At Risk

by Inc. Thriller Writers

  Molly grabbed the clerk Jasmine by the white jacket. “Where is it?”

  “Where’s what?”

  “The scanner, the old scanner!”

  “Out back,” Jasmine said. “With the trash.”

  Molly bolted for the back, nearly crashing through the automatic doors before they had a chance to open. There it was, the Kodak 470 leaning up against a fence surrounding the Rexall Dumpster. The smell of garbage assaulted her as she rushed up to it, already tearing her wallet from her handbag and a picture of Bob and Matt together from her wallet. The top that covered the scanner’s glass had been broken off in the move and was resting against the bottom of the sun-faded frame. Molly laid the small picture down on the clearest portion of the glass and wedged the cover over it, reaching up for the scanning controls to the chilling realization that the machine was no longer plugged in.

  Since even the 470’s magic extended only so far, Molly ran back into the Rexall and yanked three extension cords from the home electronics shelf.

  “Where’s the nearest power outlet?” she screamed at Jasmine, already unraveling and connecting them.

  Jasmine pointed to a wall featuring the store’s ATM machine.

  Molly had to snake a hand behind it to plug in the strung-together extension cords and then burst back outside with the cords strung like a white snake in her wake. The store alarm began to wail, a surprisingly polite female voice advising her to please return inside because the store had failed to deactivate the security sensor. So now she was a shoplifter on top of everything else.

  Outside a garbage truck was backing its way toward the Dumpster and the scanner.

  Beep, beep, beep…

  “No!” Molly screamed, daring the truck to hit her as she found the 470’s power cord and plugged it into her assemblage of extensions.

  She hit the on button and the machine coughed to life, black fluid seeping out from its front, more with each spit and rumble.

  “What the hell?” one of trash men asked, approaching warily as if afraid of what the crazed woman operating a junked scanner with patched together extension cords might do next.

  Molly hit Scan.

  Nothing happened.

  She pushed it three more times and still nothing, not even a wheeze. She pushed and held the button down and finally the old-fashioned grid that charted the scan’s progress popped up and began filling in, each lurch accompanied by a burning smell that reminded her of a blown-out tire. The scanner’s steel casing grew so hot it burned her fingers and forced her to shrink away.

  The screen flashed Scan Complete in scratchy letters that were dissolving before her eyes. Molly hit Print.

  Black smoke wafted outward, the machine’s insides grinding, seizing up. Fluids colored red and green and blue flowed outward from the slot where finished pictures were retrieved, the screen now flashing Paper Out.

  Paper! She hadn’t even thought to check if the machine had any left in its feeder!

  The trash men were grabbing hold of her, pulling.

  “Get away from the machine!” one wailed. “It’s catching fire!”

  “No, please! It’s not finished! Please!”

  She tried to grab hold of the scanner’s lip but it singed her fingers and she felt herself being yanked backward. Her hands flailed for the Kodak 470 as more colored fluids leaked from the retrieval slot and the Scan Complete message dissolved into nothing. She saw flames peeking out from the machine’s underside before bursting out its feeder slot. Then the glass screen blew out and smoke swallowed the scanner in a thick black cloud that looked like a monstrous specter with a mouth formed of crackling flames laughing at her.

  * * *

  The same cops who dropped Molly at the Rexall brought her back home and escorted her up to the door, exchanging no words because there was nothing to say. Molly entered to find the new Sherman wagging his tail to greet her, oblivious to the scanner’s failure to right this terrible wrong. A life so filled with hope barely twelve hours ago now lost to tragedy and guilt. Was it so wrong what she’d done? Was it so wrong to want to preserve her family’s life and happiness?

  She heard the cops slam their doors closed and drive off, leaving her alone as she’d be for the rest of her life.

  Then she saw the tiny football flash by the window looking out into the backyard and, after a brief pause, flash by again in the opposite direction. Molly moved out into the backyard through the sliding glass door off the kitchen, gasping for air as if she’d forgotten how to breathe. Time slowed, then froze.

  “Where you been?” Bob asked. “I was worried. The school called when you didn’t pick up Matt.”

  Molly finally found her breath, but not words. Then Matt hugged her tightly and she knew it was real, all of it.

  “We made a photo book in school today, Mommy.”

  Scan Complete, the machine had said. The lack of paper must not have mattered….

  She pictured the remains of the Kodak 470 being hauled away to some junkyard, compressed and sold for scrap.

  “A photo book,” Molly managed to echo. “Wow.”

  “Wanna see it?”

  “Later, Matty, later,” she told her son, taking her husband’s hand in hers. “We’ve got plenty of time now.”

  * * * * *

  GRAVE DANGER

  Heather Graham

  Spooky…and then some! Action-packed…and then some! Trust Heather Graham to plot so many twists into one short story.~SB

  The shuffling sound of footsteps had brought her here.

  A leg lay on the floor, burned and scorched, blood pooled and congealed along the severed flesh at the kneecap area. In the shadows, Ali MacGregor stepped carefully by it. She blinked and saw the enormous monster beyond the leg. Fanged teeth appeared to drip saliva; the eyes were red, as if within them, all the fires and brutal evil of hell could be found.

  Ali stood still, her heart thundering. She heard the noise again, the shuffling sound that had brought her here. She moved as silently as she could. Another step brought her face-to-face with the decaying skeleton of a one-eyed zombie.

  Tattered flesh fell from the bones. The jaw bare, the tongue and teeth looked truly macabre. Now, its head hung in a parody of sadness, creating something even more horrible about its appearance—a touch of humanity, eaten away.

  On screen, it had been one of the most terrifying creatures ever.

  She was proud of the zombie. She’d had a part in the creation, and she thought it was one of her best pieces. The one eye was brilliantly blue, and it seemed to watch her as she listened again to the shuffling sound that had come from the storage room at the production facilities of Fantasmic Effects.

  It was strange. She was accustomed to the horrific and the bizarre; without it, she wouldn’t make a living. But it was one thing when she was here during the day, when the rhythmic churn of sewing machines could be heard, when buzz saws roared, and there were people at every different workstation.

  How different it was by night….

  She was there alone for the first time. Of course, she wasn’t supposed to be alone. Victor Brill was supposed to be working with her. They were finishing up the last of the half-eaten zombies for tomorrow night’s shoot in the “graveyard.”

  The ironic thing, of course, was that the fake “graveyard” lay just beyond a real graveyard. A small plot in back fell under the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church. The land had been purchased and donated by Blake Richards, the brilliant man who had founded Fantasmic Studios. Despite his love of horror and the occult, Blake had been a devout Catholic, and a boy who had almost gone wrong, except for the intervention of a priest. Now, Blake Richards was buried in the plot that immediately bordered the brick-walled parking lot of the studios, and the fake cemetery had been established nearby.

&nbs
p; The cemetery had never frightened her. Not the real one, certainly. She’d loved Blake Richards; he’d hired her. He’d been the kindest man in the world, and the first to give a young artist a chance. So why was she so frightened tonight?

  Victor. The jerk.

  Victor had headed out to buy them both some fast food to get them through the next few hours. He’d left at five, when it had still been light. Now the sun had set, and the world around her was dark. Fantasmic Effects was out of the city, away from the congestion that seemed a part of all of Los Angeles County. Still, there were other studios and businesses not that far away. Enough so that there were scattered streetlights here and there.

  The werewolf still seemed to be looking at her.

  Hungrily.

  I could call Greg. If he wasn’t working, he’d come. He’d come save me…just as he had been determined to save Cassandra.

  That sudden thought made her wince. Maybe Greg was with his ex-girlfriend now. Or, maybe, Ali had thrown away her happiness because she’d never really grasped his sense of responsibility. He’d told her once that as a homicide detective, he’d learned that it was only the living he could really help. Sure, the dead did deserve justice, and he could help get that justice for them. But it was those still in danger—whether from a perp or themselves—who still really needed help.

  Thinking about Greg wasn’t going to help her now. Realizing that she’d only gone on a few half-witted dates since she’d left their apartment that night certainly wasn’t exactly good for her mind, either. Remembering the ruggedly handsome and rough-hewn sculpture of his face, and thinking that she’d never been frightened of anything with him around was not going to get her through the night. And, certainly, thinking about being in bed with him on a lazy day, his naked flesh next to hers, even the scent of him intoxicating, would not stop the shuffling sound from terrifying her now….

  She gave herself a mental shake. Oddly enough, thinking about Greg was helpful. She felt stronger, remembering his strength and determination, coupled with an even temper that always seemed to allow him to go forward.

  What would Greg say now? she wondered.

  She smiled to herself. Well, in all honesty, Greg would tell her to get out and get away, and call a cop. But then, he might also smile and remind her that her imagination was truly fantasmic, and that sometimes she had to live in the real world. Lord, there had been that one time when she had been working on the gauntlets for Knights and Aliens when he had stood behind her, fingers in her hair, knuckles brushing down over her cheeks while his whisper teased her ear, reminding her that the knights weren’t real, but he was, and he only had a few hours left before heading out for his shift.

  They’d made love for hours then, and she had laughed and suggested they should actually make a movie: Homicide Cop and Prop Girl. Naturally, he’d be Supercop, and she’d have extra powers, and of course, he told her, she did have extra powers—what her lips did to his flesh was superhuman….

  That was then. This was now.

  Yes, it was just that it was dark, and she was alone. What was benign by day seemed frightening by night.

  So, the werewolf had the appearance of being about to pounce at any given second. And the damned zombie seemed to be watching her, too, as if it was about to salivate any minute. She’d had a part in creating them; they were damned good effects!

  She heard the shuffling sound coming from the rear of the storage room again.

  She was an idiot. She needed to get downstairs and get the hell out.

  She couldn’t just run out; she had to finish work tonight—if she still wanted to have a job tomorrow. She could imagine trying to explain herself to Dustin Avery, her boss. “The zombie and the werewolf were freaking me out, Dustin, and I kept hearing this shuffling sound…so, let’s just put that umpteen-million-dollar shoot off a day. It’s Victor’s fault. He didn’t come back with dinner.”

  For a moment, she was almost overwhelmed by the impulse to call Greg. No. She stood still, trying to turn every muscle in her body into steel with her mind; she couldn’t call Greg. Not now. Not ever.

  He’d been the love of her life at one time. But she’d left him the night he’d left her—because his crazy ex had been hospitalized and arrested on another drug charge. She’d tried so hard to tell him that he couldn’t keep bailing Cassandra out; he’d assured her that it didn’t mean anything. He felt responsible. Cassandra had a little boy—not his—but he still had to hope that she could get straight and care for the child. Once Ali had left him, she couldn’t talk to him again. And she couldn’t just call him casually now. “Hey, sorry, how are you? Yes, I know I’ve ignored your calls. But I’m alone at the studios, and I think a coworker is trying to scare me into getting fired.”

  No, she couldn’t do it. She had to be rational.

  She heard the shuffling sound again, but when she felt the chills race along her spine again, she straightened, gritting her teeth.

  Victor was a jerk and a prankster. When he’d left, the place had supposedly been locked. He’d had a key to get back in, and she’d been so busy sewing the last zombie shirt, she probably hadn’t heard him return. And now…Victor was trying to freak her out.

  She wasn’t going to run. She was going to turn the tables on him.

  She gave the werewolf a pat on the chest. “Work with me, okay?” she whispered. She smiled grimly, and, using the creatures and mechanics to hide her, she began to tiptoe back toward the rear of the storage room.

  * * *

  Not at all far away, Greg Austin was on a case.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Tony Martini whispered.

  Something similar almost escaped Greg Austin; he managed to remain silent as he surveyed the scene.

  Gravestones. Opalescent in the moonlight, some full of lichen and appearing so worn by time that those buried beneath them must have been long forgotten, some bearing funerary art that drew the eye with its sheer beauty. Angels with folded wings wept over freestanding crypts, and cherubs holding crosses looked up to the skies. The ground seemed overgrown, as if the cemetery had long been neglected, completely lost in time.

  And then, of course, there was the dead man. The newly dead man.

  At first, he must have been hard to see, even for film director Howard Engel.

  Because there were corpses lying everywhere. Some were missing limbs. Most had decaying flesh, and bone jutted from torn shirts and worn pants.

  They weren’t real. They had been set two days ago for the scheduled shoot in the graveyard. The graveyard, of course, wasn’t real, either. It had been put together by the wizards of Fantasmic Effects. Thing is, filmmakers never planned for a real corpse showing up in the middle of their zombie shoot. It was understandable that Tony was spooked by the fake graveyard. He wasn’t as familiar with special effects as Greg. And, of course, Greg was familiar. He had lived with Ali for a year; he had loved to see the flash of emerald in her eyes when she’d had an idea for a superhero costume, or an evil elf, or some other being of fantasy or horror.

  He winced, looking back at the studio building where she worked. Well, she’d be off for a few days now. There would definitely be no filming here by tomorrow’s light.

  He felt the same dull ache he always felt when he thought about Ali, and he winced, and forced the pain down. He was working.

  “Do you think it might be the work of the Slasher?” Tony asked. Over the past year, four women had been found in a similar position, torsos bent over on top of their beds, as if they’d died saying their nightly prayers, throats cut ear to ear.

  “This is a man. So far, the Slasher only kills women. And in their homes,” Greg said. “I’m not saying that it might not be, but we can’t come to any real conclusions right now.”

  Was it the Slasher? He’d been following clues. They’d questioned dozens of su
spects, but the killer used gloves, and he seemed to know exactly what he was doing, studying police procedure, evidence…hell, he didn’t leave a hair, a drop of fluid—anything.

  Greg hunkered down by the real corpse. The man lay half in and half out of a hole that had been dug in the ground—not a true six-foot depth, but maybe three and half or four feet. He’d been wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt sporting a ravenous shark on the back. That seemed an irony now, because the slashes just lower than the gaping jaws made it appear that a shark had taken a bite out of the man. But Greg doubted the slashes on the back had killed him; it was the fact that his head had nearly been severed by a ragged blade and lay at an odd twisted angle on the ground, along with his torso, while his legs dangled over the dark pit of the grave. He could so easily have been a part of the set!

  Greg slipped a gloved hand into the man’s pocket and found his wallet. His California driver’s license identified him as Victor Brill of Topanga Canyon. In his wallet, Victor also carried nearly two hundred dollars, an ATM card and a Platinum American Express. Robbery didn’t seem to be the motive. But then, overkill was seldom in play when the motive was robbery.

  Overkill was usually the work of a psycho.

  Still hunched down, Greg looked around the area again. He shook his head. The crime scene units were going to groan aloud when they arrived on the scene what with the body parts everywhere, and fake blood spattered across the “zombie” areas where the creatures had apparently just dined on unwary mourners. He’d checked the ground for impressions in the fake landscape himself; footprints, telltale signs indicating the killer’s path. There was such a hodgepodge of horror on the set that it was almost impossible to tell anything.

  Greg motioned to the police photographer hovering back at the edge of the fake graveyard. “Come on over. M.E. will be here soon, and I want a good photo record before we move anything else.”

  The police photographer, a grim young woman, started snapping even as she made her way over.