The Gollancz Book of Horror - [Dark Terrors 05]

by Edited By Stephen Jones

  ‘Antonioni’s in a wheelchair,’ I said. ‘He had a stroke.’

  ‘That’s just it - we don’t say! You’re this artsy-fartsy schmuck who came here for some real action. You want to do NC-17 but the majors won’t let you, blah blah blah. Maybe you’re Brian Fuckin’ DePalma, who the hell knows? Is it beautiful?’

  ‘Except for one thing,’ I said. ‘Everybody knows what I look like.’

  ‘Don’t be so conceited,’ he said.

  That brought me up short. Right, I thought. But then I thought, He doesn’t know what it’s like. The red hair, the freckles ... I couldn’t even go to the 7-Eleven at two o’clock in the morning without hearing the name Skippy! behind my back. Once, in Vegas, the men’s room attendant passed a piece of paper under the stall door and asked me to sign it.

  ‘You recognized me,’ I said.

  A faint smile curled his lips as he sat there watching me, his pupils black. What was he looking for? The weakness, I decided. The character flaw that he could exploit. It was what he used on the beauty pageant girls, the high school sweethearts he talked on to their backs in front of the camera, the way he turned their vanity against them until they ended up begging him for a chance to be a star. I wondered if it ever failed.

  ‘Just kidding,’ he said. He winked, sat up and reached for a bowl of Doritos, stuffed his face reflexively and washed the chips down with the rest of the beer.

  ‘So what would we do,’ I said, ‘shoot on a closed set?’

  ‘There’s ways. Secret locations, midnight to dawn . . .’

  ‘What about the crew?’

  ‘Wear a disguise. Pull a hat down over your eyes. Or a cape - that’s it, like Dracula! He walks around with the collar up, nobody can see his face . . .’

  He was indomitable. I had to admire the hustle. He was getting me to think about the possibilities. A few more minutes and I would be the one making the suggestions.

  ‘Thanks, anyway,’ I told him. I started to get up. ‘But it just won’t work.’

  ‘How does sixty thousand dollars sound?’ he said calmly. ‘Plus a buck for every cassette sold.’

  ‘Don’t jerk me around, Donn.’

  ‘I’m not! You don’t know this business. Six thousand titles last year - a two-billion-dollar gross, just for the rentals! How many did the majors release? A hundred and ninety-seven. And two-thirds of those lost money. That’s why Hollywood hates our ass.’

  ‘Sixty thousand,’ I said, letting it sink in. ‘For one video. Yeah, right.’

  He shook his head impatiently. ‘Not video - thirty-five millimetre. First class all the way. Say a series of three or four. We move twenty-five, thirty thousand copies each, list price, no sell-throughs. Plus a soft version for cable. You do the arithmetic.’

  I couldn’t, but I knew it was enough to catch up on the alimony payments, settle with American Express and get the hell out of LA.

  ‘What kind of pictures are we talking about?’ I said.

  ‘Anything you want. Anything. I’ve got so many ideas I don’t have time to do ‘em all.’

  He shrugged in the direction of a floor-to-ceiling bookcase filled with scripts. I made out some of the titles, written in marking pen on the edges: Rumper Room, The Cunning Linguist, Ready Whipped, Gag Ball, Rocket to Uranus . . .

  I must have flinched as I read them, because he waved his hand dismissively.

  ‘But what I really want to do is a crossover. Semi-legit. You can write it yourself. Whatever turns you on, as long as it’s got the wood and the money shots.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘You name it. My cameraman worked with Orson Welles, my sound mixer’s at Todd-AO, I got an editing bay at FotoKem . . . we’re talking class, not some home movie with a mattress on the floor!’

  He reached behind the chair and handed me several tapes as if dealing out a hand of cards.

  ‘Latex Dreams, The PsychoAnalist, Harry Butts in the Outback ... all directed by Peter Shooter.’ Donn looked at me expectantly.

  I drew a blank on the name.

  ‘You know who he really is, don’t you? Drew Drake! The guy that does those perfume ads on TV? Lots of mood lighting, deep-focus - and the acting! Check out the stairway scene in Gummy and Pokey. Faye Way has six minutes of dialogue, no cuts, with Billy Backgate. Then they go right into a mish, a reverse cowgirl, around the world, and they finish with an inverted hole-in-one. Awesome!’

  ‘Okay, okay . . .’

  ‘And I can get you stars. How about Foxe Bleu? Or Oral Robert? Ever hear of Paul Riser? Take your pick - they all work for me. Not to mention Celestine Prophet! Now you know what drop-dead gorgeous means. You saw the movie, right?’

  ‘Not yet. I just got here.’

  ‘Check it out. She’s got a lot of potential. Vulcano wants her to beat the world gang-bang record, three hundred guys in one day. Shit, she can do that, as long as they keep their fingers out of her - too many scratches. But I want her for something special first. Real class . . .’

  ‘Why not get Drew Drake?’

  ‘He’s busy shooting that LaToya Jackson movie for Showtime. Diana Ross Raw or whatever the hell it’s called.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘I’m a fan.’ He shrugged, as if stating the obvious. ‘So sue me.’

  ‘You don’t even know if I can direct.’

  ‘You did three episodes of Blossom, two Space Precincts and one Jaleel White Show, before he flipped out.’

  He had done his homework.

  ‘I was only first a.d. on those,’ I reminded him.

  ‘But you know the drill. Three two-day shoots. Think you can handle a total of six fucking days?’ He got up, went to his desk and opened a chequebook ledger. ‘I’ll give you an advance. How much to seal the deal?’

  ‘I don’t know, Donn . . .’

  ‘Say five large?’ He scrawled his name on a cheque and tore it out of the book. ‘Think about it and call me. Just don’t wait too long. I’m back in Australia next week for Bun Boy Goes Down Under.’

  * * * *

  In the hall ahead of me, a bimbo came out of the bathroom. She looked vaguely familiar. Her hair was teased and sprayed into a blonde waterfall like the other girls. When she grabbed my hand I did a double-take.

  ‘Charlene?’ I said.

  She wiped her nose with a tissue and pulled me into the bathroom. Her eyes were moist, as if she had been crying.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, closing and locking the door, ‘but I don’t know who else to ask.’

  ‘That’s all right. What—?’

  ‘I’ve only been in the business for a month . . .’

  She began to cry. First her wide, sky-blue eyes focused intently on my face, as if watching every shift in expression, every muscle tic, before deciding whether to go on. Apparently enough of what I was feeling showed, because she slumped against the door and lowered her face, wiping her nose again. When she raised her head the whites of her eyes were red and tears spilled out and ran down to her perfect nostrils and the cracked red skin there. She must have done a lot of crying lately. The tears dripped off the narrow point of her chin - too narrow, I noticed for the first time. She had already been to a plastic surgeon. Next would come the incisions under her small, flawless breasts, which might mean surgically repositioning the nipples, depending on the size of the implants.

  ‘You can still get out,’ I said. ‘It’s not too late.’

  ‘But I signed a contract.’

  ‘Contracts can be broken. I’ll find you a lawyer . . .’

  ‘You don’t understand - I need the money. What am I going to do, go back to Jonesville and get a job at the phone company? Do you know what that pays? No way!’

  She rubbed her nose, trying to compose herself.

  ‘I really don’t mind the work,’ she went on. ‘I never had an orgasm before my first d.p., and I’ve done anal plenty of times, with my boyfriend. It’s not so bad if you’re lubed.’

  ‘How many pictures have you made?’ I heard mys
elf ask.

  ‘Two, counting the one that isn’t out yet.’

  ‘What’s the name of the first one?’

  ‘WetWork,’ she said. ‘Did you see it? Donn wants me to do a series next, if he can find the right actor-director.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘A real actor, who can direct his own scenes...’

  So that was what the sixty grand was for. He wanted to buy a face the public had seen before but never in porn. It was another stunt to generate publicity. I wondered how much Donn would offer George Clooney or Brad Pitt, if there was a chance he could get them.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  She blocked my way, holding the doorknob behind her back.

  ‘I don’t mind the name, either. Celestine’s pretty, don’t you think? It’s just that Donn won’t let me use on the set, and I need something . . .’

  ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Please?’ She pressed against me and guided my hand up under her dress, so that I could feel the latex thong bikini she was already wearing, in preparation for her introduction to the press. ‘I can’t make it straight. Do you have just a little coke? I’ll be nice, you’ll see...’

  From the hall I heard Donn searching for his new starlet. I waited for him to pass, then lifted her off her feet. She was light as a plastic doll. I swung her around, set her down and opened the door.

  As I ducked through the crowd in the rec room Donn was making excuses to buy a little more time. Then he went back into the hall. I heard him raise his voice and another voice sobbing. A minute later he returned and announced that Celestine Prophet was almost ready to make her entrance. Meanwhile, he reminded everybody, WetWork was running continuously outside. On the way down to the car I felt his cheque in my shirt pocket. It seemed to be pounding against my chest. I wondered whether he had made it out to Geoffrey Nightshade or Skippy Boomer. Either way I wouldn’t be able to cash it, but I wasn’t ready to look yet. In the sky a movie was ending or beginning, I couldn’t tell which. I decided it didn’t matter. The last reel would be just like the first.

  * * * *

  Dennis Etchison is the recipient of both the World Fantasy and British Fantasy Awards for his short stories, and he is recognized as a writer who has consistently expanded the boundaries of the horror genre. His incisive short fiction has appeared in various publications, and is collected in The Dark Country, Red Dreams and The Blood Kiss. Aside from the movie novelizations The Fog, Halloween II and III and Videodrome, his novels include Darkside (recently reissued as a limited edition hardcover with the author’s preferred text restored), Shadowman, California Gothic and Double Edge. He has also edited the landmark anthologies Cutting Edge, MetaHorror and Masters of Darkness. About ‘The Last Reel’, Etchison says: ‘This is the opening chapter of Blue Screen, a novel about reality and illusion in Hollywood. The title has a double meaning. It refers to a kind of special effects or process shot used in film-making, and to “blue” (X-rated) movies. It also stands alone as a short story complete in itself.’

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  * * * *

  Everybody Needs Somebody to Love

  MARK TIMLIN

  People say, that when you lose someone close, it gets better as time goes by.

  People are wrong.

  If anything, it gets worse.

  At first, when you think about them, they might just be down the shops. Or maybe away on holiday, and due back in a week or two. Or at worst, they’ve gone to the other side of the world to live. But even if they’ve gone to the other side of the world, there’s still a chance that they’ll come back for a visit, and you’ll bump into them one day in Oxford Street, and go for a cup of coffee or a drink, and catch up on their news.

  Not if they’re dead you won’t.

  And sometimes that truth hits you like a length of 2x4, and you suddenly realize with a gut-wrenching force that you’re never going to see them again.

  Ever.

  That’s what happened to me five years ago. Five Years. Just like the old David Bowie song on Ziggy Stardust. I had that album on 8-track cartridge. Remember them?

  On 8-track cartridge in a special edition Ford Capri 1600 in Dayglo orange with all the chrome sprayed black, a black spoiler, and some kind of trick Venetian blind doodad on the back window. It was impossible to see what was behind you, but it looked cool.

  That was before I met Louise. In fact I can never remember exactly when we did meet. I can’t quite pin it down, though I think about it often.

  It must have been ‘73. Spring. And she died in ‘89. So we were together for sixteen years. On and off.

  See, we were children of the permissive society. No responsibility. No obligation. No commitment. If you weren’t off screwing the world, you weren’t living.

  And Christ knows, Louise and I tried.

  We were both working in the music business then. Rock and Roll. Liberation. Sex, drugs, violence, booze, freedom. A heady mix. We had it all, and we fucked it up.

  I’d just got a job in the record company that Louise worked for. She was the public relations girl. We called them girls then. I went out to record shops, and tried to convince them to stock our product. I took the managers out for boozy lunches, did window displays, that sort of thing. And when a band was in town, I’d go to gigs and put up displays there as well. And I supplied the drugs. Women too. You could’ve described me as a low-life ponce. But we never thought about it like that then. Not in those days.

  That was why I was given the flashy car. We reckoned that a Dayglo orange Ford Capri 1600 was the cutting edge. Then.

  I didn’t meet Louise until I’d been in the job for a couple of weeks, but I’d heard all about her. She was famous. Notorious even.

  Then on my third Monday morning at our weekly sales and publicity meeting, I did.

  She’d broken her ankle six weeks previously, walking down the little street that connects Oxford Street and Soho Square where our offfices were located. She’d been reading Melody Maker as she went, not looking where she was going as usual, and tripped over the kerb. Silly cow. A couple of guys who were working on one of the buildings carried her back to the office where they called an ambulance. So my first sight of her was as she blew into the conference room, red hair permed and flowing, full-on make-up job, with loads of lipstick and eye liner, wearing a halter top made out of patches of ten kinds of material that she’d got from Mr Freedom, a long black skirt with buttons up the front, unbuttoned almost to her crotch, one gold, platform soled boot with a six inch heel, and one built-up plaster on the other leg. She looked great and she knew it.

  ‘Who the hell is that?’ I said to my boss.

  ‘That’s Louise Spenser,’ he replied. ‘You wanna watch her.’

  And I did. Couldn’t keep my eyes off her, to be honest. And she knew it.

  After the meeting we all went to the boozer. The Nellie Dean in Dean Street. I stood next to her at the bar and hummed ‘Jake The Peg’. It’s a Rolf Harris song about a bloke with an extra leg. Funny what you remember.

  She gave me a cold stare, and sat with two members of our most popular band of the time.

  A few months later she told me that she thought I was one of the most objectionable men she’d ever met.

  We were in bed together when she told me that, which just goes to show that first impressions can be misleading.

  She was always accident-prone. Whilst we were together she broke her leg once, her arm twice, and I lost count of the number of times she fell over in the street.

  Even the way she died was by accident, although it took over three years for it to happen.

  But we’ll get to that later.

  * * * *

  For some reason the pair of us saw quite a lot of each other that spring, and at first I knew she wasn’t very happy about it.

  We had to go to the same places, you see. I got promoted to being a record plugger along with all my other jobs, and we’d bump into each other at Radio 1, Thames TV and London
Weekend, as well as at concerts and in the office.

  I followed her around like a dog. She was three years younger than me. Only twenty when we met. But believe me, she was a world of experience wiser.

  It seemed to me that she loved only two things. Music and alcohol. Not necessarily in that order. Of course with the music, came the guys in the bands, and with the booze came certain other substances. All of them illegal. But what did we care? Like her, ever since I’d first come across them, I’d taken to them like a duck to a duck pond.