Fade to Black

by Graham, Heather

  It was Jackson. “I’m at the hospital ER with Roberta.”

  Bryan kept moving. He came to the entrance to the Horror-palooza Cave exhibit.

  “Marnie’s missing... Blood-bones were paid to appear and throw us off. I’m following, heading into a horror cave. Get everyone searching.”

  “Will do. But you need to know, Roberta is freaking out. She says she’s going to die. She says that she was just supposed to be sick. She’s spilling her guts. Bryan, she was the woman who was in on it. Roberta Alan. But she was just acting with the man who had a plan. She was supposed to get sick from a bar she had in her own purse. A bar that we wouldn’t suspect because she was carrying it herself. She’s in a panic now, thinking that she was used, that she is supposed to die. And she was working with—”

  “I know who she was working with—she was supposed to die, most probably. She just didn’t die fast enough.”

  “David Neal is at his house.”

  “It isn’t David Neal,” Bryan said.

  * * *

  There was a whirring sound.

  Jack the Ripper turned to stare at Marnie.

  He had maddened, bloodthirsty eyes in a narrow, cruel face.

  His arm rose.

  And fell.

  And the whirring sound came again.

  Jack the Ripper was just an animatronic dummy.

  A breath of relief escaped Marnie. She reached for her phone. Her pocket was empty; it was back at the table.

  Swearing silently to herself, she stood dead still and listened. Nothing. And then...

  A soft sobbing sound.

  “Bridget?” she called cautiously.

  “Marnie?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I don’t know. I think... I think it’s Chicago. It’s really dark. Some of the lights are gone. Where are you? I’m moving. I’m moving... I can’t get back to the exit!”

  A killer could be listening.

  “Don’t talk!” she commanded. “I’ll find you!”

  She couldn’t talk anymore herself. She could lead the killer right to herself.

  She kept walking. The streets changed. It was very dark, but there were still gas lamps, and they were creating small shells of light that fell upon old brick buildings and there, ahead...

  A sign announcing the Chicago Exhibition.

  She had entered the realm of H. H. Holmes, the man who had slaughtered dozens more people than Jack the Ripper. He’d kept a “murder hotel,” killing, among others, those who had traveled across the country, from far and wide, to visit the fair. He’d offered them lodgings, and then he’d killed them—husbands, wives and children. He’d incinerated their bodies down in the furnace.

  She stumbled upon a tableau of one of his torture rooms.

  A madman stood over a table. A beautiful damsel in distress lay on it, her mouth open in a silent scream. He held a wicked-looking bone saw over her head.

  There was a whir...

  The mannequin turned to look at Marnie. This time she was prepared.

  It was just a mannequin.

  She could hear sobbing. Bridget. Of course, she was terrified.

  Marnie wanted to talk to her, to assure her that everything was going to be okay.

  She passed another display.

  A woman in a rich costume, blood streaming down her face, her eyes alive with pleasure as she seemed to consume it.

  Madame Bathory. She had supposedly bathed in the blood of young virgins to maintain her youth and beauty, but...in this exhibit, she was drinking blood, too.

  Marnie moved quickly.

  She came to the French Revolution. There was a giant guillotine. On the ground before it there was a basket, overflowing with severed heads.

  A body remained on the machine itself. An executioner stood by the mechanism for the blade. He had his hands on the next victim.

  Guards from the French Revolution stood nearby, rifles with bayonets raised, ready to stop anyone in the crowd who might think that the executions were just becoming too gruesome.

  “Bridget!” Marnie shouted.

  The executioner turned. He was not a mannequin or animatronic of any kind.

  He was real, decked out in appropriate style, wearing a hood, as seen in so many images from the era.

  “Let her go!” Marnie shouted.

  He turned and looked at her.

  “Oh, Marnie. Not on your life. What a saying. Yes, it is your life. Time to end it. Oh, this is truly delightful. I have really pulled it off.”

  Marnie didn’t think that she was especially courageous. She was just desperate.

  She moved in a flash, lunging closer and ripping one of the rifles and bayonets from a French soldier and hurtling it at the executioner.

  He screamed, letting Bridget loose as he was struck in the shoulder.

  It wasn’t a real blade; it wasn’t very sharp. It was enough.

  Bridget broke free.

  “Run, run!” Marnie shouted.

  Bridget turned to flee, and Marnie spun around to do the same. But she slammed into another French soldier and reversed, blindly seeking to make her way out and to safety.

  She felt something touch her arm.

  A hand.

  A real hand.

  She looked up.

  She was in the arms of the executioner.

  * * *

  He wasn’t alone in the maze of the Horror-palooza Cave.

  Jeremy Highsmith and Cara Barton were with him, running—or floating or whatever it was that they were doing—here and there, down different pathways.

  Creatures loomed before him.

  Real—as in created to look like human beings.

  Not real—as in giant gorilla-type things and swamp lizard men.

  He could hear a commotion; things falling.

  And then Bridget came flying at him, screaming.

  He caught her with his left hand; his Glock was in his right.

  “Bridget—”

  “French Revolution! Oh, Bryan, she saved me and he got her. My fault, my fault—I thought we could hide in here and now...”

  “Get out—I’ll get Marnie.”

  He pushed her aside.

  He hurried toward the French Revolution, barely breathing, tension making knots of his muscles, fear making his feet seem heavy.

  “Marnie!” he screamed her name.

  * * *

  Talk.

  She’d always heard that you should talk to a killer.

  “I don’t understand,” Marnie said. “Okay, okay, you want to kill me. Dramatically. You love all the drama. But I sure as hell don’t get it. You’re on top of the world. And you’ve been so smart about it—hiring people to wear Blood-bone costumes. But now...the convention center is crowded with cops.”

  “Yes, but guess who else is here? David Neal. I saw to it. I finagled finances and sent in one damned good attorney. So...well, he is just so obviously a sleazebag!”

  “But—you have everything. What do I have to do with anything? Why?” Marnie demanded.

  He’d managed to drag her up to the platform. She struggled, but he was bigger and stronger than her.

  Bit by bit, he was getting her to the guillotine.

  It couldn’t have a real blade—could it?

  “Malcolm, why?” she asked again.

  “Oh, Marnie. Believe it or not, my last box office was pathetic. My latest is going straight to video. I’m on a downhill slide. That’s why Vince Carlton dared to ask me about a revamp of Dark Harbor. Actually, you see, you were the first intended victim.” He paused before declaring dramatically, “You just can’t get any good help these days!” He shrugged. “So...when they really suck, you just have to get rid of them.”

  “But without me, there wo
uldn’t be Dark Harbor.”

  “Precisely. And without Dark Harbor, there would be something called Angel-born. Angel-born—that would be me. Dirk Slade. Macho name, huh? Vince Carlton had it as a backup plan. But he was pretty sure that he could get you to do the show. He really wanted you, even after Cara Barton was killed. I so enjoyed that. I intended to make her go, too, one way or the other, but... Hey. Life is what happens when you’re busy making plans, right? I just wanted a show. A good show. My own show. Okay... I started and then got a little carried away.”

  “But Roberta—”

  “Is an idiot. She believed that I would really have her as my continuing love interest in Angel-born—once we managed to dash all hopes of a Dark Harbor revamp.”

  “You’re out of your mind.”

  “I’ve thought about it,” Malcolm said, pausing as he tried to drag her over the guillotine bed. “I might be. But in the right way. Controlled, brilliant. I know the back way out. They’ll arrest David Neal again. I love it. Oh, and Roberta will be dead. She thinks she’s just getting something to cause vomiting... Ah, well! Leading ladies. A dime a dozen, right?”

  She tried clawing at him, kicking him. She was strong—and she wanted to live.

  But he was stronger. Hell, he spent half his life in a gym.

  Despite all her struggles, he was managing to get her over the bed of the guillotine.

  “I know these people,” he told her. “Darkest Satan Studios. The guillotine is real, Marnie. They have to have the blades because, you know, they chop off not-real heads with them!”

  “You will be caught.”

  “Marnie!”

  She heard Cara Barton calling out to her.

  “Marnie, hang on! Bryan is almost here!”

  “Oh, thank God,” Marnie said. She stopped struggling and stared at Malcolm.

  “Thank God, what?”

  “You’re going to be shot any second.” She could only pray that it would happen before she was dragged another inch, before he could cause the blade to fall.

  “You were a star. You—you have everything!”

  “Ah, Marnie, don’t you understand? I was a star. A really bright shooting star. And that’s just it. Marnie, I have to be a star. I have to stay on top. I can’t be a comic con has-been!”

  He jumped suddenly as if he felt something on his arm.

  Cara’s ghost was there. Tugging away at him—to the best of her ghostly ability.

  “What the hell?”

  “It’s Cara,” Marnie murmured.

  “Cara is dead!”

  “That’s right. She’s a ghost, Malcolm. She’s there!”

  He stopped, jerking at his own arm. Frowning, looking around.

  He tried to drag her back on the guillotine.

  “Stop it!” Cara screamed.

  Malcolm heard her. He whirled around—but he didn’t lose his grip on Marnie.

  Bryan burst through the throng of French soldiers.

  “Let her go!” he roared. “I will shoot.”

  “Hey, it’s just the movies!” Malcolm said, thrusting Marnie violently onto the bed and grabbing the rope for the guillotine.

  Bryan didn’t wait.

  He shot.

  Malcolm Dangerfield fell.

  Marnie rolled off the platform just in time.

  The guillotine blade whisked through air and thudded into the wood bed.

  * * *

  It was well past midnight before they were home.

  There was endless paperwork.

  There was a trip to the hospital; she had to be checked out.

  She learned that Roberta’s stomach had been pumped out in time; she was going to live.

  Marnie wasn’t sure how she felt. She was a good person; she should be glad that no one was dead.

  She’d heard people say that “they would die for a role” or that they would “kill for a role.”

  She had just never imagined that it could be for real.

  Everyone had gathered at the hospital.

  Vince Carlton was horrified. He told Marnie that he still loved Dark Harbor and would always want to work with her. “But right now,” he told her, “I’m going to do a kid’s movie. I’m going to film in New Zealand. Far, far away.”

  She wished him well.

  Grayson came in to see her. “I’m sorry for being so selfish,” he told her. “I loved them all—even Roberta. And I’m grateful to be alive. I hope to God I’ve learned.”

  She wished him the best, too.

  Sophie came with Detective Vining.

  Marnie thanked them.

  She couldn’t wait to leave.

  She couldn’t wait until Bryan had finished with his endless rounds of paperwork.

  He finally came to the hospital for her. And they went home.

  There, with George to greet her lovingly and Bridget and the whole group of Krewe agents, she thanked them all, thanked them for saving her life.

  “Can’t tell you how grateful we are that you’re okay,” Adam Harrison told her. He announced that he’d gotten the Krewe rooms at a local hotel.

  Bridget went with them. She was still shaken and wanted to be near protection.

  Finally, Marnie took a deep breath in the quiet of her own home.

  She turned to Bryan.

  “You’ll stay for Jeremy’s funeral, won’t you?” she said.

  “Trust me, you don’t know the half of how legal works. I won’t be able to leave for a few weeks,” Bryan said. And then he asked, “You’re...coming with me?”

  “I’ve been offered a children’s theater.”

  He smiled.

  “Yeah, I’m going to start a new job, too. I’ll have to be at the academy awhile, you know.”

  “Of course!”

  He smoothed back her hair. “You probably need some rest.”

  She smiled.

  “No. I probably need some you,” she told him.

  He was happy to oblige.

  Epilogue

  The man in seat 19A looked decidedly uncomfortable. As if he kept getting brushed by something in the 777’s air-conditioning system.

  But then, Bryan thought, he was sitting next to the ghost of Cara Barton. She was leaned against the ghost of Jeremy Highsmith, who was holding her hand and resting against the window of the plane, a look of bliss on his face.

  Cara had hoped for empty chairs in first class. There were none. Bryan, with the aisle seat a few rows ahead, could look back down the aisle and see the two of them.

  Marnie could not—not from her place by the window.

  “I’m thinking we should have given up our seats for them,” she murmured, coming in close to him.

  “Wouldn’t have worked,” Bryan said. “The airline would have just given them to someone else with enough points to upgrade. Besides, this flight serves a great lunch. It would have been totally wasted on the two of them.”

  “True.”

  She smiled.

  He marveled at that smile.

  She really seemed fine with going to Virginia with him.

  Leaving Hollywood behind.

  Of course, a lot of what happened had to hurt. It always hurt to understand that someone you had called a friend, cared for and worked with, could be willing to kill.

  He hoped that she truly was in love with the offer that Adam had given her. He was sure that she would adore the group of women opening Adam’s theater—they were wonderful.

  He truly hoped that she was in love with him.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked her softly.

  “I was thinking about Bridget—driving to Virginia with Madison and Sean. And George.”

  “You didn’t want him in cargo. And Bridget was due a vacation. And Madison was happy to spend a
few more days in Hollywood, seeing old friends and learning new things.”

  “Yes, I agree. So, anyway... I’m a little nervous. About meeting your parents,” she said.

  He laughed. “And your folks are coming to see you and meet me in less than a week. And,” he added, “they’re alive.”

  She grinned at that. “I wonder which is going to be more nerve-racking. The living—or the dead.”

  She was casual now; she had accepted her strange abilities.

  “Of course,” she said. “This is madness. Completely. We’ve known each other just a few weeks altogether now. And yet...”

  “Yet I know I want to spend my life with you,” he told her. He pulled away slightly. “I don’t think you appreciate yourself enough, Marnie. I’m afraid that...maybe you’ll want the limelight again.”

  She was thoughtful. “I was lucky. I had a big break when I was very young. I enjoyed Dark Harbor. I never imagined... I will go back out and do that one show. But after that... Bryan, I knew what I wanted before I met you. I didn’t know that I wanted you, but I wanted my theater. I think that living in Northern Virginia is going to be fine. I think this theater is going to be wonderful. I’m ready...really, truly, ready. And you... Are you ready for the Krewe?”

  “You’ll meet my parents, and you’ll meet Bruce and Brodie, both of whom are disturbed that they weren’t around to come out and help. They both know Adam and Jackson. I have a feeling that the Krewe of Hunters will wind up using three brothers.”

  It was a long flight. There was time to talk. Bryan told her about the cabin they’d had all their lives, and he talked about the things he loved in Northern Virginia and DC.

  “The Smithsonian,” she said, her voice happy. “The monuments. So many museums. Ford’s Theatre! I have been to the area, you know. I will love it. Except...do you hunt?” she asked worriedly.

  He shook his head. “Fish now and then,” he told her. “I do love camping with a great camera for whatever wonders one comes across.”

  “We can do that!”

  When the plane landed, an airline’s escort was there to make sure that Marnie made it easily from the plane and down to the baggage claim area. Having some star power still had its perks.

  Bruce and Brodie were waiting by the baggage carousels as prearranged. The brothers were waving, curious to meet Marnie.