The Remaking

by Clay McLeod Chapman

  The role, as written, would surely win the actress an Oscar. A first for any horror film. Hadn’t any of them seen Rosemary’s Baby? Ruth Gordon may have gotten Best Supporting Actress, sure, but this year—this would be the year Nora Lambert took home the top prize.

  “If you don’t let me cast her,” he said, “then you don’t have yourself a director and that means you don’t have your movie anymore and you’re up shit’s creek with the IRS, aren’t you?”

  Ketchum got his leading lady. That was all that mattered.

  Nora Lambert would light the silver screen on fire.

  Let it burn.

  So who would play Jessica?

  THREE

  The flames had chewed through her lips. What was left of her flesh now petaled outward, her cheeks peeling back until she saw her own teeth lined crookedly along her jaw.

  An eternal grin.

  The cartilage of her nose was gone, leaving behind a cindered cavity. The flesh along her forehead had flaked away. Swatches of exposed bone rose up from what little jagged scraps of skin were still webbed together across her temples. Whatever remaining hair that hadn’t been scorched from the fire now clung to her scalp in matted clumps, seared to the sides of her skull.

  It looked so real. So…lifelike.

  Amber didn’t mind the makeup chair. The endless hours of sitting. Staring off into nothing. Losing herself in her own reflection. Becoming someone—something—else.

  It was quieter here in the special effects trailer. Much quieter than anywhere else on set. She wasn’t supposed to talk when she sat here, in her very own swiveling dentist’s chair. All the FX team wanted was for her to relax the muscles of her face. Simply sit still and let them apply layer upon layer of foundation over her skin, white now gray now black, shadows mounted upon shadows, until Amber vanished altogether beneath her makeup.

  Her new skin.

  All charred.

  Not to mention she got to sip her soda from a straw while one of the production assistants held the can up for her, which she thought was just the funniest thing ever. The techs always fretted over her smearing her greasepaint. Can’t risk a dribble, now, can we? Can’t get your new face wet…That meant a poor PA was tasked with holding her can of RC and guiding the straw to her mouth. She’d sip, swallow, sip, then glance up and smile with her cindered lips.

  Wasn’t this how Cleopatra was treated?

  She felt like royalty here.

  If Amber was completely honest, the reason she liked the makeup trailer the most was that her mother was asked to mind her own business. Nobody engaged with her mom here. The makeup techs never seemed to listen to her, choosing not to answer her questions.

  Do you know how long the shoot’s supposed to go tonight?

  What’s taking them so long?

  Weren’t they supposed to start filming an hour ago?

  Does anybody know anything here?

  Am I just talking to myself?

  She’d eventually get flustered or bored or hungry and leave Amber behind. Mom always promised she’d come back with a cheese sandwich from craft services, but rarely did.

  That was okay, though. Amber just loved the silence.

  The stillness.

  The peace.

  She’d get lost in her thoughts. In her own reflection. In her transition into this new person. This Little Witch Girl.

  Amber ran her tongue along her lower teeth. She found the loose tooth and started to push. There, she felt that familiar flexing sensation of flesh tearing ever so slightly. She couldn’t help herself. Couldn’t stop herself. Something about it brought her great comfort. And pain.

  So she pushed harder.

  How far could her tongue push the tooth before it tore? Before the nerve snapped?

  There was the slightest taste of rust in her mouth now.

  Of blood.

  Pictures of fresh flesh burns were taped all along the wall. Real burns. Real scorched flesh. Intense close-ups of waxen skin. Amber couldn’t help but stare. She made a game out of trying to determine which part of the body had been burned in the photos, whether it was an arm or a cheek or a chest. The camera had gotten so close to the flesh, it was impossible to make out what part of the body it was. Amber stared at those pictures the longest. The rippled skin, losing its smoothness, looked like crunchy peanut butter spread over bread. Like cake frosting.

  Her stomach would grow queasy if she looked too long at them. The deep burns. Cindered tissue. Rippled meat. Her attention would drift over the surrounding bottles. So many different elixirs. Gelatin and Gafquat and liquid latex. Spirit gums and KY jelly. A vast palette of cream-based makeups. Every pigment had its own container. Their own skin. Paintbrushes with various tips. Some were fine-tipped, others bulky. Plus sponges. Spatulas. Tongue depressors.

  As much as she loved sitting in the makeup chair, the one thing Amber hadn’t liked at all, that she prayed she never had to do ever again, was the lifecasting.

  The lifecasting was the worst. It happened months ago, thankfully, but even thinking about it now made her shiver. Just remembering how dark it was under the plaster.

  It didn’t make sense to her that they needed a mold of her entire body. Still, they rubbed her skin down with petroleum jelly. It tickled. All those hands on her. Greasing her up. Like suntan lotion. She could almost imagine herself at the beach.

  One makeup tech teased her that she would slip out of their hands if they tried to lift her. She was wearing a bathing suit, but still. All those hands. Her skin glistened under the lights. She’d never shimmered so much. They squeezed her scalp into a swim cap, stuffing all her hair inside so she wouldn’t get any plaster in it. She felt like she was about to go swimming. She wanted to go swimming. She loved going to the pool, but her mother never let her. All that chlorine saps the moisture right out of your skin, she’d said. Dries you all up into a scarecrow.

  The special effects people inserted a pair of straws into Amber’s nose and told her to keep her lips sealed, her eyes squeezed shut, as they poured the plaster all over her body.

  Thick, cold oatmeal-like fluid. Her skin broke out in goose bumps, it felt so strange. She felt the pressure of it against her, the plaster contracting against her skin as it started to harden, taking on the shape of her body. Her limbs. The slope of her torso.

  All she wanted to do was open her eyes.

  To breathe through her mouth.

  She could feel her heart pounding against the inside of her chest as the plaster pressed down. It was squeezing her. This darkness. This cement.

  She couldn’t move. Couldn’t move her lips. Couldn’t scream.

  She was buried.

  Buried alive.

  Amber was no longer in the special effects studio in downtown Santa Monica.

  She was in the ground.

  In the cemetery.

  If she tried moving her arm, she was met with clammy resistance. The earth all around her was cold and compact. She could feel her eyes racing back and forth, like REMs in the thick of a nightmare, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t pry her greased eyelids open.

  They were sealed shut.

  The air. The air was all gone.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  They had buried her. They had dropped her in a hole in the middle of the night and then they filled the earth back in all around her and then they poured all that cement over her, weighing her body down with concrete so that she could never dig herself out again.

  Those men had left her below to asphyxiate.

  To drown.

  To die. She was going to die. Amber was going to die down here in the cold, cold ground and no one, no one would save her.

  Let me out let me out please let me out…

  Was she really screaming or was it all in her head? Her thoughts were racing
far too quickly through her skull. Her throat burned. Her chest was on fire. Her whole body burned.

  This must be how Jessica felt. Down there. In the ground.

  Under the cement.

  Waiting. Waiting for someone to save her.

  To free her.

  Let me out let me out let meoutletmeoutletmeeeeeeoooooout—

  Someone squeezed her hand.

  There was intense pressure around her skull. The earth shifted, tugging on her head, pulling her chest upward from her seat.

  The plaster gave way.

  An intense, blinding light seared her vision. The cylindrical lineation of fluorescent bulbs took shape over her head.

  Amber slowly blinked back to the makeup studio.

  When she asked how long she had been underground—wait, sorry, under the plaster cast, the tech grinned and said, “About fifteen minutes.”

  Only fifteen? Minutes? But it felt like…

  Like years. Like she had been buried in the ground for years. Decades, even.

  “This stuff hardens pretty quick,” the special effects tech said. “Sure feels like an eternity, though, don’t it?”

  It certainly did.

  Thankfully, the lifecasting was over. No more being buried alive. No more molds. The special effects crew took the cast and fashioned a series of burn appliances that would cover her body.

  Now came the fun part.

  They washed her face. Cleaned her skin. They prepared her hair, parting it where the burn would extend into her scalp. They applied the Gafquat to keep her hair upright, smoothing it down with a spatula and holding a hair dryer to it until it held its sculpted shape. They cut strips of nylon fiber, about a centimeter wide. Each was glued onto Amber’s face, then dried. Spirit glue was applied through the nylon, seeping onto to her cheek. When the nylon was peeled away, her skin held its distorted rictus. They did the same with her eyelids. Her lips. They applied gelatin where the burns were meant to look their deepest.

  The techs created smooth and rough areas, ragged and jagged edges of flesh. Hard ridges. Open chasms. Once the gelatin dried, they began to paint. Brushed flesh-toned makeup across the rippling skin. Shadows of red to create a raw sirloin complexion. Pink and vermillion to show where the flames had crept up along her neck. Across the jaw. They beefed up the purple in spots. Specks of blue to reinforce the burn and hint at the bone underneath. They swept charcoal-colored powder across the planes of her ravaged face. The ash and soot.

  They had her sip some mouthwash laced with blue food coloring to give her tongue and teeth a darker hue. She rinsed and spit and smiled, exposing her newly decayed grin.

  The latex made her skin itch, but she didn’t care. She had conditioned herself to sit very, very still. She thought of herself as a statue. She was made of stone.

  There was a solitude in this stillness that Amber quite liked. She found a calm tranquility rooted deep within her that she didn’t even know she had, a haven at the very center of herself where she could go whenever she sat in the makeup chair. This was where she went for all those hours. The darkest depths of her being. When it was time to finally resurface, to rise up and start filming, she would no longer be Amber. She would be someone else.

  Someone new.

  Amber would be Jessica.

  Jessica Ford.

  The Little Witch Girl of Pilot’s Creek.

  She still couldn’t believe she’d gotten the part. Actually gotten it. How many other girls had been hoping, dreaming, of sitting right here, right where she sat at that very moment?

  She was chosen. She was The One.

  There had been something special about Amber that made her perfect for the part, she’d overheard the casting director say. A shimmer, she called it. A glow.

  You have no idea how many girls we saw, the casting director muttered to her mother. Thought it’d never end…I started to go cross-eyed from all the kids coming through.

  Amber wasn’t supposed to be listening to this conversation, but she’d eavesdropped on them anyway. A glow, she had said. Amber heard it. She had a glow. Something special. Something buried deep within her, burning bright. This woman, this professional, had seen it.

  Unearthed it.

  I never doubted she’d get the part, her mother beamed, lying through her smile. She was born to play Jessica.

  Her math homework was piling up since shooting started weeks ago. A part of being on set was that her mother doubled as her tutor. Amber had been homeschooled for a year now, abandoning the public schools once Mom got it in her head that they could really make a go at this acting thing. The child labor laws were in her mother’s favor. The film had to hire somebody to look after Amber.

  Who better than her mother?

  Her own flesh and blood?

  Laws were laws, no matter how small the budget. Amber needed a guardian. A protector on this set. Someone who would have her better interests in mind. Who knew when to tell the director—wherever he was—that Amber had worked enough, thank you. That it was time for a break. A young girl can’t work these long hours. She needs to study. She needs a rest.

  But Amber hadn’t cracked open her math textbook ever since they had arrived on set. That was almost three weeks ago now. Her mother kept promising they’d get to it. Soon, hon, she’d say. Soon. Now let’s go over your lines one more time. Tomorrow’s a big day. They saved the best for last…Your big climactic scene! We wanna make sure we get the dialogue down, okay? We don’t wanna make a fool out of ourselves in front of everybody, now, do we? Definitely not the director. Not if you want to work with him again. You never know. He might be going places. You can never tell with young filmmakers these days. They could stay stuck in the horror rut for the rest of their lives or…

  But Amber wasn’t paying attention anymore. She was thinking about the girl.

  About Jessica.

  Who was she? She’d been told she was a real person. Or based on someone real, at least. Inspired by…That was what Mr. Ketchum had said. This story is inspired by true events.

  Real events.

  Just the thought of this all being real sent the slightest shiver down Amber’s spine.

  Jessica Ford had been a real girl. A living, breathing human being.

  Flesh and blood.

  Who was she? Who had she been? What had she been like?

  Would they have been friends? Amber was the same age as her. Maybe they would’ve gotten along. Maybe they would’ve liked each other.

  Amber found herself wanting to find out more about Jessica. Research for her role. Isn’t that what actors were supposed to do? Learn as much about the characters they play?

  She wanted to be Jessica.

  In the flesh.

  Amber would sit in this swivel chair while they burned her face away. First, the epidermis. Then the connective tissue and hair follicles. And finally the subcutaneous tissue, all the fat and muscle. All that was left was the blackened bone, her skull burned to a grinning crisp.

  “All done,” the FX tech said, squeezing Amber’s hand. “What do you think?”

  Amber stared at her reflection.

  The scorched girl glared back.

  Amber couldn’t see herself anymore. She had been replaced, her body swapped with the charred skeleton of this little witch girl.

  Jessica was here at last.

  FOUR

  The production team couldn’t afford trailers to house the actors, so they improvised by corralling them in the graveyard chapel—the only roofed structure for miles.

  The church had been built in 1888 from the pine scaffolding originally used for the erection of a granite column to commemorate Pilot Creek’s very own dead Confederate general Alasdair C. Franklin, or so the pewter plaque at the front of the church read. The planks were occasionally replaced throughout the years until the proud people
of Pilot’s Creek were capable of mustering up the funds for a proper restoration.

  It was so quiet here.

  Even though the church served as a holding pen for the actors and crew, everyone in the production treated it as if it were a hallowed place. All conversations were in hushed tones, out of respect.

  Craft services set up their station at the front. Soggy cheese sandwiches and hummus surrounded the pulpit. Amber watched each member of the crew come up to grab a bite. They would hesitate for a brief moment as if receiving benediction, the cold cuts their Eucharist.

  Amber had never had much religion in her life. She could count on one hand the number of times her mother had dragged her into a church. But she liked sitting in these wooden pews, waiting for her call. Her attention drifted over the stained-glass windows lining the church walls.

  Saints suffering from leprosy.

  Angels tangled in serpents.

  Jesus on the cross. Amber stared at him the longest. A sliver of colored glass was missing from his palm. The night’s cool breeze blew into the chink, whistling through his stigmata.

  Amber had to be guided to her pew by a production assistant. The PA held her hand and led her to her seat, insisting that she sit still. As still as possible. Don’t crease your costume.

  The latex kept itching. Especially around her nose.

  Now it had reached her temples.

  Her cheeks.

  Amber had to stop thinking about it. Get her mind off the itch, no matter how much she wanted to scratch. What time is it? she wondered. It’s gotta be late…

  Amber shifted in her seat. The wood warped underneath her, echoing throughout the church. It was well past her bedtime. But she wasn’t tired. Quite the opposite. Every bit of her body was wide awake, alive, brimming with electricity. Her first movie! Her first speaking role in a real movie! She felt naughty staying up so late. But she loved it. Absolutely loved it. These night shoots felt like a slumber party, only the other kids were much older than she was. Way cooler. She had been invited to hang out with the big kids, play their strange big-kid games. Like smoking cigarettes. Telling ghost stories in the cemetery. Playing Ghosts in the Graveyard. All Amber had to do was keep cool. Keep her giddiness to a minimum.