Horror Show (35 page)

Clint nodded. He watched the black-and-white images on the screen go through their act. There were close-ups of the corpse, a few too gory for the censor, several shots where Buzzy was plainly visible, a couple of morgue shots in which the camera panned the room. These were establishing shots for the entire sequence. The camera swung around the room. Clint saw the white tile walls, the steel gurneys, the drawers. His breath caught. The drawers! The camera panned slowly past them and he could see that drawer number sixty-six was open! The camera lingered on it for a second more, then continued around the room.

The creepy atmosphere of the morgue was undeniable. Clint could understand the reluctance of the crew to work down there. The place looked positively chilling.

As he watched the outtakes and censored material, Clint was struck by the overall darkness of the film. It was almost too real. Luboff's eyes, the dead bodies, the bizarre lighting by Chet Bronski. Clint shuddered.

This was horror
film noir
, a genre occupied by only a handful of films. Films that made you sick with dread, films that scared you a little too much, that went a little beyond the norm. Like a real snuff film,
Cadaver
lived up to its reputation. Clint could not take his eyes away.

A strange fascination held him; the fascination with all things horrible. It was his only addiction.

“This stuff is incredible,” Clint said, more to break the mood than anything else. “I'm surprised that most people didn't suspect the real corpses, it's so damn …”

“—Real. Yeah, I know whatcha mean, but I had to be as careful as possible. Believe it or not, at the time, people just thought it was great special effects. That's a tribute to Buzzy, I guess.”

Clint watched each scene carefully, studying the movements of the corpse, trying to get a good look at its face. Ironically, the only really good look at it was in the world famous close-up with the worms. Clint saw that twice, from two different angles. The first time they shot it, the worms grossed everyone out so badly that the camera moved. In the background was someone saying, “Oh shit! I can't believe it.” Clint wondered if it was Landis.

The second time, a worm wriggled out a little too far and touched Buzzy's thumb as he prepared to open the eyes. Buzzy gasped and let go of the head as if he'd touched a lit match. It fell forward and clunked against the tile with a sound too graphic to be described.

Clint watched, his eyes like saucers. Then, the screen went black—the horror show was over. The film continued to roll when the tail end passed through the machine and started flapping wildly. Landis switched it off.

Clint turned to face Woodley. “Great stuff, unbelievable, I loved it. It really gives you a feel for what it must have been like to be there.”

“You can't imagine what it was like,” Landis replied. “You just can't imagine …”

The lights came up. Landis pulled the take-up reel without rewinding and placed a new reel on the spool.

“Okay, now this next part is different,” Landis explained. “This is some footage I shot for a movie that never got made.”

Clint twisted in his seat. He watched the old man fooling around with the projector. Two dinosaurs, Clint thought, one preening the other. Landis treated the machine with a respect that he seldom, if ever, showed human beings.

“It is, without a doubt, the greatest few minutes of film I ever shot. Maybe even the most remarkable piece of film
ever.
” He paused, watching for Clint's reaction, then sighed. “It's a shame I couldn't do anything with it way back when, but maybe now, with our enlightened society—” His words trailed off and he coughed deeply. “Ah, who the fuck am I kiddin'?”

Clint looked perplexed. “What were you gonna say?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Landis muttered. “Judge for yourself.”

When it was film he was dealing with, Landis's ancient, gnarled fingers were suddenly as nimble as a surgeon's. Clint watched the old man thread the wide 35 mm celluloid through the maze of toothed spools and running gears. It seemed like a needlessly complicated process, full of endless loops and twists. Old-time film equipment was like that.

Then, it was ready. Landis dimmed the lights and said, “What you are about to see, no human being besides myself and the cameraman has ever seen before. I think you'll recognize the principals, if you're half the horror fan you say you are. I gotta warn ya, this is very strong stuff. It was never released, for one reason or another, as you'll see. One more thing—it's all real.”

“What do you mean by that?” Clint asked immediately.

“You'll see,” Landis replied cryptically.

Clint shifted back in his seat, anxious to see what was so incredible in the old man's eyes. Another countdown filled the screen, the film blinked, then stabilized.

A pale woman with black hair and dark lipstick appeared on the screen. She looked familiar.

She spoke. Clint listened closely. “Hello, I am Devila, queen of your nightmares. Tonight, I invite you on a great journey, a journey into the unknown.”

Devila! The connection Clint had been looking for was in front of him. He looked back at the old man, saw he was absorbed with the image on the screen, then turned his attention back to Devila. She went through a short monologue saying that everything they were about to see was real. She appeared to be very nervous. Clint wondered why.

“I am now going to conjure up the spiritual entity. Remember, this is not a trick.”

Clint was transfixed. She took two huge tuning forks, hung them on a floor lamp, and struck them.

The sound they made was distorted on the film, but it seemed to be an intense vibration, too much for the microphones, and they canceled out. Clint was suddenly fearful. The feeling of dread coming off the screen was overwhelming. The sound on film went to white noise, yet even then, it seemed powerfully evil.

“Watch this part closely,” Landis rasped.

What happened next made him sit up straight and study what his eyes told him they saw. The woman transformed into a snake, or rather, her head became a serpent's head.

If it was a special effect, Clint couldn't see it. It appeared to be real. Clint realized that the only way to fake something like that was to use the clay-dynamation process like Ray Harryhausen.

A clay model could be photographed one frame at a time, but even then, by its movements you could tell what it was. This was definitely not that. Clint watched, studying the screen for a clue, but could find nothing that would give the effect away. The serpent's head fit on her seamlessly; its coils seemed to meld into her flesh.

In his heart, Clint knew that it couldn't be real. Such things don't exist. It was impossible, but it
looked
real.
It must be the old man, screwing with my head again
, thought Clint.

His eyes were riveted to the horror occurring onscreen.

The snake thing moved around the room and flicked its tongue, the camera wobbled but kept rolling. Some guy in the background screamed. Clint studied the film. Then, abruptly, it ended. The screen went white as if an eye had opened into the sun.

Clint turned to face Landis. “What was that thing?”

“I don't know, but it scared the shit out of me.”

“You never did anything with this film?”

Landis switched the lights back on, but the atmosphere stayed dark and ominous. The only difference was now you could see.

“What could I do?” Landis asked. “Devila blew her brains out on TV a few days later; we were all watching. I only had the couple minutes of film you just looked at … I was stuck. But, as you can see, it's powerful stuff. That was completely real; it actually happened.”

Clint hesitated, gathering his strength, then made the decision to let the cat out of the bag.

“Devila was just one of the people involved with
Cadaver
to die, right?”

“Devila wasn't in
Cadaver,
” Landis answered quickly, “and I know what you're driving at. You're going to tell me that each and every person who worked on that movie is dead, and that most of them died mysteriously, either by suicide or murder. You're going to tell me that there's a curse, aren't you?”

“Yeah,” Clint said, “I was. I've been doing some research.”

Landis snorted. “I'll bet you have.”

“There are those who might believe that the corpse you used in the movie has come back to, how should I say it, even the score?”

Landis laughed. “Like who? That's horseshit.”

“And you're the last one left.”

“Pure crapola.”

“Aren't you scared?”

Landis laughed another one of his humorless laughs. The skin of his face had sagged noticeably since he'd arrived, and Clint wondered if he wasn't going to start gasping for breath any second. The laugh turned into a sharp, dry cough.

“Me, scared? Shit, boy, I invented scared. What do you think?”

Clint stood up, his notebook and pen in hand. He gestured at Landis, waving a hand over the room. “I think all this is part of something else, something bigger,” he said.

Landis sneered. “You're crazy.”

“Hear me out,” Clint continued. “Yes, I do think there's a curse, but that's not what I wanted to say.” He took a deep breath. “I think I know whose body that was in drawer sixty-six. It was Albert Beaumond.”

Landis shook his head. “The Satanist?”

“Yeah, he came to your party with Devila, he was involved with devil worship, and he disappeared at the same time. He was never found. The cop in charge of the case said that they did find a body that matched the description, but before it could be identified, somebody stole it from the morgue!”

“Buzzy!”

“The body was in drawer sixty-six.”

Landis stared off into the distance of the blank movie screen as if he were looking out into a polar landscape. “Johnny D.,” he muttered.

“Johnny D.? Albert Beaumond.”

“Jesus.”

Clint leveled his gaze at the old man and began to weave a web of impossible logic. “Suppose that Albert Beaumond stumbled onto something truly supernatural, like those tuning forks. Suppose Devila got them from him after
he
used them and went crazy, then
she
used them herself in the film, and
she
went crazy. Albert probably went out and killed himself, but his body wasn't found until later. Those forks are the connection. Then you come along and make
Cadaver
and trot out Albert's body for one last fling.”

“Buzzy ripped it off and brought it here,” the old man said.

“Here? He brought the body here?”

Landis sighed. “The asshole …”

Clint continued. “That was the corpse of Albert Beaumond, a man who worshipped the devil, a man who had become host to a demon.”

“That explains a lot of things,” Landis said, still staring at the snowfield.

“But that's not the curse, is it?” Clint asked bravely.

“What do you mean?” Landis hissed.

“Well, that story about the demonic possession might account for Devila, but someone else, someone alive killed those other people, unless you're willing to believe that something truly supernatural was responsible. Personally, I don't. I think somebody did them in and made it look that way. Why? I don't know.”

“Revenge,” Landis whispered.

“Maybe. The secret of
Cadaver
and the missing corpse was protected. The people who were part of it are all dead.”

Landis pulled his face back from the empty screen and narrowed his eyes. “What are you saying?”

“Who knew?” Clint asked.

“Buzzy Haller.”

Clint nodded. “And you.”

Landis didn't seem surprised. His face showed no emotion whatsoever. Clint, unschooled in the fine art of subterfuge, wore his heart, soul, and guts on his sleeve.

“Me,” Landis said flatly. There was no inflection to give away what he was thinking.

“You had the most to gain,” Clint softly said. “You knew the score.”

“Landis Woodley is not a murderer,” the old man spit. “Say what you want about him, but he doesn't kill people. Your theory is good, but you left out one little thing.”

The old man stared off into the arctic snowscape of the screen again and sighed. Clint could see the fatigue on his back, grinding him down. He stood hunched over, frail and sickly.

“The curse,” he said, “is real. And the body of Albert Beaumond is right underneath us.”

As if on cue, something pounded the floor at his feet, causing the floorboards to rise. Clint nearly jumped out of his skin. Then the moaning started. He felt a flush of fear race through his system.

The old man could see that Clint was completely unnerved.

“What is it?” he cried. “What in God's name is it?”

Landis moved away, his eyes on the floor. “I just told you, it's the body of Albert Beaumond.”

“But that's impossible!” Clint shouted.

“Accept it, kid. I know it's hard to believe, but accept it.”

There was another moan, louder than the last, and a scraping noise that seemed to move along the underside of the floor across the center of the room. Clint was not ready for that. It was as if he'd gotten on an amusement park ride and realized too late that it was the suicide big dipper.

“It's buried in the dirt of the crawl space,” the old man droned. “It's been right under my feet all these years, and I never knew it.”

Clint flinched. This was something he was not prepared to deal with. “But, it's dead!” he yelled.

“Undead,” Landis replied, the hopelessness in his voice rising above the dreadful sounds of pain coming up from below. “With the demon trapped inside.”

“That's impossible! It's a hoax!”

“The body is undead.” Landis looked away, disbelieving his own words as he said them. “Undead,” he muttered, “and tonight … tonight it's coming for me. I'm the last one, kid.”