Deception on the Set (7 page)

I sighed. “True.”

We went back to the crew list. There was Tom Rutherford,
the prop master for the movie. We had seen him around but hadn't had a chance to speak with him yet. And of course there was the entire makeup effects team. But Joe was steadfast in his belief that they were all innocent.

“I still think Kavner is suspicious,” he offered.

“Of course,” I agreed. “And having us investigate is the perfect cover.”

“Plus, he has a clear motive,” Joe added. “I don't see a motive with any of these other people.”

We were so lost in discussion that we hadn't noticed that the movie crew had broken for lunch. People were arriving with trays of food and filling the surrounding tables.

“Frank!” shouted a voice. I turned and saw Chelsea waving me over from two tables away.

Joe nudged me. “Go get her, tiger.”

I brushed him away as I walked to Chelsea's table. She wore a white robe over her wardrobe and still had the fake gash on her cheek. As soon as I approached, she locked her arm through mine and pulled me to the nearest seat.

“I'm so glad I got you alone,” she said.

Don't say something stupid. Don't say something stupid,
I told myself.

“Oh, okay,” I said. Boy, did that sound stupid.

But Chelsea didn't seem to care. “I just wanted to thank you for what you did the other day.”

“You already thanked me for pulling you off that car,” I said.

“Not that.” She nudged me. “For ruining that scene.” She glanced around and then lowered her voice. “Was that part of the plan?”

“What plan?” I asked.

“The plan to stop the movie,” she whispered. “Everyone's talking about what you two guys are doing.”

“We're not . . . ,” I began. “I didn't . . . we don't have any kind of plan.”

Chelsea didn't seem to hear. “Did my agent hire you? I was just telling him how I wished that I'd never signed on to do this stupid movie. I mean, at first I thought it would help my image, you know? Everyone still thinks I'm a kid. I thought that a horror movie would change that.” She leaned toward me. “But I didn't think the movie would be this bad. I mean, I bet it goes straight to DVD, you know? I'm just so glad that you and your brother are putting a stop to it.”

“Whoa, wait,” I said, somewhat surprised I got a word in. “Joe and I are not trying to stop the movie. That's not us.”

Chelsea didn't reply at first. She just stared at me with her mouth agape. Finally she winked at me. “Right,” she said. “Whatever you say.”

She went on, telling me all about her dreams, aspirations, and future career choices. She told me how she really wanted to do a period film, but definitely no Shakespeare—he was too hard to memorize. Something more like
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
. In her words, “You know, something classic.”

I finally broke away and returned to Joe's table. After I filled him in, he asked, “Man, is there anyone who
does
want this movie to be made?”

“No kidding,” I agreed.

“Bro, I hate to say it,” said Joe. “But motive-wise, this puts Chelsea Alexander near the top of our suspect list.”

I sighed. “I know.” But honestly, it wasn't such a blow. After spending a bit more time with her, I wasn't as starstruck as I used to be.

Okay, I know that the real people are different from the characters they play on TV. I get that. And I truly didn't expect Chelsea to be as smart as her Lieutenant Fraction character. But she wasn't even as nice in real life as I thought she'd be. In fact, she only seemed to be into me after she thought I was some sort of criminal who could help her. Not cool. Still, no matter how much I got to know her, the real her, I couldn't quite shake the tiny crush I'd had since age ten.

“Let's attack this from the opposite angle,” I suggested. “Who really
does
want this movie to be made?”

“The guy who wrote it and is directing it, I would think,” replied Joe.

“Josh Biehn,” I said. “Let's go talk to him. I could use a little positive conversation about this movie for a change.”

We caught Josh in his office in the production building.

“Hey, guys,” he greeted. “Come in, come in. Steve told me you were on the case.”

Josh seemed like a different person. Yesterday he was about to kick me off the movie. Today he was happy to see me.

“We actually have a few questions for you, if you have time,” I said.

“Sure.” He sat on the edge of his desk.

“Well, first of all, to be blunt,” Joe started, “do you know of anyone who would want to stop this movie?”

“That's the thing,” said Josh. “I can't figure it out for the life of me.”

“Well, Mr. Kavner mentioned insurance money,” I said.

The director laughed. “Steve's always kidding around. And yes, this picture is well insured. But all movies are insured. And besides, there's no way he'd ruin my first picture. We go way back to when I was a stunt performer in his early films.”

“Speaking of stunts, is it true that the entire stunt department has quit?” I asked.

Josh nodded and sighed. “Yeah. I can't believe Cody would run out on me like that, but he did. We go all the way back to college.” He held up his hands. “But I don't blame him. He has his reputation to think of, and if someone did get hurt during one of his stunts, sabotage or not, it would be on him.”

“Do you have more stunt people coming in?” I asked.

“No, there's not enough time,” Josh replied. “We had to cut out most of the big stunts, and the few that are left I'll do myself.”

“Isn't that kind of risky?” asked Joe. “If someone has it out for you in particular, one of your upcoming stunts would be the perfect time to strike.”

“Stunts are risky, period,” Josh explained. “But with you guys helping us keep an eye out, I'm sure things will go fine.”

“When are the stunts happening?” I asked.

“And what are they?” asked Joe.

“Just check the call sheets,” said the director. “They list all the scene numbers for the day. You can use those numbers to look them up in the script.”

“Uh, we never got a script,” said Joe.

Josh's eyes widened. “You didn't?” He ran to the back of his desk. “Let me get you one.” He pulled open a drawer and rummaged through, pulling out a stack of pages held together with two brads. He presented it like a proud parent. “Let me know what you think.”

I
DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY CHELSEA
doesn't like the script,” said Frank. “I mean, at the end—”

“Dude, I'm literally two pages away from the end!” I cut him off, waving the script in front of me. “Don't blow it for me.”

Frank raised his hands and clamped his lips shut. He was already done up in full zombie makeup. It was weird how I was getting used to seeing him like that all the time.

Josh had only given us one copy of the script. Frank had read it the night before. Today was my turn, but I'm not as fast a reader as my brother. Now I was trying to cram in the last few pages while Nick applied my stringy zombie wig.

Finally I finished the script and put it down. “So Chelsea's
character was a zombie the entire time?” I asked. “That doesn't make any sense.”

Frank shook his head. “No, it's more like she's a zombie carrier.”

“Or patient zero,” Nick explained. “The first person to be infected.”

I shrugged. “Okay, I guess that kind of makes sense.”

“The point is, it's a pretty good story,” said Frank. “I don't know why anyone wouldn't want it to be made.”

“Yeah, I don't know either,” I said. “I'd go see this movie even if I wasn't in it.” When Nick moved away to get more supplies, I leaned over to Frank. “So, now that we know the whole story, where will the saboteur strike next?” I whispered.

“How about the scene we're in tonight?” Frank asked. “Isn't some old shack supposed to blow up?”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “There are zombies all around, and the survivors are trying to wipe them out with an explosion.” I smiled. “That'll be cool to see.”

“Well, we're going to have front-row seats,” said Frank.

I nodded. “Close enough to catch anyone who wants to throw a monkey wrench into the scene.”

Meredith's makeup team had their work cut out for them. They had to create close to thirty zombies by nightfall, when the scene would be shot. Luckily, most of the extras didn't have as detailed masks as Frank and me. Since they wouldn't be seen up close, those extras simply wore full-face masks like you'd buy for Halloween. Our classmates—Eric,
Amanda, and Hector—were even pulled in to fill out the undead troupe.

Once the rest of the extras were ready, Hugo led us to the set. Tonight they were shooting in the vacant lot behind the Meet Locker. But the lot wasn't vacant anymore. Other than the usual lights, cameras, and crew members milling about, the lot now had a chain-link fence installed on one side. An old shack stood near the back of the lot. The run-down house looked tiny, as if it had only a couple of rooms. It also looked as if it had been standing there for fifty years or more. But since I had grown up in Bayport, I knew for a fact that it hadn't been there a week ago.

Hugo led us to the chain-link fence while the camera crew gathered on the other side.

“Okay, zombies!” Bill shouted. “In this scene, we're going to have you trying to get through the fence and away from the shack. The shack is going to catch fire, burn for a bit, and then explode.”

I glanced back at the shack. It was at the other end of the lot, about forty yards away. Several of the other zombie extras were looking back as well.

Bill answered the question that I'm sure was on many of our minds. “Don't worry, you'll be fine.” He gestured to Bob Trevino. “And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Bob for the safety speech.”

The special effects coordinator stepped up. “I've done these gags a hundred times, and they're perfectly safe. The
building is mostly made of lightweight balsa wood, and the charges we've placed are very controlled. You're about triple the distance past the debris field.”

Frank raised a hand, and Bill nodded to him. Luckily, by now we had learned to leave out our prosthetic teeth until right before shooting began. “Won't it look like we're too far away?” my brother asked.

“That's why we're shooting this scene with a long lens,” Bill replied. “Whenever you see actors running from an explosion, it's mostly shot with a telephoto lens. The optics compress the scene so it looks like the background is right on top of the foreground.”

I smiled at Frank. “Cool.”

He glanced around. “Let's just keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” I murmured. “And what's more ordinary than a bunch of zombies and an exploding building?”

“We're only going to get one shot at this, people,” Bill went on. “So we're going to rehearse the cues.” He went on to explain just what he wanted us to do. When he was finished, Josh stepped forward.

“Okay, let's try one,” said Josh.

“Rehearsal's up!” shouted Bill.

Josh returned to his chair behind the monitors. “And . . . action!”

All of us zombies clawed at the fence, moaning and pushing ourselves up against the metal links.

“Okay, cue the fire!” Josh shouted.

“The fire ignites,” barked Bob. He stood by the director and held a small box with wires snaking out of the top. The thin brown wires led to the ground, around the fence, and to the shack.

As instructed, none of us zombies noticed when the fire ignited. We continued to paw at the fence.

“It's going to burn for a while,” said Josh. “A little more . . . and . . . cue the explosion!”

“Boom!” shouted Bob.

Even though this was just a rehearsal, we zombies flung ourselves at the fence as if we were hit from behind. Then we collapsed in a heap, truly lifeless.

“And cut!” shouted Josh. He sprung from his chair. “Let's get ready to go for real.”

“Meredith,” said Bill. “You want to check your makeup before we go?”

“Copy that,” replied Meredith. She and her team swooped toward the zombies.

We all laughed as we climbed off one another. I stood and extended a hand to Frank. “I didn't hurt you too much, did I?”

Frank groaned as he climbed to his feet. “No, but I think you should lay off the craft service for the rest of the movie.”

I didn't really register what Frank had said because I was too busy staring at something bizarre. I tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the shack. “Check it out,” I whispered.

Two figures in brown overalls slunk across the lot toward the shack. But what made the scene truly weird was the fact that the two figures were
us
.

We watched ourselves open the front door, look around, and duck inside.

“Let's go,” hissed Frank. He darted toward the old building.

I stayed with him as we sprinted across the lot. When he reached the front door, he carefully opened it and ducked inside. I followed him in and quietly closed the door behind me. I didn't want the saboteurs to know we were in the shack with them.

Of course, after we were actually inside, I could see that it would have been impossible to remain hidden from anyone already in there. From the outside, the old house looked like it had a few rooms. But since this was a movie set and only the outside mattered, it was essentially just one big room. The wood inside looked new, and several long boards propped up the walls around us. There wasn't even a floor; bare dirt was beneath our feet. We were also completely alone.