by Brian Rowe
With any other person, especially an established geek or an overjoyed grandmother, these little spoken clichés would’ve sounded hopeful. But with Anaya, they sounded downright vindictive.
“You ready for this?” Dylan said, running his hands through his Ron Weasley hair.
Brin shrugged. “I have no idea,” she said. “I just hope it doesn’t snow.”
---
When the black clouds started dumping barrels of snow against the freeway halfway through their drive, Brin was the first to suggest that they turn around. But Anaya made it clear that if anyone else provided a similar suggestion, she was going to take their precious HD camera and smash it against his or her face.
“I just don’t want us to get stuck in the middle of nowhere,” Brin said.
“We’ll be fine,” Dylan said, shoving his elbow against her side. “Don’t piss off the beast.”
“What?” Anaya said.
“Nothing!” Dylan shouted.
“You call her the beast, too?” Brin said.
“Of course. I’m not stupid.”
Brin opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out. Instead she nodded and shrugged, resting her head against the window, looking out to see the snow coming down. It wasn’t the world’s heaviest snowstorm, but Brin worried about the group’s safety.
“I should be home by dinner, Jessica, I promise,” Chace said. The jock’s phone had been shoved up against his ear for the past ten minutes.
Brin and Dylan listened to his phone call to his girlfriend—it provided the only entertainment value at the moment.
“I was thinking,” Chace continued sweetly on the phone, “that tomorrow we could go to the Olive Garden for lunch. I have something special to give you.”
When he started making pathetic kissing noises, even Anaya up front was noticeably sick to her stomach. She turned around. “Chace. I’m gonna say what we’re all thinking—”
“Shh,” Chace said to Anaya. He smiled and re-focused his attention on the phone conversation. “I know, baby. I know your birthday’s not for two more weeks, but I have something else for you. Trust me, you’re gonna love it, the same way that I love y—” He brought the phone down, examined it like it was a relic from outer space, then pushed it up against his ear again. “Jessica? You there?”
Brin glanced down at her phone. A few minutes ago it had sported two bars of reception. Now there was no signal at all.
“Jessica… Jess…” He turned to Lavender. “She’s not answering.”
“Good!” Lavender shouted, speaking for the first time in almost an hour. “Another minute and I was gonna stab you with my hair pin.”
“But I need to talk to her!”
“Just turn off your phone!” Dylan shouted, shoving his foot against Chace’s shoulder. “We’re in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a snowstorm. There’s not gonna be any service for a while.”
“A long while,” Brin added.
“Hey!” Anaya shouted, turning around to see her little minions talking over each other. “I’m your director today, OK? I’m not your goddamn kindergarten teacher. I need you guys to be quiet, and I need you to think about your scenes. We’re gonna be there soon.”
“Did they get scripts?” Brin said. “I didn’t get a script.”
“You’re the production assistant,” Anaya said. “You don’t need a script.”
Brin tried not to groan. “I don’t care, I’d still like to read it.” She tried to say the following in the least sarcastic way possible: “I want to see what you put together for today, Anaya.”
The two girls stared at each other for a moment. Brin couldn’t tell if Anaya could see through her fake smile. Anaya finally turned to her left. “Dylan, do you have a copy?”
“Here,” Dylan said. His script was folded in half.
“You’ve had a script this whole car ride and didn’t tell me?” Brin playfully punched her acquaintance on the shoulder and opened the script to page one.
She started to read.
The story told of two men with vendettas against each other who agree to a gunslinger showdown in an abandoned ghost town. It’s 1899, and both men have terminal cancer. Right before the first man draws his weapon, the wives of both men show up and try to get them, once again, to stop their decade-long feud. The men agree to befriend each other if the two women agree to a showdown against each other. The women decide they’d rather have a duel to the death than see one or both of their husbands die. The women shoot at the same time, killing each other on the spot, and the two men walk happily, now as friends, into the sunset. But before the men are able to leave the ghost town, the two women appear again, now as pale, flesh-hungry zombies, and proceed to kill and eat their husbands. Then the two zombie women walk hand-in-hand into the sunset together, maniacally laughing.
“This is terrible!” Brin shouted. “Has anybody read this?”
“Your opinion means nothing,” Anaya said. “You wouldn’t understand the themes and symbolism and importance of the piece, anyway. Your list of favorite films probably includes Titanic, Twilight, Dirty Dancing. Oh, and let me guess: Sandra Bullock romantic comedies.”
“Anaya! Anyone with half a brain would know this script is ridiculous! And not in a good way.” Brin sighed. “We’re supposed to be making a western-themed horror movie, am I right? Not a slapstick comedy!”
“There’s nothing funny about this movie,” Anaya said.
“Nothing funny? The two men get eaten by their zombie wives!”
“It’s drama. It’s emotion. It’s real.”
“It’s real? Are you high?”
“It’s going to work,” Anaya said. “And you know what, Brin? Your negativity is really grating on me. I’m honestly ready to kick you out of the car, right out into this snow, and let you freeze to death, I swear to God.”
“Oh, I dare you.”
“Double dare me?”
“I triple dare you!”
“Stop!” Lavender turned around, her face bright red. “Enough with the arguing! Guys! We’re already on our way. We already have the script. Let’s just get through today, make this goddamned movie, and move on with our lives. The two of you can kill yourselves later for all I care. But let’s just get through this day! You two be nice to each other, or I’m gonna scream. And you don’t want to hear me scream!”
“Oh my God, you don’t,” Chace added, a look of annoyance on his face. “I’ve heard Lavender scream. When she got her period this one time. Oh my God, it was frightening.”
“Shut up, Chace,” Lavender said.
“Gladly.”
It took Brin a minute to register her newest complaint. She had read through the script paying more attention to the inanity of the plot and dialogue than to the number of characters. But it finally hit her.
“Wait,” Brin said.
“What now?” Anaya said.
“There’s four characters in the script. Two guys, and two girls.”
“Good job, that’s right. Two plus two equals four.”
“You’re gonna act in the movie, Anaya?”
She laughed. “Of course not.”
Brin swallowed loudly. She knew the answer before she asked it. “Then who’s gonna play the second female character?”
“You’re gonna be in the movie, Brin,” Anaya said. “I’ve got your costume up front. You can change when we get there.”
“What? I’m not acting in the movie!”
“Yes you are.”
“But I don’t want to!” Suddenly being Anaya’s production assistant didn’t sound so bad.
Dylan turned away from the window and awkwardly rubbed Brin’s leg, like the sensation would give her comfort. “It’s OK. Calm down.”
“I am calm,” Brin said. “I’m calm, and I’m pissed! You told me I was going to be your assistant, Anaya.”
“Yes, and as my assistant, I’m going to need you to assist me, as being one more actor in my movie.”
“
But that’s not fair.”
“What are you gonna do? Sue me?” Anaya turned around. “You’ll be good, Brin. Don’t worry about it.”
“But I—”
“You’ll get to be a zombie!” Sawyer shouted, saying his first words to someone in the van besides Anaya. As he sped into the fast lane to get around a slow truck, he lifted up a bag of make-up goodies and turned around to face Brin. “See? I’m gonna help you with the make-up—”
Brin saw the van coasting past the yellow line toward the guardrail. “Whoa, hey! Watch the road!”
“That’s actually something Brin and I agree on,” Anaya said, grabbing the wheel.
Sawyer averted his eyes back to the road, swerved awkwardly for a moment, then re-entered the fast lane and started speeding down the icy road at seventy miles an hour.
“We’re all gonna be zombies if you keep driving like that,” Anaya added.
“I’m fine,” he said, not laughing at her joke. “I’m the best driver in the world.”
Brin cleared her throat loudly. “Anaya, we’re not done with this conversation.”
“Yes we are.”
“No we’re not. Please. I’m not an actress!”
“Shh! Quiet everyone.” Sawyer started slowing down. Four lanes became two, and Brin looked out the window to see a small town in the distance, the first one in nearly fifty miles.
“Is this it?” Brin said. “It’s a town, but there’s nothing ghostly about it.”
“This is Bridgeport,” Sawyer said, as he slowed way down to twenty-five miles per hour.
“What’s Bridgeport?” Dylan said.
“It’s the last town before Bodie,” Sawyer said. “We’re now only ten minutes away from the Bodie turn-off.”
“Oh goodie,” Brin said, crossing her arms.
“I want everyone prepared, OK?” Anaya said. “We’re gonna start shooting right away. We only have so many hours until the sun goes down.”
“You don’t want to rehearse, Anaya?” Brin said condescendingly. “What kind of a director are you?”
Anaya didn’t respond. She stared at Brin with an angry scowl that suggested their actor-director working relationship was going to be strained at best today.
Brin sighed and looked out the window to see that they had already passed through Bridgeport. The town consisted of just four blocks—they were already closing in on the Bodie turn-off.
It didn’t take ten minutes to get there. It took only five. Sawyer maneuvered around a large mountain, before coming to a blink-and-you’d-miss-it turn-off to Route 270, to Bodie Ghost Town.
There was just one problem.
“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me,” Anaya said.
Brin looked back out the window and shook her head in disbelief.
The road was closed.
Chapter Ten
The passenger side door slammed shut, and everyone in the car watched with fascination as Anaya stepped out into the cold and marched forward to the large orange “Road Closed” blockade, which was big enough to obstruct the entire narrow entrance to Route 270.
There was no other sign nearby, no phone number to call for help, no list of a time or date when the road would re-open. Anaya glanced around the area for a moment, then turned her attention back to the blockade.
“Is she going to spit on it?” Lavender said.
“Spit on it?” Brin said. “She’s probably gonna try to blow it up.” She turned to Dylan, who was leaning forward, trying to either watch Anaya or take a sniff of Chace’s cologne.
“Does she have dynamite?” Dylan said. He smiled at Brin and shrugged. “Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“I told you guys this was a bad idea,” Brin said. “We came all this way for nothing.”
Everybody watched as Anaya stepped behind the blockade and tried to see if she could lift it. She gritted her teeth, narrowed her eyes, and moaned too loud for comfort. It didn’t change a thing. She couldn’t move the blockade a single centimeter.
“Goddammit!” she shouted in the distance. “Sawyer! Get out here! Come help me!”
He acquiesced with a notable sigh and stepped outside. The black clouds were still omnipresent up top but weren’t unleashing any perilous menace yet. Anaya pointed angrily at Sawyer and gesticulated what she wanted.
The girl’s directing already, Brin thought.
“What is this?” Lavender said in a whisper. “What are they doing?”
“I’m guessing they think they have the strength of a hundred men,” Dylan said. “That, or Anaya thinks she’s the Hulk.”
“Oh, she thinks that for sure,” Brin said. “Is there any doubt?”
“This is ridiculous,” Chace said, opening the sliding door and racing over to the blockade. Lavender stayed still for a few seconds, then followed Chace. Now the only two left in the car were Brin and Dylan, still cooped up in the back.
“Should we help?” Dylan said, moving toward the sliding door.
Brin grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Hold on. I don’t believe it.”
The two watched as the other four pushed the blockade, slowly but effectively, to the left, far enough so that the van could get by.
“Is this really happening?” Brin said.
“Apparently so,” Dylan said in astonishment.
“The road’s closed.”
“Uhh, yeah.”
“So this is illegal.”
Anaya, Chace, and Lavender stayed put as Sawyer ran back to the vehicle. He got inside and slammed the door.
“Are you guys crazy?” Brin said.
Sawyer didn’t respond. He turned the car back on and slowly drove up past the blockade, avoiding it by mere inches. Once the car crept past it, Sawyer stopped, turned the car back off, and stepped outside again.
“This is nuts,” Brin said, shaking her head in frustration.
She and Dylan turned around and stared at the other four, who were now pushing the blockade back into the center of the road.
Brin noticed a car race past on the main freeway.
“Somebody’s gonna see this,” she said. “Somebody’s gonna report it. We’re all gonna go to jail, or worse, get stranded out here on a road that’s not even meant to be driven on.”
Dylan smiled. “Chace looks really cute with his period clothing, don’t you think?”
Brin rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe that’s what you’re thinking about right now.”
“It’s all I ever think about.”
Brin chuckled as the four finished pushing the blockade back and returned to the vehicle. They all sounded out of breath as they sat back in their seats and closed the doors.
“Thanks for your help there, Brin,” Anaya said. “Thoughtful as always.”
“You guys are insane!” Brin shouted. “We’re making a movie here. We’re not saving the world. The road is obviously closed for a reason!”
“See,” Anaya said, as Sawyer started driving down the slim two-lane road. The pavement could only be partially seen, with most of it covered in snow. “Brin, this is why I’m directing the movie. Because you don’t have the same love for filmmaking I do. Any girl who wants to make it as a director has to break the law from time to time to get her vision on film. Do you think Sofia Coppola got permits to film Lost in Translation? Don’t think so. And am I gonna let a stupid roadside blockade prevent me from making my movie? Hell no!”
“Well, yeah,” Brin said. “But that’s Sofia Coppola.”
“Shut up!”
“We could get arrested! This is breaking the law!”
“I said, shut up!”
“Or worse, the van could break down out here, in the middle of nowhere. May I remind you all that we have no phone service—”
“SHUT YOUR MOUTH!” Anaya shouted, loud enough to nearly destroy Brin’s eardrums. “I’ve had it up to here with you, Brin! Seriously! You are trying to sabotage my movie, and I’m tired of it! From now on, you shut the hell up and keep to yourself! Understand me?�
��
Everyone, except Sawyer, turned to Brin. She showed no emotion—not a sarcastic smile, not a defeated frown.
Brin just said, “OK.”
“OK?”
“OK.”
Anaya nodded. “Good.” She turned her attention back to the snowy road. “Everyone hang tight. We should be at Bodie shortly.”
Brin crossed her arms and stared out the window.
It was going to be a very long day.
---
The drive to Bodie Ghost Town was, despite the occasional scary spinouts on the hard-to-detect black ice, a rare beauty to behold. The impressively large mountains, which lined the paved road for the entirety of the drive, were covered in snow, and the awesome sinking valleys far off in the distance showcased a serene winter wonderland.
Brin assumed the drive to the actual ghost town was going to last merely a few minutes more, but it took nearly forty-five minutes to reach the end of the thirteen-mile-long paved road.
“Is this it?” Lavender said, pointing to the dirt road up ahead.
“Do you see a ghost town?” Anaya said. “Do you think we drove this far to film scenes in an open snow-covered field?”
“I just…” the blonde girl shrugged. “I saw the dirt road.”
“I’ve been here before. You’ll know when we get there.” Anaya turned to Sawyer, who looked like he needed a break from his heavy concentration. “Punch it. We’re burning daylight.”
Sawyer picked up his speed from twenty MPH to twenty-five, and when the left front tire rolled over a small boulder, Brin awoke from her cat nap, drool running down her chin.
“What… how…” Brin turned to her right. Dylan was asleep, too, peacefully snoring.
Brin pursed her lips and looked forward as the van curved around a large hill. She wondered if they would ever arrive to their destination.
She wiped the drool away and stared out the window. The clouds had either dropped closer to the ground or been injected with evil black spookiness, because it was now looking more like night outside rather than day.
Brin almost turned away from the window, when something in the distance caught her eye.
The vehicle swerved around a human-sized boulder and started up a steep hill, one that promised to be the final big climb of the day. In a few moments, the van would reach the top, the ghost town would come into view, and the group could finally start making their movie.
