by Adam Cesare
Tito put the gun back on Jacque. “Why are you doing this?” the negro asked.
How could he not see it? Was he not an educated man? Didn’t he see that what they were doing was creating supreme art? They hadn’t set out to do it. They had set out to make money, but now art was happening all the same.
Tito thought it best not to answer him. A man must come to these kind of realizations on his own.
After a few minutes away, Denny returned with the camera. “Latest reel safely reloaded, boss. We’re ready to roll.”
Boss: that was a new development. Maybe Denny had learned some respect after that last sequence. Maybe the call of true art was too strong for even a know-it-all brat like Denny.
“We can’t go yet. We need the girl.”
“Well she’ll definitely be back on set in a minute,” Denny said. “Where should I be setting up? Should I be getting pickups and inserts?”
“Get all the coverage you can,” Tito said. He was no longer annoyed that the boy was trying to call the shots. It was good that Denny was showing such initiative. “I’m going to have a talk with our screenwriter about where the story goes from here.”
Denny gave him a salute and turned to around to face Daria’s body. He held a hand out and began to take light readings above her mangled corpse.
Tito tried to look Jacque in the eye, but the writer was trying to avoid his gaze. He spoke anyway.
“A writer who doesn’t produce isn’t a writer, Jacque,” Tito said to him in French. It was a language that seemed tailor-made for pontification. Tito was happy that he got to use it while talking to Jacque.
The black man’s eyes were plastered to the barrel of the gun in front of his face. He followed the bouncing ball as Tito waved it around.
“I know that you understand this, but there is a firm hierarchy on a film set. It’s a delicate chain of symbiosis in which all the links have to be maintained if our work is to reach pure cinema.”
“Can I at least be allowed to sit down while I listen to this crazy horseshit?” Jacque asked.
Tito flipped the Korovin around, careful to keep his finger off the trigger. He pointed the butt at Jacque, raised up on his toes and pistol-whipped him over his left eyebrow. The blow sent the black man to the ground. The gun may have been small, but it was heavy.
“You think I’m joking with you? Do you want to ruin what we can achieve here? If you do, just say so and I’ll put a bullet through your eye. Well, I’ll do it in a moment, once Denny gets the tripod set up.”
“Don’t,” Jacque said, wavering as he propped himself up with his elbows. Tito looked beyond him now, to the space right behind the fire. He could see them all: the people of the island. They stood in a semi-circle, nodding their approval to Tito, their feet facing behind them. This film would be dedicated to their memory.
The vision collapsed as Umberto bounded through the tall grass and into camp. He was empty-handed except for the blade.
“Where is she?” Tito looked at him and the actor just shrugged. Mr. Hitchcock was right: cattle.
Chapter 16
Cynthia
What had happened to the men of the crew? Or at least the white men, Cynthia thought, her arm sore from hugging the tree. She remembered something her grandmother (the darker one) had once told her. She laughed at the thought.
“I love your granddad,” her grandmother had said. “But every single white man I have ever met is either one of two things: hateful or crazy.” Her grandfather had fallen firmly into the ‘crazy’ category, but Cynthia had also noted that after too many drinks he was known to dabble in hatefulness, even though her grandma would never admit to it.
Not content with folksy life lessons, Cynthia’s grandmother was also fond of telling her stories from her life back in Trinidad. Cynthia remembered parts of those stories now with a frown, wishing she was on that Caribbean island instead.
Maybe the answer to today’s violence lay in her grandmother’s stories. Tales of Obeah, the folkloric religion that the grandmothers in Trinidad used to practice in secret, and that the Christian preachers used to warn the kids about.
From what her grandmother had told her, it was a religion full of evil ghosts and lost spirits. It sounded great for getting the little kids in Trinidad to behave, but beyond that it had sounded hokey.
She thought about the mass grave.
What better source of lost souls could there be?
It didn’t much matter. The cause could have been vengeful spirits on loan from Trinidad, residual radiation from atomic tests that had driven the white men insane, or even something as mundane as dysentery from the well water. Whatever the reason, the makeup girl was still sans her head.
Forgetting herself, Cynthia yawned and stretched out her arm. Instantly, she was catapulted forward in her seat. She regained her grip, but not before the momentary feeling of falling that accompanied being confronted with such a height.
Cynthia’s vision swam as she scrutinized the jungle floor from her perch in the tree. There was no movement. She listened. No sounds except for the occasional bird.
Getting up the tree had been an easier proposition than getting down would be. Going up there had been no choice. She either climbed or she was murdered by an Italian B-lister.
After Umberto had left, she waited fifteen minutes to make sure that he wasn’t still searching the area. Then she thought of a plan for another fifteen minutes. At least she estimated they were fifteen minutes increments: at the rate her mind was working they could have been anywhere between three minutes to an hour.
The sun was directly overhead when she made the decision to climb down. The orbital fireball was her only reliable way of marking time. She felt guilty for leaving Jacque for so long. She further saddened herself with the thought that Jacque’s chances for survival already seemed bleak, and whatever aide Cynthia could give him had much less chance for success with each passing second. Or did it? What could she possibly do for him in the daytime? She was out-gunned, out-numbered and out-crazied.
First things first: whatever plans she would be employing would be contingent on getting out of the tree alive. She reached the lowest branch, threw her weapon down to the dirt below and watched as it splintered in half from the fall.
That could be my legs, she thought. Holding her breath and swinging her arms out to grasp the trunk.
The second step was a doozey. She miscalculated, and the ground below sped up to greet her.
Cut to black.
Chapter 17
Denny
For most of the day, Denny had filmed Umberto alone with the girl’s corpse. In close-up and medium shot, Tito and Denny had watched Umberto strip the remainder of the girl’s clothes, slit open her insides, and run his hand along her bones.
“Now eat her guts.” Tito had urged him on while Denny pushed in. After Tito had deemed that they had gone as far as they could with one cannibal, he insisted that Denny get into costume.
It was a common industry joke that everything on a set is held together by gaffer’s tape, but that didn’t make it any less true. Denny not only used it to secure Jacque’s hands and feet, but also when Umberto started carving up the makeup girl and passing around trophies. Denny used the strong black tape to form a necklace for himself, stringing Daria’s ears and nose around his naked chest.
Every shot couldn’t be handheld. That would have been tacky. Besides, there were so few of them now that Denny would have to be part of the cast: the tripod had become a necessity.
He’d worked on a bunch of films, but this was the first time he’d been in one.
Tito had cast him in the part of a cannibal. To darken his skin, Denny had mixed up some of the makeup girl’s blood with the dark soil of the jungle. The mud wasn’t going to make him look as black as Jacque, but it did look considerably better than his white undershirt and cargo shorts.
The camera ran behind Denny and Umberto, capturing their invented ritual. Denny had framed a wide s
hot and then closed down the viewfinder so he could let the camera roll by itself without exposing the film.
Umberto picked up one of Daria’s hands. Her joints had begun to stiffen in the hours since this morning’s death scene.
The blonde Italian raised his blade and cut off three of her fingers with one fluid swipe. Umberto bent to collect them, popping one into his mouth like a cigarette and offering another to Denny.
Dennis Roth, professional cinematographer, would never resort to cannibalism. But he was too deep in character now, and they were already using up film for this shot.
There were plenty of similar moments like this in other films. But those movies didn’t have the balls to go all the way. The furthest Cannibal Fury Atrocity had gone was the on-screen slaughter of a few animals.
That’s child’s play, Denny thought. We can beat that!
Denny took the meat from Umberto and sucked on the jagged circular wound at the end of the finger.
In his off-screen life, Dennis had once taken a trip to New Orleans with his parents and while there he had dined on a crawfish boil. The most important part, the waitress had told him, was after you were done with the meat inside the chest of the crawfish, that you had to suck on the head to get all of the juices out.
Sucking on Daria’s finger reminded him of this. He’d heard method actors tried to recall particularly vivid sense memories to help themselves get into character. Denny tried it now and hoped that the emotion would translate to the screen.
Sucking, Denny couldn’t help but note that the girl’s marrow lacked the Cajun spice of the crawfish, but it was not devoid of flavor. He tried nibbling a bit of the outer flesh. The salt from Daria’s dried sweat mingled nicely on his palate with the alkaloid tang of her blood. Not bad.
Just out of frame, Jacque moaned and snapped awake. Denny watched out of his peripheral vision as the black man struggled against the gaff tape that bound his arms to his side. His body was then thatched to a tall wooden stake. The pole must have been used by the natives to hang up their fishing nets, because it was studded with several small hooks.
Jacque’s eyes were wandering and unfocused for a moment before going wide as he caught sight of what Umberto and Denny were doing to Daria’s body. His screams would have ruined the shot if they had been rolling sound.
“Quiet on set,” Tito said, appearing from the hut beside Jacque. He’d been standing just inside the doorway, watching them, occasionally whispering to himself.
At least Denny assumed he was talking to himself. There was no way of knowing whether or not he was speaking directly to the people of the island. Denny knew they only revealed themselves when they wanted to, but he guessed that they were around them constantly. They were omnipresent spectral producers and investors, watching their film come to blazing Technicolor life.
“Cut,” Tito shouted. Denny walked over to the camera and switched it off, still gnawing the finger. Lee Strasberg’s method was growing on him.
“Looks like it will be getting dark in a few, anyway,” Denny said, disappointment heavy in his voice. With no electricity, there would be no way to use the lights they had carried with them off the plane and into the town.
Tomorrow, they would have to shoot day-for-night if they wanted nighttime scenes in their movie. There was no way they were going to be able to get the fire bright enough that it could effectively light a shot. There was no point in Denny telling this to Tito. The man was a pro and he already knew.
“Strike the equipment for the day, then, and reload the camera,” Tito said to Denny. “And you,” he indicated Umberto and began speaking in Italian.
Umberto squinted with his good eye and wiped his bloody hands on his chest, smearing the intricate tribal designs that he had spent most of the day adding to. He had used both stage paint and Daria’s blood to make the designs, and they read well behind the lens. But it was going to be very difficult to keep proper continuity with their makeup if they kept changing it. Especially now that they’d killed the makeup girl.
Umberto lumbered off into the jungle. He still walked with power, but the spring was gone from his step after a long day of work.
“I’m assuming you told him to go out and search for our starlet,” Denny said, casually rubbing at his bare arms. He was no longer self-conscious about his track marks, and they peeked out from underneath the dried mud as it flaked away with his scratching.
On the island, Denny didn’t have to hide who he was. He could not only be himself, but be who he’d always wanted to be. The thought comforted his mind, but did little to stop the itch in his veins.
“After you’re done here, you’ll be going out with him.” Tito motioned to the setup, indicating what Denny already knew: that he had to stow the camera, film and equipment for the night.
Chapter 18
Cynthia
She awoke in the dark, with the taste of dead leaves and dried blood in her mouth. Her neck hurt as she rolled onto her side and tried to swallow.
Something sharp pushed its way down her esophagus, causing her to gag in pain and nausea. She’d chipped one of her bottom teeth, and now realized that she must have just gulped down the sharp enamel shard.
Her head throbbed and fizzed as she got to her feet. She did so carefully, not wanting to find out that she had shattered an ankle by putting all her weight on it. The darkness around her was absolute, and it was impossible to tell how long she’d been unconscious.
She was alive and alone: for that she was thankful.
Around her, the ever-present sounds of the jungle had continued on into the night. Insects continued their perpetual hum, which was now complimented by the occasional night bird coo.
Cynthia rolled her tongue along the inside of her mouth, collecting up a wad of gritty debris and spitting it out onto the ground. She tried to blow her nose into her hand, but the pain staggered her. Leaning on the nearest tree trunk for support, she brought a hand up to her face.
Before she could pull the snakes of dried blood from her broken nose, there were footsteps in the distance.
Luckily, stealth was not Umberto’s forte. Not only did he crack branches and drag his feet, but every few moments he would jibber something angry to himself in Italian. The only one of his words she understood was “moolie”, and it sent an instant flash of rage to tingle her cheeks.
Even with her face smashed in and a stomach full of earth, Cynthia was able to sneak around Umberto easily. Keeping a large distance and moving quietly, she doubled back over the path he blazed towards the beach until she could see the campfire.
Falling to her belly, she crept up to the village from behind the densest row of huts. From where she stopped in the brush, it was too difficult to tell if anyone was moving around in the camp. The modest fire threw out shadows that danced and jumped in rhythms and patterns that just might have been human.
With economy, she began moving again. She could see the stake and Jacque lashed to it. She sped up her army-woman crawl for a moment, but slowed herself as she remembered that Tito and Denny could still be anywhere.
Then she saw the lump of meat and clothing, taking it all in before she realized what it was, before she could look away.
The meat pile was Daria.
Keep moving. Don’t look at her. Don’t think about her.
In a few more moments, she was under the back window of one of the huts. Something crawled across her face. There was something right below her eye and she slapped a hand up to brush the insect away.
It wasn’t a bug. It was a teardrop.
She rubbed her eyes, making the pain in her face ten times worse and soaking her hands in dirty tears. She had tried not to look at what they’d done, tried to block it out, but the damage was done.
She spread them thin with her fingers, and her tears began to dry in the warm night air. Evaporation took its course as they cooled to nothingness, burning into the skin of her hands and face as Cynthia swore to herself that what happened to Daria w
ould not happen to her.
Not making a sound, she crawled into the window to the hut and began to look for a weapon.
Chapter 19
Denny
Getting enough sleep was possibly the most important habit to get into on a film set. It was so easy to over-extend yourself during the first few days and wind up paying for it at the end of the shoot. A tired D.P. was one that made mistakes: focus slipped, footage counters went unread, and light readings weren’t taken as frequently as they should be.
So instead of traipsing around the jungle looking for the girl, Denny had decided to disobey Tito’s instructions and catch up on his sleep. He’d left the camp through the patch of tall grass to the west, but circled back around and crawled into one of the unused huts to get some rest.
The excitement of the day combined with the hut’s uncomfortable hay and grass bedding resulted in a profound restlessness for the first few moments. Denny stared up at the low thatched ceiling of the hut and tried in vain to resist the urge to plan out a shot list for the morning.
Denny was drunk on the work…no, maybe not drunk: high on the thrill of creation. The power of the footage was intoxicating. It was a drug that heightened his senses and quickened his pulse. He’d been training his whole life for a project like this, something that had the capacity to be significant.
He shifted his weight on the bunk, and the light groan of the wood made him keenly aware of his surroundings. Fatigue overrode his excitement, and he began to relax and drift off to sleep.
I’m not on a set. This is all real. People are really being hurt. The realization loomed large and terrible in his sleepy mind for a moment before it was pushed away by images of sold-out crowds at the Film Forum in New York, and the golden glow of festival prizes.
Sometimes people get hurt for their art, he tried to rationalize.
Before he could debate the topic further with his semi-conscious self, he was knocked fully awake by the sound of something crawling into the hut via the window.