of the warm, close, nearly suffocating air on that long-forgotten film set, with its choreographed spotlights and strategic shadows.
Wake up, he thought, even though he knew this was no dream.
Steeling himself, he forced his hands to rise. If he could untie the mask, tear it from his face, he could step away from this. George Sumner had been the actor wearing this mask, all those years ago, and he’d found the courage and strength to break away from the scene, to flee the ritual. Ridley had to do the same. Then Olmos, the man behind the camera, would step in to protect the infant.
His left hand touched the silk ribbons tied behind his head, but then he felt a sharp pain on the right side of his neck…the tip of the ceremonial dagger puncturing the skin, drawing his blood. His hand clenched around the hilt and he opened his eyes.
Opened George Sumner’s eyes.
“No!” he shouted again, but this time he stumbled forward, and his heartbeat was his own. It thrummed, the wings of a caged bird, and he shoved two of the cultists aside.
A woman pointed her dagger at his sternum and he knocked her hand away, then tore off her mask. Beneath the painted sigils of the cult of Belial was a familiar f
ace, some starlet or other, but with her identity bared she drew away from him—from the altar—as if she could not proceed with what came next without the mask.
By this time, in reality—in history—George Sumner had run. What did it mean that Ridley wore George Sumner’s mask, wore his body, and had not run?
“Cut!” the director barked.
In the scrum of people, Ridley saw and felt everything at once.
The infant in the arms of the hooded man—the bloody, smeared infant with his brow furrowed, about to launch his first plaintive wail in this world.
The strange, sickly glint of light in the eyes of the crew all around them in the dark, beyond the booms and the camera, their silhouettes strangely misshapen, hunched and crooked and waiting like predators full of anticipation.
The actors in their masks, these actors who were not acting, closing in around the altar ever tighter, suffocating.
The hooded man who had delivered baby Timothy Ridley, the man who now held him up as an offering.
The raised daggers.
“Cut!” the director shouted again.
The officiant chanted louder to drown the director out, and the others followed suit.
But it was Ridley’s own mother, the young ingenue, half-naked and draped in silk, belly partly deflated, who raised her head and sneered across the set at the director.
“Don’t you fucking dare stop shooting,” Athena Ridley snarled.
The first dagger swept down, but it did not plunge into her flesh. Instead, the officiant dragged the blade across Athena’s belly, splitting the skin so that blood began to seep and run and stain white silk.
“The blood of the mother!” the officiant cried.
The chant was echoed from behind a dozen masks…including Ridley’s own. He was himself, but he was also George Sumner. A George Sumner whose moment to flee had passed.
Another blade rose, and Ridley could not let it fall. He bent low and drove his shoulder into a cultist, knocked the actor aside, and threw himself to the stone floor beside the altar. On his knees, he found himself eye to eye with Athena.
Final Cuts Page 26