Husk (23 page)

Doctor Thompson stared at my daughter and I from across the parlor. “I feel that someone in this village is practicing witchcraft, squire. I fear that corpse wandering on the moors is an undead, a zombie.”

“A zombie?” I sputtered, partially in character and partially over the Welsh accent I had been struggling with. “Here in Cornwall? Preposterous! I think you'll find that kind of talk. Won't endear you to the locals. I don't know what they teach in your fancy. Schools in London, but in these parts, Doctor. We do not harbor these deep superstitions you seem to suffer. To leap to such illogical conclusions. Based on the flimsiest of pretexts speaks. Volumes to your character, sir. I advise you to keep such ridiculous notions to yourself.”

“Father, please!” Sylvia protested. “Hear Peter out. He is not—”

“Peter, is it now?” I thundered at him. “Have you been friendly to my daughter? Oh, I now see how it is, sir. The gallant young doctor from the great city. Aims to sweep my daughter away from the perils of village life.”

“But Father, I—”

“I will have none of this in my house!” I aimed a finger at the doctor. “You are no longer welcome in this house, sir. Nor in this parish! I shall be speaking with the town fathers immediately. To ensure that you do not darken the doorsteps. Of the citizenry a moment longer!”

“Cut!” The lights in the parlor dimmed, and Johnny and Samantha slouched in relief. A dress mistress ran in and loosened Samantha's corset, eliciting a groan of intense pleasure at her liberation from the torturous confines of nineteenth-century women's fashions. Johnny mouthed
good job
to me, and I nodded a thank you as I dug my goggles out of my pocket and placed them over my eyes, sighing mutely as they immediately spurted saline over my wretched corneas. A new invention of Rhodes'.

“How was that, you think?” Tim asked by the bank of camera equipment.

“Everything looked five by five here, I think we got it,” said the
DP
. “I'll know better when we see the dailies, but that was solid.”

“Good, good.” Tim hopped up out of his chair and trotted across the set, gathering the three of us in a loose circle. Iris hung back, always wary. “All right, notes. Samantha, brilliant work today, no notes for you. Go get out of those things and relax, we'll call you later for scene, uh” he checked over his clipboard “twenty-seven. No lines for you, so rest up your voice for the pyre scene tomorrow, you'll need it for screaming.”

“Thanks, Tim.” Samantha slipped out of her period heels and grimaced as her feet resumed their natural shape. “Christ, these things are tight. Any chance of a larger size?”

“Talk to wardrobe, tell them I demand comfort for all my actors.” Tim shouted over his shoulder to the
DA
, “Sara, bigger shoes for Sam, right? And give the call.” Thanking him, Samantha stumbled off, seizing a nearby grip and using him as a crutch as she headed for her trailer, apologizing all the way. The
DA
shouted into her megaphone, “Lunch, everyone. Be on the Cornwall exteriors set in one hour, we'll have set up for scene twenty-seven.”

“Good work, both of you,” Tim continued. “Johnny, I think you've got a handle on where Peter comes from, but I don't want too much naivety sneaking into the character, right? He's new to the job, but he's not a newborn. Tone down the wide-eyed doe bit a little.”

Johnny rolled his eyes skyward. “Give me a break, Timmy. I'm forty-eight playing twenty-five, I want to make sure the innocence of Peter's youth comes out. You think re-shoots?”

“I'll know better after dailies, but I figure no. Sheldon, almost the opposite for you. We all know you're the bad guy here, but let's fight the tendency to play that up from the get-go. Work with the ambiguity of the character, don't come across as too menacing right off the bat. Think charming like Peter Cushing, keep the audience on its toes.”

“Right,” I said. “Charming. More Cushing, less Price.”

“Exactly. Bring the Price out later, save it for the blood offering scene. And I know this is difficult for you with your, your breathing, but less pauses if possible, we want to keep the movie under two hours. Now, off with both of you, get a quick lunch and change clothes for scene twenty-seven.”

“Which is that again?” Johnny asked.

Tim scanned his board. “Scene twenty-seven, Peter and Clive see each other for the first time. You're on the carriage coming into town, you see Sheldon here speaking to the townsfolk, you make eye contact. Wide shots at first, we'll shoot close-ups later if we've still got the light. Mainly second unit stuff, but I'll be there today, I want to make sure we get a grand sweep of the whole town square. Sheldon, we'll probably dub in your dialogue later, but this is not a dumbshow, I want you in full character. Do that” he motioned to his throat “voicey thing you do, I want the extras to look absolutely terrified.” Clapping us both on the shoulders, he walked back to the
DA
, shouting instructions.

“Does he ever take. A break?” I asked.

“When he's dead, he'll take a break,” Johnny said. “C'mon, you want lunch in my trailer? I'd like to go over some background beforehand.”

“Sorry, I never eat. In front of people.”

“Hey, no problem. Stop by when you're done, all right?”

I nodded and walked off set toward the exit, toward my trailer, toward food and sanctuary. Rowan and Dr. Rhodes popped out from wherever they had been hiding themselves and hurried along after me, Iris shadowing my every move from twenty feet away as I crossed the warehouse floor and out to the open air. Was I feeling okay? Did I need anything? Was anyone getting too touchy, should they warn Tim not to make direct contact as he did? I decided to take full advantage of my prima donna stature, barked out a command to cease and desist while I climbed the steps to my door, and slammed it.

“Tough day at the office?” a voice called out from the kitchen area, nicely curtained off from the (I suppose you'd call it) den of the trailer. Surprisingly roomy, but a trailer is a trailer is a trailer.

“You have no idea.”

“I could see them flapping around behind you out there. Well, you just have a seat and relax, I've got just the thing for you.”

“A gin and tonic?” I shucked off my authentic nineteenth-century overcoat and gingerly lowered myself onto the settee, nudging Sofa to the side and gracing her with a quick bout of belly scratching. My intermediate and proximal phalanges argued against each other as I toyed with her, grinding like rocks in a cement mixer. “A dirty martini?”

“Much better.” Duane walked out from behind the curtain, a plate of what looked like cold cuts in one hand, a tall frosted glass of red in the other. He handed me the glass, a bendy straw thoughtfully prepared and waiting, and put the plate on an end table.

“O positive?” I asked.

“
AB
negative. Rhodes tells me it's the rarest.”

“You spoil me.” I took a sip through the straw and almost cried as the blood, pure manna, blessed my soul with energy. I gave in to temptation and gulped the sixteen ounces down in a few seconds of unending bliss. My toes spasmed with glee.

Duane took a seat beside me while I impatiently sucked the last few drops out of the bottom. “You look tired, Shel.”

“I don't feel tired. I never feel tired anymore.” But I knew what he meant. I pulled at my wig, testing the adhesive. “I think I'm drying out again. I can feel my limbs hardening up.”

“Time for a checkup, I guess.”

“Christ. I don't look forward to it.” Lately Rhodes had gotten even more maniacal in his quest to keep me fresh. I think a God complex might have taken hold of him. I slipped the goggles off and popped out the colored contact lenses the doc had made to make my eyes look almost human. They had the added benefit of being made of polarized glass, cutting down the glare considerably and improving my eyesight tenfold, although anyone with normal eyes would have torn their eyeballs out from the considerable pain. Duane quickly squirreled them away into their saline container.

“So, rough day?”

I winced. “Tim touched me. Just now, accidentally. He touched my shoulder. His hand slid across the skin of my neck. Just what I need now. To eat Tim Burton. There's a career killer.”

“But you held it in check.”

“I held it in check. It's my fault for not having. Iris bring a lunch kit along to the set. But it's getting harder lately to control. I know exactly how he would taste. From his scent. Like pork marinated in alfredo sauce.” I had begun classifying people in this way, unconsciously at first, then as a test to keep my mind occupied. Somehow, thinking about how a person would taste actually distracted me from my appetite. Duane would taste of chicken, sautéed in butter. Rowan's aroma reminded me of beef sautéed in onions. I lifted a slice of meat off the plate and sucked it down, barely chewing. “I don't know how you. Can stand to watch this,” I said around a second piece, this time taking a moment to give my teeth some exercise.

Duane shrugged. “I watched a lot of nature shows when I was a kid. Lions taking down a zebra, that kind of thing. How is this any different?”

I looked at him; Duane's capacity to forgive my many faults was truly astonishing.

Duane had gone from co-star to friend to live-in roommate in rapid order. After
Basement
had premiered, Duane had come out, doing the usual rounds that go with revealing to the public something that wasn't any of their business to begin with. Admittedly, the hype was higher than usual due to his constantly being seen in the company of yours truly. I thought it was bad for me, but it turns out that for many people the only thing conceivably worse than being the living dead was to be a companion to the living dead. I can't even begin to describe the hate mail.

Or the online slash fiction about our “torrid affair.” Suffice to say, some corpsers had incredibly vivid imaginations when it came to what you could do with the sexual couplings of a healthy young man and a decomposing carcass.

Duane took it all in stride. His lack of guile was astonishing, as was his inability to see just how harmful our relationship could be to him, professionally. I couldn't stand by and watch as he sacrificed his career over me, so I decided to become his protector. I arranged for him to get a producer credit on the documentary, and then finagled that into a role as executive producer for this venture, along with a supporting onscreen role as Samantha's popinjay brother, Neville. If he wasn't going to look out for himself, I'd do it for him.

“What's with the getup?” I asked. He looked the proper English fop, clad in ridiculous finery and linens.

“This old thing?” He delicately fingered the lacework draped about his neck. “I've got that scene with Sam this afternoon. Hey, check this out, I've been practicing.” He stood up and cleared his throat, shifting his weight onto his back foot and thrusting his chest out slightly. “‘Dear sister, you must be truly mad to go off with that cretin of a doctor. He'll do you no end of trouble, just you see.' How was that?”

I applauded. “You are indeed. A proper dandy, good sir.” He had been working with a dialogue coach on his accent and was unpredictably good at it. His dialogue rolled off his tongue in plummy British tones only spoken by those with vast stores of unearned wealth. It wasn't perfect, neither was Johnny's, but both were good enough for an American remake of an unremarkable British horror film filmed in Canada. “But you'd better check with the
DA
. This afternoon is the crowd scene. Might be the wrong clothes.”

“Ah, dammit.” Duane minced about in his costume. The mincing wasn't his fault; you couldn't do anything in leggings and lace without it seeming thus. “It took me literally an hour to get all this shit on. These things really bind at the crotch.” He stormed out of the trailer, yelling for Sara, leaving the door open for Rowan and Rhodes to scramble inside and ruin my meal.

Since
Basement
had been released to the public — fifty-seven million dollar North American opening weekend, only twenty percent drop-off the following weekend, a definite moneymaker for all concerned, and video sales were expected to double the international gross — I had mused over several scripts, most of which, hell, all of which played on my notoriety as founder and sole member of Club Dead. I automatically turned down anything that reeked of direct-to-
DVD
:
Zombie Honeymoon
;
Lunch Period of the Dead
;
House of the Dead
iii
;
Pontypool Changes Everything Again.
Outside of those, there were more high-profile roles, but I was still being typecast. The roles were big, the budgets substantial, and the talents involved enviable, but my roles inevitably were those of dead people wandering around among the living for a variety of reasons. I looked in vain for a more meaty character role, but quickly learned that people were not only wanting me to play zombie but unable to fathom my playing
anything
else. I once read for a low-rent romantic comedy, did pretty well, got to the final stage of auditions for the lead role alongside a few fading celebs who would take anything to remain in the public eye. Unhappily, the director became aware through channels that I was gay, and the role was denied me. This is not conjecture; rather, it was boldly stated to my face, “Gay can't play straight, no one buys it.”

Finally, I narrowed it down to two remakes of Hammer horror films,
The Plague of the Zombies
and
The Abominable Dr. Phibes
. David Fincher was doing
Phibes
. It was a full lead role, the protagonist not dead but merely horrifically disfigured, but the script wasn't yet complete, stuck in rewrite hell, and shooting wouldn't begin for six months minimum. I went with
Plague,
rationalizing that
my character was at least
presumed
to be alive until the third act reveal — Squire Clive Hamilton, keeping his village safe from the intrusions of modern society and scientific rationales, all the time performing black magic incantations to raise his own army of the undead. However, the role wasn't nearly as interesting as the company I'd be keeping. The movie had been a pet project of Tim Burton for years, and where Burton would go, Johnny Depp would almost inevitably follow. Throw in Samantha Morton as Depp's love interest and my daughter, Helena Bonham Carter as my wife, and you've got a fascinating mélange of over-the-top gothic horror, star appeal, freak show, and critical cachet. All I had to do was make sure I didn't eat anyone, and work on my English accent. The whole gaggle of us then were herded off to Montreal for filming, where the metropolis, amply laden with suitably period-looking architecture, would for three months act as a representation of a mid-nineteenth-century English hamlet.