Flickers

by Arthur Slade

  A facilitator.

  He had somehow bound her will. But she had control of it. Of her imagination. Of her spirit. And she would rise above it. Fight it. She visualized herself breaking bonds, iron chains they had put on gods, like Hercules. It was as simple as sitting up.

  It took all her strength, all of her will to concentrate. To conceptualize. That was it. Make the concept of waking up a reality. And she did open her eyes. The room was dark, except for the moonlight casting shadows on the wall. She slowly pushed her blankets back and forced herself out of bed.

  She dressed awkwardly, imagining she was cladding herself in armour. The chair that had blocked the door was broken.

  Beatrice crept down the stairs. The main hall was awash with shadows. Her heart thudded. She went into the west wing of La Casa Grande. The door to her aunt and uncle’s room was open and she peeked in.

  A childlike whimpering came from inside the room. She froze. A quiet sob was followed by a deep moan. Beatrice crept into the room. Her aunt was asleep in the bed, a sleep mask over her eyes.

  The door to the ensuite bathroom was open a crack and dim yellow light leaked out. A stranger was seated on the marble floor in his bathrobe, his hair wet as though he’d been out in the rain. His eyes were dark with black bags below them. It took a moment for her to recognize Uncle Wayne. He wiped away his tears with a golden towel then let out another low moan. “Oh, Lord,” he said. “Oh, no. Oh, Lord, no.”

  Beatrice pushed the door open. “Uncle Wayne.” Her voice was hoarse. “Uncle Wayne.”

  He looked up. His face was so swollen it seemed as though he’d been beaten. “Oh, it’s you. You’re not dressed up anymore. You’re ugly again, Beets.”

  “Beets is Isabelle’s nickname for me.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Beatrice.” He did sound genuine. He blew his nose in the towel. “I’m not myself right now, I’m not me. Something terrible has happened. It’s all over.”

  “What’s all over?”

  “Everything. I’d convinced myself that the party would never end. But he’s shutting it all down. He told me that tonight.”

  She leaned against the door jamb. “What do you mean?”

  “The bright lights. The people wanting your autograph. The adoration. Oh, the adoration. I always felt so big. Larger than life. Fifteen years, I’ve had of it. Fifteen years is what he promised me. And, well, fifteen years have passed.”

  “Mr. Cecil promised you fifteen years of fame?”

  “Yes. And he made it happen. He pulled the strings and it became real. But soon it’ll all be gone.”

  “But what’s gone?”

  “Mr. Cecil said that our contract was finished. Done. He thanked me for my service.” He sniffled. “I’m all used up. And I’ll never act as well as I did in Frankenstein. It was perfect—I was perfect. Everything in that movie was perfect.”

  “There’ll be other films, Uncle Wayne. You don’t have to rely on him.”

  “No. This was the last one. You’re a kid. You don’t understand. Mr. Cecil has made the perfect film. He’s been sharpening his craft for years and now he’s done it.”

  “But other directors will make films,” Beatrice said. “You’re a famous star. You can work with them.”

  His laugh turned into a phlegmy cough. “No one but Mr. Cecil can get me to act that way.” He lifted a palsied hand, then stared at his palms. “Are these real?” He buried his face in the towel. “I traded away everything. Ha-ha. I’m a Faust. Aren’t I? Faust, the damned.” He peeked out at her. “Do you know who that was?”

  “I’ve read the play.”

  “You word worm. Well, I traded myself. I even traded you, I guess.” He let out a wet sigh. “I’ve been a terrible father. I didn’t protect either you or Izzy. I let it all happen because . . . because of the adoration. It’s so wonderful when people love you. You’ll never know that, Beets. Sorry. It’s a hard truth.”

  “I don’t need to know.”

  “I suppose you don’t.” His next words were muffled. “I started all this. I showed him the picture of Isabelle as a baby. My sister cut it out of the Lethbridge Herald and sent it in a birthday card. When I saw Izzy’s picture I knew, I just knew Mr. Cecil would love her face. That it was the face he was looking for. Oh, if only I’d burned that clipping. He—Mr. Cecil killed your father.”

  “What?”

  “At least I think he did. Things happen for Mr. Cecil. He makes them all happen somehow.”

  Beatrice tightened her hands into fists. “How did he kill Father?”

  “We went there, Beets. I’m sorry. Beatrice. Beatrice. Beatrice.” He took a raspy, deep, wet breath. “When the three of us went to visit you babies we offered to care for both of you. We promised your father the moon and the stars and the old bull got all angry and waved his axe at the car and dared to shout at Mr. Cecil.

  “We holed up in a hotel in Lethbridge and waited. I didn’t ask Mr. Cecil what we were waiting for. The next day there was that fire and the two of you were found outside the house. Your father’d had his stubborn back broken by a falling timber. It looked like an accident. But it wasn’t. You see, there are no accidents when Mr. Cecil is involved. It became part of his plot line. Yes that’s it. He controls the plot line.”

  She stood straight. “You mean he started the fire?”

  “He didn’t leave his room. But he manifests things. That’s the word he uses. Manifesting destiny, he says. Manifesting reality. I’ve learned not to ask questions about the things he does.”

  A different life on the farm had been taken away from her, by this weak man and by Mr. Cecil. Her father had been taken away from her. And her sister.

  “Can you forgive me?” Uncle Wayne asked. He wiped his nose on his bathrobe. “I tried, I really tried to be a good father. Can you forgive me?”

  His body had shrunk in the last few hours. He had always been small, she realized.

  “No,” she said simply. “I don’t forgive you. Mr. Cecil has taken Isabelle. I don’t know what he’s going to do to her. You could come with me and we could save her.”

  Uncle Wayne grinned a horrible grin. “There’s no point. He always gets what he wants.”

  “He won’t this time.” She said this with as much certainty as she could muster. “Tell me what he’s doing.”

  Uncle Wayne shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t want to know. It’s better that way.”

  “Get up. You can fix this. Come with me and we can stop him.”

  “There’s no point.”

  “Then you’re no use to me.”

  “Your father thought I was useless, too.” He wiped his nose again with the back of his hand. “Maybe Mr. Cecil didn’t kill your father, after all. I mean you’re his blood, right? So in some ways old Ernest is still alive. But you’ll disappear, too.”

  She turned away from Uncle Wayne. She no longer even wanted to be in the same room. He was not her family. Her aunt had slept through the whole conversation, or pretended to.

  She walked down the hall and went outside, past the pool, and through the Pomona garden.

  We are going to see your film once more, Mr. Cecil had said. She was certain he’d taken Isabelle to the theater.

  You’ll disappear, too. Her uncle’s words followed her like flitting insects.

  36

  The light of the moon outlined the orange groves. Beatrice dashed through them, the wind whispering along the leaves. She passed the lion bench and ran through the zoo. The monkeys called to her and the flamingo let out one sharp squawk. But she didn’t stop until she was standing at Raul’s cottage. She’d been inside once, a year earlier, when Raul had shown her several of his drawings. She knew which room was his.

  He had left his window open, the coolness of the night slipping into the house. She crept up and peeked over the sill. His drawings, in colour and charcoal, were neatly displayed on the wall. There were oranges, statues, the ocean, and even a sketch of her and Isabelle standing next to the l
ion’s cage at the zoo. She wished there was time to look at them properly.

  Raul was sound asleep.

  “Psst,” she whispered. “Psst.”

  Raul didn’t stir. It seemed inappropriate, unladylike to crawl in his window, not that she called herself a lady. So she picked up a rake leaning against the wall and prodded him with the handle.

  After she had poked him gently twice to no effect, she gave him a hard jab in the ribs. He stirred enough to bat the rake away. She jabbed it even harder into his stomach and he sat right up, holding his side. He blinked several times, wiped his eyes, then saw her in the window. “Beatrice,” he said. “What the heck are you doing?”

  She shushed him. “Get dressed. Get out here. With me. I’ll tell you what I saw in the study.”

  A minute later he climbed out the window and she took him by the hand and led him to the orange grove. “What is it?” he asked. “Have you been hurt?”

  “I’ll try to explain.” She found herself starting with Frankenstein. “After the premiere was done, Mr. Cecil, he put his hand right into the screen.”

  “What? Through it, you mean?”

  “Into it. As though, I don’t know, as if it were a doorway. A place he could enter. Or a place where something else could walk through.”

  “But I don’t understand.”

  “And in the study. It’s where he kills people.” She decided to leave out the part about the proboscis. “I found proof. I saw it.”

  “Saw it.”

  “Yes, he killed that young Chinese servant. And he uses that sarcophagus to get rid of bodies. That’s why they’ve disappeared. And maybe that’s his plan for Isabelle.”

  Raul paused before speaking. She knew he was putting his thoughts in order. He was probably still waking up, too. “What can we do?”

  “He’s taken Isabelle back to the theatre. He said she had one more role to perform.”

  Raul grabbed her hand and pulled her to the garden shed. Waiting beside it was the black Model T truck, with wooden slats around the truck bed. Several crates of oranges were stacked in the back.

  Beatrice climbed in the passenger side, watched as Raul pulled on the choke, adjusted two levers by the steering wheel, then turned the key. The truck fired into life. The sound was loud enough to shake the trees.

  “It smells like oranges in here.” Beatrice rolled down the passenger window.

  “It’s the orange truck,” he said.

  The truck jerked ahead, shot up an embankment and onto the road. Raul cranked the wheel just before they drove into the ditch. Then they raced along the estate’s back lane until it met the main road.

  The security gates were lit by several electric lights and even from a distance it was clear that they were closed. At the sound of the approaching truck the guards came out.

  “Just smash through!” Beatrice shouted. “Go! Go! Give it gas!”

  Raul jammed the pedal to the floor and the truck sped up. The guards leapt out of the way as the truck crashed through, snapping the gates open. One gate flew several feet in the air and tumbled into the ditch.

  “It was like a film!” Beatrice said. “But real. But real. My heart is—”

  “Beating fast,” Raul said. “I know. I know.”

  Then a moment later she yelled, “Turn! Turn!”

  They had reached the pier, passing the Looff Hippodrome. Raul cranked the wheel and the tires squealed as the truck sped onto Santa Monica Boulevard. They began climbing away from the ocean and up toward the hills. Raul turned the wheel sharply again and Beatrice found herself thrown against him as again they skirted the edge of the road before Raul got them back into the middle of the lane. “I’ve never gone this fast before,” he said. Beatrice looked behind. No one was following.

  “I think we just go straight for a while,” she said.

  “Shouldn’t we tell the police?” Raul asked.

  “We can’t trust them. Mr. Cecil pays them off.”

  He took a moment to consider this. “Then which street do we take?”

  “I’ll know it when I see it.”

  They went through Beverly Hills, the road getting longer and longer. Had it taken this long to drive to the theatre? Already that seemed like days or even weeks earlier. There were more stores and shops the farther they went, power lines atop power poles on both sides of the street. The city was asleep.

  Then she saw the sign for La Brea Avenue and shouted, “Turn here! Turn left! To the left!”

  Raul cranked the wheel again. It was so late at night that there was very little traffic. Beatrice looked at the houses they passed. The windows were black. The buildings, too. It would be easy to convince herself that this was a deserted city. The occasional car passed. If the police did stop them, how would they explain what they were doing?

  They turned onto Hollywood Boulevard and Raul raced the truck to the front of the Theatre Eternal and slammed on the brakes. The vehicle jumped the curb and Beatrice was bumped high enough to nearly hit the roof. She landed, the air knocked out of her lungs. Raul pushed open his door and grabbed Beatrice by the arm, helping her down. The two of them stood there looking up at the theatre. The building was a black monolith in the night, leaning over them, swallowing the stars and the sky. A dim light shone from the glass of the front doors. They ran up the steps, Beatrice in the lead. She yanked on the handles but the doors were locked. She set her feet to put her weight into it.

  The smashing of glass startled her. She turned to see Raul had knocked out a panel with a small hammer. He reached inside and opened the door.

  “Good job!” Beatrice said. “Let’s hope no one heard that.” She charged in and Raul followed. It was humid. The dim light was coming from a door that led into the auditorium.

  “What do we do about Mongo?” Raul asked. “And Mr. Cecil?” He was still clutching the hammer.

  “I don’t know,” Beatrice answered. “Let’s go that way.” They went up to the door and crept in. The seats were empty. A ghastly light glowed from the screen. It showed the same mountainous scene from the end of the movie, a precarious wooden bridge that led across a chasm. Across that bridge there was now a dead landscape. What had looked like trees had twisted into snakelike shapes trying to find light, leaves as black as bats flapping in the wind. Pits filled with tar bubbled here and there.

  They walked slowly down the aisle, looking left and right. With each step a stronger smell of sulphur filled their nostrils.

  About halfway down the aisle, Beatrice held up a hand and pointed. Mongo was slumped in a seat, motionless. Beatrice crept over to him.

  “What are you doing?” Raul whispered.

  She didn’t answer. Mongo’s eyes were open, reflecting the dim light of the screen. He did not look peaceful. There was a wet spot on the top of his skull that leaked the slightest bit of grey slime. His mouth was open. There was only darkness where his tongue should have been.

  “He’s dead,” Beatrice said. “Mr. Cecil took everything from him.”

  The hammer shook in Raul’s grip.

  Beatrice backed away and glanced around the theatre. It seemed empty. They climbed onto the stage. It grew colder with each step and the sulphur smell thickened. The two of them stopped a foot away from the screen. There was a narrow ledge of rock in front of them and the chasm looked so close they could almost fall into it. Right there on the other side of the screen.

  As Beatrice stared more closely she saw there was something winging through the air in the distance. And the path that appeared right at her feet on the screen crossed the bridge and weaved through the landscape and turned a corner out of sight, leading to another place.

  “We aren’t casting any shadows on the screen,” Raul said. He had turned to look back toward the projector room.

  “You’re right.”

  Beatrice moved her hand. She and Isabelle used to make shadow puppets on blank movie screens. Now it was as if the light was also coming from inside the screen.

  She
pressed her hand against the fabric. She felt as if she were pushing on something gauzy and soft, then her hand grew much colder. Her fingers tingled and went through. The air was colder on the other side. “This is where all the cold is coming from,” she said.

  Raul tentatively lifted his hand to the screen and pushed it through. “This isn’t real. This can’t be real.”

  “It is. Somehow it is.”

  Mr. Cecil had once said there were many realities pressing against one another like bubbles.

  She pulled her hand back. The clouds in that other place were moving over a blood-red moon. But her hand had been in another world, she could tell by the tingling in her fingers. She stepped away from the screen and spotted her sister’s shawl lying on the stage. Beside it were Mr. Cecil’s gloves.

  “I think they’re in there,” Beatrice said. “I’m certain of it. Where there is, I don’t know.”

  She turned to look back at the theatre, the empty seats, her eyes blinded momentarily by the light from the projector. “We destroy the projector. We break it and maybe that will stop all this from happening. That must be the way.”

  “I’d argue against doing that.” The voice came from behind them. Beatrice turned to see Mr. Cecil at the entrance to the auditorium. “You would trap your sister forever on the other side of the screen.”

  37

  “Your sister has gone to that other place. Into purgatory. Perdition. Limbo.” The door to the theatre closed behind Mr. Cecil. He walked past Mongo without a glance toward him. “She’s bringing back someone who is very important to me.”

  Beatrice waited until he had climbed to the stage and was a few feet away, then launched herself at him, her arms out, her fingers curved into claws aiming for his eyes.

  But Mr. Cecil, without seeming to move, was now a few feet to the side. She hit the floor hard. “I’ve not survived all these years by accident, dear Beatrice. Not without developing certain skills.” She pushed herself up. Raul was already standing protectively beside her, one hand raising the hammer as if he were about to attack. “Please don’t harm yourselves further.”