by Robert Ryan
The furrows of pain on Markov’s face deepened. “That’s because it was. Dracula was not supposed to trip. We had rehearsed it many times. I was going to stop the sword just before it landed, and use editing to show the head flying through the air. But when he stumbled, the child’s leg got in the way before I could stop my swing….
“We couldn’t end the movie like that. Audiences would have hated us. So we had to add the last scene of the child recovering in the hospital. The close-up of Donnie’s face was an insert from a scene we had shot earlier. The child was still in far too much pain for a happily-ever-after smile. I’ve come not to believe in happily-ever-afters.”
This was obviously a very painful memory. Any further discussion of Markov’s magnum opus could wait. But there was one more comment Quinn felt compelled to make.
“The child reminded me of a young Johnny.”
Markov’s hollow intonation sounded as though it came from a sepulcher deep within himself.
“That’s because it is. Johnny is my daughter.”
CHAPTER 24
Johnny sat on the bed in her chamber, staring at the foot-long scar on her thigh. Earlier, while her father and Quinn had been getting settled in for the screening, she had snuck into the projection booth to watch the film so often mentioned but never shown. Markov had called it “unwatchable.”
Now, for the ten-thousandth time, she watched the most horrible scene in her life vividly unfold in the air above the scar, as though the puckered trail of flesh were a memory-activated 3D movie projector.
She had just opened her eyes in the recovery room. Her father sat by her bed, holding her hand. Even to a little girl recovering from shock and anesthesia, it was obvious that guilt was making him promise something that would make him feel better but do nothing for her.
“From now on I will never let you leave my side. You will be to me what I was to Tod. My permanent assistant.”
Johnny watched herself make the small nod that would change her from beloved daughter into indentured servant, and the father she idolized into her Lord and Master. The moment when her leg had been saved but her life had ended. The moment when Daddy announced that he was now Markov.
It had been Markov who had kept Daddy’s promises and turned his daughter into a cringing keeper of the castle and its secrets.
Johnny. She hated her name, not only because it was no name for a girl, but because it had turned out to be so fitting. Her father, in his obsessive worship of Tod Browning, had named her after Browning’s favorite freak: Johnny Eck. Half-boy. And she had turned out to be a freak. Half-girl. Living a half-life. Dead but un-dead.
In the make-believe movie life she had constructed for herself, in here she was not Johnny. In here she was Cinderella, waiting for her Prince to save her.
Tears of shame at never having the courage to save herself, to become whatever she had been put on this earth to become, filled her eyes. Her anger wouldn’t let them fall. Since Quinn’s arrival, her prematurely buried soul had been clamoring for release from its gilded coffin.
This travesty of life must end. It had been artificially prolonged—for what? To make any of her dreams come true? No. To help a madman’s nightmare come true. Allowing it to go on would only perpetuate the evil.
All these years on this earth, yet I have never truly lived. For fifty years I have been trapped in this world of Gothic movie horror. A crypt for the un-dead. The half-dead.
She traced her finger back and forth along the scar, as though erasing it. It was too late for tears. It was time for action.
CHAPTER 25
“Daughter?”
The word set off two explosions in Quinn’s mind.
The first was the revelation that Johnny was female. His mental scramble to see how he could have mistaken a woman for a man all this time was quickly shattered by the second, larger explosion.
Markov’s cringing attendant wasn’t just a loyal employee. In his warped version of fatherhood, he had somehow converted his daughter into a loyal subject. A servant.
But she didn’t serve happily. It was clear now that her furtive overtures to Quinn—a visitor she barely knew—had been cries for help to free her from her twisted bondage.
“Yes,” Markov said. “Nothing makes audiences squirm more than seeing a child put in harm’s way. I’d seen it from the silent days, but most especially when the Monster drowns the little girl in Frankenstein. So I convinced myself that a child had to be put in extreme danger in my film. I had made little home movies with Johnny, silly things where some toy monster would be coming after her. I was always telling her she was going to be a big star, bigger than Mae Clarke or Fay Wray. By the time she was in first grade she knew who they were, because I’d taken her to see Frankenstein and King Kong and all the rest when they were re-released. She worshipped me and loved being in front of the camera. Since she had experience and we had to save every dollar we could, I decided to cast her in the part.” He stared at the floor as though it were a bottomless well of regret. “I had to keep her in my care after the accident.”
“Because of guilt over what you had done.”
“Initially, yes. But over time our relationship evolved into what it has become. The accident has bound us together forever. I look after her and she looks after me.”
“I must tell you: it’s not the healthiest father/daughter relationship I’ve ever seen.”
“We have our moments when we are alone, but this family has never been healthy. That stems from me. Rot in the trunk of the tree extends to its branches. Our family tree is like one of those twisted grotesques you see in the fog-shrouded moors of the old horror movies.”
As Quinn pictured the gnarled dead branches jutting through the fog, it struck him: the make-believe world of movies had become George Tilton’s reality. They had entirely consumed his life. They’d given him delusions of becoming a great director that had driven him to create his own elaborate studio and set—in a location utterly impractical for filmmaking—to record the life of a very sick character he had created, for a film that almost certainly would never be finished and never be seen.
Even adding the shocking revelation about Johnny to all the other disturbing things he’d seen and heard since coming here, Quinn felt sure he hadn’t gotten close to the deepest level of Markov’s Hell. With his hopes for a Universal horror lover’s dream weekend escape dashed, Quinn felt far less inclined to mince words. “What happened to Johnny’s ear?”
Markov closed his eyes for a few seconds. “Kong bit it.”
“Kong? One of your creations?”
A single nod. “My virtual miniature. It happened a few years ago. I had extracted and enlarged a digital version of the original King Kong to include in my film. It was about two feet tall. I needed to shoot some test footage, to see if I could find a setup that would let me have Kong and Johnny in the same shot while disguising their difference in size.
“The thing worked perfectly. Its movements were completely convincing. With my gloves and goggles I could control its every movement, including the opening and closing of the mouth. The shot I had set up called for Kong to lean in close to Johnny’s face, curious to inspect this strange creature.”
He took a moment to gather himself. “There was a malfunction. I have relived that scene a thousand times. I had rehearsed every move to a fare-thee-well. I made no mistakes. In effect, I was Kong. He was a digital extension of myself. The shot was going beautifully. He loved her at first sight, just as Kong did Fay Wray, just as I had when Johnny was born. Tears came to my eyes as he tenderly studied her. But while he hovered several inches from her face, something came into his eyes. They moved in their sockets, surveying her, becoming excited.
“He was alive, Mr. Quinn. I know I sound like Colin Clive in Frankenstein. Make of it what you will. Unlike James Whale, I have not created Gods and Monsters. Only monsters. And unfortunately I can no longer make it all stop simply by yelling ‘Cut!’”
In the wave
s of turmoil washing over Markov with increasing frequency, Quinn glimpsed the lost soul of George Tilton, struggling against a rising tide of inner horror. Horror caused by alter egos he’d created that had begun to feed on the evil within himself. The day he’d become Lucky, he’d entered Tod Browning’s world of cinematic cruelty and freaks and never escaped. Lucky had become Frederick Schreck—Nosferatu—and Schreck had become Markov.
And his grip on the Markov persona was crumbling. The Poe quote on the wall of his studio flashed in Quinn’s mind:
My terror is not of Germany. It is of the soul.
Markov recovered his stoic demeanor and continued. “The only thing I can say with certainty is what happened. Kong leapt onto Johnny’s shoulder and bit her ear. I immediately threw off the gloves and goggles and Kong disintegrated. I have given you my theory about the soul being captured on film, which I am convinced is not theory but fact. Beyond that, no one can say with certainty how these things can be. Maybe it was his way of showing affection. Perhaps some of an ape’s primal urges had been instilled into Kong by his creators, and those primal urges overtook him. Or—and this I do not like to think—some digital bits of mine intermingled with his during the extraction process and something in my twisted psyche overtook him. Perhaps the heightened magnetism of this infernal miasma has brought the phantasms of my netherworld to life. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
“Whatever the case, my monsters are developing wills of their own. Even the digital versions I have destroyed sometimes retain a physical substance and appear out of nowhere. A fitting irony, don’t you think? That a man whose lifelong obsession with the undead may have somehow created digital undead? Who can say what evil might lurk in the darkness between the pixels?
“And this is why I warn you for the last time: We can never be sure what is a special effect totally under my control, or a creature that has escaped its bonds and taken on a life of its own. In the worst-case scenario it could be a version of myself, unable to control my monsters from the id.”
Each revelation deepened Quinn’s understanding of the truly warped family he had discovered. Whatever lingering resentment Johnny felt toward her father for maiming her must have turned to hatred after the Kong incident. As Markov he had promised to protect her, but couldn’t keep one of his digital creations from chewing off part of his daughter’s ear.
Daughter. When had Johnny ceased to be his daughter and become his caretaker? His servant? Markov had said she was twenty-something when they moved into the castle in 1960.
“How old is Johnny?”
“We stopped counting birthdays long ago. Somewhere in her seventies, I suppose.”
“She looks fifty. You are over a hundred, and you could pass for sixty. How is that possible?”
Markov hesitated, tried to give him the stare.
Quinn was having none of it. “Cards on the table, remember?”
The stare softened. “Old habits die hard. Very well. The next card awaits in the Chamber of Horrors. The one that will answer your question. The one that started it all.”
CHAPTER 26
Johnny sat in front of the control panel that took up much of one wall in her apartment, watching the monitor that showed the two men exiting the screening room and rounding the corner to the next corridor. Behind them, the skull of the Grim Reaper swiveled. Digital eyeballs deep within the empty sockets watched the two men proceeding down the hall—security cameras checking for any unauthorized presence. Johnny had added the Reaper’s earlier video of Quinn to the database of approved visitors, so the harvester of souls took no further action.
She watched them walking side by side. Ever since this stranger had come out of nowhere, with his knowledge of film and filmmaking and love of horror, Markov’s belief in destiny had become stronger than ever. In his mind, fate had sent him Adam Quinn to bring about her father’s long overdue ending.
After years of recording the bizarre events of their unwholesome existence, his glorified home movie was almost finished. Before Quinn’s arrival, she’d asked Markov how their guest could be worked into the climax, especially on such short notice. Markov had said the ending could not be revealed, that it would ruin a surprise better than the shower scene in Psycho.
However it ended, it wouldn’t be the ending Johnny wanted.
Because she believed in destiny too, and for fifty years had clung to her vision of a happy ending—not for Markov’s sick movie that had destroyed their lives—but for this sham of a life.
How much control did a person have over their own destiny? After a lifetime of being controlled, it was time to find out.
CHAPTER 27
In the storm cloud of ominous thoughts gathering in Quinn’s brain, Markov’s revelation that Johnny was his daughter had been a thunderbolt. Now, as the two men walked down the long corridor toward the Chamber of Horrors, Quinn forced those thoughts aside to prepare himself for Markov’s dramatic reveal of what started it all.
They came to an alcove on the right that led to a large wooden door. To the left, a stone staircase spiraled down and out of sight. Straight ahead, the corridor continued past this intersection into darkness. At the top of the staircase, a suit of armor stood at attention, its gauntlet-covered fist gripping a halberd as if poised to repel invaders from below. The unmistakable shadow of Nosferatu, creeping up the stairs, had been painted onto the wall of the staircase.
Quinn gestured at the black outline and tried to lighten the grim mood. “Since beheading is one of the ways to stop a vampire, if I were Nosferatu I’d find another way in, rather than try to get past this knight and that wicked axe.”
“One never knows what might happen in a world where dark shadows come to life.” Markov nodded toward the staircase. “I know I have said you are free to move about the castle and its grounds, but the one place you may not go is down those stairs. As a fellow lover of the Gothic, I am sure you know that every castle must have its secret chamber. The one below is mine. The suit of armor and the shadow of Nosferatu are my sentinels.”
Markov’s insistence that Quinn never go to the very place where he’d felt a disturbing presence only strengthened his resolve to explore it fully at the first opportunity.
Markov led them into the recessed entryway of the Chamber of Horrors. On either side of the oak door, two flickering gaslights in 19th-century glass sconces cast disturbing shadows on the face painted above. A lurid demonic gargoyle, replete with pointed ears, lolling tongue, and glowing pupils, eternally leered down at all who dared to enter. Above its face were the words Le Chambre du Horreurs.
Quinn said, “I remember seeing something like that in the beginning of Mad Love with Peter Lorre.”
“You are an astute cineaste. That was my inspiration. Karl Freund directed it and invited me to the premiere.”
Quinn felt a twinge of regret at his mention of Freund. Markov’s recollections of the legendary cinematographer who’d shot Dracula was one of many discussions he’d been looking forward to, but after the sinister turn his visit had taken, he saw those discussions slipping away.
Markov went on. “I think the French lends a nice atmospheric touch, since my collection—my entire approach to horror—is very Grand Guignol.”
“From the moment your carriage picked me up, I’ve felt like I’m being pulled into those movies I’ve watched so many times.”
“Prepare to be pulled even deeper.” Markov held up the skeleton key. “Other than Johnny, you are the first person I have ever let into my Chamber of Horrors. I am sure you will find my collection of oddities fascinating, but the main attraction—the darkest of my dark secrets—will challenge all credibility. Keep an open mind.”
“You don’t do what I do for a living and not be prepared for things that defy rational explanation.”
Markov unlocked the door and beckoned Quinn into an utterly black void, save for a faint patch of light beyond the threshold where the gaslight barely reached. The flick of a switch revealed a room that was an
assault on the eyes.
Embedded along each side wall of a carpeted space about thirty yards square were several glass-enclosed showcases, each with its own spotlight shining on the exhibit within. Scattered throughout the center of the room were shockingly lifelike re-creations of classic movie monsters, all posed with hands outthrust, eager to clutch their next victim. After the initial jolt, Quinn thought of all the happy Halloween birthdays he’d spent with his father watching these creatures on the screen. It was as though he’d walked into a macabre reunion of old friends. That feeling quickly dissipated as he was struck by the more disturbing aspects of the scene.
Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wolf Man, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and several other classic monsters each stood in their own tightly focused spotlight, surrounded by impenetrable darkness. The overall effect was of an army of inhuman beings, emerging from some impossible nightworld, to wreak havoc on the human beings they despised.
“I have much planned for our time together,” Markov said, “so this may be my only chance to show you my collection. We will save the best—or worst, depending on your viewpoint—for last.”
He led Quinn to the showcases along the left wall. “I have arranged the exhibits in chronological order, according to the release date of the movie they were in, so you can trace the development of horror cinema.”
The first display was a wax sculpture of an oversized severed hand with long fingernails, frozen in the classic horror pose of reaching to close on a throat. “This one has particular sentimental value,” Markov explained. “It is from Eyes of Mystery, the first Tod Browning movie I saw and the reason I sought him out. It was a spooky ‘old dark house’ chiller that had everything I love: hidden chambers, shadowy figures skulking around, and, of course, hands reaching out from behind curtains to strangle hapless victims. You might say this is the hand that reached out and led me here.”