October Girls: Crystal & Bone (13 page)

“Plus he’s an actor. He’s pretty good. He’s in Dempsey’s movie, too.”

Bone wanted to add the part about how maybe Royce had a crush on her, one of those weird crushes where his eyes didn’t really say “maybe.” He could have been saying, “You don’t sleep much when you’re dead,” but she could have sworn she’d seen some, “Hey, chick, I’m a tortured loner” in there. Or at least, “Where’s the popcorn?”

“Wow. And I thought Parson’s Ford was weird. Who else are you meeting over there?”

“Oh, you know. The usual suspects.”

“Wait a sec.” Crystal picked up the VHS copy of
The Darkening
and peered at the scene on the back. She showed it to Bone. A guy in a tight T-shirt and upswept hair stood in the background of the promotional scene, in which a scantily clad woman was racing through a misty graveyard, undoubtedly about to fall and spill her boobs.

“It’s him.”
Darn. I wanted to be the first real ghost in a horror movie.

Bone scanned the credits, which were written in a hard-to-decipher font of bones. Royce’s name wasn’t there, so he must have appeared as an extra.

“We are
so
watching this,” she said.

Madame Fingers entered the store, a crimson scarf binding her wiry gray hair. Bone did her vanishing act as Crystal slid the tape into the store’s lone VCR and turned on the monitor. As the opening credits rolled, the blast of organ soundtrack made the old lady jump. Bone giggled and the customer glared at Crystal, who gave a little smile and wave.

“Why didn’t you just stay solid?” Crystal whispered to Bone as Madame Fingers made for the comedy aisles. “She wouldn’t have known you were dead.”

“More fun this way.”

On the screen, the jerky camera panned over the graveyard from the promotional scene. Apparently Dempsey was prepping the audience for a single-set movie, which cut down production time and eliminated the need to secure permissions. Whispers wended in and out of the soundtrack, obviously overdubbed, and the scene was heavily backlit. When the actress came walking across the graveyard, she was almost entirely in silhouette.

“Alone in a graveyard in the middle of the night?” Bone said. “How stupid can you get. Come on, movie.”

“Here we go,” Crystal said, as the actress stopped before a large, tilted tombstone. “Paying a visit to Mummy, no doubt.”

“If she does anything but die a horrible death, I want my money back.”

The actress knelt as the music rose to a tense crescendo. A shadow passed behind her. She jerked her head around and—

Crystal grabbed for the volume knob as the screams ripped through the store. Bone materialized to full flesh. Madame Fingers scowled at the counter, turned up one corner of her mouth as if gumming snuff, and went back to making her selections.

“What’s happening?” Bone asked, peering at the flickering screen. It appeared Dempsey had gone for a special effect that resembled a rapidly opening and closing window blind. All it did was confuse the viewer, which she supposed was Dempsey’s intent.

The soundtrack was populated with whispers but Bone couldn’t make out the words.

“I think she just got stabbed,” Crystal said.

“Guess now we get to the ‘darkening’ part.”

“There.” Crystal clicked the VCR to freeze frame, then shuttled back in slow motion. Royce stood at the back edge of the cemetery. He looked as solid as he had in Crystal’s trailer and in the Graveyard of Second Chances. As Crystal moved the tape forward a few frames, Royce’s image drifted back into the shadows.

“A disappearing act, caught on tape,” Bone said. “Do you think Dempsey knew about it?”

“One thing I’ve already learned is that actors have huge egos,” Crystal said. “Anything for some face time.

“Tell me about it.” Bone rolled her eyes, and they creaked in their sockets.

The bell over the door jingled, and Fatback Bob wobbled through the door with a greasy white paper sack. He wore a Hawaiian shirt that looked like a tent at a Burning Man gathering.

“Ho, Crystal,” he bellowed with a chubby man’s cheer. “Pimping me out some ‘Twilight’?”

“It’s been a little slow,” she said.

“Who’s your friend?”

Bone figured customers weren’t allowed on the other side of the counter.
But the customer’s always right, right?
Especially in an industry where your customers are too dumb to pirate files or use Netflix.

“I’m Bonnie,” Bone said, using her Christian name.

“You look familiar.”

I used to shop here once a week before I died.

“She’s my cousin,” Crystal said. “From the side of the family that doesn’t get much sun. She came down South for a week.”

“You look like an actress,” Fatback Bob said.

Bone preened. “Alicia Silverstone? I get that a lot.”

“Nah. I was thinking Olsen twins.”

Sheesh, have I gotten that skinny?
“Thanks for the compliment, I guess.”

“Sure. What was that show? ‘Two of a Kind,’ ‘Full House,’ ‘Eight is Enough,’ something like that.”

Crystal cut in before Fatback Bob started in on a nostalgic reverie of long-lost sitcoms. “A local guy brought some tapes in.”

“We don’t take VHS in trade,” Fatback Bob said. “No audience.”

“No, he shot them. He’s a filmmaker.”

Fatback Bob pointed to the screen. “That his?”

“Yeah. It’s a little raw, but the technical specs are good. He asked if we’d carry them, and I said I’d check with you.”

Fatback Bob shrugged. “Worth a try. Buy local, that sort of stuff. Anybody want a cheese chimichanga?”

He clearly was talking to Bone, inviting her to fatten up. He slapped the sack on the counter with a moist
plop
. Bone felt herself blanch, though she wasn’t sure she could get any paler.

“No, thanks,” Bone said. “I’m lactose intolerant.”

“Whatever. Say, why don’t you try one of the tanning booths? On the house.”

Bone’s shin sparked with dull feeling, and she realized Crystal had kicked her. “Uh… that’s kind of you, but I’m allergic to UV radiation, too. I break out in hives if I even think about Sunmaid Raisins.”

“Whatever,” he said. Then, to Crystal, “I’ll be on lunch break in my office. Key those tapes in at $3.99 and see how they do.”

After he navigated the action aisle and disappeared, Bone said, “What was that toe job all about?”

“Surveillance.”

Bone glanced at the cameras in the upper corners of the store. “So? Every business has security monitors.”

“In the dressing room? That’s how Fatback Bob gets his kicks. He offers free sessions to any female under 20. Has a bank of monitors in his office and spycams in places you wouldn’t dream.”

Bone shuddered, imagining the overweight man watching her undress. Even worse, watching her fade to nothing.
Talk about naked..
.

“You work for a pervert?” Bone asked.

“Everybody works for a pervert. It’s just a question of degree. As long as he keeps his hands to himself, hey, who am I to judge?”

The tape had continued rolling and the movie was now in a fairly generic scene where the heroine discovered an ancient book in the graveyard. From what Bone could tell, the basic thrust was that she was only now realizing she was dead, and she looked up in stunned surprise.

She was such a bad actress that her “stunned surprise” was very much like her curious resolve or her perplexed dismay.

The whispers came again, and this time they were audible.
Roystra, roystra, roystra!

As the chants rose, a swaying, staggering figure moved in from stage left. The camera swam, and then there was another shambling figure, and yet another, taking jerking steps toward the heroine.

“Whoa, Dempsey jumped the shark bigtime,” Crystal said. “Now it’s a freaking zombie flick.”

And there among the actors with their makeup-clotted faces, mussed hair, and torn clothing, Royce made an encore appearance, a strip of rubbery flesh dangling from his cheek, his T-shirt mottled with Jell-O and cherry sauce, eyes blank and staring with evil intent.

Kind of like his “Hey, chick, I’m a tortured loner” look.

“Hear that?” Crystal turned up the volume.

“Zombie moans. Satanic chants. And probably some sea-creature squishes thrown in for good measure.”

“No, it’s a phrase. Something about Royce.”

Bone strained her ears. “Royce’s truss? What is he, Hernia Boy or something?”

“No. ‘In Royce we trust.’”

“Wow.” She could hear the words clearly now, repeated over and over in a lulling monotone. “Like anybody could ever trust that guy?”

Crystal stopped the tape and ejected it. “Something’s up, and this merits some closer study.”

“Why do I have a feeling this involves Pettigrew, a couch, and a tub of buttery popcorn?”

“I need your help here.”

“Royce needs my help, too. Nice to be wanted for a change.”

“While I check out Dempsey, see what you can dig up on Royce.”

“Ha ha. You make a funny, Crystal. ‘Dig’—get it?”

“I’m trying to keep you out of trouble and maybe earn you some brownie points. Saving the world ought to get you a few marks in the Golden Book and get you moving on to heaven.”

“I know you’re anxious to get rid of me and all, but—”

Madame Fingers came to the counter, gumming and smacking. She laid a copy of “East of Eden” on the counter. “Oldie but goodie, just like me,” she said. “When I was a young’un, I was sweet on James Dean.”

“Congratulations,” Crystal said. “This rental qualifies you for a special freebie.”

“What’s that?” the old woman said, apparently not content with the stolen freebies squirreled away in her purse.

Crystal winked at Bone and slid a token toward the woman. “One tanning-booth session, but you have to act now.”

Madame Fingers beamed, exposing her three brown teeth. “Don’t mind if I do. Been quite a rainy spell lately.”

“T
hat’s what passes for cutting edge these days?” Pettigrew asked, wiping his buttery hands on his jeans.

“Beats spending twenty bucks at the Cineplex,” Crystal said. “Besides, if you’re going to be working with Dempsey, you might as well understand his vision.”

“I’m not working with Dempsey. And the only vision he got is ‘mascara vision.’”
“Last time I saw you two together, you were tighter than the
Brokeback
Mountain
boys.”

Crystal squirmed down into the sofa cushion and rested her head on Pettigrew’s shoulder. Momma was somewhere in the back of the trailer, messing around with some newt innards or smoking some dried buzzard gizzards. Which meant she and Pettigrew could get in a little making out.

“Well, when somebody says you’re ruggedly handsome, it’s hard not to listen,” Pettigrew said, kissing the top of her head. “But when he started babbling about red carpets and back-end deals, he kind of lost me.”

“That’s the secret handshake,” Crystal said, with all the insider knowledge she’d gleaned from behind-the-scenes bonus footage on DVD’s.

In “The Darkening,” the zombies had eventually chased the fish-lipped heroine to the edge of the graveyard, at which point she realized her spirit was trapped there and she could never escape. After a long, repetitive chase between the gravestones, the zombies eventually cornered her and began tearing at her clothes, beginning with her shirt, of course. Then they started ripping and eating her flesh, though the meat looked like chunks of bad bacon scarfed from a grocery store Dumpster. Besides the obvious plot hole of ghosts not having flesh, the big reveal at the end was a letdown—the woman “died” at her own grave.

Pettigrew hadn’t said anything when the boobs flashed, but he’d checked her out with the same sort of stunned surprise, or maybe butter-brained confusion, as the heroine had expressed. Or perhaps he was wondering if Dempsey would put a babe like that as his love interest in the next movie.

Royce had only made one more appearance, in a cutaway where a gruesome zombie face leaked chocolate cherry sauce. But the “In Royce we trust” chant had been repeated several times during the extended chase scene.

As the end credits rolled, something thumped under the couch.

“What was that?” Pettigrew said.

“Probably a rat.”

“I got some poison out in the truck.”

“What are you doing with poison?”

Pettigrew shrugged. “You never know when something might need killing.”

Crystal wasn’t sure poison would work on the Lurken. For all she knew, it might give them a buzz and inspire a case of the munchies. She wasn’t sure what kind of mouth was attached to the end of those slimy, slithery tentacles, but she wasn’t ready to find out.

“Well, handsome, you’re killing
me
with your rugged good looks.” She cupped the back of his head and brought his face down for a kiss. He slipped her a little tongue.

“
Get it, girl
,” Bone whispered from behind the couch.

Crystal waved her away.
Pervert.

Pettigrew pulled away. “Why are you twitching?”

“Shaking with desire for you.”

“Your momma’s home.”

Crystal and Bone sighed in unison. “Since when has that ever stopped you?”

“When are you going to take me seriously?
Us
seriously?”

“Not now, Pet.”

He stood up and stomped loudly enough to scare off any rats that might have been hiding under the couch. “I just don’t understand you. First you’re hard to get, then easy, then ‘Wait, wait, wait.’”

“I’m 18 and I’m a woman. That explains everything.”

“Dang it, Crystal. I ain’t trying to tie you down. I’m just trying to make plans.”

“I’m not ready for plans. I have to get my GED and—”

“You got the hots for Dempsey, huh?”

“That’s a low blow.”

“Ain’t the only low blowing going on around here.”

“
Whoa
,” Bone whispered in Crystal’s ear. “
You scored French Leather Boy and didn’t share?
“

“Shut up,” Crystal said.

“No. I’m laying it all out. I can’t go on like this.”

“What’s going on?” Momma yelled from the back of the trailer.