At Risk

by Inc. Thriller Writers

  Overkill.

  It was actually not an easy feat to nearly sever a man’s head. The throat and neck were vulnerable, of course, but to slice through all the flesh, muscle and ligaments down to the bone, well, that took some effort. And anger.

  What had Victor Brill done to have received such wrath? Or had he done anything at all? Was this the work of the Slasher?

  Greg stood; old Doc Mabry was carefully maneuvering his way to the site.

  “That’s the real goner?” Mabry asked him.

  Greg nodded. “Old” Doc Mabry wasn’t that old. But, recently, a series of retirements had left him, at fifty, the oldest M.E. working in the area. He was tall, straight, fit, and could have easily passed for an aging character actor.

  “Well?” Greg asked.

  “I may puke,” Tony Martini said.

  Puke would really foul up the scene.

  “Tony, go over to Durfey, there. He was the first to arrive, and I think that’s Howard Engel, the director standing with him. Find out what Engel was doing out here alone this late, and how he stumbled on the real body. Ask him about this fellow, Victor Brill. He might work here with the special effects people.”

  Tony nodded and moved away. Greg watched while Doc Mabry hunkered down himself, investigating the corpse.

  “How long has he been here?” Greg asked him.

  Mabry looked up at him, looked around the “graveyard,” and then back to Greg. “Less than an hour. The guy is still warm and pliable, Greg. Hell, he must have died two minutes before he was found.”

  Greg wasn’t sure what suddenly caused such a sharp pain in his gut. He nodded at Mabry, and left him, walking over to the side of the lot where Tony was now interviewing the director, Howard Engel.

  “Mr. Engel, I’m Detective Austin,” Greg said.

  Engel nodded abstractedly, looking past him to the body.

  “Sir, what brought you out here tonight?” Greg asked.

  “Huh?” The director looked at him, obviously shaken and barely registering anything. He was a slim, ordinary-looking man. He’d directed some of the biggest moneymaking films in the business. Not great epics with amazing acting, but rather, low budget films that had made his studio a fortune.

  “Sir,” Greg repeated, “what brought you out here? Were you worried about a shoot?” Greg asked, trying to be patient, but feeling a growing sense of unease.

  “I…no,” Engel said, blinking and then focusing on Greg at last. Greg’s steady gaze seemed to make him snap to the present, and still, the man flushed. “I—I came to visit the graveyard.”

  “Yes, the set,” Greg said. “Was there a rea—”

  “No, not the set,” Engel said, pointing over the brick wall that led to the back and the parking lot of the studios.

  The effects studio, where, by day, Ali worked, creating monsters—and sometimes, things of beauty. Ali had such a talent, and such a smile. She’d laugh when she was talking, and she’d snuggle against him. Sometimes he would think about the real monsters he came across when he worked, but she was always his refuge. He’d feel her against him, they’d make love, and he’d know again why life was worth living, and why his life’s work mattered, as well.

  “The real graveyard. The cemetery, actually. I think it’s a graveyard when it’s next to a church, and a cemetery—”

  “Mr. Engel,” Greg interrupted. He’d forgotten there was a little cemetery right in back of the studios.

  “Why were you visiting it?” he asked.

  “Stupid of me, I guess. I came out tonight because of Blake Richards.”

  “Blake Richards—founder of the effects studio?” Greg asked.

  Engel nodded. He swallowed and looked at Greg sheepishly. “I felt like he wanted me to visit him. I don’t know. It sounds crazy. I came out to visit his grave. He worked with me on the first movie I ever did. I hadn’t been out to the grave in a while, and we were going to be shooting here, tomorrow, so… It felt like he was calling me.” He paused, flushing again. “Well, I guess this is really going to make me look like a murder suspect, but I came out to say a little something at his grave.”

  The odd thing was, it sure as hell sounded as if the guy was telling the truth. Greg had gotten pretty good, through the years, at sifting truth from lies.

  “Hey! Detective!” Mabry called to him, standing by the corpse. “All right if I get him out of here now?”

  “Yes, you may bring Mr. Brill to the morgue,” Greg told Mabry.

  “Brill?” Engel said.

  “The dead man, Mr. Engel.”

  Engel shook his head. “That’s not Victor Brill. I think Brill is still working, up over in the studios.”

  “The studio is closed,” Greg said. The knifing pain in his gut suddenly seemed more vicious.

  “No, they, uh, needed to finish up a few of the zombies for tomorrow.” He looked at Greg, his face as ashen as Tony’s. “Victor Brill is their top finisher on the creatures.”

  “I’m sorry, we found his ID. That was Victor Brill,” Greg said.

  Engel shook his head. “Brill is a dark-eyed fellow of about thirty.”

  “So, he’d be in the studios?” Greg asked.

  “Yeah.” Engel smiled. “Working with Alison. She’s going places, you know. Great girl. I—”

  Greg didn’t hear more. He felt so gut-stabbed that he nearly bent double.

  Ali.

  A killer called the Slasher was loose in the area, and Ali was in that building. Working with Victor Brill, whose ID had been found on the corpse.

  He left Engel standing there openmouthed, raced to the brick wall, and leaped over it. Going through the cemetery was the fastest way to reach Ali. He vaulted over the fence and landed hard in the grass. It would only take a minute to dial his cell. Noticing the tremor in his hands, he grabbed a nearby vault to steady himself. Yet as he did so, he felt a hand on his back, steadying him. There was no one there.

  In large, embossed letters on the iron grating of the tomb were two words, one name.

  Blake Richards.

  Greg stared at the tomb. “She’s got to be all right!” he whispered.

  The cell phone was ringing.

  “Answer, Ali, answer!” he prayed aloud.

  * * *

  Dolls.

  Ali suddenly felt as if she’d been pitched into a remake of Indiana Jones, except that she was the explorer, and the bane of her life was dolls, not snakes. Fantasmic Effects created amazing dolls. Dolls as real as life, large or small. Sexy Suzie, the doll that had come alive in the thriller Real Doll was standing in front of Bobo, the mock-up for Emil Lasher, the actor in Death by Clown.

  She heard the noise again. She almost laughed aloud. The sound was coming from Bobo’s feet; his motor was on, and he was trying to move, but he was blocked in by Suzie and another doll, one that was covered by a large sheet. She started to reach around Bobo to find the machination cord, but before she could do so, her phone rang. She hit the reply key. “Hello?”

  “Ali?”

  It was Greg’s voice. She knew it, of course, the moment she heard it. Her blood seemed to run instantly like molten lava and her knees felt weak. Had she willed him to call her? she wondered. No, such things didn’t happen.

  “Ali, its Greg.”

  “I know. Hey, nice to hear from you.” Casual, she warned herself. Don’t tell the guy you’ve been eating your heart out for him since you packed up and left.

  “Get out of there,” Greg said.

  “What?”

  “Get the hell out of there,” he told her.

  “Greg, I’m working. I’m at the studio.”

  “Yes, get the hell out.”

  She’d started to jerk the sheet off the life-size doll next to Bobo. It fell away as she f
rowned, thinking that Greg had to be far away, that something had happened near her apartment in Burbank.

  “Ali!”

  She didn’t answer him. At first, she stared in surprise. The doll next to Bobo seemed to be that of a Mexican Day of the Dead skeleton. Then she realized that it was clad in black, with the skeleton painted on the fabric. She couldn’t remember a film in which they’d used such a doll, but….

  “I’m here, Greg,” she said, puzzling over the doll.

  And then it moved. It didn’t click, whine, or whirr. It moved, raising its arm and its hand, and in the hand was a knife, blood dripping from it….

  The arm lashed out suddenly, sending the phone flying from her hand.

  “Victor, stop it!” Ali cried out angrily. “You’re not going to scare me off this job!”

  “No?” he asked, cocking his black-and-skull-clad head to an angle. “Then I’ll just kill you,” he said cheerfully.

  * * *

  Greg told himself he was a rational man, a trained cop. He had a gun; he knew what he was doing. He’d call for backup, but first, he’d get to the studios. He was already at the brick wall that lined the back parking lot. He set his arms on the ledge of the wall and hiked himself up; his arms were shaking and he fell back. Cursing, he hiked up again.

  And as he struggled to get a solid grasp, he felt something again. Something. As if someone were there, pushing him up the wall.

  Tony. Tony had gotten it together and followed.

  “Thanks!” he said huskily, and looked back as he gained the top of the brick. But no one was there. No one. No one had touched him.

  He was cracking under the strain.

  His feet hit the asphalt of the parking lot and he ran to the rear door of the effects studio. It was locked. He stood back, pulled his gun and shot out the lock. He burst through into the shadowed realm of zombies, bugs, gnomes and superheroes.

  * * *

  Ali ran back through the prop storage, knocking down a wall of helmets and a carton of costume-grade vampire teeth. As she neared the werewolf, she let out a terrified scream; a massive spiderweb—actually, excellent nylon webbing that she’d designed herself—fell upon her. Screaming, she tore at the netting.

  And she heard the shuffling sound of his footsteps.

  “Victor, you bastard! Where do you think this will get you? Let me go, you ass! Stop this!” she cried.

  “Ali!”

  She heard her name shouted. It came from far away; it had to be her imagination. It wasn’t. It was Greg.

  “Greg!”

  She didn’t hear the shuffling sound anymore. Instead, she heard a chuckle. “He’s coming, Ali. How sweet. The script is complete. The detective is coming to save the maiden in distress. Ah, but not all horror movies have happy endings these days!”

  “Greg, no!” she cried. “No…!”

  * * *

  Ali! He’d heard her; she was on the second floor. He raced past the shelves of props toward the stairs. There was something coming down for him. Big, enormous…coming out of the shadows.

  “Stop!” he roared.

  The thing kept coming. He shot.

  It fell.

  He raced up the stairs to it.

  Laughter seemed to sound all around him. “Congratulations, cop. You just killed a dead werewolf. Watch out—the zombies are coming next.”

  Greg stepped over the fallen beast. The bastard, Brill, had gotten on to some kind of a microphone. His voice would sound as if it was coming from everywhere, no matter where the guy was. He eased down the hall and looked into a conference room. Nothing there but a bunch of models for fairies in little glass domes. He hurried on, past one conference room, then another, and another….

  He looked in the last conference room. Even in his panic, he paused. There was a life-size statue or mannequin of Blake Richards. He was affable-looking, a smiling and white-haired man with kind brown eyes.

  “For the love of God, help me!” Greg pleaded.

  He hurried out of the conference room and to the last door. The door to the storage room.

  “Ali!” he shouted her name.

  “No, Greg!”

  He shoved the door open, and there she was. His Ali. She was tied up in a cocoon of white, and at her side was a skeleton with a raised knife. A knife that dripped blood. The blood of the man who had so recently perished in the graveyard.

  Greg took aim at the skeleton. “Get the hell away from her!” he ordered.

  The skeleton just started to laugh. And, as Greg stepped into the room, both hands on his gun in regulatory stance, Ali screamed.

  A second web came crashing down, entangling him instantly. The fall of the web wrenched the gun from his hand, knocking it down near his knee. Tension and fury filled him; he refrained from instantly reaching for the gun.

  If he wasn’t careful, it would fall through the mesh….

  “Oh, Greg, I’m so sorry!” Ali said.

  He couldn’t think of anything else to say. “I love you,” he told her. “I always have.”

  “This is so sweet! So, so sweet!” Victor said. “Do go on.”

  “Victor is the Slasher,” Ali said.

  “Yeah, well, we’ve been trying to catch him, night and day, for a year,” Greg said.

  “Of course. And you would have gotten him. You’re a great cop, Greg. Dedicated—to everyone. A little late, but I’m seeing that now.” He could hear the regret in her voice; she was looking at him through all the mesh that tangled them both. Ali was beautiful. Even now, there was strength and pride in her eyes.

  “Yes, but….”

  “Greg, forgive me. My timing sucks on this, but…we may die. I love you. I was wrong,” she said.

  “No, no, I just…there was a kid. I couldn’t turn my back on a child.”

  “Oh, such drama, I love it. But enough,” Victor said. “I’d only imagined the pleasure of slicing up my dear coworker, the beloved Ali! But, now, I get to cut her up in front of you. A cop! A big old cop who fell right into my trap.”

  “Well,” Greg said, trying to maintain calm; it was their only chance. He had to reach the gun. “You are an ass, Victor—as well as being a true psychopath, of course. I understand that this place may have a lot of soundproofing, but you must have heard some of the sirens tonight. The place is crawling with cops. Every psycho eventually makes a mistake. You made yours tonight.”

  “I don’t think so. By the time the cops actually get here, I’ll be tangled in mesh, too. And they’ll think I’m the victim who survived when they scared away the real perp!” Victor said.

  “You worked with this idiot, for real?” Greg asked Ali. Slowly, slowly, he stretched his fingers toward the gun. The nylon strained, tearing into his flesh.

  “Good jobs are not easy to come by in the film industry, even in special effects,” Ali told him.

  “Ali, precious Ali! Oh, yeah, everyone loves Ali. Old Blake Richards loved you. You were a suck-up. Always with the blond hair falling over your eyes. And you dressed to be provocative, trying to seduce the old bastard!” Victor accused her.

  “In T-shirts and sweats?” Ali asked. “He thought of me as a daughter, Victor.”

  “Well, you can go and join your old man, then,” Victor said. His voice sounded unreal, like the evil whisper of a—a movie picture.

  Victor started slashing the webbing that held Ali. He was coming closer and closer to her. Desperate, Greg strained harder to reach the gun.

  Slash. Slash. He could hear the nylon ripping away with each dreadful fall of the knife.

  No, God, no! The gun was just out of reach. Greg screamed in fear that the blade would touch flesh at any minute. Real flesh. Ali’s flesh.

  Slash. Slash. Slash.

  And then, miraculously, i
t seemed that although he couldn’t reach any farther, the gun was moving—on its own—toward his hand.

  His fingers twined around the grip. He ignored the pain of the tensing nylon, twisted and took aim.

  He started to give fair warning.

  But the knife was over Ali’s trapped form, right over her throat….

  “Die, you bastard!” Greg roared.

  He fired.

  For a moment, skeletal and eerie, Victor Brill still stood, the knife aimed toward Ali’s throat.

  And then…

  He stumbled backward.

  The room was suddenly riddled with shots.

  Greg twisted around. Good old Tony. He’d followed, and he’d finished off the Slasher.

  * * *

  Naturally, soon the whole building was abuzz with police. Ali still couldn’t believe that she was alive. She couldn’t believe that Greg had come. It had all happened so quickly, except, of course, for the terrifying moments when she had been in the net—strong, unbreakable threaded nylon. Hey, she was good at her work.

  But now it was over. And though she had been a victim and a witness, and long through with what the police needed from her, she waited in the conference room for Greg to tie up all the loose ends that a detective had to tie up.

  At last, he came back. She was seated at the conference table, next to the superb figure of Blake Richards. For a moment, he paused in the doorway, looking at her. He was impossibly wonderful, she thought. His dark hair was in total disarray over his forehead; his eyes fell upon her with naked longing. He was ever strong and steady.

  And he had saved her life.

  He hurried from the door to fall on a knee before her. He caught her face between his hands—studying her as if he had to reassure himself over and over again that she was all right, studying her as if she were his world.

  “Ali,” he whispered, and his voice choked. “The things you said—”

  “Were real.”

  He swallowed and nodded. She touched his dark hair, wanting to find the right words. “Let’s go home,” was all she could manage, and her words were thick.

  He nodded. Then he smiled crookedly. “Yours or mine?”