THE BLACK ALBUM: A Hollywood Horror Story (12 page)

Now Loveless had heard it all:
the werewolf curse was an STD.

"It's awright, baby. We're
in it together." Delilah had already removed her sweater and was pulling
down the dress to her waist. She wore a white bra over tiny breasts.
Unbelievably the young woman's arms, chest, stomach and back were covered in
fine blonde fur. Delilah lovingly took one of Jerry's paws in hers.

"It's dreadful. Having your
bones stretch as you transform- worst pain on earth. The noise of it, the bone
crunching, it's nauseating. Then, of course, there's the fleas and shedding.
Guess that's why they call it a curse. Our landlord helps us with it."
Jerry showed Charlotte and Loveless the metal shackles used to restrain them.
They even had a werewolf Rock band. “Lycan Riot.” Delilah insisted Jerry play
some of their music for the filmmaker and the actress while she sang. Delilah
didn't have a bad voice. The music was psychedelic - very “Tangerine Dream” -
accompanied by the baying of wolves - supposedly recordings of Jerry and
Delilah after they had
turned
- and sound effects of ripping flesh,
splattering blood. The music also had a touch of Native American flutes and
chanting.

Despite these hairy delusions,
Charlotte and Loveless hired Jerry on the spot, giving him a deal memo. Jerry
also talked himself into a position on the crew as electrician and special FX
man.

As Loveless and Charlotte left
the abode, they were greeted with a sight straight out of a horror movie. A
hard-looking heavyset Native American woman in jeans, shirt and a lumberjack
style jacket stood in front of a beat-up pale blue and white two-tone pick-up
truck. Behind her were three Native American men ranging throughout their
twenties, tall, thin,
thuggish
. They wore faded jeans and wool plaid
shirts. One wore a longshoreman coat. Another wore a jean jacket. The third
wore an army coat. The woman was
Della
, Jerry and Delilah's landlord.
She worked the counter at the Seven-Eleven in Arrowhead. The three men were her
brothers. Her
muscle
. They were lumberjacks on the mountain.
Collectively these siblings gave off a gypsy grifter vibe that had you
unconsciously feeling your pocket for your wallet while in their presence. Low
level fog swirled past their feet and the tires of the truck. It was already
dusk and night was descending fast.

"What ya all doin' out
here?" Della said with unquestionable authority. She was clearly the boss.

"We were just visiting
Jerry."

"What's ya business with
him?" the brother in the army jacket said. He punctuated this by spitting
out a wad of chewing tobacco.

"He's going to do the music
for our movie."

"You all makin' a movie up
in these parts?" Della was amused. "What kinda movie?"

"A horror movie,"
Charlotte replied impatiently. The woman had had enough weirdness for one day.
She just wanted to get the hell out of there.

"A horror movie, huh?"
Della's eyes gleamed as the humor left them in an instant. "You just be
careful of dem two dirty dogs. We keep 'em on a very short leash out
here."

Della's brothers grinned at this,
although the filmmaker could not see an ounce of humor in the bad puns.

It was then that Loveless
remembered the long standing relationship between the Native American people
throughout history and werewolves.
Skin-walkers
,
as they called
them. It wasn't one of trust.

"Well, if yer dead set on
working with ole' Jer, you better take these." Della removed two tribal
looking bracelets from her purse and handed them to Loveless and Charlotte.
They were beaded with some kind of flower or herb woven in.

"What's this?"

"Wolfsbane. Keeps the wolves
at bay." Della smiled.

"It's like Kryptonite to
werewolves," the tobacco-chewing brother said cheerfully through bright
brown stained teeth.

Della and her brothers walked
uncomfortably close as they slowly passed the filmmaker and his actress, eyeing
them every step of the way, before going into the house.

"At least it's not a full
moon," Loveless said low to Charlotte with a smile as they got in his SUV.
She did not smile back at this.

"That was enough of a
freak-show for me."

As they drove away, the filmmaker
saw the pale face of a woman in the upstairs window. She wore a strange vacuous
expression on her face. Loveless and Charlotte would later find out this was
Karen
,
Delilah's mentally disturbed older sister. Or as Jerry liked to put it,
the
author of a fragile mind. 

Other members of the crew
included a man who looked like he could have been Marilyn Manson’s younger
brother. This was
Collin
. He was Goth and had worked as a roadie for a
number of touring rock bands throughout the country before returning home to
the mountain, so he was a bit of a jack-of-all-trades crew-wise, very handy to
have. The filmmaker had a sneaking suspicion that Collin had a crush on
Charlotte. It was just a feeling though.

They rounded out smaller roles
and crew needs all with locals. For the younger acting roles, they looked no
farther than Lizzy and her delinquent collection of teenage friends.

Loveless decided to use Mathaluh
as the name of the band in the movie, their song “Dark Ballad” and the Ouija
Board he had found as a key prop in the film. He planned to bill “The Black
Album” as
inspired by true events,
which allowed him the artistic
freedom to blend fact and fiction at will. In hindsight, maybe this wasn’t such
a good idea. Maybe that’s what awakened the curse.

Development and pre-production
were coming to an end. They were moving rapidly towards the shoot.

A shoot that would be unlike any
other.

Chapter
Five

Hell
Shoot

Charlotte and Loveless stood in
front of the Strawberry Lodge, as the monstrous fourteen bedroom home had been
designated by the real estate company. Online it had sounded to the filmmaker
like a gingerbread home. He was ready to dismiss it from the name alone. How
atmospheric could a place called the Strawberry Lodge be? But Charlotte had
looked beyond the name and realized the potential of the place for their main
location. Both of them, however, were astonished to discover the multi-color
stained glass window on the front door, when they arrived.

"What are the odds?"
Loveless exclaimed as he touched the glass. "Having something you just
made up in your head come to life? I call that pretty damn freaky."

“I call it perfect. This
absolutely has to be the family home Grace returns to.”

Inside, the furnished home was
replete with mounted animal heads and buck antlers, hardwood floors and dark
stained furniture. The polished red-orange wood walls practically glowed. The
real estate company usually rented the place out in the winter to parties of
friends on ski trips to the nearby Snow Valley just past Running Springs, if
they didn’t want to make the drive all the way to Big Bear.

“I can’t believe how little you
got this place for,” Loveless said to Charlotte as he shook his head, looking
around in amazement.

“Well, I didn’t tell them we were
shooting a movie here. My suggestion is we shoot the high production value
scenes here and get out before we get caught in the act and cheat the rest by
shooting at your place, my place and another smaller home we can rent even
cheaper than this.”

“Way ahead of you. This ain’t my
first rodeo. But I do like the way your mind thinks. You have the makings of a
true indie guerrilla filmmaker.” For some reason, the hairs were starting to
stand up on the back of Loveless’ neck. “Is it just me, or does this place have
a truly creepy vibe to it?” The house had an unsettling calm. Like the moment
before an execution.

“No. I feel it too,” Charlotte
agreed. “The good thing is I think it’s going to come across on screen.”
Charlotte looked at her watch, “Shoot, I have to pick up Lizzy and her
friends.”

“Great,” Loveless said pulling
the rented high definition digital camera out of the case. “We can use them for
some test shooting.”

“Order a few pizzas and they’ll
be yours all evening.”

On the drive through town to pick
up the kids, Charlotte pointed out the window suddenly, “Look!”

Loveless looked around but saw nothing.
“What?”

“Didn’t you see that Camaro? The
cherry red Chevy? Probably a ’68. That would be the perfect car for Grace to
drive in the movie.”

“I know I had her driving a
classic car in the script. It sounded good on paper. But that was just creative
wishful thinking. I figured it'd be a hassle to pursue. I was just gonna have
Grace drive my truck.”

“Turn that way.”

Loveless turned the corner. At
the far end of the block they both saw the Camaro. It was mint, definitely an
eye-catcher. It turned another corner while they got stuck at a red light. By
the time they drove around the block, the car was gone.

“Damn! Well, it’s a small town.
We’ll find it again.”

“So you want to drive that in the
movie?”

“
Duh, yeah.
Can’t you just
see Grace driving back into town in that? That’s the kind of car Grace Lynn
would drive. That makes a statement about who she is. The kind of life she has
led.”

“You think the owner would really
rent it to us?”

“You just find the car. I’ll
broker the deal.”

“It’d be a hell of a production
value,” Loveless had to admit.

That night, as Charlotte helped
Loveless set the lights, tripod, and camera for some test shooting, Lizzy,
Brent, Carla, and Toby went exploring in the labyrinth of a house. Lizzy was to
play the teen runaway who is killed by Mathaluh and later returns as the
vengeful ghost of the lost girl. Brent was going to play Henry, the boy who
listens to the band’s record, then shoots his friends and himself. His spirit
goes on to be one of the damned. Both these poor souls, doomed to roam the
earth, try to lead Grace away from the evil. Carla and Toby would play Henry’s
two shooting victims: the vampire and the clown. The filmmaker thought it was a
nice bit of gender bending if the clown was a girl.

“Where are they?” Loveless asked
with true artistic impatience.

“Exploring. You know kids.”

A moment later, Donovan walked in
the front door looking around. “God damn, this place is the
shiznit
!
We’re really making a God damned monster movie.”

"A horror movie,"
Loveless corrected good-naturedly.

"Well excuse me,"
Donnie replied with a grin.

"Donnie." Charlotte was
happy to see him.

Donovan had been coming to the
mountain intermittently to hold up his end as producer by helping to make
decisions, casting choices, and broker deals. But it was clear after the first
few trips, he trusted Charlotte and Loveless. More than that, he believed in
them.

"Hey, man. It's good to see
you. This place is perfect, right? Charlotte found it." Loveless believed
in giving credit where credit was due.

"Of course she did.
Charlotte's got one helluva sharp eye."

“Thanks, cuz,” Charlotte said
hugging Donovan. “I’ll show Donnie all the bang he’s getting for his buck, J.D.
Why don’t you track down the kids, so we can start shooting?”

"I'll rustle them up."

Charlotte led Donovan upstairs,
giving him the grand tour.

Loveless began looking through
the rooms on the ground floor for the kids. There were a lot of rooms, some
seemingly identical. “Lizzy? Brent?”

No answer. The filmmaker turned
on lights as he went. His search led him to an enclosed back patio he hadn’t
known was there. The house really did have a creep factor. It also had chilling
old home noises, groaning wood, wind whistling through halls, creaking pipes.
On the patio, Loveless found evidence of the kids: pizza boxes and soda cans.
There was something near his foot. He bent and picked it up. It was the butt of
a marijuana joint, warm to the touch. There was still a faint whiff of it in
the air.
Kids
. Loveless wondered if Charlotte knew. She was the hip parental
type whose speech to her daughter probably often started with,
‘As long as
you tell me.’
Still, who was he to judge? Lizzy was pretty open with her
mother. The filmmaker just didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Some things he wouldn’t want to know as a parent. Like for instance:
the
first time his teenage daughter had sex.
Loveless would rather just place
his faith in the fact that he raised his kid right. Charlotte was just the
opposite. Her and Lizzy would probably have a heart to heart about it the same
night, ending in a big ‘
Aww, I love you
’ and a hug.

The filmmaker flicked the remnant
of the joint into the woods and went back inside. A sudden scream pierced the
night and his eardrums. Lizzy blew out of a room and crashed right into
Loveless. At the sight of the filmmaker, she immediately latched onto him in a
tight bear hug. The girl was trembling uncontrollably.

“I saw him! I saw him!” was all
the teenage girl could get out.

“Saw who?”

Lizzy looked at Loveless. The
girl wasn’t fooling around. She was really scared. “I saw a ghost in the room!”

The filmmaker unhooked Lizzy and
went into the room.

“No! Don’t!”

The room was completely empty.
Loveless even looked in the closet and under the bed. There was no exit other
than a window that was locked from the inside. “There’s nobody here.”

“He was here.”

“What did he look like?”

“It is was Wayne.” Lizzy’s voice
was a whisper. “A boy named Wayne.”

“Then why do you think he’s a
ghost?”

Lizzy looked at Loveless
solemnly, “Because Wayne is dead.”

Brent and Toby showed up. At the
same time, they both said, “Where’s Carla?”

The filmmaker made the others
stay together while he looked for Carla. He searched the rest of the rooms on
the bottom floor, flipping up light switches as he opened each door. Loveless
turned down a hall where the power was out. He would have to find out where the
electrical circuit breaker was later. But Loveless wanted to find Carla first.
He opened another bedroom door and squinted his eyes trying to see through pitch
black. The filmmaker thought he saw a form in the bed. When he crossed the
threshold into the room, his spine started tingling. Loveless moved to the bed
slowly. Even he was starting to get spooked now.

“Carla?” Loveless whispered as he
approached. There was definitely someone in the bed, the covers over their
head. The filmmaker reached out and slowly peeled the covers back, praying it
was the girl. He was relieved to find Carla in the bed, fully dressed. “What
are you doing?”

Carla looked up. She was deathly
afraid. “He locked me in here, J.D.”

“Who?”

“Wayne,” Carla said in a scared
tone. She was looking into the filmmaker's eyes as if he was her only hope of
salvation.

These kids aren't playing,
Loveless thought. This wasn't a
high school prank. If it was, then they were world-class actors. Carla's eyes
left his, growing even wider as they peered over his left shoulder. The girl
began trembling wildly, the teeth in her open mouth actually chattered as she
babbled, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." The teen wasn't talking
to Loveless.

The filmmaker could sense
something behind him where Carla was looking. Loveless thought he felt
something on his shoulder, a hand. He whirled, ready for all hell. There was no
one in the room besides him and the traumatized girl.

"I'm sorry, Wayne,"
Carla said. A second later, she seemed to shutdown emotionally.

The filmmaker didn't know what
was going on, but something in the room was assailing him beyond his five
senses. Every fiber of his being said get the fuck out of there. But he
couldn't abandon the girl. He wouldn't do that. She was his responsibility. As
Loveless tried to help Carla out of bed, she stiffened, pulling back. "No.
I'm afraid." Looking at him with pleading eyes, Carla asked, "Do you
think there's really a Hell?"

"I don't know, Carla. Come
on. Let's get out of this room." The filmmaker tried to sound calm and in
control. He wasn't.

"Do you think if you do one
really bad thing, but spend the rest of your life doing all good things, making
up for it, you'll still go to Hell for that one bad thing?"

"You're too young to have
done anything bad, other than put too much milk in my mocha" the filmmaker
retorted parentally, trying to make light of it all. He was doing his best to
calm the girl, but Loveless could feel the unnaturalness the room was exuding.
He felt as if there were ghosts swirling all around them in the dark, ready to
pull on them, drag them down to Hell. No matter what, he didn't want to let
Carla see this in his face. Loveless could sense that the girl was afraid to
get out of the bed, as if it was her safe haven against the boogeyman.

"Come on. We gotta go."
The filmmaker physically pulled the covers off the girl and lifted her up to a
sitting position.

"I can't." Carla was
shaking her head violently.

"Just hold onto me. I won't
let anything take you from me."

Carla nodded yes as she slowly
got out of bed and clung to Loveless. The walk to the exit in the dark seemed
to take a long time even though it was scant seconds. Right before they went
out the door, the lights came on. The spell was broken. The filmmaker looked
back before exiting. It was just an ordinary room again. 

Carla and the filmmaker found
Lizzy, Brent, and Toby with Charlotte and Donovan in the living room.

"Thank God." Charlotte
ran over and hugged Carla with genuine motherly anxiety.

"It was him," Carla
confirmed to her peers.

"I know," Lizzy said
quietly.

"No fucken way," Brent
spat.

"Watch your mouth,
Brent," Loveless interjected. Charlotte let the kids talk anyway they wanted
around her, but he thought it was disrespectful.

"He's mad. That's why he's
back," Toby said. "See that look on his face?"

"Trippy. You kids really
think you saw a ghost?" Donovan, removed from the horror Loveless had
experienced, was enjoying the teenage drama.

"Something scared
them," Charlotte spoke up for the children.

"Imaginations run
wild," Donovan reiterated his feelings.

Charlotte noticed that Loveless
had stayed out of the debate up to this point. She looked at him, "Well,
J.D. Did you see anything?"