Thirty-Eight

Leaning on her club, Sally hobbled through the dark, following the splashes of light leading back to the actors' trailers standing at base camp.

I'm coming, Nicholas, she thought.

No plan this time, only a fierce determination to end this nightmare.

Reaching her trailer, she grunted up the short steps and gripped the handle. From inside, she heard Nicholas begging for his life.

"I told you," he howled. "Sally went that way! Take her!"

Sally's hand froze. Only for a few seconds, but it was enough.

Max murmured his incantations.

She flinched as something heavy struck the wall with a resounding boom, leaving a bulge. The trailer shuddered at the impact and kept on shaking as everything inside, everything Sally had brought with her to the desert, tumbled around to crash against the walls. Everything plus Nicholas.

The battering stopped. The rocking trailer resettled on its tires.

She was alone now, in every sense of the word.

Turning, she limped back to the beach. Dan and the cop were on the way, but she didn't care about being saved anymore. The show must go on, but it always concluded. Max's movie needed a final battle between good and evil, and she'd deliver. Spotting a splash of light near the shore, she headed toward it.

The place her scene card had planned for her to die under the all-seeing eye.

Outside the pool of illumination, Sally gazed out at the Salton Sea glittering in the moonlight. Water lapped at the piled bones. Reduced to posts, the docks jutted from the sea like giant deformed teeth.

Max called out for her, and she heard her stage name escape with the wind across the waters. As for her battered body, it stayed put a moment longer, and then she pivoted to return to the light.

Lightning flickered across the scene. Thunder rumbled to the southwest.

"I'm on my mark," she said.

The director huffed into view grinning.

"That was amazing," he said. "What a crazy night!"

"Amazing," Sally echoed in a dull voice, leaning on her stick.

"You were amazing."

"I was…?"

"The performance of a lifetime. I couldn't have done it without you. You brought my vision to life. Sally, we just made the perfect horror movie!"

The director shed the equipment he'd been hauling around all night. He planted the boom microphone in the sand and tossed aside the tripod. Cradling the camera like a football, he managed a stretch.

"Yup," he groaned. "It's a young man's game."

"So, what happens now?" she asked.

"Now we get the other camera and shoot the coda. I know you're probably in a lot of pain—" He inspected her torn clothes, bleeding scrapes, and the rat's nest of splinters in her hair, and pulled a face. "But we can use that."

"I'm up for finishing the movie," Sally said.

"Of course you are, you're a pro. We finish the movie, we tell the police a story, and then we get our perfect movie cut and distributed. Me? I know I'm finished as a director after this. But for you, the sky's the limit now."

She stared at him in wonder. Just minutes ago, he'd leered at her while she'd fought a losing battle against cosmic forces. She'd witnessed his bloody work, the other actors pulverized or left punctured and bloody and headless.

The entire cast massacred.

Now here he was, talking as if they hadn't been adversaries all along but instead willing collaborators on a grand creative project.

"Okay." Sally hobbled toward him. "I'm ready to finish it."

Raising the stick, she whacked him across the face.

"Hey! What—"

She bashed him again.

Then again, laying into him with everything she had left in her.

At last, the camera fell to the sand. Still, Sally didn't stop, swinging until the director dropped to the ground cowering and sobbing.

Sally flung the stick aside and picked up the camera. He made his own grab at it, but she kicked him back into the dirt.

"No, please," he said. "If it's broken, they'll all die, really die—"

"I'll be careful," she promised.

Then she aimed the lens at him.

Cupping his battered face, he blanched in terror. Blood poured from his nose.

"Don't! I'm going to make you a star!"

"Maybe," said Sally. "Either way, you're going to pay for what you did."

Killed by his own camera. Pure horror justice.

She pressed the start switch.

Arthur Golden's occult machine whirred to life and fixed the director in its malevolent gaze. The film started rolling.

Crying out, Max flinched into a quivering ball, arms covering his head.

Nothing happened.

Slowly, he lowered his arms.

"Oh," he said. "I see."

Almost like he'd been hoping for a different result. Frustrated, Sally ignored his reaction, focusing her will into the viewfinder.

Do it, she raged. Do it before I lose my nerve!

Behind Max, a police cruiser roared into the frame, lights strobing. Dan had finally arrived. Like in a movie, the cavalry showed up too late. But unlike in a movie, he'd also come too soon, as the monster had not yet been destroyed.

Come on, you piece of shit. Work!

Dan jumped out of the cruiser. A giant cop charged out the other side, weapon drawn and ready to shoot.

Dan lunged toward her, arms outstretched. "Sally!"

Please, just give me one more minute!

"Dear Sally—"

The world turned white, accompanied by the loudest boom she'd ever heard. A wave of electric shock crackled through her body and left it quivering.

Dazed, she saw Dan Womack belly flop out of the air like a flaming rag doll.

In the aftermath of the lightning strike, an awful ripping sound. Snarling.

The cop's pistol cracked in a deafening report once, twice. Then he disappeared screaming under a pile of wild dogs.

Watching in amazement, Max shook his head.

"There go both my nemeses," he said.

Sally winced at the camera. She wanted to fling it into the sea.

The director turned back to her.

"You're a real natural with it. But you don't know how it works. Give the camera to me. Hand it over, and we'll finish the movie together. You'll own Hollywood. You'll have everything you ever wanted."

"Screw you, Max."

His bruised face darkened. He pulled off his bucket hat, revealing his wild hair, which during the night had finally gone almost completely white.

"I still have Ashlee's coda in the can," he said. "I'll have to leave the plane engine scene on the cutting-room floor, but the story will still work."

Planting his hands on the dirt, he started to rise.

"Stay back," she warned, aiming the camera at him again.

The director appeared immune to its effects.

"I mean, I can always put it in a bloopers reel," he said.

Sally's gaze darted to the cop lying in a ravaged heap next to his strobing cruiser. The dogs had scattered. The man's gun lay on the ground nearby. She'd never make it in time. Max would catch her first.

She didn't need a gun, though.

She raised the camera over her head.

"I'll smash it to pieces."

Max's eyes widened. He settled back onto the sand.

"Please don't do anything we'll both regret."

"Stay right there."

"Look. I'm not moving."

"Good."

"Good," he echoed. "So, what now?"

She'd missed something. Some secret sauce that powered the movie magic.

What was it?

"Jeez, this angle," the director murmured. "At this angle, you're a goddess."

"Shut up, I'm thinking."

"I love you, Sally."

"You what?"

"I think I did ever since I met you at the premiere party. I've never encountered a human soul that so fully embraces being alive. The camera didn't inspire me. You did. Everything I did in this film, I did it for you."

"Oh," she said in surprise.

Sally understood.

Max asking her to teach him how to develop empathy in acting. Max thanking her after Jim Foster's death for making all of this possible.

"You were always the Final Girl to me," he said.

To end this, she'd have to act again. Act like her life depended on it.

"But I'm not, Max," said Sally. "I'm the Bad Girl."

She summoned everything she knew about acting like a superpower she'd spent a lifetime cultivating and was now ready to unleash upon the world.

"We could have it all," he said. "You might even learn to love me back."

"I do," she said.

Max brightened with an eager, hopeful smile.

"You do?"

Sally pressed the start switch again.

Camera speeding. Film rolling.

"I love you too, Max."

The cosmic roar surged all around them, the angel of death descending.

The ground dissolved under the director. He sank into the earth, his face morphing between joy and despair like ancient Greek theater masks.

Then the sinkhole collapsed, and Max Maurey disappeared.

The sand poured into the grave and filled it. Silence returned to Bombay Beach. Sally sighed in the sudden stillness.

Her fight was over.

As for If Wishes Could Kill, it had finally wrapped.

But there was still one thing missing. Something important she'd forgotten to do. Had intended to do all night, but she'd never had the perfect chance.

Balling her fists, Sally screamed across the black sea.