by JournalStone
“Bird,” says the other male, a black man. He has a huge wound going down his side. Long peacock feathers of every color of the rainbow have been tarred to his arms and his exposed back. An extra layer of barbed wire is stretched across his bare chest, making certain he is nice and snug.
“Tiger,” says a blonde.
“Monkey,” a girl with glasses.
The camera cuts to a wide shot; shows all five writhing in pain, clinging to the wall. “ACTION!” shouts the voice behind the camera. All five, one by one, slowly, painfully, rip themselves free of the nails and the barbwire.
I turned my head during this scene. I admit...I was feeling pretty squeamish. Every few seconds I'd peek at the screen to check on their progress. Once they all got down from the wall, for a good five minutes, all they did was scream at each other. Finally, the man in the bird costume got them working together. They did their best to stop each other's bleeding. In a desperate attempt to make weapons, Dog began ripping floorboards.
Twenty minutes and counting...19:99, 20:00, 20:01....
Cautiously, they make their way outside the room into the hallway. Figures are stirring; encroaching ever closer. Peculiar shadows float above the ground, closing in from all directions. They are round as beach balls with water-hose arms scooting against the floor as they float past; long necks sprout up from their swollen torsos leading to an elongated cow-shaped head, with rotten flesh and exposed serrated teeth. They hiss at the people, spitting black tar. Dog and Bird swing their boards at the creatures but the brittle wood shatters against their bulbous, round hides. Monkey takes one good look at the hovering menaces and finds she can't move. An eruption of tar covers her legs and hips. Instantly, she hits the floor—face first—screaming, burning and fizzing. The skin around her leg is reduced to a flakey, gooey paste. Tiger runs to help her, pulls Monkey to her feet; but the skin peels off like a banana, revealing bone. She passes out in Tiger's arms.
They have no choice but to leave Monkey behind. Rubbery hands grope her clothing, ripping it to shreds. Their tongues unravel and roll across her body, coating her in a thick lacquer of saliva. Sometime around the 23:00 minute mark, they grow bored of her. A dozen hands pluck her from the ground and, with tremendous force, they slam her head into the wall. Her nose shatters, her glasses split in half; her skull cracks; and they leave her there, twitching, as blood pools over the floor's wooden slats.
“CUT!” says the off screen voice. Finally, the Director walks out from behind the camera. He stands over the body of Monkey, grinning a smile too big for a human face. The Director has dark eyes with hair the color of wheat, his facial features are simple, as if they were merely painted on; he wears a pinstriped suit, with brown penny loafers, complete with a tiny copper penny. He bends down, kisses her forehead at the exact spot of the gash. Methodically, building tension, the Director reaches inside his coat pocket, produces a tiny pair of scissors and cuts a lock of her hair. He smells it. He kisses it. Then, he pins it to his shirt. He shows the camera. “Four to go!” he shouts, giddy.
31:19, 31:20, 31:21....
At this point, I'd had enough. Something seemed too realistic about it...it never felt like I was watching a movie. I asked for a drink of water but nobody moved. I got up, found the bathroom on my own, splashed water on my face, and gave my heart a minute to slow down. When I came back, something—the cross between a praying mantis and a petrified, gnarled tree—carried the head of the man in the dog costume in his hands...and only the head! The body was left inside some bizarre torture device with spikes and wheels and bloody pieces of hemp rope. I was instantly glad I'd missed that part.
“You gonna puke, Scanlan?” Bernie asked me.
“Maybe.”
“So, howdoya think he did it? How were those effects possible? Computer graphics, you think?”
I shook my head, lost in thought. How did they do this? I wondered. How was this movie even possible? Did he super-impose these monsters? No, couldn't be. I was almost a hundred percent certain it wasn't any kind of layer or a composite; I have a good eye for that kind of thing. And these monsters were seamless! Computers? I supposed it was possible but as far as I knew, there wasn't a computer on the planet that could generate something so realistic. It definitely wasn't prosthetics or wirework of any kind. I mean, the monsters didn't even have a humanistic base...this was something else entirely.
“What if it's real?” I heard myself say. As soon as I said it, I wished I could take it back. However, surprisingly, no one laughed.
“You just gave the director the ultimate compliment Ronald,” said Pyramid Nose, his gruff voice echoed above the screams of the girl dressed as a tiger. She was being burned alive on some kind of gigantic oven; her hands bound, her feet dangling over an eye of a stove. The flames were so intense her costume melted and then her skin began to catch fire. A group of weasel-like atrocities sat around a picnic table, naked, save for plastic bibs; they beat forks and knives on the table like impatient children.
But before they were allowed to dig in, the same man with blonde curly locks stepped out from behind the camera, yielding a very familiar pair of scissors. Again, the Director clipped out a chunk of her charred, well-done hair, then pinned the clump next to the first one. He was getting quite the collection.
44:58, 44:59, 45:00....
“Should I be impressed? Or should I be horrified?” I asked.
“Show him the letter,” barked the corpulent man in the front row.
Bernie did as he was told. He handed me a letter, handwritten, on thick yellowed paper.
Dear Sirs,
I am pleased you have taken an interest in my films. And, I am told, you have taken quite the interest in me as well. This is understandable considering my mysterious nature. Please, allow me to explain: movies to me, are more than moving, talking pictures. They are a gateway into the human soul. No matter how perverse or how graphic, anything you see on the screen lives within all of our hearts.
A director is a god of his own universe. Just as the God above our heads needs no recognition, neither do I. All I want to do is tell a story. A story of death, of survival and of fear. Humanity at its most naked.
After reading these words, if you still wish to meet with me, I'd be honored for you to visit my home in Bouldergreen, Kentucky. Address is on the envelope. I do not have a phone but you can call the local grocery store and leave a message with the grocer if you plan on making a visit. Sorry in advance for any inconvenience but I will never step foot in Hollywood. You must come to me.
Wink, wink.
-The Director-
I looked up from the letter, baffled. “He's just some nutter living in the woods of Kentucky?”
“So it would seem.”
“Impossible. How'd he get the money to do this?” I pointed at the screen. At the moment, the black man in the bird costume was being pecked to death by a murder of carrion crows. How ironic. Blood dripped from their beaks, splashing on the lens of the camera. 71:40, 71:41, 71:42....
“That's one of the questions I'm going to ask him.”
“Bernie, no. You can't. This guy...he's a creeper. I mean, who in their right mind closes their letters with wink, wink?”
We watched the rest of the movie in relative silence, save for the nervous patter of tapping feet and the occasional awkward cough. At the climax, somewhere around the 82:00 minute mark, the house had completely melted away, revealing to the audience they were, in fact, in Hell. The only human left alive was Cat. She waited by a large iron gate guarded by a beast with three heads. The Director emerged from the shadows, four fresh locks of hair dangled from his lapel. He handed Cat something—some odd package. I asked Bernie what was in the package but he didn’t have a clue. It was another one of things that's never explained or even mentioned again.
“Run, now, Kitty.” says the Director. The gates open. Through walls of bleeding, burning souls, she runs; through brimstone and ruin; past reaching hands, beyond cackling, faceles
s demons; ever onward she runs, faster, faster. 89:58, 89:59....
Then...Hell vanishes. Cat is alone in a field of dandelions with the house to her back. She runs. FADE TO BLACK.
I looked at Bernie unsure of what to say. His gold tooth winked at me. “The studio is letting me use their private plane. There's plenty of room for you, Ronald.” He called me Ronald. That's how I knew he was serious. “Whoever this freak-show turns out to be, just look what he has done for cinema. He's just pushed film forward twenty years! This is the equivalent of seeing King Kong for the first time! I've gotta know how he did it; I could really use your expertise.”
“Bernie, I'm too....”
“Old?” he rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you're right. Maybe I should just take you back to assisted living, so you can veg out on your couch and watch low-budget porno movies on your VCR until you eventually die.”
I opened my mouth to argue but nothing came out. The little shit had a point. A damned good point. Somewhere down the hall, people cheered. I was offended. I thought, what in the hell is worth cheering about? Then I remembered. The election. Reagan must have won. I'd completely forgotten.
* * *
I hated flying. Or rather, my stomach hated flying. So did my hip. It throbbed, humming relentlessly, harmonizing with the roar of the plane's tiny engines. This was the first time I hadn't flown commercial. Hell, I'd never even flown first class before; now here I was, reclining in a posh leather seat, drinking a very expensive bottle of wine, in a studio-provided jet. I looked out my window at the cotton candy clouds and wondered what would happen if I died at 35,000 feet. Would Death still find me? Would He still bring flowers?
Bernie talked nonstop throughout the flight, only pausing to sip his mimosa. He was one of those pinky-straight-out kind of sippers. At one point he lit up a bloated joint of marijuana, puffed. breathed in, and then handed it to me. It was tempting but I declined. He called me a pussy and made squishy noises with his mouth.
We landed about thirty miles east of Fort Knox, on a strip of land once a storing ground for decommissioned train carts. We took a taxi out of the city; civilization disappeared like the tide.
The town of Bouldergreen seemed frozen in time, as if they hadn't heard everyone else in the world had moved on. We met the grocer—the man mentioned in the Director's letter—and he gave us directions to the address on the envelope.
Trees and grassland stretched the entire panorama; there were no buildings, no water towers and no smoke in the air. The only inkling of human interference was a small gravel road, dissecting the hill in half. Bernie swore the house wasn't too far. He also swore if my hip broke, he'd carry me the rest of the way.
We saw it for the first time when we came over the ridge: The house—the same house from the movie. I don't know what we were expecting. We should have known. Maybe we did know on some uncharted level of our subconscious. Then we saw him—the Director—sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch, fanning away the southern heat, dressed in the same pinstriped suit as he wore in the film. The sun reflected off his golden hair; he waved to us, beckoning us closer.
“So, dreams do come true,” he shouted to us. “Hollywood actually does come a-knock'n.”
“We do when we see a film like Godforsaken,” said Bernie, trying to match the Director's wide grin.
His handshake surprised me: limp, lightweight, harmless. “What do we call you?” I asked. “What is your name?”
“The Director.”
“I hope you'll not be this mysterious when it comes to the tricks of your trade,” I said, exuding my excitement. “Can't wait to see how you achieved these effects! Really quite mind-boggling!”
“The devil's in the details my friend,” he winked at me, twice. Wink, wink. He led us into his home, humming the tune from Green Acres under his breath.
Sunlight drenched the opening foyer in rich, beams of light. Production equipment of all shapes and sizes filled the room, leaving no wall untouched. Halogen lights, cameras, tracks, dollies, even a makeshift crane for the high shots. “I use all my own equipment,” he boasted proudly. His wild eyes rolled like marbles in his skull, a sling of saliva foamed at the corners of his mouth. He clapped his hands together happily. “Wonderful! The full cast is here now, absolutely, positivity wonderful!”
“Cast?” Bernie asked.
“Yeah, that's what I said silly, cast. The other three are upstairs...waiting. Some have been waiting a while. Waiting for you two silly-willies. This time around we'll go bigger. More monsters, more carnage! Yes! Moviegoers do love their carnage. At least, I sure do.”
Steadily, I moved back for the door. Bernie didn't seem to understand what was about to happen. “Sorry? I'm confused?”
“A sequel dear boy!” he shouted; his words filled the vast, open room. “I'm making a sequel.”
The front door slammed shut. A wave of shadows swallowed the light, leaving the room in total darkness. Bernie turned on the balls of his feet and launched himself at the front door, using his shoulder as a battering ram. When the door didn't give, Bernie switched strategies; he kicked it, once, twice, three times, swearing, screaming and muttering a prayer in Hebrew. I, on the other hand, froze in place; my bladder let go.
“Places, people! Places!” The Director clapped his hands again. Sparks ignited each time his palm found its counterpart. Then, abruptly, the production lights switched on, popping in unbridled harmony.
A dozen oblong shapes—forms—materialized out of thin air. Colorless, pale to the verge of translucence, their flesh drooped from their bones, wilting like the skin of warm fried chicken; a glob of wrinkles amassed under their eye sockets which contained the reddest, deadest eyes I'd ever witnessed; they blazed with an inferno of bioluminescence, assessing me, assessing Bernie, waiting for permission to strike. A yawning black maw existed where a mouth should have been, filled with pink, soft tissue and jagged teeth. The only thing comparable would be the underbelly of a squid.
“Okay, first on the agenda for you lot....” he turned to us. “We've got to get you to makeup and wardrobe.” The Director snapped his fingers at a pair of the monsters. “Take the talent upstairs to meet the others. No talking,” he wagged his finger at Bernie and me. “Stay professional. I want to get things rolling in, oh....” he looked at his wrist, at a nonexistent watch, “Let's say ten minutes, shall we? Then, I'll start the clock.
“And both of you know what that means...don't worry friends. Same rules apply. Ninety minutes of pure elation—well, elation for me, certain death for you—but, hey, chin up! I'll wager you silly-willies will fare better than the last two boys who were in my movie.” A glass of wine suddenly appeared in his hand—at least I hoped it was wine. He toasted us. “Cheers, here's to the Jew-boy and Mr. Pee-Pee-Pants-Man! Wink, wink.”
* * *
Everything in life was a lie. From the day I was born, to this day—the day I will surely die—it has all been a lie. But that was the biggest lie of them all, the whopper of all whoppers: Death. Death does not exist. Neither do I.
I opened my eyes.
Gradually, things came into focus. A nail protruded out of both my wrists, rope held my body upright. I felt no pain, because pain was a lie.
I couldn't remember how I got here—on this wall—or why I was dressed in a dog costume. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out why a blinking, digital clock was connected to the costume, tied around my wrist. Numbers flashed at me: 09:04, 0:9:05, 09:06....
I looked to my left. A girl in a monkey suit thrashed inside a tomb of barbed wire. To my right, another girl, this one covered in glued feathers, had just freed her arms from the nails. She fell to the floor.
“Ronald!” I heard Bernie scream at me from below. No, I thought, that can't be Bernie, because Bernie is a lie. He was dressed as a tiger. “We're gonna get you outta there Ronald!”
Reality came back in a rush. The pain hit me like a sucker punch. I felt the nail inside my skin. I felt it tearing me, ripping my ei
ghty-year-old skin. I screamed. What am I doing here? I should be in my little apartment, ordering the nurse to fetch me another doughnut. In panicked struggle, I whipped and flailed my legs, which only made things worse. Bernie shouted at me to stop moving but the pain had taken over my sense of hearing.
I thought of the family I'd never see again: my son, my daughter and my four grandkids. It made me sick to think about all the time I wasted sitting on my piss-yellow couch, wishing I were dead, when I should have been living!
What a fool I am. What a selfish fucking idiot. I suppose I deserved to die. Well, I'd soon get my chance...
Then, once again, I passed out.
I woke up with my head in Bernie's lap. He smiled when he saw my eyes flutter open. I saw his gold tooth and I wished that were a lie. But it wasn't. This was all real: the nails, the pain, the blood and the monsters...every last fucking detail.
-And the devil’s in the details-
Monkey and Bird helped me to my feet while Cat checked me for any more cuts. My wounds had been wrapped with various strands of cloth. Some of it came from the polo shirt I had worn here. That's when I realized, I was completely naked under this damned dog outfit. It smelled of piss and bile; I had a suspicion this was the same outfit worn in the first film, which made me want to vomit. So I did. I puked up all the crackers and beer I'd had on the plane.
18:59, 19:00, 19:01....
“Where is the Director?” I asked, scanning the room for any sign of him. I knew he was there somewhere, I knew he was filming us that very moment.
He appeared, magically, only a few yards away from us. He hid behind a large camera on a tripod. “Cut! The fourth wall, Dog! Don't break the fourth wall!”
