Horror Show (11 page)

“We're going home!”

Landis hurried after them. “I'll drive!”

“Stay away from me, I'm warning you!” she said, her voice cracking with emotion.

“How are you gonna get home?”

“That's no concern of yours.”

Landis watched her go. From back in the tree house another scream rose. Buzzy was having some more fun with another guest.

Inside the house, Albert
Beaumond was explaining the aspects of Satan in South American Indian cultures to Sol Kravitz when Landis and Buzzy reentered the house.

Fred, the hanged man, swilled champagne and jammed pretzels in his mouth, the rope still trailing from his neck. “I'll hang myself every half hour, you'll love it,” he boasted.

Devila danced with Luboff while the cameras clicked away.

Then, at midnight, all the lights went out.

“Don't panic, folks!” Landis called out. “It's probably the fuse box. We'll have it fixed in no time!”

As soon as Buzzy and Landis disappeared into the cellar to make repairs, a nervous pall settled over the crowd. The old house became terribly uncomfortable in the dark. The guests huddled together, speaking in whispers. The mood went from celebration to consternation in a few short moments.

Almost as soon as the two men disappeared, strange things began to happen, and the guests began to grow increasingly uneasy.

First, in the great fireplace, which had been cold all evening, a fire sprang up spontaneously. A gasp went through the crowd, followed by nervous laughter.

“Good trick,” cried one of the special effects people.

Then some torches along the wall of the stairwell, which most people assumed were fakes, ignited with a surprising “whump.” A few women gasped. The leaping fires threw unsettling shadows across the room. At the center of it all, the guillotine stood tall. The fires burned in pagan ritual all around it.

“Bravo!” one of the cameramen shouted. “Landis Woodley, a master!”

People gathered in the light of the torches, drawn to the guillotine.

The rest of the guests shifted uneasily on their feet, looking up at the blade.

The edge gleamed ominously high above the floor, lit by the dancing flames of the torches. The staircase, now swathed in sinister half-tones, reclined like an evil creature, curled around the beheading machine. The wrought-iron filigree became a demonic face in the shadows.

Buzzy Haller emerged from a door behind the guillotine and waved to everyone.

“Almost fixed,” he chirped, his cheerful banter in stark contrast to the mood of the guests. “It's just a matter of a fuse, it shouldn't be too long. In the meantime, have you been admiring this beautiful piece?”

He ran his hands along the rough wood beams of the guillotine. Buzzy was drunk, but he wasn't slurring his words yet. In the early stages of intoxication he was invariably entertaining and engaging.

“It's a genuine antique. Mr. Woodley paid a small fortune for it. It will be the centerpiece for our next film,
Headless Beauty
. Shares are still available, by the way.” Someone in the back of the room giggled. “Seriously, this is the real thing, folks, comes complete with curse.”

“Why didn't he just have one made?” a woman's voice shouted from the back of the dark room. There was a smattering of nervous laughter.

“Ahh,” Buzzy replied, “a good question. Perhaps Landis himself should answer that.”

At that moment Landis entered through the same door Buzzy had: a small Gothic, round-topped aperture located halfway up the stairs on a landing behind the guillotine. It was almost like a secret passageway.

“My technicians are working on the lights. They should be back on in a few minutes. Were you curious about this?” He put his hand on the guillotine, directly in the path of the blade, where the head would have been locked into place.

“Be careful!” a woman shouted.

Landis smiled. “No need to worry. The blade, although razor-sharp, is locked in place with four thick bolts. There's no chance of it falling.”

“Someone wanted to know why you didn't just have one made?” Buzzy reported.

“I can answer that question with another question. Would you want to own a copy of a great painting when you could have the real thing? You see, I had a rare opportunity to purchase this historic piece in Paris last year.” Landis paused, and looked around the shadowed room, slowing his pace for maximum dramatic effect. He spoke as if reading from a script. “The price was right, a bargain actually. It seems the previous owners wanted to dump it quickly, they thought it was haunted.”

“Haunted? Surely you don't believe that?” a man's voice challenged.

Landis's smile never wavered. The entire line of questioning amused him, and he instinctively began to milk it for all it was worth.

“Who knows what the spirit world is capable of?” another man answered. He stepped forward out of the throng of people and looked up at the gleaming blade. His eyes sparkled.

It was Albert Beaumond. He was dressed in his all-black, Satanic priest's outfit, a silver pentagram pendant hung from a chain on his neck. He waved his hand dramatically at the looming specter of the guillotine. “This machine is for beheading. The removal of one's head from one's body leaves the soul … shall we say, confused? Those poor creatures who were its victims left this world rather quickly and against their will. Their spirits may indeed linger here, attached to this device forever.”

Landis nodded. “Our esteemed guest has hit the nail directly on the head. The question is: how could it not be cursed? If this blade could speak …” His voice trailed off, and his eyes rose to the razor edge. “Imagine the things it could tell.

“In my opinion, the curse makes it even more valuable, more of a collector's item. If I could be so lucky as to capture a real ghost on film, well, we could all retire.

“Let me demonstrate for you how it works.”

He approached the machine casually, touching it now as if it were nothing more than a hat rack. “Ghosts or no ghosts, it's a hell of a thing, isn't it?”

Albert answered in the affirmative.

“Named after Dr. J.I. Guillotin, a physician who thought it would provide a more humane method of execution, the guillotine is a formidable piece of equipment. The blade is weighted and extremely sharp, it runs along this track and severs the head cleanly into this basket.” Landis pointed to the appropriate features. “They say that the severed head lives on for a few moments after it has been removed from the body, and that it is actually
aware
that it's falling into the basket. During the revolution, there were always a few heads in the basket. A gruesome harvest, eh?”

“Were the heads buried separately from the bodies?” Albert asked. “That might have had an influence on the hauntings.”

“I couldn't tell you,” Landis replied. “Want to see how it worked?”

Without waiting for an answer, Landis walked around behind the machine and placed his head in the yoke. The guests gasped.

“Be careful,” Albert warned. “If this machine really is haunted … well, just be careful.”

“Nothing can hap—”

Before Landis could finish, the blade came down, slicing his head off with no more effort than a paring knife moving through a carrot.

When people looked up and saw the blade beginning its descent, they screamed. The whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion. Landis's headless body jerked away from the yoke, a gout of blood issuing from his neck. It stood before the crowd—the screaming never stopped—then reached into the basket and retrieved its head.

Albert Beaumond was speechless. He stood stunned while the headless body of Landis Woodley held the trophy high and shook it. Then it turned and staggered through the door. A trail of blood marked his path.

Screaming and shouting filled the room.

A moment later the lights flickered on. Buzzy Haller watched as several women fainted, men dropped their drinks, and more man one person became sick.

The lights revealed their astonished, frightened faces blinking at one another in the harsh glow of the electric bulbs.

Too stunned to move, they stood around rubbing their eyes and wondering what they had just witnessed.

Albert Beaumond was the first one to laugh.

7

“Did you see the expression on Luboff's face?”

Devila laughed hysterically. They were in the hearse being driven home, sharing a bottle of brandy. When the enormity of Landis Woodley's pranks revealed themselves, a new level of respect among the horror community sprang up. The guy may have been a maker of B-movies, but as far as parties went, he was A-class all the way.

To pull off a prank like that required planning, expertise, and true devotion. He would go to any lengths to scare people.

And he had succeeded.

Devila loved it. She'd seen the guillotine trick before—it was a standard—but never before had she seen it done with such believable subterfuge, such elaborate groundwork. Landis Woodley was obviously cut from different timber than the rest of the men in this town.
He's got guts, vision
, she thought.

Albert Beaumond thought so, too.

The brandy had lubricated him to the point where he'd actually been able to put some moves on Devila. She was attractive beneath her ghoulish makeup. Albert found her tacky, vampirish countenance a turn-on. Her pale skin and slinky black dress were alluring to him in a way that Devila would have been alarmed to understand.

Then he began to tell her about South America.

He explained it all to her in a casual way, as if he did this sort of thing every day.

She received it in the same spirit.

“I find that a little hard to believe, Albert.”

“Yes, it's fantastic, I know. But every word is true.”

She leaned forward and batted her eyes, letting her impressive cleavage perform its magic. “How about a little demonstration?”

“Of course,” he answered immediately, anxious to impress her and take her interest in him to a new level.

The driver parked the hearse in the driveway of Albert's modest, two-story San Fernando Valley bungalow. Thora was still awake when they entered, watching TV with her friend: a sullen, quiet, overweight girl. Thora jumped up and ran toward them. The friend stayed on the couch, watching them with petulant shyness.

“Wow! Devila! I just LOOOOOVE your show!” Thora gushed. Suddenly her father wasn't so boring and predictable.

“Thank you,” she replied in a normal voice. Thora hadn't expected that. She half expected Devila to use her television voice and say, “Dahling, I vant to drink your blood!”

“Thora,” Albert said sternly, “I think it's time you and your friend went upstairs. It's way past your bedtime.”

“Oh Daddy,” she replied, “I'm in college now. I'm grown-up. Besides, Carla's parents let her stay up as late as she wants.”

Her friend, the quiet Carla, looked away quickly.

Albert laughed. “Maybe so, young lady, but in certain cultures, children who disobey their fathers are beaten until they're well into their thirties.”

Thora sighed. “We're beyond that, I think. This is 1957. Our society is much more enlightened than that.”

“Don't be so sure,” Albert said firmly, then, turning to Devila, “Thora is a first-year anthropology student at UCLA.”

Devila looked at her approvingly. “How wonderful. You must be so proud.”

“I am, sometimes,” Albert replied, looking into the living room where Carla feigned interest in the television show.

“Does that mean I can stay up?” Thora asked her father hopefully.

“No,” he answered. The finality of his voice was convincing, and Thora knew she had been defeated. She could see that Devila and her father wanted to be alone.

She signaled to Carla, and the two of them walked dejectedly toward the stairs. “Good night,” she called out as they disappeared around the first landing.

“Good night,” they echoed.

“Teenagers,” Albert sighed. “They're the same in every culture. Would you care for some brandy before I show you my church?”

“Church?” Devila asked.

“Of course. Freedom of worship is guaranteed under the Constitution.”

He led her to the dining room and poured her a generous glass of brandy. She drank it without a hitch, and he filled her glass again. They drank in silence, each wondering about the other.

The quiet of the house was accentuated by a ticking clock in the next room. It was past two. Albert was beginning to feel the effects of all the booze. The room spun slowly, Devila's smile captivated him, and he desperately wanted to impress her.

After an appropriate amount of time, he put down his glass and took hers gently from her hand. He put her glass next to his on the table and licked the sweet residue from his lips. Then he turned, took her into his arms, and kissed her passionately.

“Come with me,” he whispered.

Albert led Devila through
the house, into the “church.” It used to be a family room before he'd modified it into a soundproof, light-proof fortress. The heavy oaken doors closed behind them with a meaty click.

Inside, it was quiet and dark. Subdued light illuminated just enough for her to see the alien landscape inside the room. As normal as the rest of the house was, this room was peculiar.

Devila looked around in amazement, her eyes drawn to the ram's skull on the wall. A red-painted pentagram covered the floor. The altar at the rear of the room was covered with black cloth, the same black cloth that sealed the windows. Curious items hung from hooks along the walls: whips, hoods, black robes, knives, and torches.

Devila's senses tingled.

The occultism she toyed with in her shallow, public life was nothing more than a game compared to this. She knew that. She also knew that Albert was as real and serious about his belief as any Catholic priest could be about his.