by Greg Kihn
He had no knowledge other than that. His legs were weak, and his head throbbed. He could barely focus his eyes. Every time the serpent possessed him, it seemed to tense every muscle in his body to the point of snapping.
Albert wept. He knew that the possession had taken place without the tuning forks this time. That meant that the demon had complete access to reach into him, and, even more terrifying than that, it could come forward at any time. Albert’s mind resisted the only thought, the only plan that made sense.
He had to save Thora from this fate.
He had to save the world.
He staggered down the steps and across the living room.
The tuning forks must be destroyed.
When he found that they were missing he became confused and even more afraid. Had the demon taken them? Had he, Albert, already hidden them and couldn’t remember? Had Thora gotten rid of them?
He ruled out the Thora possibility, realizing that she had no knowledge of them or their terrible power.
Then he remembered—
—Devila!
She could have taken them! She knew their power, and she knew where they were. The thought screamed through his brain like a rocket. No! Not Devila! Albert pulled at his hair and paced the room frantically.
He had to warn her.
But the weight of derangement hung heavy across Albert’s shoulders. He knew it was only a matter of time before the demon returned. He had to act now.
He stumbled to the phone and dialed Devila’s number. His hands shook so violently that it took several attempts before he was successful. It rang incessantly, and Albert banged the heavy black receiver against the table in frustration.
When it became evident that Devila wasn’t home, Albert staggered toward the door, consumed with thoughts of a final solution.
He walked through the open portal into the dark, swirling air, intent on distancing himself as far from his home as possible.
He walked through the streets, into the arid hills behind the houses, and disappeared into the scrub brush. Trudging along like a zombie, he tried to squeeze as much energy from his aching body before It came back and found him. It didn’t matter where he wound up, just as long as it was far away from his house and Thora.
Landis was ready to begin filming. The cameras were in position, the lights set, the sets arranged. His house had become a dream factory now. He sat in the living room, before the massive fireplace, and closed his eyes.
Tomorrow at the crack of dawn it would begin. From all the disparate elements Landis would form a cohesive piece. The idea he envisioned, the script he nurtured along with Neil, the actors he hired, the sets he improvised from his own furniture, the monster corpses that Buzzy fashioned, the morgue, the money for the film stock, it all waited to come together. And it would, under Landis Woodley’s direction.
Now, after all the planning, the moment of truth was at hand.
He rubbed his eyes and yawned. He was alone in the great, silent house. But that silence deceived, for in the darkened quiet of those rooms a thousand fears scuttled. Landis Woodley was an insecure and lonely man.
He dozed until the telephone rang. It jarred him back from the sweet release of his fatigue.
“Hello?”
A husky female voice said, “Landis? This is Devila. I have the objects.”
Landis shook off the layers of sluggishness that had draped his body while he slept. He looked at the clock. It was after two. He’d been sleeping for hours.
“Devila? It’s a little late for this. I start shooting tomorrow at first light,” he rasped.
“I’m sorry, Landis,” she said. “I hate to bother you, but this is really, really important. I got those objects I told you about … I can’t keep them long. We need to film them right away.”
Landis sat forward and took a few deep breaths to bring the oxygen level in his blood back up to an alert status.
“But—”
“Listen to me. I know this is an inopportune time, and I apologize for that, but the situation presented itself to me today and I seized it. Now, I can’t keep these … these objects, I can only have them for a short while. I could get into big trouble if I’m found out. Look, I know this is nuts, but we have to film this right now, tonight! Otherwise, we lose out.”
Landis rolled his eyes. “Aw shit, Devila, I can’t do it now. I got a million things to do. I’m tryin’ to get some rest before—”
“Then forget it,” she snapped.
“Hold on,” he said, his throat scratched and dry. “Let me think about this.”
The lights were set and the cameras were loaded. If he wanted to do it, there would never be a better time. If he just wasn’t so damn tired.
Landis sighed, longing for a glass of water. He said, “You sound a little distraught. Are you all right?”
“No, I’m not all right, I’ve just been through something that sacred the shit out of—” She paused, caught her breath, then evened her voice like a rope snapped taut, and continued—“Why am I telling you this? I called you first because I thought you might be interested. Common courtesy. I can always go somewhere else with it.”
Landis heard the strain in her voice and knew instinctively that the woman was scared. He could smell fear like a wolf. “Okay, cool it. I got the message. Did you see the … the thing?”
Devila sucked air between her teeth. “I don’t want to talk about it now,” she said, biting off her words.
“It’s got to be tonight?”
“Yes. Look, I can be there in fifteen minutes,” she said breathlessly. Landis heard a truck drive by in the background, over the phone. It rumbled through the line with a blast of white noise, drowning out everything for a few seconds.
“Where the hell are you?” he asked.
“At a phone booth,” she shouted over the roar of the truck. “I can’t go home.”
Landis was about to ask why not when he thought better of it. He could read the situation from the information he’d already gleaned. She’d stolen the objects, and now she had to use them right away, before she got caught. It didn’t take a Rhodes scholar to figure that one out.
The more his mind cleared, the more he realized that he couldn’t let this opportunity pass him by. If what she said was true, it could be a piece of film that might ultimately be worth more than the whole production of Cadaver. He wrestled with the decision.
Devila waited. Landis heard another truck rumble by.
“Okay,” he said finally, “I have some cameras up here at the house. I guess I could do it … are you sure we can’t do this in a day or two?”
“Absolutely not. It’s now or never; otherwise, I go somewhere else with it,” she said, her voice quivering. The road noises crept back as soon as she stopped talking. Her voice changed again, softening. “Landis?”
“Yeah?”
“I want you to do this. You’re the only one who can do it justice.”
Chet Bronski was asleep. He liked to get a good ten hours in before he had to work, especially with Landis Woodley. Landis usually planned twenty to thirty shots a day. Twenty to thirty! Most feature-length movie productions thought anything over three shots a day was incredible.
When the phone rang he tried to ignore it; when it persisted, he picked it up.
“Yeah?” he growled, his voice slurred and deep.
“Chet?”
“Who the fuck is this? I’m sleepin’!”
“It’s Landis.”
After a moment’s hesitation, a cough, and a few deep breaths, Chet responded.
“What’s the problem?”
“Something’s come up, something important. Can you come over right away?”
Chet coughed some more. “What the hell for? I’m sleepin’, I got a big day tomorrow. You know that, for Christ sake. Why are you bothering me?”
“I need you to film something. It’s a private affair, just you and me and … a third party. Look, I know this is a pain in the ass, but I’l
l pay you.”
“How much?” It was the question of the day.
“How about a hundred bucks?”
“Hmm, I don’t know. Shit, I gotta get out of bed, drive across town, that’s a lot of work …”
Landis said, “One-fifty.”
“I don’t want to get up. Call someone else.”
“Two hundred.”
Chet sighed. He’d do it now, but he didn’t want to. Money was money. “I’ll be there in forty minutes,” he said.
He slammed the phone down, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and sat up. Reaching for his pack of cigarettes by the side of the bed, he fished one out and lit it. The strong smoke of the unfiltered Chesterfield King sent shock waves through his body from the lungs out.
The first drag made him dizzy, the second made him cough, and the third got him out of bed.
What the hell was going on? Landis never called in the middle of the night like this. It must be something really special for him to shell out two hundred smackers. For a tightwad like Woodley, that bordered on unbelievable. Must be some porn, Chet thought, something kinky or weird.
Chet knew the cameras were ready and the set was lit over at Landis’s house. He knew that it would be a piece of cake for him to roll film. Figuring he could probably sleep the remaining few hours of the night over there, he packed his overnight bag.
Outside, the wind picked up. The smell of rain freshened the air. There was no traffic to speak of as Chet guided his Ford down Sunset Boulevard toward Beachwood Canyon.
14
Thora Beaumond panicked when she found the front door open and her father gone.
She called Dr. Segwick at home, her fingers clumsy and numb on the heavy rotary dialer. It took several tries before she successfully made the connection. He suggested she call the police.
She contacted the night desk sergeant on duty at the North Hollywood Police Station, who transferred her over to Lt. Garth Prease in the department of missing persons.
After listening to her story, Prease explained that an adult couldn’t be declared legally missing until he’d been gone for forty-eight hours. Lieutenant Prease promised to keep an unofficial eye out for her father, should anyone report a man wandering around, but there was really nothing he could do for the time being. She pleaded, insisting that her father was ill and feverish and quite likely to be disoriented. Prease took down a detailed description.
Thora found her father’s address book and called everyone she thought might be helpful, each conversation more rushed and desperate than the last. In return, she received a carload of advice. Everyone did agree on one thing; Thora should not, under any circumstances, go out looking for Albert alone.
She put the address book in her pocket. What was everybody so damned afraid of?
She drove to Devila’s apartment.
She knocked on the door and, after a few minutes of silence, pounded on it.
“There’s no one home, dearie,” a rough female voice croaked behind her. The sound made her jump.
“You scared me!” Thora said, clutching her chest.
“Sorry, my voice does that sometimes,” the old lady barked hoarsely. Her gin-soaked, cigarette-rough vocal cords put out a strange combination of sounds that seemed to be indigenous to sixty-year-old Hollywood matrons. It was a smoky, sensual sound that only time and tobacco could create. Her hair in curlers and her housecoat buttoned high, she looked like a dried apple doll that Thora had made in summer camp once many years ago.
“I’m looking for Miss Devila. Have you seen her?”
“She hasn’t been home since yesterday,” the voice answered. “I’m Myrna; I live across the hall.” She lit a cigarette and blew smoke at the ceiling. “Are you a friend of Devila’s?”
“Yes. Well, actually, my father is,” Thora answered. “I’m looking for him.”
Myrna squinted at Thora’s face, saw the lines of consternation there, and smiled. “What’s the problem, sweetie?”
Thora’s forehead wrinkled, and her eyes cast down. The panic of the night’s searching had now turned to resigned worry and sadness.
“It’s nothing,” she said.
“You’ve been crying. What’s wrong, hon?”
Thora could feel the tears welling up again, her voice got that little hitch in it that meant she was going to cry any second. “I … I … my father is missing, and I thought—”
Myrna opened the door to her apartment wider and Thora could see the blue glow of a black-and-white TV screen showing an old movie and a room crowded with bric-a-brac and memorabilia. The smell of coffee drifted out.
“How about a cup of java?” Myrna asked.
Their eyes met. Thora could do little to disguise the pain she was going through, and Myrna couldn’t help but feel concerned.
“I don’t know,” Thora mumbled.
“Oh, sure you do. Everybody likes a nice cup of hot coffee to cheer them up. You look like you’ve been out all night.”
“I’ve got to find Miss Devila,” Thora begged, her face distorted with the onset of tears.
Myrna handed Thora a tissue and led her into the tiny apartment. She sat her down gently at the kitchen table as though she was leading a child, and busied herself pouring a cup of coffee and buttering an English muffin. The food and drink seemed to revive her slightly.
“I’m sorry. I should go. I shouldn’t bother you,” Thora said with the halting speech of someone fighting to control their emotions.
“Nonsense. You just sip that coffee and tell Myrna what’s troubling you.”
Thora did as she was told. The coffee, a trifle too hot, burned her mouth and throat and brought the color of life back into her cheeks.
Thora, unpracticed at holding things in, began to explain. It felt good to tell it, as if the words themselves were bearing weight and once removed let her breathe again.
“My father was very sick, he … he had a fever, and he wasn’t himself.”
Myrna nodded. “Fevers can do that, hon. Go on.”
“Anyway, I had to go to class, I go to college at UCLA, and I left him alone for just a few hours. Right when I was leaving, Miss Devila showed up, said she wanted to visit my dad, so I let her in. I thought it would be a good idea, you see. They dated one time.”
Myrna poured more coffee. “I see,” she said.
“So, anyway, I left her alone in the house, told her to go on up and stay with him, and when I came back, he was gone.”
“Both of them?”
“Yeah, both. I thought that maybe they were together, you know, maybe he felt better and they decided to go out somewhere. But he’s been gone all night!”
Myrna pointed to the muffin. “Eat some.”
Thora put the dry biscuit in her mouth and began to chew. Myrna watched with sad, knowing eyes.
“Well,” she said, “it sounds to me like they probably went out and had a good old time and he just forgot to call, that’s all.”
“I don’t think so. He was very sick. It doesn’t make sense.”
There was a knock on the back door of Myrna’s apartment. She had a small door that led from the kitchen to the parking court in the back. Myrna crossed the room and opened the door. Another old lady was standing there.
“Katherine! Do come in. We’ve got company.”
Katherine entered the room looking very much like Myrna, without the curlers. Her housecoat was pastel blue and made of the same quilted material.
“Company! Well, isn’t that—” She saw the tears on Thora’s face and stopped. “What’s the matter, child? Did old Myrna scare you?”
“I most certainly did not!” Myrna rasped. “She came here looking for you-know-who.”
“Devila? That witch? Well, it doesn’t surprise me one bit. She’s made more than one person cry.”
Myrna was trying to signal for Katherine to shut up, but the other old woman kept right on talking.
“What do you mean?” asked Thora.
“What I m
ean is, that hussy has been nothin’ but trouble since she moved in here.”
“I don’t think she wants to hear that,” Myrna protested.
“Please.” Thora looked at Katherine. “Please tell me.”
“You might as well sit down and pour yourself a cup.” Myrna sighed. “By the way, this is Thora. She’s looking for her father, who didn’t come home last night, after seeing our lovely neighbor. Thora, this is Katherine Schlitz. Katherine lives upstairs.”
“Oh,” Katherine said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“What were you going to tell me about Devila?” Thora demanded.
“Well, it’s just that she isn’t very honest, that’s all.”
Thora looked from Katherine to Myrna, searching for answers, her brow furrowed.
“Go ahead, tell her. You’ve already tipped over the apple cart,” Myrna said with resignation.
“Well, I had an Oscar statuette,” Katherine said proudly, “a real one. It was for best actress in the year 1931, won by Marie Dressler. She got it for a movie called Min and Bill, beat out Marlene Dietrich who was red-hot that year. Marlene was up for Morocco or some such trash.”
Thora nodded, not really understanding what all this had to do with Devila and her father. “Yes?”
“Marie Dressler was a dear old lady who lived in this very building, up in 2B. She was already ill when she won the Oscar, and she passed away a few years later. They cleaned out her apartment and her daughter gave me the statuette because she said that Marie wanted me to have it. I was close to Marie, I guess you could say. Anyway, it was great honor to have the Oscar and I kept it on my mantle for years … until she stole it!” She pointed across the hall to Devila’s apartment.
“She stole it?” Thora said.
Myrna smiled. “Well, we’re not positive, hon.”
“I am,” Katherine said firmly. “I’m sure she took it! She took it while I was making brownies one day. She just came right in and took it!”
Myrna put her hand on Thora’s knee and patted it affectionately. “I thought I saw it once when she left her door open. I can’t be sure, of course, but I thought I saw it in her room.”
“Who else would take it?”
Myrna shot Katherine a glance. So far the effect of all her furtive looks and “shut up” glances had been nil. Katherine obviously had a mind of her own and didn’t care a whit for anything Myrna was trying to tell her through body language.