THE BLACK ALBUM: A Hollywood Horror Story (11 page)

“I see what you’re saying.”

“To make matters worse, I haven’t
had my mail delivered since I’ve been up here. I filled out a ‘change of
address’ before I left LA. But I can’t even find my mailbox at the house. A
producer I worked for in Europe was supposed to send me the balance of the
money he owed me by now and I should have gotten some pretty healthy foreign levy
checks from the Writers Guild for some past projects I wrote.”

Charlotte giggled, “Didn’t anyone
tell you? The mail isn’t delivered to homes in Lake Arrowhead. Everyone who
lives there automatically has a box at the post office.”

“The post office?”

“Yeah. The one right behind you.”

“Let’s go.”

The filmmaker’s mood changed
considerably after he found not only two decent sized foreign levy checks, but
also a check from the producer, postmarked from Antwerp, Belgium. The producer
was as shady as they come. But he loved Loveless’ writing and always came to
him to write his next movie. As a result, the filmmaker was the only one in
town the producer hadn’t screwed over.

“I may not be rich - yet - but,
this money’ll float me for at least six months. I’d like to take you and Lizzy
to dinner tonight. Some place nice. That German steak house, maybe.”

“Long as you’re buying. That
place is a bit pricey.”

“I’m buying.” Loveless was
beaming. The town had inspired him. This woman was good luck to him and more.
What ate away at the filmmaker were all the strange things that had happened to
him since being here, the near death experiences, the loss of time, the wild
sexual feelings that randomly came over him.
What the hell was that out
there in the woods?
Loveless thought. The love-making was passionate, but
it was also savage. He and Charlotte had been totally out of control, like
animals, fixated on that ugly statue that seemed to watch them fornicate with
grim satisfaction. And who was the figure in the woods? Which brought something
else back up. Something the filmmaker kept dismissing, but which kept creeping
back into his thoughts: the feeling of being watched. And not just that, but
the feeling of being manipulated, maneuvered. These questions ate naggingly
away at Loveless. He was finally getting what he wanted, to make a movie.
But
at what price?

The crewing up and casting
process went smoothly. Loveless bounced his ideas off Charlotte and she helped
fine tune them from an intelligent business perspective. They thought out
everything from equipment rental on down to catering. The filmmaker had a
director of photography in Los Angeles he was dead set on using.
Matty
.
The kid was talented and just as importantly, fast. Many low budget productions
stalled and went over budget because of a slow DP. Having someone who could
light scenes fast and well was ultra important. Loveless would tell Matty what
he wanted and walk away. Twenty minutes later, he would return and have it
exactly the way he envisioned it.

In terms of actors, the filmmaker
would make do with mostly local talent. But there were three key supporting
acting roles that Loveless wanted cast out of Los Angeles. He felt he wasn’t
going to find true professionals who could pull off these performances here on
the mountain. So, after an audition trip to LA, Loveless and Charlotte cast the
roles of Russell, their male love interest, the demon Jeremy and Grace's sister
Katie. With the DP, that made altogether four people they were going to have to
lodge in Arrowhead. Charlotte found a cheap house with four bedrooms and two
full bathrooms for rent short-term, solving that problem.

Next, the filmmaker needed a
music composer to score the movie. He wanted someone located on the mountain,
so he didn’t have to run back and forth to LA to go over music for scenes.
Loveless didn’t want to have to do this by phone or internet either. He wanted
a flesh and blood person in front of him. So Loveless placed an ad in the
classified section of one of the mountain newspapers, somewhat dubious of the
response he would get. There were three submissions. Two were from music
students in college down in San Bernardino. Loveless immediately rejected
those. The third was from a man living in Rim Forest.
Jerry
. The gist of
his reply was that in addition to being a music composer, Jerry also fancied
himself a bit of an electrician and movie special effects guy. The filmmaker
enlisted Charlotte and together they went to the man’s house.

They had to take a dirt road to
get to the house which was a large, dumpy two story affair in the middle of
dense woods. Inside it was full of all kinds of junk, some of it very bizarre
in nature. There were framed photographs of sideshow freaks circa the 1920s.
Other stuff looked like movie memorabilia from very old films. Then there were
the old toys: dolls, action figures, hobby models of Frankenstein, the
wolf-man, Dracula. The models were meticulously painted. There were also
antique clothes that looked like something out of a thrift store, including a
moth-eared tuxedo on a mannequin. The people who lived there were obviously
pack-rats. The house was dark and cold with a staircase that led up into pitch
black. Loveless heard creaking sounds in the ceiling every once in awhile,
which led him to believe there was someone else upstairs.

Jerry was forty-three - or so he
said - and had just about all of his teeth replaced with dentures, which he was
quick to take out and show you. He had olive skin and greasy jet black wavy
hair that made him look like an immigrant from
the old country
; Romania,
Estonia or some such place would have been a safe bet. Patches of this thick
black hair stuck out from under Jerry's sleeves and shirt collar. Jerry boasted
about having done nearly everything imaginable in his younger years, including,
at one time, having been a great escape artist. He had framed photos to support
a number of these claims. In one picture, a man was jumping out of an airplane
in a strait-jacket. Loveless couldn't really tell if it was Jerry or not.

"Yass, that's me. I've
pretty much done it all, seen it all," Jerry declared with an
eager-to-please smile. It was obvious he wanted a job on the filmmaker's movie.

"Hi, everybody." A
young woman projecting shy excitement, entered the room wearing a long black
sweater over a pale yellow dress. She was pretty and petite with short
naturally blond hair. The young woman said she was twenty-one years old,
although she looked younger. She was also six months pregnant. The young woman
giggled a lot when she talked, had poor grammar and lingered on her words as if
she thoroughly enjoyed speaking them. With her look and drawl, she could have
been straight off the Appalachian mountains.

This was Jerry's wife
Delilah.

"J.D., Charlotte- this is
the missus, Delilah."

Loveless and Charlotte greeted
Delilah politely. When the filmmaker shook hands with the young woman, the
sweater slid back on her arm far enough for him to see the fine blond coat of
hair covering her wrist. 

"I just loved your script so
much," Delilah confided jubilantly. Loveless had emailed the script to
Jerry yesterday after speaking to him briefly on the phone.

"You read it?" Loveless
asked. He was always interested in what people thought of his work.

"Of course. Actually, my
baby Jerry here read it to me. "The Black Album." What a damn good
name. And the demon Jeremy, he was so sexy cool. Wouldn't you say so,
babe?"

"Absolutely, baby,"
Jerry replied grinning. Loveless got the impression Jerry would say and do
anything Delilah asked for when she said it in her
baby tone.

Something in one of Delilah's
large sweater pockets moved abruptly. Loveless looked at Charlotte with a ready
for anything smile glued to his face. He could tell Charlotte was already
unnerved. They were in
Ed Gein
country out here. The filmmaker wouldn't
have been surprised if
lil Delilah
and
ole' Jerry
whipped out
machetes, skinned both him and Charlotte alive and danced around wearing their
skins. Instead, Delilah pulled a tiny black kitten out of her sweater pocket
and held it up to her face with both hands.

"This is my other baby:
Shade," Delilah drawled. The young woman then giggled mischievously and
bit her lower lip as if she was about to do something naughty. "Wanna see
something?"

Loveless looked over to Charlotte
again. He could see it in her eyes. Charlotte was internally freaking the fuck
out. The actress closed her eyes when Delilah stuck the kitten's head in her
mouth. The filmmaker was too macabrely fascinated to blink. He tensed, waiting
for the hillbilly woman to bite the animal's head off. After a terse beat,
Delilah giggled and pulled the kitten's head out of her mouth. The animal,
obviously used to the sideshow performance, licked her. The young woman kissed
Shade on its head and put the kitten back in her pocket.

Surprisingly, it was Jerry who
broke the spell of insanity that at the moment was all pervasive. "I have
some thoughts for the music of the Black Album." The man, who always
seemed to operative with a theatrical flourish, went to the corner and whipped
a black sheet off a bulky object. Underneath was a work station with a fire
engine red desktop computer sitting on it.

Having never seen a computer that
looked like a maraschino cherry, Loveless blinked twice. "Wooh."

"Built this little baby
myself, "Jerry said boastfully as he fired his little baby up. Lights
began to flash across the computer. Next to it was a second monitor, a music
keyboard, and other equipment for composing music. "Did you have any
thoughts concerning the music score?"

"Well, I feel that one thing
pretty much all horror films today are missing that scary movies of the past
had, is a recognizable musical theme score. I mean, you can be anywhere, a
bathroom, an elevator- when you hear the score from John Carpenter's
"Halloween" or the movie "The Exorcist," you immediately
know where it's from."

"I hear ya. Have anything in
mind you want me to use as reference or inspiration?"

"Yeah. There was this TV
movie. It originally aired back in the seventies. I caught it one night when
they were rerunning it years later. Scared the hell outta me! It was the first
movie at the time to portray the vampire realistically, as if he really existed
in a modern world. It was called "The Nightstalker."

"I know what you're talking
about. It was about Carl Kolchak, this reporter who chased stories about the
occult, monsters, UFOs. The movie was so popular, they made it into a TV
series. Chris Carter even said it was his inspiration for "The
X-Files." In addition to his many fine accomplishments, Jerry was obviously
a
fanboy
.

"Exactly. It had this theme
music. Started slow and then just took off. Was very scary."

"Yeah. Hearing it in my
head. I know what you're talking about." Jerry sat down in front of his
keyboard. After a few dial adjustments, the man began playing the theme music.

"That's it, Jerry!"

"Okay. So if I use that as
an example of what you want, I can come up with something like this."
After a couple of false starts, Jerry began playing some of the most alluring,
terrifying, and surprisingly beautiful music the filmmaker had ever heard. He
even used a combination of keys to create what sounded like
wailing ghosts.
What
the hell was this man doing on the mountain? He had a most singular talent.

Loveless caught the expression on
Charlotte's face. She loved it too. It was perfect. Jerry was totally in sync
with the filmmaker's vision musically. Scoring the scenes once they were shot
and assembled would be child's play with somebody like this in editing with
him.

"Why is it I’ve never seen
you or Delilah in town, either Crestline or Arrowhead before? At the
supermarket, in the diner, getting gas? I’ve seen just about everybody on this
mountain at least once,” Charlotte inquired.

Jerry lowered his eyes. A faint,
resigned smile touched his lips as if he was about to make a sad confession. He
looked at Delilah for strength, then said, “Delilah and I don’t get out much
because of our medical condition.”

Loveless found himself wishing
Charlotte hadn't asked the question.

"Medical condition?"
Charlotte continued. Women always had to know.

Jerry looked around
conspiratorially before stating, “Lycanthropy. We both unfortunately suffer
from it.”

“Lycanthropy, as in the werewolf
disease?” Loveless thought he was hearing things. Jerry must have been joking.

The music composer's face took on
an extremely serious expression as he slowly unbuttoned his shirt and removed
it, revealing an upper body covered in thick matted hair, even on his back. The
only place where there was no hair was an area on his left forearm where there
was the healed scar of a large animal bite. While Jerry was undeniably the
hairiest man the filmmaker had ever seen in person, he was a long ways away
from being Lon Chaney Jr.

“Yes. Painful thing. Wouldn’t
wish this on anybody. I picked it up during my travels through some unbeaten
paths in Eastern Europe and unintentionally passed it on to my wife Delilah.
Had no idea the damn thing could be transmitted sexually."