Four

Sally Priest was a Bad Girl.

Capital B, capital G, as in the horror movie trope.

And right now, the Bad Girl skinny-dipped at Jordan Lyman's party, swimming laps across the pool and wondering how she'd gotten here.

It all started with the punch bowl—

No, before that.

Nicholas Moody calling her up on the phone babbling about—

Wait. Rewind.

Once upon a time, Sally Priest had been Emily Corn of Orange County, a fresh-faced girl who dreamed of being a professional actor.

After acting school at UCLA, she'd auditioned for her first roles. Long days in windowless rooms in houses, churches, and theaters packed with actors doing crosswords and breathing exercises. When Sally's turn came, she often typed out immediately as tall or not tall, skinny or not skinny, busty or not busty enough, or otherwise lacking that certain something that made her right for the part.

It turned out she was ideal for horror, which she didn't mind at all, as she loved everything about this dangerous and subversive genre. In an era of big-ticket blockbusters, one could still make a profitable horror movie on a small budget, which opened the door to newcomers like her. Now, at all of twenty-three years old, Sally had been decapitated by a shovel in Razor Lips and drowned in quicksand in Mutant Dawn. Secondary, one-note characters, sure, but solid speaking roles. She'd also worked as an extra in Zombie U. and War of the Wasteland.

Sally had met Nicholas Moody at the wrap party for Jack the Knife II, in which he'd reprised his role as the titular monster. With his perpetually indignant face and chipmunk cheeks that made him look like an overgrown boy who didn't find his favorite toy under the Christmas tree, he'd struck her as strangely compelling. They had a fling that went nowhere—she could never quite trust him—but stayed friends. When he called to ask if she wanted to be his plus-one for the premiere of Jack the Knife III, she'd replied, yeah, duh, obviously.

During the show, Nicholas kept leaving for smoke breaks but really because he hated seeing his pudgy face on-screen. Ashlee Gibson hustled out twice to powder her nose. As for Sally, she sat on the edge of her seat ignoring her bladder and hissing to everyone's annoyance, "Stay in the light!" and "Why is she opening that door?" and "Don't get in that car!"

Anyway, that's how she ended up going to this party.

One mystery solved.

But it didn't explain how she turned into a fish.

Something about the punch bowl. Definitely about the Bad Girl.

The Bad Girl had emerged as an important member of the eighties horror pantheon alongside the Scholar, Hunter, Cop, Jock, Harbinger, Token Minority, and of course the Final Girl, who survives by vanquishing the evil killer. Arguably, the Bad Girl stood second in importance to the story as she provided a dramatic foil to the morally upstanding and responsible Final Girl. In fact, the Final Girl could not be truly pure without her moral counterpart.

Besides that, the Bad Girl had more fun. She laughed and smoked the devil's lettuce and fucked with an utter lack of shame. And she never, ever took the threat of a machete-wielding maniac in the woods seriously because, come on, as if.

The Final Girl may have symbolized female empowerment, but the Bad Girl embodied it, however briefly. Unlike Emily Corn, the Bad Girl feared nothing. Yes, she was a surefire goner, according to the formula. But she left a beautiful corpse, while the Final Girl survived only to anticipate a lifetime of therapy, survivor's guilt, and looking over her shoulder.

Sally studied for her role. One could say she inhabited it.

As a student at UCLA, she'd latched on to the Stanislavski Method, as so many did. This system helped actors inhabit their characters so as to bring realism to their performance through a naturalistic approach. Lee Strasberg's take was to build a well of experience an actor could draw on emotionally to connect with a character while performing. Stella Adler favored imagination. Sanford Meisner taught actors to focus less on the character's internal landscape and more on reacting to the other actors. All of it worthy, though Sally had a masochistic thing for Strasberg.

The only problem was Emily Corn had been raised a nice, pampered girl by a reasonably wealthy family. Even in college, she'd been a straitlaced nerd. As an actor, she wanted to be the best and was terrified she might not be good enough.

Hence Sally Priest was born. And my, was Sally naughty.

The party had swirled around her in excited glimpses and fragments of people faking it in the belief they were making it. They glanced past each other's shoulders to see who else had attended and whom they were talking to. All of them networking, though the people they were doing it with had little to give except encouragement. Which didn't matter, you did it anyway, because everyone knew someone who might help you, and the struggling actor you met who waited tables between the odd Colgate commercial might become the next Brooke Shields.

As Sally had arrived with Nicholas's inner circle, she ended up in something of a receiving line of people who'd reached a higher rung on the endless ladder to stardom. Faces appeared to ask her what she was doing these days.

You know me, I'm always busy!Razor Lips wrapped principal photography a few weeks ago, and now I'm taking Dan Womack's acting class. I recently did a photo shoot for fresh headshots and updated my sizzle reel. Oh yes! The director wanted me to dye my hair red for Razor Lips, I'm glad you like it!

Sometimes, I drive out into the desert to work on my scream on the Joshua trees. It's really coming along.

They all said they'd love to hear it sometime. What was next for her?

Playboykept asking her for a shoot, which she'd been putting off. She was looking at some scripts her agent had sent over. She attended the odd boozy lunch with such and such director. She left out that they all sought her for the Bad Girl role, as she didn't want to have to listen to any mock concern over typecasting. Everyone in Hollywood ended up typecast to some extent, and in Sally's mind, it wasn't such a negative to be a go-to gal for certain parts. Nonetheless, she dreamed of being the Final Girl—joining the scream queen sorority and standing alongside Jamie Lee Curtis, Heather Langenkamp, and Ashlee Gibson.

So that's me. What about you? What's in your pipeline? Who's your agent?

Sometimes, the faces changed before she finished talking. Then Ashlee pointed out the punch bowl with a wicked grin.

She called out: "Who among us is brave enough to try the blue sunshine?"

Only a lunatic would drink the mystery punch. The blue liquid had certainly been spiked. No doubt about that. What no one knew was how many people had spiked it and with what.

What would the Bad Girl do?

Pound a glass of it, of course, while Nicholas laughed his ass off.

"This is why we love you, Sal," he said.

She reined back a belch. "I'm trying to understand suffering."

To be a scream queen, one had to. Whatever didn't kill her made her a stronger actor, and she still wasn't strong enough. She could always be better.

"How is that going for you?"

"I honestly don't feel a thing." She didn't, not yet, anyway.

After an hour, she said, "I wish someone would murder me so I'd know what it's like. But not actually die. Because then what would be the point? You know?"

Nibbling on a canapé, Ashlee sniffed loudly, as she'd recently blasted her nostrils again.

"Not at all," she said.

Sally slapped the rest out of her hand.

"Don't eat that! The camera adds ten pounds."

"Goddamnit," said Ashlee. "Nicky, take care of your friend. She's high as a kite."

That's when Sally realized she had no idea what she'd been saying for the last twenty minutes or six hours, depending on whether her watch or intuitive connection to time and space were accurate.

All her old fears had dissipated. She was seeing the world a whole new way. Nicholas began to coil and bob like an improbable species of alien life. Sally went with the flow.

"You all right there?" he asked. "Your pupils look like black dimes."

"And you're an impressionist painting with van Gogh curves and Andy Warhol colors." It was true; Nicholas's face in particular was all kinds of messed up. She licked his pudgy cheek and frowned. "I thought it would taste like apple."

He wiped at his blushing face. "Jesus. Cut it out, Sal."

"You should get that checked out. By a, uh, a—"

"No joke, you're—"

"Gynecologist?" she finished.

"You're sweating, darling," Ashlee pointed out.

Sally looked at her. "And you… you're… you're such a—"

This uninhibited thought went unfinished, which was probably for the best; Ashlee tolerated her friends but burned her enemies to the ground. Distracted by her own reflection in one of the picture windows, Sally inspected the maniac leering back at her, mascara running like black tears.

"Who is that sexy creature?" she murmured to herself.

"I think somebody loaded that punch with mescaline," said Nicholas. "And God knows what else. I hope this night doesn't end at the hospital."

She noticed the pool beyond her reflection. "Never have I ever been a fish."

"Now, this is getting interesting," Ashlee said.

"She should lie down," Nicholas said.

"Shut up, Nicky. It's a party. Let her swim with the fishes."

"The Jack attack is back." Sally slowly extended her finger and poked his nose, only she missed by a solid nine inches. "Boop."

Then she yelled, "Okay, fuckers, who wants to go skinny-dipping?"

The crowd cheered. Finally, someone had kicked this shindig into high gear. Sally found the door and walked outside into the balmy night, shedding garments like a molting serpent. By the light of tiki torches, she stood pale and radiant in panties at the edge of the diving board, flickering like liquid porcelain.

Then she raised her arms and executed a beautiful dive that broke the surface with scarcely a blip.

Swirling in neon whirlpools, the warm water enclosed her like a velvet womb. Too late, she realized about an hour's worth of poofy hairstyling had been destroyed in an instant. It didn't matter. She felt free of it all at last. Everything, which included the pressure of having perfect hair.

While she breaststroked her first lap, the water exploded as partyers whipped off their own clothes and plunged in flying cannonballs.

Remembering all this, she now thought, So that's how I became a fish.

Yes, it was all starting to fall into place.

Who she was, and what she was doing here with these weird people.

No regrets. The water felt lovely. Honestly, she could live here.

But her limbs started to burn. She trembled with exhaustion. On the plus side, the exercise had helped push her past the drug peak. Her brain processed the world in a slightly more coherent way. She could at least think straight.

For example, she thought, It's time to stop being a… a—

A parasite swimming in the sweat glistening on the scales of a vast slumbering Leviathan curled into a black ball in space—

Okay, maybe she wasn't thinking that straight. But she knew she wasn't thinking straight, she had that going for her.

Cut to Sally hauling herself over the lip of the pool, where she lay gasping on the warm stone. She studied her hand, now wrinkled with moisture.

"Time's cruel passing," she said with dramatic flair. "I've grown old."

Perched on the pool's edge, a beautiful mermaid smiled at her. No, not a mermaid but a woman. An actor like her, glistening in bra and panties and swishing the heated water with her long legs.

"That was impressive," the blonde said. "You should go for the Olympics."

Sally squinted. "You were in Cryptopia. The morgue scenes."

"I played Dead Girl Number Two."

"You look better alive. Can I touch your skin?"

The woman laughed.

"Of course," she said.

Nicholas crouched next to Sally. "Glad you're still with us, Sal."

He handed her a glass of water. She gulped it down and came up gasping.

"Your face is looking a lot more human," she said. "But you're still wearing clothes."

The party had largely moved outside. Many revelers either frolicked in the pool or walked around half-nude, dripping, and gorgeous in the torchlight. The rest danced in the living room to Siouxsie and the Banshees' "Peek-a-Boo."

He winked at the mermaid. "I'm, uh, still working on that. Hello."

"Hi," said the blonde.

Sally heard tense voices. Living in an industry where everyone was enthusiastically cheerful most of the time, she zeroed in on the sound.

"Who's being a bummer?"

Nicholas helped her to her feet and lit a cigarette. A short distance away, Jordan Lyman lounged pink and steaming in a raised hot tub, looking like a giant ham someone dressed in a frizzy wig and mirrored shades and set to boil. His Saudi backers sat ramrod straight in the water like bearded mannequins he hauled around as glowering props.

And nearby, Max Maurey, the director of the Jack franchise, paced the deck scowling. Gaunt and wild-haired, Dr. Frankenstein in a tux.

Max growled. "You always said do it Hollywood's way, play the game—"

"That sounds like me," Jordan agreed. "I'm with you so far."

"You also said if I did that, I'd get to make the motion pictures I want to do."

"Oh. Well. I may have been fudging a bit about that part."

"I want to make something that is actually horror. Anything else is a fraud."

Sally turned to Nicholas. "My circuits are fried. The director and the producer seem to be arguing about whether the movie they made is good."

"Creative differences. Mr. Lyman said he's mainstreaming horror by making it palatable to the masses. Max is saying the masses deserve genuine terror, something like that."

"What do you think?"

"I don't," he enthused. "I just want to keep making movies."

"Well, I know how to fix this."

Nicholas snorted a cloud of smoke. "I am certain you do not, Sal."

"You don't understand. I really love this genre."

A mischievous expression crossed the actor's face. A smile of pure devilish charm that once won her over for a single night.

"In that case, I'm sure they'd benefit from your scholarship. Give 'em hell."

Sally was already striding forward. "What we're doing isn't horror!"

The men gawked at her with surprise—producer, director, financiers. Nicholas, meanwhile, vanished into the shadows.

"It's something else," she added. "Horror is only horror when it's real."

She wasn't certain whether it had been her or the drugs talking, but sure, she could agree with what her mouth had said. It sounded quite poignant, in fact.

The men only stared.

Then she looked down and realized she was practically naked.

"Oh, crumb," she said. "I forgot."

Well, so what. America had already seen her chest blown up to mythic proportions on massive screens in multiplexes. In her business, she could consider this little scene an impromptu audition.

Lucky for her, she had her resume on her at all times.

A hundred ten pounds, 36-24-36.

Max and Jordan exchanged a slow glance.

"Sally Priest, right?" said the director.

"That's me." She resisted the urge to do a little curtsy.

"Of course you are. I quite enjoyed you in Mutant Dawn." He gazed at her as a candidate for kindred spirit. "Anyway, I think you are absolutely correct. Horror is only horror if it's real. I'd love to talk to you about that sometime."

"Later," the producer said. "Come join us in the tub."

Sally understood she had a clear choice about whom to please, what each man wanted, what she might gain, and what it would cost her.

"I have to find my clothes," she blurted.

Stumbling away, Sally managed to locate her suspendered skirt hanging on an azalea bush. The rest had disappeared. Oh well. Fitting the skirt, she positioned the suspenders so they covered her nipples.

"That works." She didn't feel so good.

Jordan and Max had gone back to their arguing while the Saudis said nothing, their eyes following Sally like a creepy painting in an old haunted house movie. Again, Max Maurey struck her as a modern Dr. Frankenstein, though truth be told, each man no doubt considered himself the creator and the other the monster he couldn't quite control.

"Not the picture," the director was saying. "I saw the accident reel."

"Now you're going to go insane," said Jordan. "That film is cursed."

Max stopped pacing. "What do you mean? Are you serious?"

"No, I'm not serious. It's just footage of a tragic mishap. It's sad."

"I think—"

"And you weren't supposed to be in my film library. That's a big no-no, Max. It results in a very real kind of curse you won't like. The ‘curse of the director banned from his producer's house'—"

"I think you're wrong. It wasn't only sad, it was the most powerful six minutes of cinema I've ever experienced. What Arthur Golden captured is nothing short of what Sally was talking about. Real horror."

Hearing her name as a cue to get back on scene, Sally padded toward them on her bare feet. "And another thing—"

Then she remembered this wasn't her argument and realized that she had nothing further to contribute.

One of the Saudis smiled and said something in Arabic.

Max ignored her. "I'd love to talk to him. Ask him what he felt."

"You can't," Sally said. "He's dead."

The director's mouth dropped open. "No, he isn't."

"Arthur Golden died, like, two weeks ago. Um…"

She mimed shooting herself in the head.

"I would have heard—"

"It wasn't in the trades. I heard it from my—" She didn't know what to call Dan Womack. "I have a source who was close to him."

Again, the men stared at her in surprise until even Sally in her inebriated state grew self-conscious.

"Well," she said. "Okay, bye."

"If you change your mind about joining us, let me know," said Jordan.

She wandered away wondering where she was going. Then a sudden, urgent desire came over her. Something important that remained missing. Another part of her resume she had on her at all times. Her audition wasn't complete.

Sally stomped back to the hot tub. She clenched her fists against her cheeks.

And screamed.

A horror scream shrill and loud enough to tremble glass, assault eardrums, and terrify a future movie audience.

Sally screamed for all she was worth while Max goggled, Jordan regarded her with a little half smile, and the Saudis thrashed the water in pell-mell flight.

Then she bent to vomit all over the producer's redwood deck.