Death by Water
Page 42
“See, the artist is going to stab at another draft, ’cos this is basically what we like, except, of course, that women have got to want to uh fuck it.”
Human women had to be sexually attracted by this ostrich-legged, peeny-headed slime worm. Kids would yowl, let’s get TWO of the action figure with Real Kung-Fu Stupidity and Glow-in-the-Dark Agenda! “Aarrraaaaccck!” Manphibian frowned. Suddenly the room smelled like anchovies. Perhaps marinated in arrack.
“You’re dead wrong, Shelby, and I’ll tell you why,” said Bryce. “If you say the name Manphibian, everybody knows what you’re talking about—even people who’ve never seen the movies. You’re messing with an icon.”
“Every other monster we own, we’ve remade,” said Shelby. “Updated them and redressed them and kept them parallel with the times. Didn’t hurt a one.”
“None of those remakes were hits.”
Manphibian noticed that the drawing vanished as quickly as it had been produced. It was awkward and grotesque, not gracile, not logical; a bogey to be crudely Frankensteined from liquid rubber and toxic catalysts. Inside this soulless fake would be a wage-scale guy who hated his job.
“Doesn’t matter. The originals were B-features. Bottom of the double bill.”
“They’re B-features with enough time behind them to resonate. You weren’t even around when they premiered.”
No, in fact, Shelby the Nod had not been even a concept back then, let alone a pitch. To Manphibian, Shelby looked about thirty-five human years old, max.
“And we’re not talking about an aged actor, either,” Bryce kept on, flinging both syllables of ag-ed at Shelby like daggers. “Manphibian doesn’t age like humans. He’ll be ready for action when we’re dust. He could certainly kick your ass around the court, right now.”
Manphibian crossed his legs and folded his claws over his knee, flexing the fins on his forearms so the stiletto spines fanned aggressively out. It would be wonderful to kick Shelby’s ass. Or to maybe vise one butt cheek in each claw and split Shelby up the dotted line like a zip strip.
“Do you know who wrote the draft of the script you have?” Bryce was confident of Shelby’s answer.
“You know I inherited this project when Allan Arnold Whitner left the studio,” said Shelby, crunching the ice in his already-depleted coffee cooler.
“Not exactly factual,” said Bryce. “You’re here to fish, because Allan Arnold Whitner was fired by Samantha Coltrane, who paid half a million for a Jaws retread scooped up by her two favorite comedy writers. Samantha doesn’t want the investment to sit on the shelf. You don’t want Manphibian, so clearly you’re here to lube up our rear ends before darling Sam rugs the franchise out from underneath us. You want us to sign off on the licensing rights. You want to own Manphibian the way Universal Studios owns Bela Lugosi’s face.”
Manphibian had heard two stories about old Bela’s visage, and the images and tie-ins it represented. One was that Bela’s heirs had sued and lost the right to a cut of the franchise. The other was that they had won, then lost their right to a cut on appeal. Of course, old Bela had not really been Dracula—maybe that had been the big boobytrap of his life.
Shelby was cornered, black eyes darting for escape routes. He employed the usual desperation move, which was to shift the spotlight of blame onto the writers. “Now, those guys Cangrejo and Lampreé are not just comedy writers. They’re good writers. They wrote three in a row for Samantha that yanked a hundred-mil-plus each. Their stuff is tank-proof. You shouldn’t judge— ”
“I bear them absolutely no malice,” said Bryce. “They took a pay gig offered by their producer. I probably would have done the same. But all you have to do, to tell their hearts weren’t in it, is read the script.”
Manphibian nodded in agreement. “Orrrrrpp!”
Sofia drifted through with most of her R rating covered and distracted Shelby the Nod by recharging his glass. Playing hostess interested her for about five minutes at a time in real life, but it permitted Bryce and Manphibian a vital huddle. Before Sofia poured, Manphibian made sure there were burst mites in the coffee. She winked at him like a child playing spy.
“It’s a railroad, and we’re on it, and the tracks go straight off the cliff into the nearest and most convenient abyss.” Bryce had a knack for summation.
“Graaaaah,” said Manphibian.
“But you have a power old Bela didn’t have. We can’t stop their moronic idea for a movie. We can’t stop the movie. But we can stop them from calling it you-know-what. And if they can’t say the magic name, they have no remake of anything. Because all the merchandising is shackled to it. They can’t have any ‘Manphibian’-trademarked toys and snacks and CD-ROMs on the racks in time for Exmas—because you’re Manphibian, and they can’t touch your name and cut you out without us swooping in piranha-style.”
Manphibian liked that. Piranha style.
“I mean, I guess they could call it Manphibian-LIKE Creature from a Darkish, Not Totally Dissimilar Lagoonal Pond…”
Manphibian urrrped his approval. Bryce could be a funny guy. He could make monsters laugh.
“The trade-off is this. You can’t let them know how badly you want to be in this movie, because they’ll just use your desire to do things right to leverage you out. But if you tell me you can live without it, just for now, I’ll fucking rip them wide on merchandising and in two years we’ll have enough money to make our own version. James Bond did it and Frankenstein’s Monster did it and we can do it for you. Because you’ve got the time on them. You can wait forever and they’ll be gone tomorrow. This asshole Shelby will be a memory by the time we manage to get three people into the same room together for a new meeting. There’ll be some other big butt warming his useless desk. Hell, at that point, maybe Samantha Coltrane will have moved on and maybe we’ll get a person who has some respect for what you do. So what do you say, Man?”
Manphibian ruminated Bryce’s proposal, bobbing his knobby forehead at the key points. The time angle was particularly interesting. American moviemakers really needed to take a more Asian view of long-term cycles instead of using the next two weeks as their event horizon.
Shelby was slurping his third mite-laden iced coffee and trying to see Sofia’s tits at every opportunity. Manphibian sucked several deep breaths, the delicate lamellae below his jaw flowering to grab air to oxygenate his attack systems. When he was pissed off he could literally swell to a size even more intimidating than his normal seven-foot-three. His spines extended and his eyes went that peculiar flat silver color which indicated he was not in the jolliest of moods. He glided up behind Shelby as silent as a mime. He opened his massive webbed claws; at full flex, fifteen inches from thumb to pinky talon. He thrust out his chest like a Ray Harryhausen dinosaur and cut loose with a window-rattling “Hooorraaaar.”
Shelby the Nod blew a fan of coffee and crushed ice out of his nose, urinated in his pants, and was out the door inside of ten seconds, stumbling three times and losing a shoe as he fled.
He looked pretty damned scared.
Manphibian thought that later tonight he should pay Shelby’s slacker brat a visit, too.
During the time absorbed by the meeting, seventeen square miles of Amazon rainforest had been consumed. The paper used for the injunctions filed at Bryce’s behest could easily have covered the Ponderosa—twice—while rare species of birds and insects skipped the “endangered” phase and did a smash cut straight to extinction. Cattle now grazed on the clear-cut acreage not used for the manufacture of cocaine. Intrepid explorers seeking backwaters threaded with subterranean cavern networks which concealed ageless monsters would be disappointed by the wasteland awaiting them.
There was only one lasting way to make a proper lagoon, one that could engird and hold the slippery ghosts of myth: One-third stock footage, one-third backlot, and one-third location shooting.
The notice in the Hollywood Reporter bespoke the commencement of principle photography on something called Gills—a ha
sty retitling of Shelby the Nod’s beloved no-brainchild. It still depressed Manphibian, who tore out the page, crumpled it, and consigned the wad to his low-flush toilet. Advance heat on the underwater creature feature had nonetheless caused Manphibian merchandising to come to a rapid boil.
Dark, sinister, foreboding, beautiful lagoons—the only place they could last is in the collective memory of the people whose imaginations have been enchanted by them. Manphibian knew that in the jungle, he could be a god, accepting forbidden sacrifices and watching tribal dancers shake virgin booty. And when the tribe had no further retreat, when their native land ran out, it would all crash and burn. Past that life there would be nothing. The wilds are always conquered, and are thus impermanent…
…unlike Manphibian, who swam in powerful, meditative strokes through filtered, clear water, thinking that it is better to make a movie commemorating such loss than to actually suffer it. He thought about forbidden ceremonies. Erotic rituals. Hollywood bullshit. Goldfish syndrome, in terms of guys like Shelby the Nod.
Manphibian relaxed by his pool in the hills, pondering his place in this world. Perhaps he will have the pool repainted to a jungle theme—reeds and weeds.
His thoughts were about the fear people feel when their windshields are shattered on the freeway by imbeciles armed with marbles and Wrist-Rockets. Fear of drive-bys and psychos and the random quake that could kill you with a piece of your own home. Fear that ran the gamut from getting your mail dipped to losing your sense of identity.
Manphibian thought about fear. About squandered natural resources. About lotus, and laurels.
That haven for joggers and make-out duos, the Lake Hollywood Reservoir, was so close, he could walk from here. And even though his mouth was not built to do so, Manphibian smiled.
THE EVERLASTING
by Anthony Watson
Waves crash against shingle, expending the last of their energy in an explosion of spray, the foam reflecting the light of the moon above in a shimmer of silver. Pebbles tumble and roll as the spent water recedes, the noise of them adding to the roar of the ocean, the shushing of the waves as they hit land, fall back, hit land, fall back…
Wind rushes through the marram grass atop the dunes, its force dissipated amongst the tall, dry reeds, shaking and bending, giving voice to them—that voice a cacophonous whisper that fills the air.
Be with me…the voice says. Forever…
He awakes with a start to the sound of rain hammering against the windows, an insistent rhythm beating against the glass. Pale lunar illumination filters into the room, casting weak shadows against the wall. Snakes of water writhe slowly downwards, their image magnified and projected so that the wall itself seems to shimmer and contort.
…with me…
He hears the words even above the hammering of the rain, the howling of the wind, the sea crashing against the shoreline below the house.
He smells her then, the scent of her filling the room with its floral bouquet and feels the tears prickling his eyes once more. More tears, when he thought that he must surely have cried himself dry by now…
“We’re creatures of water,” she’d said, “it’s our very essence…”
That essence spills from his eyes, leaves tracks down his face which mirror those on the window, on the wall. “Sarah…,” he manages to say, the word catching in his throat, his voice faltering between first and second syllable.
A noise comes from outside the bedroom, a creak of floorboard then footsteps moving away. Alone as he is in this ramshackle house, the sounds are not a source of fear to him, rather it is with excitement, anticipation that he clambers from his bed, crossing the bare floorboards quickly to the door of the bedroom.
On the landing he feels the coldness of the water on his feet, hears the splashing his hurried steps make. Pausing, he fumbles for the light switch, flicks it on. The dull glow of the bulb, slowly warming to full illumination, casts its light over the flooded floor. Water pools around his feet, covers the dark mahogany floorboards, trickles over the landing edge to fall (like tears) to the hallway below.
You stand, together, on the headland, gazing out to sea. A leaden sky is reflected in the gray water, the surface in constant motion, slowly undulating like the breathing of some massive beast. Drizzle hangs in the air, clings to your face, wets it, that wetness cooling immediately in the breeze which is a permanent companion to this exposed outcrop of rock.
“It’s beautiful,” she says, turning to face you, looking deeply into your soul with those pale, blue eyes, the weight of emotion held in her gaze emphasising the words she speaks in whispered tones. “We have to buy it.” She turns, breaking the connection between you, spins round to once again regard the expanse of water that surrounds you. “Whatever it takes…”
And you don’t answer, because there is no need. You take a step forward, take her hand in yours, squeeze it gently. She’d known what your answer would be the moment she’d looked into your eyes, known for sure what you would say.
A gust of wind rushes past you, strong enough to knock both of you off balance. Your grip tightens momentarily around her hand but her response is to laugh, a sound both joyful and full of anticipation of your life together in this remote place.
“I want to stay here forever!” she shouts. “Forever and ever!” And you laugh along with her, sharing her dreams, her joy.
He stands alone, on the headland, gazing out to sea. Waves crash on the jagged shore far below, the ever-present wind rustles through the dry stalks of marram grass, the sound like that of a thousand angry rattlesnakes.
The house stands behind him, empty—oh, so empty—and brooding, looming over him in a way that now seems oppressive—a far cry from the days when he (they) regarded its appearance as dramatic and romantic.
His search last night had been fruitless—no more than he had suspected it would be, truth to tell—she had not been there, nor had any trace of her. Her scent, not the fragrance of the perfume she would sometimes wear but the smell of her, had gone when finally he had returned to the bedroom. He had read once that smell was the most evocative of senses, that nothing was more effective at recalling a memory than re-experiencing the smell associated with it. As he’d slumped back down onto the bed the truth of that theory had asserted itself, manifest as yet more tears against which he had to screw shut his eyes.
Sleep had not come easily but eventually he had succumbed, tossing and turning, waking frequently but only to the relentless hammering of the rain against the window. There had been no water on the landing this morning, no sign that she had been there. Perhaps it all had been a dream, no more than a romantic cliché, a trick engineered by his grieving mind.
He has no recollection of how it is he came to be standing here, no memory of breakfast or of even getting dressed. Here he is though, back in the place where their adventures had begun. The start of everything. Always it is here, to this place of memories, he comes, drawn by something beyond his ken, something intangible yet compelling.
Something, or someone.
“Where are you?” he asks, but his words are lost in the wind; in the whispering of the grass; the crashing of the waves.
“Where were you?” you ask, failing to hide the panic in your voice, “I’ve been frantic…”
She smiles, a slight tilt of her head betraying her amusement, her eyes sparkling in collusion. “Oh you’re so sweet to worry like that,” she leans forward to playfully peck you on the lips. “I was down on the shore. There’s a storm coming in over the sea, I just wanted to watch it, it’s so dramatic!”
You sigh, feel your panic slowly replaced by annoyance. “Why didn’t you say something, tell me where you were going? You shouldn’t go off wandering on your own, not after…”
She interrupts your words by leaning into you once more, pressing her lips against yours. Her arms wrap around you, hold you tight (forever…) and you respond in kind, hug her even more tightly to yourself, never wanting to let go.
This time, when you break away from each other once more, you look at her face and see the serenity in her features, eyes closed, a smile playing across her lips. And then a coldness sweeps through you, the protective barrier of the lie that everything will be okay has built around you crumbling as you see her open her eyes, or rather—terrifyingly—her eye, the left lid staying in place, refusing to move. You see the incomprehension in her right eye, watch as it turns to fear, reflecting that of your own as you reach for her again…
The surface of the water in the pan starts to shimmer and undulate as it reaches boiling point, swirling currents beneath its surface dislodging the small bubbles lining the base of the pot. In seconds what was once smooth and still has become a swirling mass of exploding bubbles. He upends the bag of pasta, empties its contents into the boiling water and turns down the gas.
As if on cue the telephone rings, its shrill tone echoing through the empty house. He stirs the pasta sauce, bubbles popping on its surface like lava, and makes his way towards the insistent ringing.
“Yeah, hello…”
“Dave! Hi, it’s Mark!”
“Hi, Mark, what can I do for you?”
“Just calling to see if you’re okay and if you’ve got anything on Friday night?”
Immediately he feels the tightening in his stomach, the burn of acid as what is now his reflex response to any suggestion of interaction with the outside world kicks in.
“Only we’re going out, a few of us, getting Chinese and we were wondering if you wanted to come along…?”