THE BLACK ALBUM: A Hollywood Horror Story (10 page)

“Sounds good. I like the concept.
I guess now it just all comes down to the script,” Donovan concluded as he
downed the rest of his Coca-Cola.

“You can read it now.” Loveless
tossed Donovan a fresh screenplay. The filmmaker wasn't fooling around.

Charlotte, surprised by Loveless'
aggressiveness, stood up. “We’ll leave you alone, Donnie. Be back in a bit.”
Charlotte pulled the filmmaker out the door.

“Where we going?”

“I’ll show you.”

The actress drove Loveless deep
into the woods. She stopped alongside a stream. “We walk from here.”

The filmmaker looked at the
shrinking sun with some apprehension. He didn’t want to be in the woods after
dark, even with a small town beauty like Charlotte.

Charlotte read his expression,
“Don’t worry. My daughter and her friends showed it to me. It’s not very far.”

Loveless trailed behind Charlotte
as they trekked into the woods, trying not to look at her ass in the tight
jeans. But it was an ass worth looking at.

“Here,” Charlotte said as she
came to a stop at a clearing.

“What the fuck?” the filmmaker
said as he saw what was in the clearing. It was a thick stone slab, thin vines
growing up all sides of it.
An altar.
On the top of the slab in each of
the four corners were rusted metal hoops sticking up halfway out of the cement.
The filmmaker kept getting a momentary whiff of something familiar. He took a
closer look at the hoops.
Shackle rings.
“For restraining unfortunate
virgin sacrifices,” Loveless thought out loud fleetingly before reasoning,
“More likely something left over from a movie location decades ago.”

"I don't think so," was
all Charlotte said in a hushed tone.

The woods immediately around the
clearing were different from the rest of the forest. Unnaturally different. The
foliage was brownish, full of thorny bushes, overgrown with hanging vines.
These vines reminded Loveless of skeletons. The ground seemed scorched. The
dirt was a strange reddish color. It was as if the altar had tainted this area,
stained it. There were strange symbols and markings etched deeply into the
gnarled and unhealthy looking trees directly around the clearing. The filmmaker
could finally place the salty smell that was assailing his nose: blood. The
place reeked of blood. Loveless disregarded that notion. It had to be his imagination.
Still, the place made his heartbeat quicken, his breathing become shallower. 

Above the slab was a larger than
life life-sized gray gargoyle statue with horns, scaled skin, and hoofed feet.
The filmmaker had the impression that he had seen this before once, in a book
or magazine. But he couldn't remember where. The stone creature was obviously a
throwback to pagan religion. Or at least patterned after a nightmare from that
time period. It was a demon, or maybe even a god. Oddly, the expression on its
face was benign, not malevolent. Even though it was clearly a monster, it
exuded intelligence. The goatee on its chin was twisted and pointy. The scales
that ran over its entire body were like chain-mail armor. Oddly, there was a
touch of Christianity to the art piece. The demon worn a crown of thorns on its
lumpy, bald head. Its gnarled, taloned hands were placed together in prayer.
Around the right wrist was carved a bracelet of thorns, which ran up the
forearm. All along its furled wings were veins. The monster's feet gripped the
altar tightly. No matter where you went in the clearing, it felt like the stone
monster’s eyes were following you.

“It’s been here a long long time.
Nobody knows who built it for sure. They say it was used for Black Masses and
Satanic ceremonies. Supposedly, this is where Mathaluh sacrificed the young
runaway who, by the way, my Lizzy would be perfect to play.”

“You angling for the position as
my casting director now too?” Loveless smiled wryly.

Charlotte giggled shamelessly,
“And location scout. You can’t pay for production value like this. Nobody owns
it. We can shoot here for free.”

“True dat. Definitely too good a
location to pass up.” Loveless looked at the thick forest all around.
"We’ll never get a generator out here. But I’ve got an idea. Power
inverters."

"Power inverters?"

"They plug into car lighters
and have outlets on them. Our cars engines will act as generators. We'll run
stingers from the inverters."

"Stingers?"

"Crew lingo for extension
cords. They'll give us juice out here in the woods for the lights.”

“What do we need lights for?”

“Can’t shoot a horror film during
the day. Anyone still come here?”

“Randomly. Just kids who like to
party.”

“And the occasional Satan
worshipper,” Loveless joked. As he took another look at the statue, a weird
mood was washing over him. “When the Catholic church wanted to convert the
people and scare them away from the pagan religions they had grown up believing
in, they began portraying the Devil with horns and hooves to resemble the pagan
gods.”

Dusk was falling rapidly.
Charlotte didn’t seem to notice as she continued to explore. The filmmaker
looked around as the shadows grew long all around them. He suddenly felt like
he was stoned. Whenever he blinked, he saw a flash of images. These images were
over-exposed, with a red tint. Loveless couldn't get a good look at them. They
were near subliminal. He couldn't tell what they were. When he looked at
Charlotte, she had a strange expression on her face too.

“We should get back,” Loveless
suggested looking out into the woods and having no idea what direction they had
arrived from.

“You scared, city boy?”

The filmmaker glanced back to
find Charlotte staring at him wide eyed, suggestive. Loveless felt strange, as
if he was standing outside his own body. Charlotte closed the gap between them.
She reached up and ran her hand down the side of the statue’s leg behind him.

“Do you just like partying out in
the woods with teenagers? Lizzy told me about the case of beer at the rock.
Lizzy tells me everything, you know.”

Loveless didn’t know what to say.
Obviously Lizzy hadn’t told Charlotte about the party in his cabin home, if it
had really happened. Otherwise, he’d be in handcuffs by now.

“I wasn’t partying.”

“Well?” Charlotte exclaimed.

“Well what?” the filmmaker felt
the less he said the better.

“Or do you like partying with
someone closer to your own age?”

“Someone?”

“Me,” Charlotte said, her face
hovering in front of his.

Loveless pushed Charlotte up
against the altar, slid his arms around her waist and kissed her softly on the
lips. Her skin was like fire. From the way she reacted, his was too. The mother
wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. Hard. The filmmaker felt
her tongue in his mouth. Moments later, they were full on making out. Although
a chilly autumn day, beads of sweat were forming on their foreheads and necks.
In between long deep kisses, they would each steal quick glances at the devil
above the altar. Each time they did, their desire became wilder, more uncontrollable.
Suddenly, Charlotte shoved the filmmaker away. Without taking her eyes off of
Loveless, she lifted herself up onto the altar behind her. The filmmaker
couldn’t help but notice the minute blood stains on the stone slab that time
and the elements hadn’t washed away. He didn't care. Laying back, Charlotte
rested on her elbows, “Well?”

Without a moment’s hesitation,
the filmmaker climbed up on top of the altar and Charlotte. They kissed
violently. Every time Loveless closed his eyes, he saw flashes of the statue
surrounded by a black sky, floating on a lake of fire. For a fraction of a
second, he wondered if the woman he was savaging, saw this too. It looked like
a rape scene. Only you couldn't tell who was violating who.

"Burn in me."

"What?"

"Burn in me!"

Charlotte rolled over on top of
the filmmaker and unbuckled her pants, whipped off her shirt, undid her bra.
Her breast were small. They drooped just enough to let you know they were real.
The erect nipples were scarlet pink. As Loveless, reached up for them,
Charlotte undid his pants and slid him into her. Seconds later, she was
writhing wildly on top of him.

“Shouldn’t I- use protection?”

Charlotte just shook her head and
rode him harder, writhing, grabbing her hair, reaching up and running her hands
over the statue’s face. Moments later, she climaxed violently and collapsed on
top of Loveless moaning loudly.

As she lay on top of him, the
filmmaker looked up and caught sight of the demon statue. Loveless could swear
its eerie grin seemed bigger now. He closed his eyes. More flashes. Another
wave of lust came over him like possession. Loveless rolled Charlotte off of
him, sat up, turned her over and entered the young mother from behind. She was
on her knees now. The filmmaker couldn’t take his eyes off the statue. He had
hold of Charlotte’s hips and was driving himself into her as hard as he could,
thrusting as she bucked. Loveless could see her hands grip the rusted shackle
rings tightly, in pain, but he couldn’t stop himself. Minutes later, he came,
resting his trembling face against her back as they rolled over onto their
sides, little tremors still making their way through him.

The two of them lay there, chests
heaving from exertion. Charlotte had a sudden attack of embarrassment. She
rolled over and hid her face in the filmmaker’s chest.

“I always act without thinking. I
mean, I thought about making love to you. I wanted to, but maybe I shouldn’t
have been so impulsive. It’s just, here it felt- ”

“Right.” Loveless finished for
her.

Charlotte lifted her head and
looked at the filmmaker, “Tell me the truth. Did I just mess things up with you
and I working together?”

“Of course not.”

Something came into the
filmmaker's line of vision in the distance. It took a moment for his mind to
register that it was a person. Loveless was looking directly at a dark figure
standing in the forest just beyond the clearing. The filmmaker jolted up. “HOLY
SHIT!”

“What?”

“I just saw someone over there by
that tree,” Loveless pointed to the spot, but the figure was gone.

Charlotte sat up quickly and
started throwing her clothes on, “Oh great. One of Lizzy’s friends catches us
out here doing the wild thing- it’ll be all over town. We better pray they
didn’t have a cell with a video camera. That shit’ll end up on YouTube. Probably
go viral.”

“I don’t think it was a kid.”
Loveless was getting dressed, still scanning for the figure.

“Kids are the only one’s who come
out here.”

“What about Satanic cults?” the
filmmaker asked, this time with deadly earnestness.

“You serious, J.D.? That stuff’s
just urban legend.”

Loveless looked at the woman,
“You sure about that, Charlotte?”

Charlotte didn’t look sure of
anything anymore. She just looked scared. “Let’s just get out of here. Okay?”

They found Donovan in a deck
chair out on the balcony, kicking back. He looked up at Loveless and Charlotte
and stated simply, “This script rocks. I’m in, if you can answer one question.
Can you still make the movie for seventy-five thousand?”

“We’ll have to get our elbows a
little dirtier than I’d like, but we can make that work if we have to.”
Especially, the filmmaker thought, because he had no other offers.

The next day, Loveless and
Donovan hammered out a deal memo in which Charlotte was upped to a co-producer
for accepting a percentage of the movie profits in lieu of a paycheck. The
three of them then opened an account for the movie, which Donovan placed twenty
thousand into. Outside the bank, he shook hands with Loveless.

“That should get you started with
development. I’ll put another thirty-five in before the end of next week. I’m
headed to Big Bear. Catch you two on the way back, pardnahs.”

“I’ll start to crunch numbers and
hammer out a tight budget.”

“Use Charlotte. She’s sharp and
can help you get things cheap and free.”

Charlotte beamed as her cousin
hugged her and climbed into his Beamer.

“Cheap and free is my motto,” she
chirped.

Loveless and Charlotte watched
Donovan drive merrily away. She smiled at the filmmaker, who didn’t realize he
was frowning. “What’s the matter?” Charlotte asked.

“What?”

“You’re frowning?”

“Oh, sorry. I guess I should be
happy. I met you, which has been an absolute blast, and your cousin is putting
up the money for the movie-”

“But?”

“But I’m just a struggling
filmmaker. With one hundred thousand, I would have been able to pay myself
enough to live on while working on this project. It’s gonna be a sixteen hour a
day gig for me, all the way through editing. I've already done most of the prep
work. So, if you figure another week for pre-production, twenty-one days for
the actual shoot and two months for post-production, that’s roughly the next
three months of my life. Yet I’m gonna have to cut my payday in half now.”