Don't Read After Dark: Keep the lights on while reading these! (A McCray Horror Collection) (29 page)

“I thought that if I could get some of the original film, I might be able to test it.” Mitchell’s stomach twisted. The film lashing out at Elmore, his head on the floor. The blood.

“For what?” Derek asked urgently. “What were you looking for?”

Mitchell swallowed, the acid rising in his throat. “I think that there might be something layered in the film. Audio enhancement, maybe. That’s how the Baxters made their money. Audio software.”

Mitchell glanced up at the agent to gauge his reaction. But the guy lived up to his name, his face as unreadable as a boulder.

“Like I said,” Mitchell murmured, “stupid.”

Derek grunted. “Or brilliant.” The agent turned to Jill. “Did you know anything about this?”

“No,” she said shaking her head. “I haven’t even seen the film.”

“But could the Baxters do what Mitchell is suggesting? Lay in some subliminal visual and audio cues like the soda companies used to do to get you to go buy some pop?”

Mitchell’s eyebrow shot up. This agent knew a bit more about the film industry than he let on.

“You mean intentionally insert pictures and sounds that would make people sick?” Jill asked.

Derek nodded.

Jill cocked her head. “I mean, some of the most advanced studios are toying with advanced subliminal meta-messaging, but for a thirty-thousand-dollar film?”

Still, Derek seemed resolved. “We’ll swing by the studio, pick up the reels, and then take the film by the FBI crime lab and have them run ...”

He went to escort Jill out of the room when Mitchell jumped up. “Wait!” Mitchell had seen
Oz
. He did not want to experience it in real life. “You need to take me!”

“And why exactly would that be?” Derek asked, his hand on the doorknob.

“Be ... because I know the film inside and out. I’ve correlated the timing of the theater deaths with key scenes from the movie ... I can help!”

Derek opened the door.

“Please, please, please don’t leave me in here ...” Mitchell begged. “Pretty please.”

A look passed over Derek’s face. A smile? A grimace?

“Fine,” the agent finally said. “I'll get you some street clothes once you are released into my custody, but you had better
produce
.”

“Oh, I will! I will!” Mitchell assured him. He almost jumped up and down, but then, you know, with his bladder and all, he thought better of it.

* * *

Howie made his way down the long row of shelves in the Temple Studios’ film vault.

“Damn bitch. Can’t even do her own dirty work,” Howie muttered.

He scanned each row, looking for the correct section. He was sick of being Amanda’s lackey. He was the VP, for Christ’s sake, not a damn intern! Howie crossed to the next aisle, rubbing his arms against the chill. How cold do they need to keep it in here? It was like a meat locker.

Chanting whispers arose from the next aisle, increasing in tempo. The sound stopped Howie in his tracks. His blood was now as cold as the room.

“Who’s there?” he asked, his voice unsteady as he spun around. He was going to kill whoever was sneaking around in here. Save the gossip for the bathroom.

The lights flickered and buzzed. Then snapped off, flooding the room in darkness.

“Wh ... who the hell’s there?” Howie stammered.

If this was a prank, someone was getting fired. He knew how the rest of the staff felt about him. Conversations stopped whenever he walked by. He was Amanda’s eyes and ears. But if he wanted to be company president, he’d have to keep sucking up. This wasn’t a popularity contest. It was business.

The voices crept up behind him. Howie backed into a shelf, rattling the reels. One fell to the floor. The lights turned on, cutting off the voices. Sweat trickled down Howie’s forehead. He wiped it with his sleeve. He rushed to the next aisle, peeking around the corner. Finding it empty, he let out a sigh of relief.

“Okay, okay ... I just need to grab one film ...” Howie tried to reassure himself. “One freakin’ scary film that kills people ... Just one film, and I’m promoted for sure ...”

He spotted the title,
Terror in the Trees
.
Finally
.

Now he could leave early. Go home and get ready for the premiere. Schmooze with some celebrities.

“Damn it!” He slammed his fist on the shelf. There was only one reel. Where in the hell was the other one? This is no time for misfiling.

Howie felt sweat soak into his two-thousand-dollar Armani shirt. If he didn’t find this film, he would be in the unemployment line with Jill. He wondered if the offer from Sony was still open.

Howie snatched the one reel off the shelf and walked down the rows, eyeing the rest of the shelves—the light not quite reaching the corners.

Where in the hell did that intern put the damn thing? Howie spotted the refile cart to his right. One film rested on it.
Please let it be the one.
Leaning over, he read the label.
Terror in the Trees
.

“Thank God ...” he sighed in relief, picking up the reel.

Howie heard footsteps behind him. He spun around, but no one was there.

The lights went out again. Howie yelped. Watching those damn promo pieces over and over had messed with his head. This shit wasn’t funny. Howie stumbled in the darkness, slamming into the cart. The reels clattered to the floor. He bent to pick them up when he heard a scraping sound.

“Screw this,” Howie panted, leaving the films. “Amanda can keep her damn promotion.”

Howie ran blindly toward the front of the vault, his arms outstretched in front of him.

The lights flashed on. A clatter sounded behind him. He spun around. The reels he dropped now tipped onto their sides. The covers fell open. Two red eyes glowed inside. Howie took a step backward. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t real. It was all a publicity stunt.

Turning, Howie ran toward the door. The chanting rose again. Following him up the aisle.

“No!” Howie screamed. His legs felt heavy, like he was running through tar.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

“Oh, God ... Oh, God ...”

The blood thundered in Howie’s ears. Afraid to look over his shoulder, he made for the door. Dear God, what was following him?

The shelves that lined the aisle creaked and wobbled, finally tilting over as the reels they contained clattered to the floor.

“Help!” Howie screamed. “Help me!”

Howie turned the corner, running into a huge spiderweb. Only it wasn’t made of silk—it was made of film. He flailed his arms and legs, trying to break loose. The film, slow and sinuous, wound its way around his wrists and ankles. Then it jerked him off his feet, suspending him off the floor.

Screaming, Howie realized that no one would hear him. The vault was airtight. The walls made of lead.

Terror in the Trees
had claimed its next victim.

* * *

Derek stood on the steps of the police station and took a cleansing breath. Well, if you could call LA smog cleansing. Anything was better than the stale stench of old urine and vomit back in the station. One of the many reasons why he didn’t become a cop.

Jogging down the steps, Derek pulled open the limo door to find Jill already seated. Looking surprised that he had gotten through all the red tape so quickly, Jill wiped away a tear.

Derek climbed in, taking the seat next to her. “Something wrong?”

She just shook her head, shifting in her seat, putting her back to Derek.

“How long until Mitchell’s out?” she asked, clearly trying to suppress the ache in her voice.

“Any second,” he answered.

This was the second time that Jill cried this morning. Something inside of him wanted to wipe the past years away and reach out to her, wrapping his arms around her like he used to. Until she left him, that is. Still, he could give her some solace, couldn’t he?

“Jill, I can secure another car. You don’t have to come with us.”

“I might as well,” she said, shrugging. “ I’ve got nothing better to do.”

“Don’t you have to break the bad news about the canceled premiere to a bunch of pampered stars?” he asked.

Smile and spin a story that will top the current publicity. Especially if the deaths were all part of an elaborate plan by the Baxter brothers? Isn’t that what she was good at?

“Not after I was fired ...” she sniffed, straightening her back. She smoothed her hands down her skirt.

Oh, no.

Open mouth, insert foot.

When he talked Greer into yanking the film premiere, Derek never dreamed that Jill would get fired. It wasn’t Jill’s fault that the movie was a ticking time bomb.

“What? They can’t—”

“Don’t,” Jill retorted. “It’s bad enough.”

“I'll call my supervisor—”

Jill spun toward him. “You can’t fix everything, Derek.” Her face flushed. “So don’t even try.”

Damn it, Derek wished her words didn’t sting as much as they did. Worse, she was right. He couldn’t fix everything. If he could, they would have been married. That girl would have ended up on a playground rather than the morgue, and he wouldn’t still be carrying around three slugs in his chest.

Jill turned back to the window, tucking her hair behind her ear.

He wanted to say something, anything, to make it better. But he was the one who had screwed up. Again. He was pretty sure that Jill was tired of him telling her how sorry he was.

“Wait for me!” Mitchell yelled as he rushed down the station steps toward the limo.

Jill turned back, seeming more composed. “You are that sure he didn’t kill Elmore?”

“Yep.”

“But I still don’t get why we are taking him with us.”

Derek watched Mitchell bound toward them. Letting him change clothes
and
take a leak had brought back some of the kid’s youthful exuberance.

“Mitchell doesn’t do me a whole lot of good sitting in there.”

“I still don’t understand.”

He turned to Jill.

“What I do need is some
bait
.”

* * *

“Damn it, Howie,” Amanda cursed at the voice mail. “The premiere is in six hours. The Secret Service is already securing the theater.”

She ended the call as she stalked toward the door of the vault. She had been trying to reach Howie for over an hour. That was the tenth message she’d left. He had better have the reels, along with some caviar and one of the men from
Thunder Down Under
to sate her wrath.

If he failed? Well, unemployment would be too kind a fate.

Amanda pulled open the vault door and frowned. The room was dark. She stepped in and flicked on the light.

“Howie?”

The stench of iron and rotten garbage rose from deep within the vault. She tucked her finger under her nose.

“What’s that smell?”

Probably a dead rat. She’d complained to maintenance about scratching in the walls earlier in the week. Thank God she didn’t hear it while she was in her client meeting. Nothing ruined a deal like rats running up the walls. Amanda quickened her pace, checking each aisle. She didn’t know how much longer she could stand the smell. Amanda stopped at the last aisle.

What the hell was that? She stepped closer. A dark puddle spread across the floor. The reels to
Terror in the Trees
sat in the middle of it.

She was going to kill—like butcher, then put his body through a wood chipper kind of kill—Howie when she saw him. If that film was ruined ...

She heard a sound behind her as the lights flickered.

“Howie?”

Okay, she needed to get the hell out of there. There were no windows. The shelves nearly touched the ceiling. It was like being in a tomb. Buried alive.

Careful to not step in the puddle, she crouched down, reaching for the reels, but they were too far away. She looked around for something to grab them with. In the corner was a pole to change light bulbs. Quickly, she used the device to pull the reels toward her. A red streak smeared across the floor. Amanda snatched the reels up. Her hands felt sticky. She flipped them over.

Blood.

Amanda wrinkled her nose. Where did all of that come from? And where in the hell was Howie? She held the reels out in front of her as she turned toward the end of the aisle.

“Aman...da! Help!”

Amanda spun around. Blood dripped off the reels onto her Manolos.

“Howie?” Amanda held her breath, listening, but when no answer came, she got angry again. “If you’re down here, quit screwing around.”

The puddle on the floor shifted. A large bubble formed on the surface. It grew larger and larger until it popped, releasing an agonized scream.

Amanda shrieked as she spun on her heel, clutching the reels to her chest.