He winced his face into the practiced look of horror again. "Oh, God! Please no! Not again! Um ... oh yeah—don't let it happen here!" Lance paused, then scowled. "Blast, that wasn't right. Would you hurry up, Zoltan! I'm already losing my lines. And I'm really tired of you dragging your feet—get moving!"
Zoltan tossed the makeup brush with a loud clink into its glass jar of solvent. He put his gnarled hands on his hips and glared at Lance. The smoldering gypsy fury in his dark eyes looked worse than anything Lance had seen on a movie villain's face.
"I lose my patience with you, Mr. Lance! It is gone! Poof! Now I must take a short cut. A special trick that only I know. It will take a minute, and it will make you a star forevermore! I guarantee that. You will no longer suffer my efforts—and I need not suffer you! The people at the new Frankenstein picture over on Lot 17 would appreciate my work, no doubt."
Lance blinked, amazed at the old gypsy's anger but ready to jump at any chance that would get him out of the makeup trailer sooner. He heard only the words ". . . it will make you a star. ... I guarantee that."
"Well, do it then, Zoltan! I've got work to do. The great Lon Chaney never had to put up with all these delays. He did all his own makeup. My audiences are waiting to see the new meaning I can bring to the portrayal of the werewolf."
"You will never disappoint them, Mr. Lance."
Without further reply, Zoltan yanked at the fine hair he had already applied. "You no longer need this." Lance yowled as the patches came free of his skin. "That is a very good sound you make, Mr. Lance. Very much like a werewolf."
Lance growled at him.
Zoltan rustled in a cardboard box in the corner of his cramped trailer, pulled out a dirty Mason jar, and unscrewed its rusty lid. Inside, a brown oily liquid swirled all by itself, spinning green llecks in internal currents. The old man stuck his fingers into the goop and brought them out dripping.
"What is—whoa, that smells like—" Lance tried to shrink away, but Zoltan slapped the goop onto his cheek and smeared it around.
"You cannot possibly know what this smells like, Mr. Lance, because you have no idea what I used to make it. You probably do not wish to know—then you would be even more upset at having it rubbed all over your face."
Zoltan reached into the jar again and brought out another handful, which he wiped across Lance's forehead. "Ugh! Did you get that from the lot cafeteria?" Lance felt his skin tingle, as if the liquid had begun to eat its way inside. "Ow! My complexion!"
"If it gives you pimples, you can always call them character marks, Mr. Lance. Every good actor has them."
Zoltan pulled his hand away. Lance saw that the old man's fingers were clean. "Finished. It has all absorbed right in." He screwed the cover of the jar back on and replaced it in the cardboard box.
Lance grabbed a small mirror, expecting to find his (soon-to-be) well- known expression covered with ugly brown, but he could see no sign of the makeup at all. "What happened to it? It still stinks."
"It is special makeup. It will work when it needs to."
The door flew open, and the red-faced director's assistant stood panting. "Lance, Mr. Derwell wants you on the set right now! Pronto! We've got to start shooting."
Zoltan nudged his shoulder. "I am finished with you, Mr. Lance."
Lance stood up, trying not to look perplexed so that Zoltan could have a laugh at his expense. "But I don't see any—"
The old gypsy wore a wicked grin on his lips. "You need not worry about it. I believe your expression is, 'Knock 'em dead.' "
▼▼▼
Lance sat down at the nightclub piano and cracked his knuckles. The extras and other stars took their positions. Above the soundstage, he could hear men on the catwalks, positioning cool blue gels over the lights to simulate the full moon.
"Now are you ready, Lance?" the director said, fitting another cigarette into his ivory holder. "Or do you think maybe we should just take a coffee break for an hour or so?"
"That's not necessary, Mr. Derwell. I'm readyj Just give the word, see?" He growled for good measure.
"Places, everyone!"
Lance ran his fingers over the piano keyboard, "tickling the old ivories," as real piano players called it. No sound came out. Lance couldn't play a note, of course, so the prop men had cut all the piano wires, holding the instrument in merciful silence no matter how enthusiastically Lance might bang on it. They would add the beautiful piano melody to the soundtrack during postproduction.
"Wolfman in Casablanca, Scene 23, Take One." The clapboard cracked.
"Action!" Derwell called.
The klieg lights came on, pouring hot white illumination on the set. Lance stiffened at the piano, then began to hum and pretend to plink on the keys.
In this scene, the werewolf has taken a job as a piano player in a nightclub, where he has met Brigitte, the vacationing French resistance fighter. While playing "As Time Goes By," Lance's character looks up to see the full moon shining down through the nightclub's skylight. To keep from having to interrupt filming, Derwell had planned to shoot Lance from the back only as he played the piano, not showing his face until after he had supposedly started to transform. But now Lance didn't appear to wear any makeup at all—he wondered what would happen when Derwell noticed, but he plunged into the performance nevertheless. That would be Zoltan's problem, not his.
At the appropriate point, Lance froze at the keyboard, forcing his fingers to tremble as he stared at them. On the soundtrack, the music would stop in mid-note. The false moonlight shone down on him. Lance formed his face into his best expression of abject horror.
"Oh, God! Please no! Not again! Don't let it happen HERE!!!" Lance clutched his chest, slid sideways, and did a graceful but dramatic topple off the piano bench.
On cue, one of the extras screamed. The bartender dropped a glass, which shattered on the tiles.
On the floor, Lance couldn't stop writhing. His own body felt as if it were being turned inside out. He had really learned how to bury himself in the role! His face and hands itched, burned. His fingers curled and clenched. It felt terrific. It felt real to him. He let out a moaning scream—and it took him a moment to realize it wasn't part of the act.
Off behind the cameras, Lance could see Rino Derwell jumping up and down with delight, jerking both his thumbs up in silent admiration for Lance's performance. "Cut!"
Lance tried to lie still. They would need to add the next layer of hair and makeup. Zoltan would come in and paste one of the latex appliances onto his eyebrows, darken his nails with shoe polish.
But Lance felt his own nails sharpening, curling into claws. Hair sprouted from the backs of his hands. His cheeks tingled and burned. His ears felt sharp and stretched, protruding from the back of his head. His face tightened and elongated; his mouth filled with fangs.
"No, wait!" Derwell shouted at the cameraman. "Keep rolling! Keep rolling!"
"Look at that!" the director's assistant said.
Lance tried to say something, but he could only growl. His body tightened and felt ready to explode with anger. He found it difficult to concentrate, but some part of his mind knew what he had to do. After all, he had read the script.
Leaping up from the nightclub dance floor, Lance strained until his clothes ripped under his bulging lupine muscles. With a roar and a spray of saliva from his fang-filled jaws, he smashed the piano bench prop into kindling, knocking it aside.
Four of the extras screamed, even without their cues.
Lance heaved the giant, mute piano and smashed it onto its side. The severed piano wires jangled like a rasping old woman trying to sing. The bartender stood up and brought out a gun, firing four times in succession, but they were only theatrical blanks, and not silver blanks either. Lance knocked the gun aside, grabbed the bartender's arm, and hurled him across the stage, where he landed in a perfect stunt man's roll.
Lance Chandler stood under the klieg lights, in the pool of blue gel filtering through the skylight simulati
ng the full moon. He bayed a beautiful wolf howl as everyone fled screaming from the stage.
"Cut! Cut! Lance, that's magnificent!" Derwell clapped his hands.
The klieg lights faded, leaving the wreckage under the normal room illumination. Lance felt all the energy drain out of him. His face rippled and contracted, his ears shrank back to normal. His throat remained sore from the long howl, but the fangs had vanished from his mouth. He brushed his hands to his cheeks, but found that all the abnormal hair had melted away.
Derwell ran onto the set and clapped him on the back. "That was incredible! Oscar-quality stuff!"
Old Zoltan stood at the edge of the set, smiling. His dark eyes glittered. Derwell turned to the gypsy and applauded him as well. "Marvelous, Zoltan! I can't believe it. How in the world did you do that?"
Zoltan shrugged, but his toothless grin grew wider. "Special makeup," he said. "Gypsy secret. I am pleased it worked out." He turned and shuffled toward the soundstage exit.
"Do you really think that was Oscar quality?" Lance asked.
▼▼▼
The other actors treated Lance with a sort of awe, though a few tended to avoid him. The actress playing Brigitte kept fixing her eyes on him, raising her eyebrows in a suggestive expression. Derwell, having shot a perfect take of the transformation scene he had thought would require more than a day, ordered the set crew to repair the werewolf-caused damage so they could shoot the big love scene, as a reward to everyone.
Zoltan said nothing to Lance as he added a heavy coat of pancake and sprayed his hair into place. Lance didn't know how the gypsy had worked the transformation, but he knew when not to ask questions. Derwell had said his performance was Oscar quality! He just grinned to himself and looked forward to the kissing scene with Brigitte. Lance always tried to make sure the kissing scenes required several takes. He enjoyed his work, and so (no doubt) did his female co-stars.
Zoltan added an extra-thick layer of dark-red lipstick to Brigitte's mouth, then applied a special wax sealing coat so that it wouldn't smear during the on-screen passion.
"All right, you two," Derwell said, sitting back in his director's chair, "start gazing at each other and getting starry-eyed. Places, everyone!"
Zoltan packed up his kit and left the soundstage. He said good-bye to the director, but Derwell waved him away in distraction.
Lance stared into Brigitte's eyes, then wiggled his eyebrows in what he hoped would be an irresistible invitation. He had few lines in this scene, only some low grunting and a mumbled "Yes, my love" during the kiss.
Brigitte gazed back at him, batting her eyelashes, melting him with her deep brown irises.
"Wolfman in Casablanca, Scene 39, Take One."
Lance took a deep breath so he could make the kiss last longer.
"Action!" The klieg lights came on.
In silence, he and Brigitte gawked at each other. Romantic music would be playing on the soundtrack. They leaned closer to each other. She shuddered with her barely contained emotion. After an indrawn breath, she spoke in a sultry, sexy French accent. "You are the type of man I need. You are my soul-mate. Kiss me. I want you to kiss me."
He bent toward her. "Yes, my love."
His joints felt as if they had turned to ice water. His skin burned and tingled. He kissed her, pulling her close, feeling his passion rise to an uncontrollable pitch.
Bridgitte jerked away. "Ow! Lance, you bit me!" She touched a spot of blood on her lip.
He felt his hands curl into claws, the nails turn hard and black. Hair began to sprout all over his body. He tried to stop the transformation, but he didn't know how. He stumbled backward. "Oh, God! Please no! Not again!"
"No, Lance—that's not your line!" Brigitte whispered to him.
His muscles bulged; his face stretched out into a long, sharp muzzle. His throat gurgled and growled. He looked around for something to smash. Brigitte screamed, though it wasn't in the script. Tossing her aside, Lance uprooted one of the ornamental palms and hurled the clay pot to the other side of the stage.
"Cut!" the director called. "What the hell is going on here? It's just a simple scene!"
The klieg lights dimmed again. Lance felt the werewolf within him dissolving away, leaving him sweating and shaking and standing in clothes that had torn in several embarrassing places.
"Oh Lance, quit screwing around!" Derwell said. "Go to wardrobe and get some new clothes, for Christ's sake! Somebody, get a new plant and clean up that mess. Get First Aid to fix Brigitte's lip here. Come on, people!" Derwell shook his head. "Why did I ever turn down that job to make Army training films?"
▼▼▼
Lance skipped going to wardrobe and went to Zoltan's makeup trailer instead. He didn't know how he was going to discuss this with the gypsy, but if all else failed he could just knock the old man flat with a good roundhouse punch, in the style of Craig Corwyn, U-Boat Smasher.
When he pounded on the flimsy door, though, it swung open by itself. A small sign hung by a string from the doorknob. In Zoltan's scrawling handwriting, it said: "FAREWELL, MY COMPANIONS. TIME TO MOVE ON. GYPSY BLOOD CALLS."
Lance stepped inside. "All right, Zoltan. I know you're in here!"
But he knew no such thing, and the cramped trailer proved to be empty indeed. Many of the bottles had been removed from the shelves; the brushes, the latex prosthetics all packed and taken. Zoltan had also carried away the old cardboard box from the corner, the one containing the jar of special makeup for Lance.
In the makeup chair, Lance found a single sheet of paper that had been left for him. He picked it up and stared down at it, moving his lips as he read.
Mr. Lance,
My homemade concoction may eventually wear off, as soon as you learn a little more patience. Or it may not. I cannot tell. I have always been afraid to use my special makeup, until I met you.
Do not try to find me. I have gone with the crew of Frankenstein of the Farmlands to shoot on location in Iowa. I will be gone for some time. Director Derwell asked me to leave, to save him time and money. Worry not, though, Mr. Lance. You no longer need any makeup from me.
I promised you would become a star. Now, every time the glow of the klieg lights strikes your face, you will transform into a werewolf. You will doubtless be in every single werewolf movie produced from now on. How can they refuse?
P.S., You should hope that werewolves are not just a passing fad! You know how fickle audiences can be.
Lance Chandler crumpled the note, then straightened it again so he could tear it into shreds, but he didn't need any werewolf anger to snarl this time.
He stared around the empty makeup trailer, feeling his career shatter around him. There would be no more Tarzan roles, no thrilling adventures of Craig Corwyn. His hopes, his dreams were ruined, and his cry of anguish sounded like a mournful wolf's howl. "I've been typecast!"
PURE SILVER
A.C. Crispin
and
Kathleen O'Malley
▼▼▼
I FIRST saw the werewolf at four a.m., Wednesday, on the A-8 Metrobus traveling from New York Avenue to my old one-room on Morris Road in Anacostia. It had been one of those days . . . there weren't any other kind with my job. I was exhausted, dozing as we lurched along, but suddenly I opened my eyes and he was there, across the aisle from me.
I knew what he was right off—but that's me. I see the animal in everyone. I'll meet someone and right away see a falcon deep inside, or a spider, maybe an otter or deer. But this was different. This guy didn't just have an animal's spirit inside him . . . no, no. Even though I'd never seen one before, I recognized that he was a real werewolf. I knew
it, knew it as surely as I know I'm 5'6" and have reddish-blond hair.
His hair was pale silver, dipping low on his forehead in a pronounced widow's peak. Not just thick, it was dense—like a pelt. Shaggy white brows met over his narrow, hooked nose. The eyes gleaming beneath them were steel gray, ringed with black . . . like mine. The werewolf
was old, seventy at a guess, more than twice my age, but his eyes were bright . . . ageless.
His grizzled stubble of beard started on top of his prominent cheekbones, continued down over well-chiseled features, then disappeared inside the neck of an enormous, mud-colored overcoat. I glanced at his hands; they were covered with rough brindled hair. His fingernails were thick, raggedly sharp.
I dropped my eyes, wanting to ignore the werewolf, reminding myself that there were no such things, that I didn't believe in that stuff. I didn't go to horror flicks or read any scary books, and had no patience with crystals, pyramids, channeling or any of that crap. I didn't even believe in ghosts . . . and I saw those every day.
When I looked back at his face, our eyes met. Quickly, I glanced up at the "DC is a Capital City" ad, but I was too late. Now he was staring at me.
That's okay, I thought calmly, he won't mess with me. He'll think I'm a cop. I straightened my heavy navy-blue nylon bomber jacket with its fake fur collar. My navy pants, black vinyl shoes, blue shirt and imitation leather garrison belt completed the uniform. I made sure he could see the silver badge over my left breast. I only wished my name wasn't under it. Humane Officer Therese {not Theresa, thank you) Norris.
Of course, my belt wasn't studded with cop toys, just a long, black flashlight and two old rope leashes. I might look like a cop, but I worked for the S.P.C.A., enforcing the animal control and cruelty laws of the District of Columbia. To the public, I was, at best, a dogcatcher— at worst, someone who gassed puppies for a living.
Not that we gassed them. Our animals were humanely euthanized with a painless injection of sodium pentobarbitol, a powerful anesthetic pumped into the foreleg vein by a skilled technician. That it was merciful didn't make it easier.
Tonight's shift had been a bitch. The city's Animal Control Facility operates around the clock. I worked the night shift, driving a big, white van Tuesday through Saturday, five p.m. to one a.m. We called it the "nut" shift; the worst time to be on the streets, with the drug dealers, prostitutes, junkies, street people, headline-hungry politicians and— worse yet—tourists.
The Ultimate Werewolf Page 21
