Loveless found himself wishing Charlotte hadn't asked the question.
"Medical condition?" Charlotte continued. Women always had to know.
Jerry looked around conspiratorially before stating, “Lycanthropy. We both unfortunately suffer from it.”
“Lycanthropy, as in the werewolf disease?” Loveless thought he was hearing things. Jerry must have been joking.
The music composer's face took on an extremely serious expression as he slowly unbuttoned his shirt and removed it, revealing an upper body covered in thick matted hair, even on his back. The only place where there was no hair was an area on his left forearm where there was the healed scar of a large animal bite. While Jerry was undeniably the hairiest man the filmmaker had ever seen in person, he was a long ways away from being Lon Chaney Jr.
“Yes. Painful thing. Wouldn’t wish this on anybody. I picked it up during my travels through some unbeaten paths in Eastern Europe and unintentionally passed it on to my wife Delilah. Had no idea the damn thing could be transmitted sexually."
Now Loveless had heard it all: the werewolf curse was an STD.
"It's awright, baby. We're in it together." Delilah had already removed her sweater and was pulling down the dress to her waist. She wore a white bra over tiny breasts. Unbelievably the young woman's arms, chest, stomach and back were covered in fine blonde fur. Delilah lovingly took one of Jerry's paws in hers.
"It's dreadful. Having your bones stretch as you transform- worst pain on earth. The noise of it, the bone crunching, it's nauseating. Then, of course, there's the fleas and shedding. Guess that's why they call it a curse. Our landlord helps us with it." Jerry showed Charlotte and Loveless the metal shackles used to restrain them. They even had a werewolf Rock band. “Lycan Riot.” Delilah insisted Jerry play some of their music for the filmmaker and the actress while she sang. Delilah didn't have a bad voice. The music was psychedelic - very “Tangerine Dream” - accompanied by the baying of wolves - supposedly recordings of Jerry and Delilah after they had turned - and sound effects of ripping flesh, splattering blood. The music also had a touch of Native American flutes and chanting.
Despite these hairy delusions, Charlotte and Loveless hired Jerry on the spot, giving him a deal memo. Jerry also talked himself into a position on the crew as electrician and special FX man.
As Loveless and Charlotte left the abode, they were greeted with a sight straight out of a horror movie. A hard-looking heavyset Native American woman in jeans, shirt and a lumberjack style jacket stood in front of a beat-up pale blue and white two-tone pick-up truck. Behind her were three Native American men ranging throughout their twenties, tall, thin, thuggish. They wore faded jeans and wool plaid shirts. One wore a longshoreman coat. Another wore a jean jacket. The third wore an army coat. The woman was Della, Jerry and Delilah's landlord. She worked the counter at the Seven-Eleven in Arrowhead. The three men were her brothers. Her muscle. They were lumberjacks on the mountain. Collectively these siblings gave off a gypsy grifter vibe that had you unconsciously feeling your pocket for your wallet while in their presence. Low level fog swirled past their feet and the tires of the truck. It was already dusk and night was descending fast.
"What ya all doin' out here?" Della said with unquestionable authority. She was clearly the boss.
"We were just visiting Jerry."
"What's ya business with him?" the brother in the army jacket said. He punctuated this by spitting out a wad of chewing tobacco.
"He's going to do the music for our movie."
"You all makin' a movie up in these parts?" Della was amused. "What kinda movie?"
"A horror movie," Charlotte replied impatiently. The woman had had enough weirdness for one day. She just wanted to get the hell out of there.
"A horror movie, huh?" Della's eyes gleamed as the humor left them in an instant. "You just be careful of dem two dirty dogs. We keep 'em on a very short leash out here."
Della's brothers grinned at this, although the filmmaker could not see an ounce of humor in the bad puns.
It was then that Loveless remembered the long standing relationship between the Native American people throughout history and werewolves. Skin-walkers, as they called them. It wasn't one of trust.
"Well, if yer dead set on working with ole' Jer, you better take these." Della removed two tribal looking bracelets from her purse and handed them to Loveless and Charlotte. They were beaded with some kind of flower or herb woven in.
"What's this?"
"Wolfsbane. Keeps the wolves at bay." Della smiled.
"It's like Kryptonite to werewolves," the tobacco-chewing brother said cheerfully through bright brown stained teeth.
Della and her brothers walked uncomfortably close as they slowly passed the filmmaker and his actress, eyeing them every step of the way, before going into the house.
"At least it's not a full moon," Loveless said low to Charlotte with a smile as they got in his SUV. She did not smile back at this.
"That was enough of a freak-show for me."
As they drove away, the filmmaker saw the pale face of a woman in the upstairs window. She wore a strange vacuous expression on her face. Loveless and Charlotte would later find out this was Karen, Delilah's mentally disturbed older sister. Or as Jerry liked to put it, the author of a fragile mind.
Other members of the crew included a man who looked like he could have been Marilyn Manson’s younger brother. This was Collin. He was Goth and had worked as a roadie for a number of touring rock bands throughout the country before returning home to the mountain, so he was a bit of a jack-of-all-trades crew-wise, very handy to have. The filmmaker had a sneaking suspicion that Collin had a crush on Charlotte. It was just a feeling though.
They rounded out smaller roles and crew needs all with locals. For the younger acting roles, they looked no farther than Lizzy and her delinquent collection of teenage friends.
Loveless decided to use Mathaluh as the name of the band in the movie, their song “Dark Ballad” and the Ouija Board he had found as a key prop in the film. He planned to bill “The Black Album” as inspired by true events, which allowed him the artistic freedom to blend fact and fiction at will. In hindsight, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe that’s what awakened the curse.
Development and pre-production were coming to an end. They were moving rapidly towards the shoot.
A shoot that would be unlike any other.
Chapter Five
Hell Shoot
Charlotte and Loveless stood in front of the Strawberry Lodge, as the monstrous fourteen bedroom home had been designated by the real estate company. Online it had sounded to the filmmaker like a gingerbread home. He was ready to dismiss it from the name alone. How atmospheric could a place called the Strawberry Lodge be? But Charlotte had looked beyond the name and realized the potential of the place for their main location. Both of them, however, were astonished to discover the multi-color stained glass window on the front door, when they arrived.
"What are the odds?" Loveless exclaimed as he touched the glass. "Having something you just made up in your head come to life? I call that pretty damn freaky."
“I call it perfect. This absolutely has to be the family home Grace returns to.”
Inside, the furnished home was replete with mounted animal heads and buck antlers, hardwood floors and dark stained furniture. The polished red-orange wood walls practically glowed. The real estate company usually rented the place out in the winter to parties of friends on ski trips to the nearby Snow Valley just past Running Springs, if they didn’t want to make the drive all the way to Big Bear.
“I can’t believe how little you got this place for,” Loveless said to Charlotte as he shook his head, looking around in amazement.
“Well, I didn’t tell them we were shooting a movie here. My suggestion is we shoot the high production value scenes here and get out before we get caught in the act and cheat the rest by shooting at your place, my place and another smaller home we can ren
t even cheaper than this.”
“Way ahead of you. This ain’t my first rodeo. But I do like the way your mind thinks. You have the makings of a true indie guerrilla filmmaker.” For some reason, the hairs were starting to stand up on the back of Loveless’ neck. “Is it just me, or does this place have a truly creepy vibe to it?” The house had an unsettling calm. Like the moment before an execution.
“No. I feel it too,” Charlotte agreed. “The good thing is I think it’s going to come across on screen.” Charlotte looked at her watch, “Shoot, I have to pick up Lizzy and her friends.”
“Great,” Loveless said pulling the rented high definition digital camera out of the case. “We can use them for some test shooting.”
“Order a few pizzas and they’ll be yours all evening.”
On the drive through town to pick up the kids, Charlotte pointed out the window suddenly, “Look!”
Loveless looked around but saw nothing. “What?”
“Didn’t you see that Camaro? The cherry red Chevy? Probably a ’68. That would be the perfect car for Grace to drive in the movie.”
“I know I had her driving a classic car in the script. It sounded good on paper. But that was just creative wishful thinking. I figured it'd be a hassle to pursue. I was just gonna have Grace drive my truck.”
“Turn that way.”
Loveless turned the corner. At the far end of the block they both saw the Camaro. It was mint, definitely an eye-catcher. It turned another corner while they got stuck at a red light. By the time they drove around the block, the car was gone.
“Damn! Well, it’s a small town. We’ll find it again.”
“So you want to drive that in the movie?”
“Duh, yeah. Can’t you just see Grace driving back into town in that? That’s the kind of car Grace Lynn would drive. That makes a statement about who she is. The kind of life she has led.”
“You think the owner would really rent it to us?”
“You just find the car. I’ll broker the deal.”
“It’d be a hell of a production value,” Loveless had to admit.
That night, as Charlotte helped Loveless set the lights, tripod, and camera for some test shooting, Lizzy, Brent, Carla, and Toby went exploring in the labyrinth of a house. Lizzy was to play the teen runaway who is killed by Mathaluh and later returns as the vengeful ghost of the lost girl. Brent was going to play Henry, the boy who listens to the band’s record, then shoots his friends and himself. His spirit goes on to be one of the damned. Both these poor souls, doomed to roam the earth, try to lead Grace away from the evil. Carla and Toby would play Henry’s two shooting victims: the vampire and the clown. The filmmaker thought it was a nice bit of gender bending if the clown was a girl.
“Where are they?” Loveless asked with true artistic impatience.
“Exploring. You know kids.”
A moment later, Donovan walked in the front door looking around. “God damn, this place is the shiznit! We’re really making a God damned monster movie.”
"A horror movie," Loveless corrected good-naturedly.
"Well excuse me," Donnie replied with a grin.
"Donnie." Charlotte was happy to see him.
Donovan had been coming to the mountain intermittently to hold up his end as producer by helping to make decisions, casting choices, and broker deals. But it was clear after the first few trips, he trusted Charlotte and Loveless. More than that, he believed in them.
"Hey, man. It's good to see you. This place is perfect, right? Charlotte found it." Loveless believed in giving credit where credit was due.
"Of course she did. Charlotte's got one helluva sharp eye."
“Thanks, cuz,” Charlotte said hugging Donovan. “I’ll show Donnie all the bang he’s getting for his buck, J.D. Why don’t you track down the kids, so we can start shooting?”
"I'll rustle them up."
Charlotte led Donovan upstairs, giving him the grand tour.
Loveless began looking through the rooms on the ground floor for the kids. There were a lot of rooms, some seemingly identical. “Lizzy? Brent?”
No answer. The filmmaker turned on lights as he went. His search led him to an enclosed back patio he hadn’t known was there. The house really did have a creep factor. It also had chilling old home noises, groaning wood, wind whistling through halls, creaking pipes. On the patio, Loveless found evidence of the kids: pizza boxes and soda cans. There was something near his foot. He bent and picked it up. It was the butt of a marijuana joint, warm to the touch. There was still a faint whiff of it in the air. Kids. Loveless wondered if Charlotte knew. She was the hip parental type whose speech to her daughter probably often started with, ‘As long as you tell me.’ Still, who was he to judge? Lizzy was pretty open with her mother. The filmmaker just didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Some things he wouldn’t want to know as a parent. Like for instance: the first time his teenage daughter had sex. Loveless would rather just place his faith in the fact that he raised his kid right. Charlotte was just the opposite. Her and Lizzy would probably have a heart to heart about it the same night, ending in a big ‘Aww, I love you’ and a hug.
The filmmaker flicked the remnant of the joint into the woods and went back inside. A sudden scream pierced the night and his eardrums. Lizzy blew out of a room and crashed right into Loveless. At the sight of the filmmaker, she immediately latched onto him in a tight bear hug. The girl was trembling uncontrollably.
“I saw him! I saw him!” was all the teenage girl could get out.
“Saw who?”
Lizzy looked at Loveless. The girl wasn’t fooling around. She was really scared. “I saw a ghost in the room!”
The filmmaker unhooked Lizzy and went into the room.
“No! Don’t!”
The room was completely empty. Loveless even looked in the closet and under the bed. There was no exit other than a window that was locked from the inside. “There’s nobody here.”
“He was here.”
“What did he look like?”
“It is was Wayne.” Lizzy’s voice was a whisper. “A boy named Wayne.”
“Then why do you think he’s a ghost?”
Lizzy looked at Loveless solemnly, “Because Wayne is dead.”
Brent and Toby showed up. At the same time, they both said, “Where’s Carla?”
The filmmaker made the others stay together while he looked for Carla. He searched the rest of the rooms on the bottom floor, flipping up light switches as he opened each door. Loveless turned down a hall where the power was out. He would have to find out where the electrical circuit breaker was later. But Loveless wanted to find Carla first. He opened another bedroom door and squinted his eyes trying to see through pitch black. The filmmaker thought he saw a form in the bed. When he crossed the threshold into the room, his spine started tingling. Loveless moved to the bed slowly. Even he was starting to get spooked now.
“Carla?” Loveless whispered as he approached. There was definitely someone in the bed, the covers over their head. The filmmaker reached out and slowly peeled the covers back, praying it was the girl. He was relieved to find Carla in the bed, fully dressed. “What are you doing?”
Carla looked up. She was deathly afraid. “He locked me in here, J.D.”
“Who?”
“Wayne,” Carla said in a scared tone. She was looking into the filmmaker's eyes as if he was her only hope of salvation.
These kids aren't playing, Loveless thought. This wasn't a high school prank. If it was, then they were world-class actors. Carla's eyes left his, growing even wider as they peered over his left shoulder. The girl began trembling wildly, the teeth in her open mouth actually chattered as she babbled, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." The teen wasn't talking to Loveless.
The filmmaker could sense something behind him where Carla was looking. Loveless thought he felt something on his shoulder, a hand. He whirled, ready for all hell. There was no one in the room besides him and the trauma
tized girl.
"I'm sorry, Wayne," Carla said. A second later, she seemed to shutdown emotionally.
The filmmaker didn't know what was going on, but something in the room was assailing him beyond his five senses. Every fiber of his being said get the fuck out of there. But he couldn't abandon the girl. He wouldn't do that. She was his responsibility. As Loveless tried to help Carla out of bed, she stiffened, pulling back. "No. I'm afraid." Looking at him with pleading eyes, Carla asked, "Do you think there's really a Hell?"
"I don't know, Carla. Come on. Let's get out of this room." The filmmaker tried to sound calm and in control. He wasn't.
"Do you think if you do one really bad thing, but spend the rest of your life doing all good things, making up for it, you'll still go to Hell for that one bad thing?"
"You're too young to have done anything bad, other than put too much milk in my mocha" the filmmaker retorted parentally, trying to make light of it all. He was doing his best to calm the girl, but Loveless could feel the unnaturalness the room was exuding. He felt as if there were ghosts swirling all around them in the dark, ready to pull on them, drag them down to Hell. No matter what, he didn't want to let Carla see this in his face. Loveless could sense that the girl was afraid to get out of the bed, as if it was her safe haven against the boogeyman.
"Come on. We gotta go." The filmmaker physically pulled the covers off the girl and lifted her up to a sitting position.
"I can't." Carla was shaking her head violently.
"Just hold onto me. I won't let anything take you from me."
Carla nodded yes as she slowly got out of bed and clung to Loveless. The walk to the exit in the dark seemed to take a long time even though it was scant seconds. Right before they went out the door, the lights came on. The spell was broken. The filmmaker looked back before exiting. It was just an ordinary room again.
Carla and the filmmaker found Lizzy, Brent, and Toby with Charlotte and Donovan in the living room.
THE BLACK ALBUM: A Hollywood Horror Story Page 11