by David Irons
Then, like a death rattle, its two oversized reels began to slowly spin. The bulb of the projector burst to life, highlighting dust particles in the air as its whiteness hit the priest, making him hold his hands up to his face to shield his eyes.
Staggering away, hairs, crackles and pops appeared on the smooth surface of the white marble wall behind him.
Kristi saw the projector and rolled her eyes. Antique junk. Their old house was full of his antiquities. Ancient, monolithic, cumbersome things like this rattling piece of tin. All this hi-tech stuff, this newly renovated building, and he has this relic from the Flintstones to do his talking from beyond the grave.
A message? A film? Matt tried to process everything. Each thing that was happening around them had more of that convenient feeling he didn't like; thoughts tremored through his mind. How long ago had he died? How long ago was this film made? I thought it was a sudden death? 16mm film - the time it takes to process? All roads led to non-compliance of how this funeral should go and how it should be. But here he was, the captive audience sitting back and watching it all perfectly play out.
Convenient, convenient, convenient, the word ricocheted around Jennifer's mind, projected from Matt's like the beam from the rattling machine above them into her own head. She took a quick glimpse at Alison, a woman too emotional to take in anything more than her own grief. Kristi too filled with hate for the deceased to smell a rat. And Kelly — too young and distracted by her mother's obtuse behaviour to soak in the subtext of their surroundings, the hidden things that didn't add up in the scenario that was playing out before them.
Suddenly, the screen came to life with a blurred black and white image. Refocusing, the misty screen slowly became the withered close up face of Gregory Blitzer who seemed to be operating the camera himself. He paused and smiled into the lens. His gums black, his teeth veneer pegs that were supposed to be white, now greying and dull tombstones. His eyes were milky; rough deep lines appearing beneath them as he smiled. His face was a ghoulish, grainy 16mm ghost. One white and unearthly either from an over exposed camera aperture or some illness that no one knew of, something that might also have eventually killed him. Either way his huge dominating face, almost peering from the screen it existed on, did something that seemed undoable all night: it silenced the small crowd with its eerie luminous presence. The grinning, dead ringmaster of a captive audience he would never meet.
'Hello friends,' he wheezed out through the chapel's speaker system. His voice was coolly drawn out in an analogue muffle. 'I'm glad you could join me here today. I know how each and every one of you must be sad to be here. Bearing witness to the end of my life, to the end of my days more precisely. If all has gone to plan and if everything has fallen into place to my wishes, I should be talking to my new pal Matt, my old pal Alex, the ever-faithful Alison, my employee Jennifer, oh and my life's true loves, Kristi and my once wonderful stepdaughter.
'I just want to take this moment to say thank you for everything in life… I would like to say thank you for everything you have done for me, I would like to say thanks for you all for being such wonderful friends and companions.'
An ugliness, beyond the sickness on his face peeled across it.
'All of you people gave something to me, and now, I want to give something back to you.'
His smile broadened.
'I have but one regret for tonight. There are a couple of innocents who I had to pull along just for plausibility. Alison and you, preacher man. Alison, you have been my right hand gal for years now, never questioning, just doing what was right. I've used you darling, for this I used you. There's no easy way to put it, I'm sorry and I hope you survive it. And you, preacher man, all you ever did was marry me to the bitch.'
Kristi snarled at the screen like a junkyard dog, her mouth ready to foam and go for the throat.
'You were perfect to top this off, to make it plausible. The vultures wouldn't just come for the burying of my casket, but they would come to empty the corpse's pockets. Again, I apologize to you. You're just doing your job and in a way, I hope you too can survive this. I have something…interesting I want you to see priest…I think in your line of work…it would answer a lot of questions...'
An uneasy feeling started to connect between everyone occupying the pews. They turned to one another for affirmation that, yes, this felt disturbing: yes this was absurd. And the faces they each looked towards all reflected the same mutual feeling of worry and dread back.
'Excuse my French,' Blitzer grated out. 'But you fuckers are going to get everything you deserve tonight. You scorned my good name in life and now I'm going to strike out in death. You all wanted to feed off me, you all wanted to tear a pound of flesh away for yourselves, now you're the ones who are gonna get all tore up.'
He smiled that black-gummed grin again.
'Jennifer,' he barked with authority.
She looked up at the screen, eyes wide with shock as if the teacher in class had just called her.
'When I said I could have helped you with money, you just thought I was talking about whoring. No. I could have made you not worry about anything ever again. Bad move, honey. But at least you're going to get to meet the lucky gal who got that privilege, I hope she makes you appreciate what you've missed out on.'
He grinned again and, for a second, seemed to flick his gaze around the entire room at everyone, seeing through the camera's lens into the future at the collection of people he had brought together.
'All I have to say is, you got exactly what you all deserved. And you never know, we might be seeing each other real soon.'
A collective chill rose up the audience's spine as his final parting words hissed with a snake-like tongue.
'Just remember: sometimes when you're in doubt, going inside can be your way out.'
He grinned into the camera again; his teeth filled the screen, looking like oversized finger smudged piano keys.
Then, with a crackle and a pop, the image on screen burned to a bright white and the constant flapping of loose film dangling from its spool, slapped at a fast rhythmic beat.
CHAPTER 7
The priest quickly pressed the 'Film' button again and the overhead projector rattled to a stop and automatically the lights turned back up.
There was a startled silence in the chapel. Outside, a cold wind rattled the stained-glass roof making the congregation stare up into the dome overhead; it had become a dark pool of night.
Alex piped in to the silence, his voice echoing around the lonely room. 'Jesus Christ! What was that?'
'Do you know what he's talking about?' Jennifer angrily cried at the priest, who turned back quickly from the wall the ghostly image had just disappeared from.
'I don't know… I don't know anything. I don't understand,' he quivered.
'You were up here before us!' Alex cried out. 'Who the hell sent you up here? Who the hell's paying you? Who's running this show?'
'I just received a call from the company arranging the funeral,' he muttered. 'They said they wanted me to come here today, to perform a service and read the…'
'Read the will,' Kristi seethed through gritted teeth, her eyes as white-hot as a pair of meteors falling into orbit. 'Read that will.'
A new reason to be silent befell them all. Kristi's rage poured across the chapel like swamp gas, silencing everyone as it drew near.
The priest, not being unsusceptible to her anger, stared at her with white-faced worry. Doing as he was told, he reached inside his jacket and unpeeled an envelope that simply read across its front:
'WILL'
He looked inside, the group watched as he unfolded some papers and his eyes grew in their sockets; and then he turned them over, holding them forward for the group to see.
'They're… blank?' he muttered with confusion.
'God fucking dammit!' Kristi screamed, shooting from her seat faster than a bullet, arms splayed out like Christ on the cross. Her fingers were so ridgid and shaking with rage, lightning
looked like it could fire from their tips.
'What is this bullshit! You're trying to tell me, Preach, that you didn't know about this? Let's be honest. We're all thinking it. This is a little suspicious. Not one of us in here gave a flying fuck for that piece of shit!'
An admonishing 'Tisk' came from behind Kristi and she turned on the balls of her feet to pinpoint its origin.
Alison shook her head, flicking her gaze towards Kristi, not having the confidence to eyeball her.
'You know something about this, you dried up old prude, don't you?' she spat out like viper's venom.
'I don't know what this is all about…' Alison calmly replied, 'but that man was not in a sane state of mind after what you did to him, look at him on that film, he was...'
'…Just because that old fool probably boffed you in the back room because he was bored a few times, ain't gonna save you now!' Kristi screamed. 'You've been pissing me off all day. Now take those stupid glasses off that turtle face of yours, I'm gonna blacken those panda eyes some more.'
Kristi lunged forward, ready to pounce like a slinking puma.
'Mom!' Kelly screamed and grabbed Kristi's arm, immobilizing her. Jennifer, seeing Kristi's hatred, jumped into action – not wanting her to vent it on her daughter – and got in her face.
'Kristi, this is bullshit. Let's just get out of here. Let's just leave now. I don't like…'
'…Get out of my way – NOW,' Kristi growled.
Jennifer, half expecting Kristi's eyes to turn red, drew back.
Alex and Matt jumped up, shielding the wimpy woman behind them who shrunk down into her seat, the scuffling of shoes started to reverberate around the room. 'Come on, show’s over, let's just leave it.' Alex tried to reason in Kristi's direction.
'Look! It's that sick bastard's idea of a joke,' Matt shouted and drowned everybody else out. 'I for one have had it with this, I'm leaving and I think you all should do the same. Let's go back into town, find out who arranged this thing, then give those bastards a piece of our minds.'
'You're goddam right we should,' Kristi screamed, her attention diverted, allowing Kelly to loosen her grip. 'But if I find out that you, the old prude, or Preach is anything to do with this, you're both fucking dog meat.'
'I swear I...' the priest began but was cut off by Alex raising a straightened hand to his throat, waving it across it with gritted teeth as a symbol to shut up.
'Let's just go!' Jennifer assertively said, looking down at Kelly, giving her a little nod and prompt that seemed to work. Kelly beamed up at her mom with her best Disney eyes.
'Come on mom, let's go, let's just go.'
For a second, the scene became a tableau of tension, everything seeming to hang on Kristi's decision; she, the actress, stealing the scene and taking control. Her tantrums and whims swayed and dominated the overall group decisions, like so many situations and film sets of the past. She, the woman who was used to being adored and worshipped, always put on top of the slagheap as number one, just the way she liked it. Looking around at the staring group, she eyeballed each one of them; a face full of thunder but secretly wallowing in the attention.
'I'm done with this charade, I'm out of here.' She snorted, and then pushed through the group towards the door. Ignoring the people in her way, she treated them like pins in a bowling alley; things only there so she could knock them down, practice for her return to LA.
Kelly glanced at Jennifer with wide-eyed woe, slowly following behind her mother. That look told Jennifer everything she needed to know about their relationship. Somehow through the mysteries of breeding, the cold hearted, manipulative woman who stormed away had given birth to a sensible, empathic girl who possessed all the good traits her mother did not.
'Come on, kid!' Kristi screamed, causing Kelly to jump into a faster gear.
Then, with a toss of her hair, she looked back over her shoulder at the rest of the group. 'Someone message me a picture of his box when it's in the ground, I could use a good laugh.'
Alex blew air through his lips like an exhaling horse making his lips flap; Matt and Jennifer raised their eyebrows in unison.
She strode with confidence and ease, revelling in her big scene. Most actresses would work on a big entrance; but in all the films she had starred in she had never had anything that spectacular. She always had big exits; she knew how to soak up the limelight in a big exit. She had been the starlet of many a cheap horror film in her early days; mopping every ounce of emotion she could from a good juicy death scene. As she swayed her hips, stiffened her shoulders and puffed out her chest, she held her hands out to pull the marble door open.
But she stopped. She glared at the solid door, turning back at the gathered crowd who were still watching. Her hands frozen, touching the cold door, she felt around it like a mime, drawing its shape with her movements. Looking for something that should be there, then screamed out, 'There's no goddamn handle! How do I get out?'
CHAPTER 8
'Why can't I open this door?' Kristi screamed out again in pure frustration. Slapping her hands against the cold marble door – a thing that was now just an inanimate slab.
Kelly ran and grabbed her mom's pounding right arm and jerked it down, both now face to face. 'Stop it mom!' she squealed with her best assertive tone, reaching for the door’s handle, 'Calm down and lets just go ho…' then stopped.
She'd expected her mother's petulant behaviour to be the reason why the door wouldn't open. But staring at the door herself, scanning it up and down, she saw that her mother was actually right: there was no handle, no visible way of opening it. 'You can't open this door?' she muttered to herself.
Jennifer and Matt were there next, neither there to actually help Kirsti, just to shut her up. They too saw that there was no handle, no hinges or signs of it opening.
Matt turned to the others. 'How the hell did this thing close? Did anyone pull it shut?'
No one said a word.
After a lengthy pause, the atmosphere heavy with confusion and suppressed panic, Alex offered, 'We didn't shut it.' Everyone stared at him. 'No one here shut it. I know they didn't. I was the last one to come through,' he tried to sound strong, sure of his own answer, but he questioned himself.
Matt felt around the cold smooth stone door, trying to find a lip to wedge his fingers behind. 'This thing’s sealed tight, Jesus Christ this gets better and better.'
'There's no hinges, they must be on the other side,' Jennifer said in an anxious voice.
'Screw this!' Kristi hollered, and stamped over to one of the other glossed black doors situated around the oval room: these doors had handles, these doors had hinges, these doors would allow you to make like a tree and leave.
She grabbed the nearest handle and pulled it with all her worth. Yes, the door opened, it swung open perfectly, gliding on its new still unblemished golden hinges; the triumphant smile on her face quickly fell. The problem with this door wasn't the opening of it, but the restriction of where it led. Behind it was a frame full of sloppily cemented together breezeblocks walling them in.
Stepping back with an enraged huff she headed to the next door and the next, pulling them all open, all of them revealing the same thing: more grey breeze blocks, more sloppy dried cement. Everybody froze, watching at the crazed woman throwing open door after door, quickly stampeding from one to the other, leaving them swinging on their hinges. A low growl in her throat, that quickly turned into an elongated scream, 'How dooo yooou geeeeeet ouuut ooof thiiissss fuuuckkiiing plaaaace!' A scream that finished when she had fully circled the room; back at her starting point with the others by the marble door. 'How are we supposed to get out?' she screamed again. They were all just as puzzled, staring at the open doors and the stopping blocks behind them.
'This is some kind of practical joke, right?' said Alex, speeding as fast as his bulky frame could take him to the nearest open door, tapping on the blocks that filled the frame. They all began circling the walled-in doors, an air of pure panic rising amongs
t them.
Matt turned to Jennifer, giving her a look that said — this isn't good. It's going to get worse; we need to diffuse this atmosphere now.
Kristi, the catalyst, looked ready to explode with another giant wail of ego as a fearful Kelly trailed behind her. Jennifer put a hand on Kelly's shoulder, squeezed it with affirmation, then walked straight up to Kristi with determined laser beam eyes, telling her what she had to hear. 'We need to get away from here. We need to get out; and you riling everyone up isn't helping.'
Kristi's eyes turned into poisonous black holes, but something in Jennifer's strong, deep gaze caught Kristi's attention. She hadn't known what to make of her before this; she knew Jennifer fascinated her daughter, but maybe now she was beginning to understand why. Jennifer had a backbone and strength, an edge that projected an authority through her eyes. Kristi hadn't seen that in many other women, especially towards her.
Jennifer held her gaze, knowing the woman in front of her could be used to diffuse panic as easily as she started it. She knew there were two ways this situation could go: the easy way, or the hard way; either route ready to be travelled by the larger than life woman in front of her.
Kristi had sensed the immediate bond between this girl and her daughter. Jennifer was outwardly softer than herself, a trait that would appeal to the kid. She hated that soft stuff. The mean-spirited essence that twirled around Kristi's bones wanted to make her say out loud, "I think this red haired dykey receptionist has got a thing for you, kid", just to spite her daughter, but she didn't. She knew with the dominating air Jennifer had about her, this was possibly someone other than herself who could toughen the kid up. That, in-fact, she could use Jennifer on her side, just like Jennifer was thinking of using her. Kristi stared at Jennifer a second longer, nodded towards the rest of the group, 'Riling them up? Damn straight I'll rile them up. We need to get out of this place. These morons need their asses putting in gear. Someone needs to run the show. Look at them.'