October Girls: Crystal & Bone (7 page)

It was Dempsey’s first project, “The Sickening.” He was not very proud of it, but everybody had a first time.

Snake tapped the crucible, sending a puff of gray wolfsbane smoke into the cramped room. Dempsey had a basement apartment, a little too small for taking over the world, but it would have to do. Once he released
The Halloweening
to worldwide acclaim, he’d get one of those cliff-side condos in Malibu.

“Dude, I think you need to fire up another bowl,” Snake said. “Some of that wizard lizard.”

“We need to focus,” Dempsey said. “Magick doesn’t work unless we’re all on the same page.”

“Don’t make me read any more dorky books,” Lacey said from the couch, arching one leg to show off her calf, or maybe her calfskin boot. “This is starting to sound like history class. More rules and stuff. Bo-o-o-ring.”

Willard waved a comic book, stirring the incense and herbal smoke. “Yeah, when do we get to the fun part?”

Dempsey let his eyebrows relax. “Our plan depends on not drawing any attention to the coven,” he said. “The movie needs to stand on its own artistic merits.”

“I’ve always wanted to get shot and die on screen,” Snake said. “Wanna see?”

Snake jumped up, clutched his chest, went wide-eyed, and let out a “
Yargh
“ that was loud enough to disturb the old biddy upstairs. After a dramatic three seconds of swaying and gasping, he slouched against the wall and slid down to a sitting position.

Dempsey applauded. He wouldn’t be surprised if Snake did the whole Charles Manson bit, carve a Nazi swastika between his eyes, and then wonder why he couldn’t get a job at Walmart. These clowns, as important as they were to his mission, had absolutely no subtlety.

“Watch and learn, my groovy little ghoulies,” Dempsey said.

On the TV screen, the trash-bag monster had gobbled another juicy girl in a bathing suit. Dempsey turned the sound up a little and a brass section punctuated the scene with abrasive and atonal
glissando
.

That was the trouble with the entire horror genre: no subtlety. It was so cheesy it couldn’t smell its own stink.

For about the tenth time since he’d entered this feels-so-good-to-be-bad phase of his life, Dempsey wished he’d applied for film school instead of necromancy, divination, and direct-to-video Armageddon.

But, he supposed, one spiritual path was as good as the next, as long as your heart was in the right place.

Plus, he had an
agent
.

“So when do we shoot?” Snake said. “I’m ready for a little action, not a bunch of sitting around and plotting.”

“If world domination were easy, everybody would be doing it,” Dempsey said.

“When do we get to sacrifice some small animals?” Snake asked, blinking rapidly.

“Remember what I said about unwanted attention,” Dempsey said. “Why go for the cheap thrills now when you can have
carte blanche
later? I’m talking a free pass to Sin City.”

“Cart what?” Lacey said, standing up and strutting for attention.

“Sit down, you’re blocking the picture,” Willard said, slurping the dregs of his Dr. Pepper.

“Right, kids, pay attention,” Dempsey said. “Here comes the cue.”

He grinned, wishing he’d sharpened his incisors, but none of the acolytes were looking at him anyway. He’d brainwashed them so effectively that they all stared wide-eyed at the screen, their jaws slack. Even Snake was alert, sitting up in the ragged Barcalounger and moving his right hand to his mouth as if munching invisible popcorn.

Here it comes, here it comes…

On the screen, the brick-chinned hero, packed into tight white trunks, waded into the lake with an air tank on his back. The shot had no
mise en scene,
the lighting was bad, and Dempsey had allowed no look space for the actor. The dubbed audio track, which included whistling birds and lapping water, also carried the incongruous whapping of a helicopter’s rotors.

But the pitiful production values didn’t matter. This wasn’t about Dempsey’s vision, a screenwriter’s pursuit of an Oscar, or an actor’s desperate aversion to getting a real job. No, the point of the work lay in a single frame.

Royce.

The word flashed in red against a white background, and Dempsey, who’d edited the frame into the movie, was the only one in the room to notice it, but the effect was instantaneous. Willard dropped his Dr. Pepper can, Lacey quit fiddling with her blond curls, and Snake emitted a barking fart.

The scene was already continuing, the actor wading into the water, the story scrolling toward the inevitable end where the Forces of Good kicked the butt of Unspeakable Evil. But the audience members no longer followed the action, because they were suffering their own plot twists.

“Royce,” they said in monotonal unison.

“Royce,” Dempsey echoed, and they looked at him.

“In the name of Royce, we open our hearts,” Dempsey said.

“In the name of Royce,” the members of the coven repeated.

“In the name of Royce, we open our eyes.”

“In the name of Royce.”

“In the name of Royce, we open the Orifice,” Dempsey said. He wasn’t so sure of the meaning of that line, but the agent had insisted, and the agent tended to get what he wanted. Dempsey suspected it had to do with those dark, squishy holes that had appeared in the video store and the coffee shop.

“In the name of Royce,” came the collective response.

Dempsey glanced at the screen, where the hunky, squirrel-eyed actor was emerging from the water, carrying the shivering, scantily clad form of the unconscious lady.

He lifted his voice in triumph. “In the name of Royce, we–”

Bang bang bang.

Dempsey glanced up. A little old lady on a pension lived upstairs, and despite her age, her hearing apparently had not diminished one little bit. She’d introduced herself as Mrs. Vickers. Hair wild as Einstein’s and white as snow, she owned six cats and kept close track on Dempsey’s comings and goings, as well as those of his guests.

Anytime the proceedings got a little too rowdy, or it sounded like somebody might be having a little fun, she tapped on the floor with the tip of her cane.

“In the name of Royce,” the followers echoed.

“I’m not finished yet.”

“I’m not finished yet,” they said.

“Quit acting like a bunch of zombies,” Dempsey said, keeping his voice down. He wanted to shout, but he wasn’t willing to risk the wrath of Mrs. Vickers. He told himself it was because he didn’t want to draw attention at this most important and sacred time, but in truth he feared she’d beat him over the head with one of those hard old-lady shoes.

Snake sniffed, bubbling mucus. “Bunch of zombies,” he droned belatedly, not quite processing Dempsey’s request for them to shut up.

“In the name of Royce, shut your freaking cakehole,” Dempsey said.

“In the name of—”

“Quiet on the set.” Dempsey slashed his open hand like the blade of an ax.

He was messing up the lines the agent had taught him. The whole film deal was dependent on breaking out this new actor, Royce, whom the agent kept raving about. Royce had been an extra in a few of Dempsey’s movies, but apparently Royce’s schedule was tight, because he could never spend more than an hour on set at a time.

Royce certainly couldn’t be any worse than the bartenders, truck drivers, and beauty-school dropouts Dempsey had used in his earlier films. And the agent had explained that having Royce attached made the Hollywood deal a slam dunk.

“It’s so set, it’s
set
set,” the agent had said over the phone. “It’s so golden, it’s yellow
and
orange.”

Which was the weirdest part of the whole thing. The agent had called
him
. For the past three years, Dempsey had sent clips and tapes and YouTube links to every agent in Hollywood and hadn’t received so much as a letter from the legal department. Then, out of the blue, the agent called and greenlighted an original horror production.

Dempsey finished the call-and-response chant. “In the name of Royce, we open our souls.”

“In the name of Royce,” they echoed.

Zombies. He’d always wanted a captive audience. One way or another.

The movie was ending, the creepy but monotonous synthesizer score heralding the credits. The names scrolled over a still frame of the water, on which floated the vanquished evil creature. It looked like a trash bag on a lake. But it wasn’t the image that mattered, it was the substance.

In the movie business, credits were candy. Even caterers and hairdressers got their names listed. But not many people got their names in big letters.

The world will know Dempsey Van Heusen, and all will shudder in my shadow. Shyamalan, Cameron, Howard, and Spielberg, prepare to eat my shorts.

When it came to hobbies, the mindless pursuit of fame, fortune, and power beat the hell out of stamp collecting.

“In the name of Royce, we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming,” Dempsey said, the line that broke the spell and returned his acolytes to their normal state of consciousness—such as it was.

“Whoa,” Snake said, still blinking. “Where am I?”

“Paradise,” Dempsey said. “Now come grab copies of my movies to give to all your friends. Then I have to call my agent. Did I tell you I had an agent?”

“Only six times,” Lacey said.

“Seven. I’ve got an agent.”

C
rystal wrinkled her nose.

She wasn’t sure if Momma’s latest concoction would grow hair on the ghost of Winston Churchill, but it sure would keep nostril hairs in check. Maybe Dempsey could use some of this. It smelled of ammonia, vinegar, rat poison, and one of Fatback Bob’s scrambled-egg farts.

The shower curtain fluttered, nearly causing her to drop the glass beaker.

“Darn you, Bone,” Crystal said.

“You love it when I spy on you,” came Bone’s voice from the tub. “Hey, there’s some nice reverb in here.”

Bone broke into song, a twangy version of Taylor Swift’s “You Belong to Me.”

When she wailed the chorus, Crystal cut in. “That song’s a lot creepier coming from a ghost.”

Bone went solid, parting the translucent shower curtain. She was naked behind it.

“Uh, you forgot something,” Crystal said.

“Give me a break. You’ve seen it all before.”

“Yeah, but we’re older now.”

“You’re just jealous because I got a better rack than you.”

“At least mine’s getting used.”

“Ouch. Anyway, there are no malls in Darkmeet. It’s either hooded robes or cobwebs.”

Crystal tossed her a towel. Bone caught it, releasing the curtain, and Crystal tried not to compare.

She’s dead. No contest.

Growing up, they’d examined their bodies in innocent exuberance and scientific curiosity, pinching the odd lumps and new growth. It had become awkward when the first pubic hairs sprouted, and then they’d learned about lesbians, and everything got weird. Church people said it was wrong. So they learned shame and stopped.

Now Crystal was ashamed of being ashamed.

“So, how are things over here?” Bone said, wrapping the towel around her body.

“I’m doing all right, but Mom’s up to something.”

“Your mom’s always up to something.”

Crystal held the beaker and its skanky contents aloft. “But usually you can see right through it. And her.”

“Channeling Marlon Brandon again?”

“Worse than that. She’s got this idea that the end of the world is coming.”

“The end of the world is
always
coming.”

“Yeah, but, like,
Thursday
?”

“We need to talk about that,” Bone said.

“Don’t tell me you lost faith. I thought you were getting along great over there. Making new friends, going to all the right parties—”

“What if God is listening right now?”

“The benefit of agnosticism.” Crystal swirled the beaker’s contents, hoping for a chemical reaction, but it only emitted more stink. She set it on the counter.

“Agnosti-what?” Bone picked up a hair brush and ran it through her red locks, preening in the steamy mirror. She cast no reflection.

“Abstaining from belief. The GED’s, remember? Try studying a dictionary and see where it gets you.”

“Hey, I did a lot of abstaining, and not all of it by choice. I mean, who wants to save it for marriage these days?”

“Don’t go there.”

“You’re the one who broke the pact.” Bone padded over to the counter in her bare feet and examined the array of oils, unguents, lotions, powders, sauces, and random mummified remains of animals.

“So I lost my virginity first,” Crystal said. “It was only a little bit and only lasted eight seconds. So technically it shouldn’t count.”

“Blood is blood, sister. And there’s no going back.”

“They also say that about dying. But here you are.” Crystal patted her friend’s shoulder. Her fingers went through the apparent flesh and instantly ached from a deep chill.

“Only partly,” Bone said, as if she hated to be reminded. “How’s Pettigrew?”

“Fine. But tell me about the end of the world.”

“First the important stuff. Like whether Dempsey is putting the moves on you.”

“I’m not ready to get too serious with anybody.”

“Don’t wait too long. Tomorrow might never come.”

Crystal rolled her eyes. “Melodrama doesn’t suit you, Bone.”

Bone opened the mirror and scanned the medicine chest. “Valium, Vicodin, No-Doz, Ex-Lax. Zoloft, huh? Still on antidepressants?”

“You looking for something?”

“Satan.”

“I think he’s in the Ex-Lax.”

“Watch the sacrilege.” Bone glanced into the shower and down the sink drain. She set the toilet seat down. “God and Satan might be listening. Fighting over which one gets stuck with the both of us.”

Crystal pushed the cabinet door shut with a clang. “You’ve been jumpy ever since you got here. What’s the deal?”

“I’m not supposed to tell you.”

“That means I need to know.”

Bone sighed and fumbled with a ceramic urn that had Greek designs painted on it.