An Evening at Joe's

by Gillian Horvath

  The shock of the air surging back into lungs that should have permanently suspended their rhythmic ebb and flow caused him to cry out involuntarily. And an unformed howl of frightened incomprehension it was, one that echoed his first sound in this world.

  The air that newly filled him disturbed more than it refreshed. It was rank. It hung thick and foul with the putrid stench of decay and death.

  He blinked his eyes, trying to shake off that undiscovered country from whence no traveller should return, and his gaze alighted upon...

  What?

  For try as he might, he could make no sense of the sights that he beheld. The white and the pink; the red and the scarlet; flesh and bone and bruise and gore. Torn cloth, broken steel; wood and stone and dust.

  Nothing human stirred.

  The only sounds were the patter and plop of claw on carcass and the gentle swooshing of the air under the wings of the vultures, methodically going about their macabre business.

  High above in a dispassionate sky, the sun blazed down, mocking and scorching all below.

  He lay spluttering for a few moments, trying to reorientate. He wanted to sob, to wail his pain and loneliness to the heavens, but he was too shocked to utter a sound to disturb the eerie peace. His gaze absently took in the bodies around him. They seemed so much a mirror of himself: small, pale, broken children, wrapped in shredded cloths, scarlet stained and torn. Why were they so still and silent when his heart thumped so loud within his chest?

  But with a sickening chill he realized the thunder was not inside him. It was in the earth. The whole world was beginning to shake and tremble beneath him. And in a dizzying whirl, they were upon him. Wild, dark figures, racing across the earth, seemingly stretched from earth to sky, all limb and cloak and double head. Long, spindle legs, stampeding the ground, kicking up a suffocating black fog of dust. And the cries! Blood curdling shrieks that filled the air with hatred and anger and lust.

  The Creatures spattered and pounded the ground with their many legs as they eased to a halt before him. Then they split majestically into halves, one wild, masked head separating from another, the fear- some, painted Devil-Heads still screeching and cackling as they tugged at the mouth straps of their anxious, four-legged charges.

  And the Devil-Heads began to approach the mass of former humanity from where he viewed their progress. They kicked and prodded the heap, body by body, closer and closer to the spot where he lay, still dazed and disjointed, paralysed with fear, barely able to release the breath from his newly animate chest. Until finally they were rifling the corpses a mere embrace away and he could hold his tongue no longer. His tiny lungs let forth the only noise they knew. He howled!

  A howl that screamed for succor to all the powers of eternity!

  A howl of fear and frustration; of utter incomprehension.

  A howl that vented the pitted anger of his betrayal, and loss, and undefended, impotent vulnerability

  The Creatures stopped in their tracks, momentarily stunned into inaction. Then he heard their calls once more. Low and short and hesitant at first, but quickly gathering confidence. Building in pace and pitch and volume until they were shrieks once more, the shrieks and cackles which had accompanied their arrival.

  And suddenly he was in the air. Wailing and flailing. Helpless. Exposed.

  One of the Creatures was holding him high above the ground and all he knew now was terror. He screamed and screamed to make it stop. And for a second he was flying, parodying the black birds that patiently waited their turn on the barren branches a dozen yards away. Now he was caught in another calloused hand, shaken and bent like a rag doll and tossed carelessly once more into the fetid air. And again he was in the clutch of a Demon Creature. It poked a strong, angular finger into his defenseless belly and he could smell the rancid breath from its savage mouth. And as he cried and pleaded anew to feel the half-remembered warmth of his mother's breast, he saw the glint of sunlight on steel. And all he felt was the coldness pass through his soul. And the pain was gone.

  All was silence.

  In a second his lungs were as full as if he were a child's balloon at Christmas. The sunlight stung his eyeballs and the surprised cries of his tormentors brought consciousness flooding back, coalescing into realization. He had wakened from the nightmare, but the nightmare still lived on.

  Here again the rotting pile of baby flesh; here again the stench. And as he cried out to the gods once more, an inarticulate plea that begged, nay demanded "Why?," he could hear the cackling Harpies' approach from nearby where they had been engaged in who knew what abhorrent act.

  A moment and one of them was at his side. (That same sickly breath!) He cried again and again in righteous indignation, but who would hear and save him? Now he was in its grasp, plucked untimely from his broken brothers' sides, a plaything for a twisted child. He could sense the euphoric joy of his tormentor; deranged, disturbed delight. He could see its teeth, exposed in a mocking grin, salivating at the prospect of the unspeakable games now crowding its degenerate mind, fighting for which would be first. The Creature threw back its head and let out a chilling, jagged laugh and as everything went dark he thought for a second he was tumbling through blackness down its gullet, into its stomach.

  But this darkness was warm and soft. Did he imagine, or was it, even, comforting? A second Creature had plucked him from the first and now held him close, shrouded in its furry coat. He was buried in a dark, rumbling cavern, noises issuing from deep, deep inside, indistinct and unidentifiable. He dreamed, or half remembered, a time of peace and safety, another body's warmth surrounding him, nourishing him, its heartbeat lulling his every thought and fancy.

  But his hope of Paradise Found lasted but a flicker before a violent hand ripped him from his pouch and held him squealing and squinting in the sunlight once more.

  And this hand was cold.

  A cold he had never known before.

  A cold that had never felt warmth; that could never be warmed.

  A heartless, bloodless cold that chilled as it stilled the air.

  The hand raised him to its master's face and the eye that met him there was icy and still as a glacial fjord. It stared, deep, deep inside him and pondered.

  Once more there was silence, and out of the silence came the laughter of the Cold One.

  A chill laugh. Misleadingly soft. Full of guile and calculation. Its fearsome hand tightened its grip and held him aloft and the cry he heard was of ironic enchantment; amusement at the fickleness of Fortune, the appreciation of discovered chance.

  He was overcome with foreboding, sickened by a premonition of slow, painful dissection and decrease.

  When a fourth hand plucked him from out of his frigid prison.

  The last of the Creatures had him in its clutch.

  And the Creature felt like... nothing. He had no sense of it. No anger. No hatred. No fear. No peace.

  The hand was soft but firm, unyielding yet not harsh. And the eyes were calm and understanding. They seemed to say, "Don't worry. All will now be well. Leave everything to me."

  And as he saw, as if in slow motion, the great steel blade rise high above him, blocking out the sun, the one sole thing he sensed, beyond all else, was the overwhelming feeling that this one, he could trust.

  The Other Side

  of the Mirror

  Dennis Berry

  with Darla Kershner

  DIRECTOR: Dennis Berry

  Dennis Berry has directed more than thirty episodes of Highlander, spanning all six seasons. Our most frequent director; he had a hand in many of the most significant developments in the series, including being responsible for much of Highlander's signature foggy gloom. The child of expatriate Americans living in France, Dennis's unique personality is a blend of Paris and Brooklyn; his inimitable style was copied by Duncan MacLeod for the "French Director" sequence in the episode "Money No Object."

  A light fog surrounds two figures lying still in a dark alley. The fog continues to roll in
as one of the figures, a man, rises to his knees. Duncan MacLeod, the Highlander, staggers to his feet, leaning heavily on his katana that sparkles in the gray haze. As the battle weary warrior regains his balance he is suddenly hit by an invisible force. His back arches and his limbs become rigid. His mouth opens in a silent scream of intense pain as his body begins to tremble. Barrages of small explosions are barely seen as the fog thickens. Duncan MacLeod is completely consumed by the dense dark mist.

  "CUT!"

  "Get the overhead lights."

  "Open the doors, get some fresh air in here."

  "Somebody turn off that damn fog machine."

  Bright lights suddenly illuminate a small sound stage exposing the chaos that surrounds the filming of a television series.

  "Perfect," announces Dennis, the director of the episode, and as he opens his mouth to finish the sentence, he finds a chorus of voices saying it with him, "Let's do it once more."

  Adrian, dropping his grave "Duncan MacLeod" demeanor, laughs at the director's predictability. Dennis has directed more episodes of Highlander than any other man alive; by now, the crew know his little quirks by heart.

  "Dennis," Adrian teases, "I swear you'll be on your death bed getting the last rites, and you'll tell the priest, ‘Perfect, let's do it again.'"

  Adrian heads off towards his trailer as Dennis and Rick, the Director of Photography, quickly review the footage to see if they can salvage anything from the last take, leaving the 1st AD, Kevin, to deal with the overworked, overtired crew.

  "Okay, listen up. We've got to get this shot tonight, guys. You have a half hour break while we reset the blasts," Kevin tries to convey more positively than he feels. The crew is starting their 14th hour and their exhaustion is apparent. It's going to take more than a half-hour break to bring this crew back to life.

  Groans and mumbles echo throughout the sound stage. Don, the prop master, removes the "body" of the beheaded "Erik Kling," Evil-Immortal-of-the-Week, from the pseudo alley. Terri and Lisa in craft-services try their best to make the now stale bagels look appetizing. The PA's with no place better to go find comfortable spots on the set to crash. It's going to be a long night.

  A flicker of light and movement of shadows let Adrian know that someone's in his trailer. Taking a deep breath, he begins to open the door, but a high pitched giggle that doesn't sound human makes him pause. He slowly and carefully opens the door just a crack and peers inside. Then he slams the door wide and stalks inside to angrily confront the intruder: Stan is lounged out on his couch, drinking his beer, eating his popcorn and watching his TV.

  "What are you doing here?" Adrian asks, in a not-so-friendly tone.

  "Watching The Wizard of Oz; Dorothy just landed in Munchkin-land," Stan answers innocently, his attention focused on the TV.

  Adrian growls, plops down in a chair, grabs the remote and turns the channel, ignoring Stan's groans. "No, what are you doing here?" He motions his hands in a big circle to indicate a bigger picture. "You're not in tonight's scene."

  "I've been practicing with F," rubbing his sore arms for emphasis, "and the man's a slave driver; the only thing he's missing is a whip. Did you know they have me doing three sword fights in the next episode?"

  "You asked for it." Adrian clicks the TV, flipping the channels. "At the beginning of the season, what did you do?" He doesn't wait for an answer. "You called the writing office in LA and complained that Richie wasn't seeing enough action." Stopping the remote on Twelve Angry Men, he glances over at Stan, who's still not getting it. "Never complain to the writers."

  "Oh boy," Stan groans. He falls back on the couch, going noticeably pale.

  "What did you do?" Adrian asks, eyebrows raised.

  "I called and complained that they were making Richie too macho."

  Adrian doesn't even try to control his laughter. "I hope you like wearing a dress, next thing you'll be..."

  Adrian's torture of Stan is interrupted by a knock at the door and the AD's voice from outside. "They're ready for you on the set."

  ***

  A light fog surrounds two figures lying still in a dark alley. The fog continues to roll in as one of the figures, a man, rises to his knees. Duncan MacLeod, the Highlander, staggers to his feet, leaning heavily on his katana that sparkles in the gray haze. As the battle weary warrior regains his balance he is suddenly hit by an...

  BONG! BONG!

  "Cut!"

  BONG! BONG!

  "What the hell!"

  BONG! BONG!

  "What is that?"

  BONG! BONG!

  "Where is it coming from?"

  BONG! BONG! BONG!

  "Somebody make it stop!"

  BONG!

  The studio is plunged into darkness as the unseen clock chimes for the twelfth and last time.

  Adrian is first to break the silence of the shocked crew. "That's it, I am out of here." He makes his way through the dark to the outside door.

  "Wait!" yells Dennis. The director catches up with the actor and walks with him through the studio door, into the parking lot outside.

  "What the...?" Adrian's words fade, his voice can no longer convey his total disbelief.

  "What's wrong?" Dennis asks, running into Adrian's back. The actor has come to a sudden and complete stop. Looking over Adrian's shoulder, Dennis sees what's paralyzed him. It takes a moment for the director to realize just what it is he's seeing. Where there should be a studio parking lot filled with cars, trucks, vans and teamsters, is now a dark alley engulfed in fog.

  "How—?" Adrian takes a step into the alley, heading for the spot where his car should be. He only gets a few feet when he trips and falls on something he can't see in the fog. Adrian gets to his knees as Dennis comes to his side. Both men see at the same time what Adrian tripped over. Lying in the middle of the alley, mostly hidden in the fog, is the body of Erik Kling. The man "Duncan MacLeod" had slain on film only minutes, hours, or an eternity before.

  But this is no prop. This body is horribly, sickeningly real.

  Adrian whirls around and heads back to the set, hoping there's some logical explanation, that this is some elaborate practical joke. It has to be. Stan getting even for that stunt with the bananas and the video camera last month...

  Adrian and Dennis reach the set to find it completely deserted. They couldn't have been gone for more than a few minutes. There's no way everyone could have cleared out this fast. Adrian checks his watch to make sure, but the hands have stopped at midnight. In fact all the clocks have stopped; it is as if all time has stopped.

  Then, out of the thick fog that blankets the set, they hear approaching footsteps. A small red light is now visible and coming toward them.

  "Gotta get the shot, gotta get the shot, gotta get the shot." The mantra starts as nothing more than a whisper, growing louder and more frantic as it grows nearer.

  When the light is almost on them, they can make out the figure of Harvey, the camera operator, carrying a Steadicam. He circles them, zooming in tight. "Gotta get the shot, gotta get the shot, can't go home until we get the shot."

  "Harvey! Snap out of it. What the hell is going on?" Adrian grabs Harvey by both shoulders and shakes him until he stops the chanting. "Where is everyone? Did they all go home?"

  "Home? Home?" Harvey begins to laugh hysterically until his laughter turns into sobs. "There is no home, this is our home, this is our hell, we're trapped here forever." Harvey's voice turns from pathetic torment to venomous anger. He grabs Adrian's shirt with both fists. "This is because of you, Duncan MacLeod. You mocked the gods." He lets go of Adrian and starts to back away into the fog. "Now, the gods, they mock us."

  "Wait!" Adrian calls after the camera operator. "What can we do? How do we fix this? How do we get home?"

  "Can't go home, until we get the shot," Harvey's voice answers through the fog. "Gotta get the shot, gotta get the shot..."

  To Adrian's surprise, Dennis is nodding, as though the strange encounter made sense to him. "Oka
y, Adrian. Now I see what happened. It's as if we played so much with the game of travelling through time, and we played so much with the rules of natural law by doing fiction about Immortals that suddenly, as a revenge, nature is punishing us." He looks Adrian in the eye. "We are in purgatory, we are stuck with being forever alive"—with a heavy sigh—"on a film set." Dennis then disappears into the fog.

  "Dennis... wait.... Come back," Adrian shouts. Any attempt to pursue his friend is lost as an explosion brings him to his knees. The actor barely has time to cover his face, protecting it from the heat, as a second explosion then a third engulf the soundstage in flames.

  What threatened to be a sob comes out as laughter. "Fire! Of course there's fire. After all I'm in hell. You gotta have fire in hell...." Adrian pushes through the exit door and is surprised to find himself in the studio backlot, not the alley as he has expected. He takes off running for the relative safety of his trailer, across the backlot, through the studio door and right into someone, knocking them both down.

  "Sorry, ma'am," Adrian hastily apologizes, noting that the person lying under him is wearing a dress.

  "Yeah, well, watch it next time and I would appreciate if you didn't call me ma'am." The voice definitely does not belong to a lady of any type.

  "Stan! Thank God!" Adrian gets up off the ground and pulls Stan with him. "What the hell are you doing in that dress?"

  "Hell is the key word here, man," Stan says, dusting the dirt from his dress. "Richie is getting in touch with his feminine side," Stan's voice turns into a whine. "They're making me a transvestite, an Immortal transvestite. Can you believe this crap?"

  "I don't know what to believe anymore," Adrian answers solemnly.

  "Sorry man, but you get no pity from me. This whole purgatory thing is all in your hands. But hey, it could be worse, you could be spending eternity in a dress..." Stan gives him a wry smile, "...and panty hose. Now that is truly hell, they're so"—wiggling for emphasis—"binding."