Scream All Night

by Derek Milman

  I raise my eyebrows, expectantly.

  Cassidy takes off his sunglasses. “Around a hundred mill.”

  I look at Franklin. He nods at me. We’d pay everyone off and be millionaires.

  “But,” says Cass, “that’s for everything. Including distribution rights to Alastair & Abigail and all its potential sequels, as well as for you.”

  “Me?”

  “If we acquire Moldavia, my stipulation would be that you come work for me—and operate Moldavia Films, which would be a banner of Rusty Blade. And I’d contract you to write and direct the first five features, including at least two more sequels of Alastair & Abigail. I’d allow you to choose your top brass. But we’d have final say on what gets made and what gets released.”

  Oren and Hayley draw in their breath.

  That’s a lot of money, obviously. But he wants to buy my future. He wants me to spit out more Alastairs—except they’d be his corrupted, sleazy version of the character that’s pretty much defined my life; the character that I just reclaimed for myself. My cult following would inflame further, into something sordid that I’d never be able to shake. Our family legacy would be tainted. Plus I’m pretty sure I’d be miserable working for him. I didn’t come back to Moldavia and nearly lose my mind dealing with this place (and filming Alastair & Abigail) just so Cassidy could own me, and own everyone here.

  I sit back in my seat. “Thank you, Cassidy, but I don’t think we’re interested.”

  Everyone exhales.

  “Before I got here, all I wanted to do was sell Moldavia,” I tell him. “This place was meaningless to me. I ran away from here, and stayed away for much of my life. But now . . . I don’t feel the same way.”

  Cassidy doesn’t seem surprised. He just puts his sunglasses back on, cool as a cucumber. “I understand.”

  “Thing is”—I look around at everyone—“none of us are just a cog in the machine anymore. My dad’s gone. We all created something, and we did it together. This isn’t just a movie studio. It’s a part of who we are. It’s . . . a family. It’s our family. I know that’s kind of corny—”

  “Totally get it,” says Cassidy. He points at me: “You’ll remain studio chief?”

  I laugh and shake my head. “No way.”

  Cassidy drums his fingers on the table. “Interesting.”

  “I don’t deserve that,” I say. “I’m going to appoint two chiefs—Oren and Hayley. They’ll run this place better than I ever could.”

  Cassidy stands, extending his hand. “Well. This was a pleasure. And I meant what I said: You’re a real talent. I’ll let you have it out with your cohorts. And we’ll talk again, before those six months are up. But by then, of course, my offer may have changed.”

  “Of course,” I say, standing up to shake his hand. “I understand.”

  “It was nice meeting you all,” he says, patting down his pants, as Gavin leads him out of the room. A few moments later we hear the roar of a V8 twin-turbo engine zooming out of the gates. Franklin, Hayley, and Oren all turn to look at me.

  “Just so you know,” says Oren, coughing into his fist, “if we’re not solvent in just a few months . . . and we’re forced to sell to him . . . his offer will be forty to sixty million less than if we sell to him now and he gets the rights to Alastair & Abigail.”

  “Right. He wants total control over the film. And he’s hedging his bets that we don’t know what we’re doing from a marketing standpoint.”

  “What do you mean?” says Oren.

  “He probably already has some idea what the castle and estate are worth. And now he knows we have a potential blockbuster on our hands. Otherwise he wouldn’t have upped his offer after he saw the rough cut. He’s assuming there are cobwebs in the marketing office, which a few weeks ago there were. But now we have a half million followers on Twitter. Did you know that? We have fans out there.”

  “We have no time,” says Oren.

  “We have some time,” says Hayley.

  “What do you suggest?” asks Oren.

  “The movie is in the can. Cut it fast. And then reach out to Dad’s old Hollywood contacts and find a U.S. distributor. Get a deal in place. Put the film on the festival circuit. There’s time to make at least some of those deadlines. Then hop on a plane and sell distribution rights in all the foreign markets. It’s a risk. But it’s not a fantasy.”

  “No, it’s not a fantasy,” Franklin concurs.

  “Otherwise, look, we can just sell the studio to him now. Everyone gets paid. We leave the castle, retire to Florida or wherever, and live comfortably. People find new jobs, begin fresh lives, and Cassidy gets to use the Moldavia name to make his upmarket contemporary creature horrors with more tits and ass.”

  “So basically, sell our souls,” says Oren.

  “Welcome to Hollywood,” I tell him.

  Oren looks at the ceiling and closes his eyes. “Say good-bye to Moldavia forever. . . . Wow,” he says, shaking his head, and then he looks at me with a frown. “Where’s Florida?”

  “Cassidy knows this business,” I tell them. “You saw his reaction to Alastair & Abigail. Things turned out well with this sequel. We got lucky.”

  “It is a big risk,” says Oren. “But I can’t imagine selling Moldavia to someone like Cassidy Blackwell if there’s even a chance we can make it on our own.”

  “There’s a real chance,” says Franklin. “I saw the rough cut too. If we market this right, we could have a real hit on our hands. We could come out of this on top.”

  “Dario,” says Hayley, scooting her chair out from the table, “you don’t want to be studio chief?”

  “No, it should be you guys.”

  “It should be Hayley,” says Oren, looking at her. “I’m comfortable just producing, writing, lending a hand wherever one is needed. I think that’s best.”

  I make a knighting gesture at Hayley. “Then it’s you.”

  The disbelieving, overwhelmed, rapturous look on Hayley’s face tells me that this is what she always wanted. “Oh boy,” she says, waving a hand in front of her face, fighting back tears, “I did not expect this. I’m honored. Thank you.”

  “Dario,” says Franklin, “are you going to college?”

  “Have we met the conditions of my father’s will?”

  Franklin clears his throat. “Solvency means our assets are greater than our liability. However, the wording of your father’s will was very particular: You are free to leave the estate within the six-month period if the likelihood of solvency is achieved. And I believe, with Alastair & Abigail, we have achieved that.”

  “I’d like to actually study film. And English. And history. And economics, I think. Psychology too. I don’t know who I am yet. I want the opportunity to find out.”

  Franklin nods at me, all proud. Oren gives me a hearty thumbs-up. Hayley is glowing. In a way, it was Moldavia that made me realize how much more I want to experience, how much more I want to learn.

  “We should have a board of directors,” says Hayley, “like any normal studio has.”

  Everyone agrees. So we discuss a new structure for Moldavia. Oren, Franklin, Hayley, and I could be on the board to make decisions and green-light projects. My dad is gone now, so there doesn’t have to be one lone visionary leading the studio into a cloud of nihilistic madness. This way, I’d always be connected to Moldavia, but not bound to it.

  “We should hire outside directors,” I suggest.

  This gets an enthusiastic response. We talk about hiring all the hotshot indie guys from all the hot festivals. The Moldavia name still carries weight, and young genre filmmakers know that. Maybe once the cash-flow situation is resolved, Moldavia could retain the castle and grounds as home base but find ways to shoot on location, in more far-off, exotic locales.

  Meanwhile, Cassidy’s ideas about “fanboy tourism” weren’t so far out. If shooting schedules were planned way ahead of time to accommodate it, tour groups could come in to view the grounds while production teams shoot a
round them. We’d be shedding our much-guarded secrecy, but tours could be a great revenue stream for the studio. Things start to come together in a new way—because we’re rethinking what Moldavia really is, what it could be, and what it means to us and to horror fans.

  We decide to officially announce all the changes to everyone at Moldavia during the next Crepuscular Dusk.

  After our meeting, I walk across the eastern lawn to clear my head, and find myself on this hill. There was a moment here I remember very well. We had finished an all-night shoot of Zombie Children, and it had gone well. The crew cleared out quick, and my dad didn’t immediately run off somewhere, so we were the only two left. That was rare.

  The sun was coming up. We stopped for a moment. He put his hand on my shoulder. And we just watched the sunrise, side by side like that, without ever saying a word. Then it was over. The grounds were alight with sweeps of neon pink, shining brilliantly off the windows of the Lugosi Wing, and my dad turned and walked swiftly back toward the castle, while I hurried to catch up.

  And they say you never remember the good stuff.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Beautiful Nightmares

  ON THE WAY TO MY ROOM, I SEE OREN’S DOOR IS OPEN. HE’S LYING ON his futon, watching a movie. He’s still wearing his leather flight suit, and he’s eating popcorn from a bucket on his chest. I expect to see some Italian horror flickering on his old TV, but I’m surprised to see he’s watching Zombie Children of the Harvest Sun.

  I plop down next to him, put my arms behind my head, and watch the movie with him. He’s at the scene where Alastair, standing in a dead cornfield, lit up red from the setting harvest sun, first amasses his child army of the undead. It’s funny, watching it now; it’s slow in places, but I find myself enjoying it—so much so, I forget I’m in it.

  I don’t see the blood, sweat, and tears that went into making it. But then again, you never see what went into making any movie. There’s just the result of it all.

  Zombie Children is just a horror movie—an inconsequential piece of fluff. It’s scary in some places, silly in others, but overall it’s just fun.

  People made more out of it than what it is. I don’t think it deserved to be panned so harshly, and I don’t think it deserved to be obsessed over either. But people see what they want to see; feel what they want to feel. And there’s nothing you can do about that. “It’s better than I remember,” says Oren, crunching popcorn.

  “Yeah. This movie is pretty good.”

  “For a Moldavia movie, anyway.”

  “Well, yeah.” I laugh. I’m so into this moment. I’m smiling. And then I remember what Aida once told me:

  One day you’ll look back on your time here, and all of us, and you won’t feel the pain you do now. When that moment comes, you’ll know you’ve made it through all the darkness God drew for you, and come out into the light.

  Oren and I don’t say anything else, even after the credits roll. I never even ask him what made him want to watch this again in the first place—although I kind of get it.

  That night, I must be more tired than I realized, because I fall asleep super-early, before Hayley gets a chance to join me.

  The nightmares haven’t totally ceased.

  I have a tense dream about carrying Hayley through the Moldavia gates. But every time I do, she turns to dust—over and over again.

  Oren wakes me in the middle of the night, his hand pressed down on my chest, over my heart—in this firm, stabilizing way. “Huh,” I say, trying to brush him away.

  “The hospital called,” he says.

  I sit up, not fully awake, rubbing at my eyes. “What?”

  “Kingside Park called. Mom’s gone.”

  I try to get myself fully awake. “Escaped?”

  He almost laughs a little. “No, Dario.”

  My heart starts beating real fast. “What happened?”

  “She died in her sleep. Her heart stopped.”

  I slap my hands over my eyes. “Oh no.”

  Oren sits heavily on the edge of my bed. “She was on a lot of medication for a long time. It took a toll on her body. It’s a terrible surprise. But not a total shock.”

  I look around. “Where’s Hayley?” I forgot we didn’t spend the night together.

  “In her room. She was just told.”

  I hug myself. “Mom was waiting to see me one last time . . . and then she . . .”

  “Dario,” says Oren, “you gave her such a gift . . . seeing her again like that. Maybe it’s time to stop beating yourself up for every little thing.”

  That sounds so weird, coming from Oren.

  He tells me, bittersweetly, that all the money going toward her care at the hospital will now redirect back into Moldavia.

  Oren pulls me in, and we hug. Something we’ve never really done before. Soon enough, we’re both crying and saying sorry to each other.

  Look, maybe I was wrong: Saying sorry can mean some-thing after all. I guess it’s all about context, because right now it feels like an all-encompassing forgiveness through time and space for everything we’ve torn at each other over, everything that’s kept us at odds all these years.

  Moldavia is, in so many ways, an extraordinary place. Jude put it best: a beautiful nightmare. But it has this uncanny ability to beat me up in new and different ways. And it’s not just Moldavia proper, but the world that surrounds it, all its islands, like the one my mom was on, all of Moldavia’s tentacles. I guess I always knew that I could return to Moldavia, but I could never stay. Hayley knew. My mother knew. Deep down, I obviously knew. There are just too many ghosts here. And I have a different path to take.

  When someone dies, at first there’s shock. Shock makes you really tired without the ability to sleep. I stay in bed for the rest of the next day.

  Gavin brings me some food.

  “You’re a big part of why Alastair & Abigail succeeded,” I tell him, “and why the studio will survive, so thank you.”

  Gavin seems overcome. “I know things could have gone a certain way during filming. And I know you made sure it wouldn’t get bad.”

  I open my mouth to say something, but he starts speaking really fast:

  “My dad was some dude my mom met in Vegas. She called him the Dirty Cowboy. That’s all she said about him. I don’t know what she meant by that or who he is or was. We’re not really brothers, Dario.”

  I laugh, all muted and hoarse. Gavin always knew what I was wondering. I lay my hand on his wrist. “Yeah we are, man,” I tell him. “We’re totally brothers.”

  I think that’s what Gavin needed to hear.

  Jude comes in a little later. I pull him into a bear hug. I grab his fists and hold on to them in my hands, like I’m keeping them from swinging. They’re the hardest part of Jude. “How are you?” I ask, pressing my forehead into his.

  He nods, trying not to cry. He grips my shoulders, as if he’s using me to keep his balance. “You’re going to be the best stunt coordinator Moldavia never had,” I say.

  Jude burbles out a happy laugh through his tears.

  “We’ve made deals with each other in the past, yeah?” I tell him. “Well, I’m gonna go to Harvard, okay?” Jude buries his face in my neck. I slap him on the back. “But listen, listen, you take care of everyone here, okay? And yourself.”

  “Yeah,” he says.

  “Look at me. You never go looking for your stepdad. You don’t go down that path. Ever. Hear me?”

  Jude nods, playfully punching me in the shoulder. “I won’t.”

  I know he means it.

  Jude hangs around a little longer, wanting to reminisce, I guess, about being roomies. But it doesn’t feel the same. And then he leaves, to go back to Elena.

  Hayley comes in last.

  “You look like a total mess,” I say, a little playfully. Her eyes are all red. She gives me a hapless what the hell do you expect? look.

  We kiss a little.

  “I want to give you something,” I say. I
root around in my armoire, find the little trimmed photo of myself, and hand it to her. “My mom gave this back to me. . . .”

  Hayley looks at the photo and smiles, wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Oh, look at that. You’re so cute.” She clicks open the face of the locket and sticks the photo inside. Then she presses the locket tightly to her breast.

  “Are you happy?” I ask her. “I mean, about everything . . . is this what you want?”

  “It is.” She nods, her mouth a quivering line. “Thank you, Dario.”

  “I don’t know what to do now,” I say, looking around the room.

  “Yes, you do,” she says, kissing me on the forehead. She leaves her hand on my cheek for a second. “You always know what to do.”

  For a while we don’t say anything. We just stand there.

  “One day, maybe,” she says, almost to herself, looking around the room.

  I don’t ask her what she means. I kind of already know. We just have different paths right now. One day, maybe we won’t.

  “I should take a nap,” she says, running a hand through her hair, moving toward the door. She holds on to the doorknob for a moment, turning it, polishing it with her thumb. “I didn’t get much sleep. . . .”

  And then she’s gone, all at once, closing the door behind her.

  And of course I know if I’m going to leave this place, I better do it.

  Quietly, I drag the steamer trunk out of the closet.

  I spend one final night at Moldavia.

  I have one dream I can recall: my dad walking off toward the lake. Then my mother, young, beautiful, and healthy again, appears from the low-hanging fog and takes his hand. She blows me a kiss as they walk toward the lake.

  My dad stops, looks over his shoulder, and smiles at me.

  “Ignosce mihi,” he murmurs.

  Then they walk into the lake and disappear into the water, still holding hands.

  I feel so grateful that I got to return to Moldavia. And that’s freakin’ hilarious.

  Man, after Oren’s guilt-inducing phone call at Keenan all those months back, it felt like this place was a bear trap on my future. I was so pissed.

  But now, because of Moldavia, I feel like I’m actually free to claim that future. I have a greater sense of its value and what it should be. I made shit right. I healed so many wounds I didn’t even realize were still gaping. I helped people. That’s the best part. Weirdly, I have my dad to thank for all that.