Thirty-Five

The impact sent a tremor through the earth. The lights around the drive-in went dark. Like an evil portent, the moon dimmed and shifted to a murky red.

At the bonfire, the actors gaped as the sky rained dust and gravel.

"Um," Nicholas said. "What's going on?"

"Ashlee went that way," Clare pointed out. "Where that thing hit the ground."

"Ashlee's dead," Sally said.

No one spoke for a while. Then she told them everything.

Max wanting to make a perfect horror movie. His need to confront death based on the trauma of witnessing his father's fatal collapse at the dinner table. His obsession with the Mary's Birthday accident, which he'd hoped to study and whose impact he wanted to replicate. Finding the camera at the estate sale.

As she talked, the facts cohered into a grisly narrative. The people around Max dying in freak accidents. The camera filming the universe killing Jim Foster like a cat playing with a mouse before biting its head off. Dan Womack's warning.

The director isolating his cast tonight for the final death scenes.

The all-too-real screams in the ruins.

She left out Max thanking her for making it all possible. Sally still didn't understand that part, why she was so important.

Nicholas said, "Again, you're basically describing this movie."

"Yes," said Sally. "And the camera is providing the special effects."

He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "A horror movie in a horror movie. First off, it's so freaking derivative."

Clare laughed.

"You're messing with me," he said. "This is payback for all the times I was a shit disturber."

"That is the simplest explanation," Sally said. "It's also not true."

"Or Max is trying out a new surprise special effects technique that went wrong. For all we know, some movie magic went south and Max and Ashlee are hurt."

"Another rational explanation," Sally said. "Also not—"

"All right. I believe you believe it. It's just hard for me to believe it, okay?"

She let him have that. She didn't believe it herself until only tonight.

"If the others are alive, they should be in their trailers now," Clare put in.

"If Max is after us, we'd never make it," Sally said.

"He's one man."

"All he has to do is aim the camera at you. That's how it works."

Clare let out a loud sigh at how ridiculous that sounded. Then raised her hand to prevent Sally from any more explanations.

"I believe you," she said. "What do we do?"

Sally tried to think. Instead, she pictured a horror movie audience shouting at her through the screen, telling her what obvious step she should take.

Nothing felt obvious to her.

One option was to ditch her companions. She could run into town and bang on doors or hide until the crew returned in the morning. Another horror rule: The game ends when the sun rises and there are plenty of witnesses around.

Sally couldn't leave Clare, though. Nicholas either.

Sticking together guaranteed safety, according to the rules. Only she didn't think the well-worn maxim applied in this case. No, she couldn't abandon them because she didn't want them to die. She'd fight for their survival as well as hers.

"I know what to do," Sally said.

"Yes," Clare said with an encouraging hiss.

"First off, we get some distance from this fire. Max knows we're here, and we need to give our eyes a chance to adjust to the dark."

"Lovely. Then we stomp his ass?"

"Then we wait," Sally said. "If I'm right, Max doesn't just want to kill us. He wants to kill us on our marks so it works in the movie. Nicholas, you're up next. If Max calls out to you to do your scene, then we know we have a problem."

"We'll also know where he is," Nicholas said. "So we can check the trailers."

And even when they found no one there, he'd still doubt. Sally let him have that too.

"Yeah," said Clare. "Or like I said, we stomp his ass."

"Are you nuts? You girls are going to get me blacklisted."

Max's voice reached from the ruins.

"Nicholas!"

"Let's move away from the fire," Sally said. "Now."

They hustled into the dark to huddle behind the rusted hulk of a trailer half-buried in dried mud. And waited.

"Nicholas, you're not on your mark!"

"Okay, that's weird," he whispered.

"Don't do it," Clare told him.

Even now, he edged toward the sound of Max's voice.

"Maybe he's just really dedicated," Nicholas said.

"She's right," Sally warned. "Don't."

"I won't," he said. "It's just… I was nothing when he discovered me. I was living in a van. You don't understand. I owe him everything."

"I owe him too," Clare said. "But I'm not dying for a movie."

"Fine. Whatever. So now what?"

"We get the hell out of here," Sally said. "Make a run for it."

"Our best bet is to separate him from his camera," Clare insisted.

Sally shook her head. It sounded far too risky.

"If you're right about all this, what else can we do?" the punk asked her. "There's one road out of here, and it leads to a single highway. There's one car left here, his Winnebago, and I'm pretty sure he has the keys on him. All he has to do is check every building and then drive along the road until he finds us."

"The crew won't be back until tomorrow," Nicholas said. "He has all night."

Sally had a solution.

"Dan Womack said he'd be camping close by," she remembered. "The radio is in my trailer. If we can make it there, I can call for help."

"What is some old guy going to do?"

"He said he's working with a cop. A very large cop."

Nicholas nodded. "That could work. Let the cop be the bad guy. We can find out what's going on and see if this is all a weird misunderstanding."

"You go," Clare told Sally. "Get help. Nick and me, we'll take care of Max."

"Um," he said.

"I'm with him," Sally said. "It's way too dangerous."

"We know where he is," said Clare. "He also doesn't know that we're onto him. This is our best shot at taking him out. Nick will show up and distract him. Max won't kill him right away. He'll give him time to get on his mark. Then I'll jump him, and we can get all this sorted."

Sally sighed. "Then I'm coming too."

"Goddamnit," said Nicholas. He clearly hated this plan.

Max called out again.

"I am very disappointed, Nicholas! Last chance. Back in or moving on!"

"Yell something back to him," Clare said.

"Like what?"

"Tell him you're on the way or something, I don't know. Improv, mate!"

Nicholas cupped his hands. "Max! Max, are you there?"

"I'm here, waiting for you!"

"What was that loud noise we heard?"

"Nothing to worry about! Get on your mark!"

"Sorry, I got lost! I'm heading over to you now."

Impressed with his acting, Clare raised her eyebrows in approval. Then she extended her long arms to crack her knuckles.

"Let's get her done," the punk said.

Clare had become the new leader of their little group. Sally had zero objections to handing over the responsibility. When it came to fearlessly confronting a bully and punching him out, Clare stood as the group's sole expert.

She pointed. "Sally, go right and get behind him. I'll go left. Nick, you walk straight up to him. Go slow. Keep him talking if you can."

A simple plan, the product of not having enough time to make one. Nicholas's pudgy cheeks pursed in a scowl as he lit a cigarette, scarfed a few quick drags, and flicked it into the dirt.

"You'd better be on your marks before I reach mine, or I'm dead."

"Don't worry." Clare grinned. "We'll be on him like a ton of bricks."

"Make sure you don't hurt him. Just get the camera away from him." He eyed Sally with distrust. "In case this is all a bad practical joke."

"I agree," said Sally. "Also, don't hold back."

They split up, breaking a horror rule while satisfying one of the genre's most venerable tropes, but Clare was right, it offered the only way to go on the offensive.

As Sally saw it, the camera had two key weaknesses. One, its single eye restricted its view. And anamorphic lens or no, it lacked peripheral vision. Besides that, it was operated by a director who could be fooled or distracted.

She crept into the dark, orienting herself using the blobs of light illuminating patches of ground and several of the derelict structures. Nicholas yelled at Max from the darkness somewhere on her left.

Sweat trickled down her back, following the wire she wore for the lavalier mic clipped to her blouse. She'd forgotten she was still wired for sound, ensuring her assault on her director would be recorded for posterity.

Another yell. Max answered, sounding closer now. Nicholas was walking too fast. She had less than a minute to circle around her maniac director.

Breaking into a sprint, she found herself behind the remains of a house, which stood in a dangerous lean close to final collapse.

I'm in position, she thought with a delicious thrill. It turned into crippling nausea as she understood what this meant.

If I survive this, I'll never look at stage fright the same again.

Stage fright was nothing compared to what she felt at this moment.

She wanted a weapon. The house offered her one in the form of a wood slat protruding from its splintery skin. A lath, a flimsy four-foot slab.

Sally wrenched it free and gave it a test swing. The stick would likely break on impact, but it'd make a painful statement.

And if it breaks, I'll stab the pointy end through his heart.

Wait, what?

Would she actually kill?

Sally was angry. This was the anger talking. Better anger than fear, though. If her fear found its voice, she'd end up paralyzed, and her friends would die. Either way, she felt far safer holding a weapon.

"Okay, Max, I see you," Nicholas shouted. "I'm here!"

The director said something, but Sally couldn't hear it.

She tensed to spring. Then she realized what was wrong. Both men sounded too far away.

Sally had run too far and stood behind the wrong house.

"All right, girls," Nicholas cried in the distance. "Now!"

As she rushed toward the sound, she heard the pounding of receding footsteps.

What the hell? He was bolting.

"Wait," Clare yelled. She also hadn't gotten into position.

"Ah, Clare," said Max. "So wonderful of you to join us."

By the time Sally reached the house, they were gone.