THE BLACK ALBUM: A Hollywood Horror Story
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THE BLACK ALBUM
A Hollywood Horror Story
Inspired by True Events
A novel by
Carlton Kenneth Holder
Copyright 2013 by Brooklyn Apache Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system.
Visit us at
http://www.facebook.com/theblackalbumnovel
Dedicated to
my mother for nurturing my love of reading,
my father for supporting my interest in the fantastic
and to movies for teaching me to dream in three acts.
Special thanks to my editor Solange Bohling, without whom "The Black Album" would be a record without songs.
Cover art by Christine Anatone
Social media director Aria Klucewicz
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword
A Hollywood Horror Story
Prologue
Midnite Review of a Freak King
Chapter One
Flatlander in Highlands
Chapter Two
Mathaluh Lives
Chapter Three
Revision
Chapter Four
Werewolves of Rim Forest and Other Cast & Crew
Chapter Five
Hell Shoot
Chapter Six
Martini Shot
Chapter Seven
I Will Burn With You
Epilogue
Re-ignition
Foreword
by Beauregard Freidkin
A Hollywood Horror Story
THE NAMES HAVE NOT BEEN CHANGED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT! Because frankly there are no innocents to protect in this incendiary cautionary tale of either psychological or supernatural happenstance. We all make our graves. We all must lie in them.
I have been barraged with countless questions from friends, family, neighbors, strangers, the press, and fuck even the police. Those in-the-know, those with an ear to the underground have heard bits and pieces of the story. Counter-culture news - like a white hot beam of light or a current of kinetic energy - seems to travel fast with a life of its own, unaided by newspapers, radio or TV, under the wire of mainstream media and local news station reporters with names like Dallas and Coleman. Underground news, cult events, urban legends travel on stiff winds with undulated voracity, gaining power with each disturbing twist added over time by its tellers. The Internet, a medium of malcontents, the disenfranchised, and wicked pranksters, now coming into its own, has amplified this clandestine voice by five billion. If journalism is the Fourth Estate, then the Internet is its grizzly underbelly. Its Fifth Estate. A medium of rumor, conspiracy and hoax. This medium is the forum of the young and hip. Not an MTV Generation, but a Fuel TV Generation powered by heart-palpitating energy drinks, hard grinding skateboard antics, drugs of choice, and a skull full of iPod tunes played at brain-numbing volume. However, that doesn't mean everything on it is bullshit. It's not lost on the young that the Columbine killings took place on Hitler's birthday. One of the infamous teen killers left a diary with a drawing of Satan orchestrating the massacre. Some believe that the Columbine killings were the end result of a Trench Coat Mafia entrenched in the occult.
That's where I come in. My name is Beauregard Freidkin, a.k.a. the Freak King (as I have been dubbed by friends and enemies alike). I like to think I’m equal parts Fox Mulder and Hunter S. Thompson (although some say Van Wilder). I’m a college campus horror and science fiction film reviewer. I’m also a dyed-in-the-wool investigator into subject matters beyond the confines, concerns, or agendas of mainstream media. I am not a ufologist or even a conspiracy theorist. I apply the hard cold rules of journalism to my investigations. Fourteenth century English logician William of Ockham believed that the simplest solution is usually the right solution. This theorem is called Occam’s Razor. More often than not, his razor cuts straight. Regardless of this, what started out as a hobby uncovering Satanic death rock cults in the heartland, backpacking Area 51 by night, searching for a time traveling Charlie Chaplin, tracking a Flying Dutchman ghost website down to Central America - okay, maybe that last one was just an excuse for a vacation - has become my life's work (endowed by a certain prestigious university which will remain nameless). I guess you would say it’s my obsession, the monkey on my back. I find it infinitely more satisfying than drugs or alcohol. Although the drain on my wallet is pretty much the same.
This case, or review, as I like to call my investigations, is “The Black Album.” There was such a volume of information to this story that, what started out as a series of articles became the book you are now reading. The story first came to me anonymously via an internet blog. People send in all kinds of strange occurrences, events, stories. Most of them are hoaxes or the product of minds that have snapped or simply reprocessed reality. I’m sorry to say I began my investigation of “The Black Album” with a less than open mind. It didn't feel like there would be anything of major consequence to the world in this review. There was definitely nothing along the scale of an alien invasion or zombie apocalypse to worry about. Plus, I thought the whole notion of back-masking - backwards Satanic messages embedded in rock music - was the homegrown boogeyman spun yarn of Bible thumpers trying to scare their kids away from music that revels in drugs and sexual misadventure. But I have experienced incidents during this review that have given me pause.
"The Black Album," in and of itself, however, is a paradox. It is a movie about an urban legend that is in turn becoming an urban legend. This investigation has had some chilling moments. I'm glad it's over, for me at least.
So to put to rest all the rumors, speculation, and innuendo, I have gone back to my old daily agenda book, journal, man diary - call it what you will - from that period of time, and I’m recounting the facts as clearly and unsensationally as I can. I am putting it all down for your edification, entertainment, cheap thrill. By doing this, I am laying this matter to rest once and for all. When this is done, both I and my associate in the writing of this twisted tale will never again speak of the events of that fateful fall and winter in the mountains of Lake Arrowhead. To talk about a thing is to give it power, life. In this case, unnatural life. There are moments when I am alone and think about this review all over again. I begin to feel things. Things that make me sleep with the television on. I'm not saying that I believe in the forces of evil or the hand of Satan, but then again, I'm not saying I don't believe in them. A year ago, I would have laughed if you asked me if I believed in the boogeyman. But, then again, that was a year ago.
A filmmaker made a movie. But at what cost? It cost him the life of a friend, fellow traveler, running buddy. It has given him a lifetime of looking over his shoulder, of wondering. His movie will never be seen in this life. Those who’ve watched even the rawest glimpses of the movie, have come to regret it. Hopefully, it will never be released. The story is over for me. But I don't know if it will ever be over for the filmmaker, the cast or crew. The curse still seems to follow them like a tin can tied to the tail of a dog. An example of this was the death during the film shoot of an actor who was playing a zombie in the movie. The official coroner’s report listed it as fatality by alcohol poisoning. If this wasn't the work of the Devil, then it was at least the work of a troubled soul. Which of the two is more disturbing?
I exacted this tale piece by piece from a number of participants, eye-witnesses to the events, over a period of three months.
The poor bastards.
I tracked down the direc
tor of photography, make-up artist, actors, electrician, and other crew personnel who were there for the fateful filming of a movie whose only play dates will be in “The Twilight Zone.” All of these people eventually led me to the person I had sought all along, a person who did not want to be interviewed about this matter, or any matter for that matter. The filmmaker who dreamed up this little ditty of a nightmare. A nightmare that became his nightmare. It took coaxing, but finally he met with me. I knew from the very first syllable he uttered - call it my journalistic instinct - that he had a story to tell. He was the one I had needed to talk to all along. I wished for theatrics’ sake we had met in a secluded shack in the middle of the desert or a log cabin in remote wilderness. But in point of fact, we met in Denny’s. His manager’s idea. Not mine. Not his. We did however meet at midnight.
The director was the final piece of the puzzle. All the other stories from all the other people fit perfectly when matched with his. The following story in this book was pieced together from all these accounts, each person’s recollections verifying everyone else’s.
Unlike most news stories, there wasn’t one discrepancy among the accounts. People merely had different vantage points of the sinking Titanic. Some blamed what happened on poor planning. Others, bad luck. Some, sabotage. A few believed it was the forces of true evil. Yet none quit. None walked away. They road the runaway train to the end, to derailment. Frozen in the event horizon like deer in headlights.
As an interesting aside, I have found that almost no member of the cast or crew has kept in contact with any other. I guess there will never be a wrap party for “The Black Album.” If there ever is, I’d sell my soul to see it.
Each of us have what I have deemed our suicidal tendency. It's the part of our psychological make-up that makes us drive way too fast, stand too close to the edge of a cliff. It tempts us to light a candle and say "Bloody Mary" three times in a dark bathroom mirror, mess around with a Ouija board late at night after doing bong hits and tequila shots, or play a rock record backwards to see if we can decipher hidden Satanic messages. Our suicidal tendency is the psychological make-up that lets us secretly delight in grotesque little parables, urban legends.
I am counting on that very nature to make you buy this book, read a chapter every night, until it invades your dreams. Until it's too late.
Turn the page.
Play it backwards.
See what happens. I did.
Prologue
Midnite Review of a Freak King
Black desert landscape shot past the windshield of my white van, turned gray due to dirt and dust accumulated on this sweaty sojourn. The temperature was topping ninety, despite the late hour. And no, I’m not a serial killer. Totally normal men without families also drove vans. Example: surfers staking out tasty waves at sunrise, drove vans. Hell, back in the Seventies all the cool guys had vans with interiors decked out like a suite at the Golden Nugget, and exterior mural paintings that were an expression of their individuality and God-given rights as Americans. And they scored! It’s only in recent years that vans have been stigmatized as the death chariots of serial killing monsters incarnate. Normal single males drove vans too, although I couldn’t think of any, aside from me, at the moment. Come to think about it, I’m actually not quite normal. I chase ghosts for a living, little green men - or gray if you’re up on your ufology folklore. I pursue the dark side of the sublimely fantastic under the pretense of journalistic endeavor. But really, I do it because of my own brush with this exotica. A brush that has stained my soul. It opened my eyes to the bigger picture that is all around us yet remains unseen. And that bigger picture isn’t on TV. It made me realize that there is more in this world than what is being reported on the nightly news. More than a good kegger on a Friday night. Or Monday night football. Yeah, my brush. But that’s a story for another day, another book.
Shit! I’m going to be late!
I looked around for highway patrol and pushed the aging van past ninety. The vehicle began to vibrate violently and for a second it felt like it was going to lift off, caught in the tractor beam of some ginormous flying saucer from the far reaches of the far reaches. Scoff if you will, but this was UFO country. I was on Interstate Fifteen headed for a clandestine rendezvous in the desert. I wasn’t far enough away from State Route 375, the officially designated Extraterrestrial Highway or the infamous Area 51, that I could scoff.
Fuck! What if I don’t make it on time? Will he wait?
The van went faster, shaking harder, and I prayed it would hold together. To take my mind off my worries, I watched the nocturnal desert rush by and wondered how many bodies were buried out there courtesy of the Mob and the United States government. I once heard a story that the second gunman on the grassy knoll was planted out here a mere eighteen hours after he had fired the fatal shot that ended the life of JFK. The hand of the man who told me the story was shaking, despite the fact it was a serious number of decades later.
I was fast approaching Las Vegas, a land of easy money, easy women, loose wallets and looser morals. Everything is for sale there, or at least rent, and the denizens play fast and loose with little things like fidelity, integrity. Honesty was another man’s concern. After two months, I had finally gotten the talent manager who repped the filmmaker of “The Black Album” to set up this meet. The manager, Ricky Nickel, was a slickster Hollywood type who had cut his teeth at places like Universal, Fox, MGM. He was the kind of guy who always had two conversations going on at once, one with you and one with the person on the other end of the blue tooth that seemed permanently fused to his ear cartilage. Conversations like that were always confusing for me. I never knew who he was talking to and when. Ricky had tried desperately to take the reins of “The Black Album” and steer it out of troubled waters. But there was no steering a ghost ship. Which is what I now believed this movie to be, metaphorically speaking. Phenomenon like this sets its own course, usually through dangerous, troubled, and uncharted waters.
Despite Ricky’s cool exterior and hip man hugs, I detected, below this facade, fear. He was afraid of losing his director. Now, in this instance, when I say lose, I don’t mean as in the helmer quitting. When I say lose, I mean as in the director suddenly and inexplicably dying.
Aside from this, my personal assessment of the manager was that he was a sharky douche bag who would throw his own mother under the bus for a buck fifty. Needless to say, I didn’t like the man.
The trip felt as though I was going to meet a government relocated federal witness who had turned states evidence against La Cosa Nostra. The filmmaker was definitely in hiding. There was no doubt about that. The only question was from whom? Or what?
Ahead, I saw the lavish lights of Whiskey Pete’s and the other outskirts casinos that blatantly declared entrance into the gaming capitol of the world, and sped up a little more.
In actuality, I didn’t think there was any hiding from what the filmmaker was running from, if it was true. As I drove with one hand, I fumbled to put a fresh tape in my miniature tape recorder with the other - yep, I’m old school right down to the soles of my suede Adidas sneakers - then started thumbing through my agenda book until I found the Map-quested directions and address in Downtown Las Vegas where I was supposed to meet the elusive filmmaker.
I didn’t use GPS. Didn’t trust 'em. The signal can be highjacked. I once heard an urban legend about a rental car GPS leading a group of spring breaking college kids en route to Vegas, to a desolate home in the middle of nowhere where they were dismembered one by one in grisly fashion. Sounds silly until you’re driving in the middle of nowhere. Alone. At night.
But I’m getting off track as I have a tendency to do. I was deathly afraid of being late. I didn’t want the filmmaker to get spooked and leave. However, as afraid as I was, somehow I knew the filmmaker was even more afraid.
The garish yellow green neon lights of the twenty-four hour Denny’s restaurant dilated my pupils for a moment as I entered. I began searching
for the classic underground filmmaker archetype, but had a hard time singling anyone out. The classic underground filmmaker sort of resembled a bum in a baseball cap, faded jeans and sneakers. In that case, there were a dozen filmmakers in the joint. I redefined my search for someone with a dark cloud hanging over his head and immediately spotted a man in a corner booth with his back to the wall and a perfect view of the door. He leaned out and glanced at me once, then looked away. Finally, he glanced at me a second time. I guess I didn’t fit his archetype of a journalist. I’m lanky, in my mid-twenties with a baby face and a rock & roll persona. I was wearing my only clean shirt: a faded Marilyn Manson concert tee-shirt. I realized my mistake too late. I guess it was poor form to wear the icon of a man who is a professed Devil worshipper to a meeting with a filmmaker who was on the lamb from the forces of Hell. Whoops! My bad.
I approached slowly. “J.D.? J.D. Loveless?” Yep. That was the name he was going with. The filmmaker looked at me warily and said, “Beauregard Freidkin?”
I took that as an invitation to sit down across from him and fumbled some more with my recorder. He didn’t take his eyes off me the whole time. Out the corner of my eyes, I could see him. And I knew he knew that I could see him. Finally, I looked up. The man appeared to be in his late twenties. While Loveless, in some respects, resembled the stereotypical indie filmmaker, in other respects he was an anomaly. He was wearing the requisite baseball cap turned backwards, jeans, sneakers and tee-shirt, but he also wore a beat-up black leather jacket that looked like it had bullet holes in it, although I could be mistaken. Maybe it was a souvenir from his childhood growing up in Brooklyn. Maybe it was a memento from a movie set. Loveless had rough good looks and the straight shooting, speak your mind kind of vibe I had encountered in New Yorkers before. The refreshing thing was you always knew where you stood with a person like that.