Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story

  Of course it didn't take much to taint such purity. But Todd had been lucky. Though in private he'd often been sour, envious and scornful, Maxine had successfully kept all that from the fans. Todd's image had remained damn near perfect. His only enemy was time.

  And even that, in the end, wouldn't have mattered, if he'd allowed it to take its toll without shame. Look at Paul Newman, practically sainted at seventy. It would have been the same for Todd. People would have loved him as he grew old the way they loved certain songs: because he was part of who they were.

  Maxine could have said all of this to him on the beach, if she'd been prepared to eat enough humble pie. Her words might even have persuaded him not to go into the water with Katya, and what a lot of grief that would have prevented.

  But instead she'd been stupid and let the lie stand. And now they were here at the end of it all, and what had their petty warring earned them? Well, a lot of things she'd have preferred never to experience. Being out in the back yard with the ghosts, for one: that had been almost more than her sanity could endure. Seeing Sawyer torn apart that way was a horror she'd never be able to get out of her head. And then to make her way back through the undergrowth while some of his mutilators stalked her, sniffing after her as though they were dogs in heat and she the local bitch. There were no words for the horror of that.

  And finally, this. Coming back inside the house to find Todd as near dead as made no difference, his face covered in wounds, his body all cut up. The emergency services were on their way, but even if the Canyon had been easy to find, which of course it wasn't, she didn't have much hope that they'd make it in time to help him.

  He made a noise, his eyes fluttering.

  "Can you hear me, Todd? There's an ambulance on its way."

  For a moment his eyes opened a little wider, and he seemed to be making an effort to concentrate on the face in front of him.

  "It's Maxine," she said. "Remember me?"

  There was no recognition in his eyes. His breathing, which had steadily become shallower, was now so shallow she could scarcely see his chest rising and falling.

  She dropped her head toward his, and spoke softly into his ear, as if to a child.

  "Please don't go," she said to him. "You're strong. You don't have to die here if you don't want to."

  He opened his mouth a little; his breath smelled metallic, as though he'd just swallowed a mouthful of old pennies. She thought he intended to tell her something, and put her ear to his lips. His mouth continued to move, but no sound came out, except the wet sounds of his throat and tongue working. She was bent forward for perhaps half a minute, hoping for something from him, but the posture was making her back creak, so she sat up again.

  In the fifteen seconds it took her to lift herself up from her bowed position and sit up straight, the man she was tending died.

  It was only when she started to speak to him—just repeating his name, in the hope that she might get some response from him—that she realized every trace of animation had gone out of him.

  Very tenderly, she put her hand up to Todd's battered face, and touched his cheek. Many times over the years she'd gone on set to find that the makeup people had given him swellings or wounds that had looked grotesquely realistic. But they'd always been "movie wounds"; however bloody they got—and however much he was supposed to have suffered in their getting—they were never disfiguring. The Todd Pickett whom audiences had come to see, with his blue-green eyes, his dark, lush hair, his symmetry—his smile—none of that was ever spoiled.

  But this, lying before her, this was a different spectacle entirely. Once she had closed his eyes, there was nothing left visible of the Todd Pickett the world had loved.

  She extricated herself from beneath his corpse with some difficulty. It bothered her to be leaving his body just sprawled here in the passageway in such an undignified manner, but she didn't know what else to do. She needed to find Tammy, Jerry and a vodka, not necessarily in that order. Anyway, she thought, as she looked down at the corpse, what the hell did Todd care where he was lying? He was gone, hopefully about some better business than the rest of the ghosts who lingered around this damnable house.

  The thought of them—of the undeniable fact of them, which she'd witnessed just a few minutes before—made her heart quicken. If the dead lived on after their demise, did that mean that was Todd's spirit in the vicinity right now, hovering around before he decided where he was headed?

  She could feel herself blushing with self-consciousness, wondering what she'd done in the few minutes since his passing that he might have witnessed. Had she said anything asinine; or let go of some gas, in her nervousness?

  Feeling a little foolish, but knowing she couldn't take a step without speaking, she said: "Todd? Are you here?"

  Then she waited, looking around.

  A fly had buzzed in from the back yard where the door was still open, and it now landed in the pooling blood between Todd's legs, where it supped eagerly.

  She bent down and shooed it away. It rose giddily into the air, as though stupefied by the sheer scale of the feast that lay below. She swatted at it with the back of her hand and, to her surprise, she struck it. Down it went on its back, its buzz suddenly manic, as it careened around on the tile beside Todd's body.

  Had Maxine been a deeper thinker she would perhaps have hesitated to kill the thing. But there'd never been any room for metaphysics in her life, and though she might once have heard in conversation that in some cultures a fly attending on a corpse must be treated reverentially, in case it carried the soul of the deceased, such possibilities were very remote from her way of thinking.

  She put her foot down on the upturned fly without a moment's hesitation, and headed back into the kitchen.

  TWO

  The tiled room was hazy when Tammy stepped inside. Though the walls were now quite solid—she could see the grout between the tiles, and the cracks on the surfaces of the tiles—there was a dense, cold fog in the place which made deep breathing difficult, and seeing any great distance more difficult still.

  The air smelled rank; like a very intense mildew. Apparently one of the illusions the room had been capable of creating was the illusion of smell. There had been the fragrance of greenery in here when she'd last entered; the smell of rain on leaves, and damp earth, and the pungent aroma of horse manure from a dump left by one of the Duke's horses. But apparently all that had been masking the real smell of the place, which was this smothering fungoid stench.

  She advanced cautiously, fearful of suddenly encountering somebody in the fog, and not leaving herself time to retreat. She could hear the ghosts now and again; their howls and their complaints strobed through the fog-thickened air, making it hard for her to judge their distance. For safety's sake she kept one of the walls in sight to her left, as a point of reference.

  It possessed only a shadow of its former genius for deception. The landscape that had once seemed so real was now reduced to outlines. Even these were not complete. In some places they had deteriorated to near-abstractions, in others they'd gone entirely. But then in other places there were still large expanses of paintwork intact, where she could make out the whole visual structure of a picture. In one place there were tufts of grass and small white flowers that, spreading from the bottom of the walls across the ground, created the illusion that the visitor was walking over fertile ground. In another, rocks and boulders were strewn about, some cracked open by ambitious shrubs which had settled in their cracks as seeds. And more distantly, here and there she could still see copses and forests, roads and rivers, which cloud-shadows had once passed over most convincingly; and beasts had haunted; and men lived and died in.

  The hues of all these fragments of the Country had faded, needless to say, burned away by the unveiled sun. All the richness of the rendering, all the detail of the painters' craft, was lost. What remained was almost as simple as the outlines in a child's coloring book.

  Once in a while, as she walked, the
fog would become a little thinner overhead, and she'd catch a glimpse of the ceiling. It was in much the same state as the walls and floor. The outlines of cloud formations were still visible, but without the brushwork and color to lend them life they looked even more abstracted than the landscape: just meaningless shapes.

  Only the sun, whose appearance had begun the process of destruction, retained some lifelike qualities. The brightness it shed was sickly, however, as though it were blazing too brightly to stay aloft and alight for long, and would soon be consumed by its own fever.

  And still she walked, with the wall on her left, certain that she'd soon come to the corner of the room. But the journey went on, and on, much to her astonishment. The room must truly have been enormous, as Zeffer had boasted. She remembered the pride on his face when he'd described how they'd built the room. How the tiles had been numbered so that they could be put up in the exact order he'd found them in. Only now, with the deceptions of the room removed, did she better understand why he'd felt such pride. The achievement had been substantial. Lunatic, but substantial.

  Finally, the wall turned a corner, leading away from her, which was a surprise. She began to wonder if this search wasn't becoming foolhardy. How much further should she explore, hugging the wall for security's sake but getting further and further away from the door? Should she take a chance and step out into the dark, featureless fog, hoping her sense of direction would guide her back to the place she'd come from? No, that wasn't sensible. She decided on the more conservative option. She simply turned on her heel and, putting the wall that had been on her left on her right, returned the way she'd come. Her only concession to risk was to venture perhaps six or seven yards from the wall, which put it at the limit of her sight, given the density of the mist. In this manner she proceeded tentatively back the way she'd come.

  The trek back to the door was not the uneventful journey the outward bound trip had been. She'd taken perhaps five strides from the turnabout spot when she heard the whooping clamor of ghosts, and a body of them— smeared together in their grief, melded, it seemed, into one furious being—appeared from the fog. Their faces were bitter: turned-down mouths and burning, cold blue eyes like the luminous eyes of deep-sea fish.

  She'd not been terrified of them at the threshold, but she was terrified now. Not because they would see her and recognize her and blame her for the absence of their consolation, but because they could catch her up in their momentum, and carry her away with them. She instinctively dropped to the ground as they approached, and they moved on past her, wailing and cursing. She heard cracking sounds as they passed by, and when they'd gone she saw that the tiles which they'd passed over had shattered.

  She stayed pressed on the ground, while the fog roiled around her, afraid that they'd come back.

  They didn't return, thank God; but it was clear that this wasn't a safe place to be. She could hear other packs of ghosts roving around in the fog, making their own terrifying din. The fog, she assumed, had delayed their full realization that this place was a shadow of its former self. That was why some of them kept on searching, hoping that the power they'd fed on in the good old days was still here somewhere. Of course it was not; and by degrees the bitter word was spreading, so that each of the groups searching the room slowly grasped the disastrous truth. And as soon as they did they went crazy.

  "Tammy?"

  She looked up. Close to the ground the fog thinned somewhat, and she could see twice as far as she could when standing. And there, at the limit of her vision, lying on the ground like her (and probably for the same reason), was Jerry Brahms.

  "Oh thank God . . ."

  There was a dark smear on his face, which she guessed was blood. Otherwise, he seemed to be all right. He crawled toward her on his belly, like a soldier under fire. As she approached she saw that the smear was indeed blood, its source the patch of skin which Katya had torn out of his scalp. When he reached her he caught hold of her hand.

  "My dear, thank the Lord you're still alive. I feared the worst, I truly did. Somebody let the ghosts in."

  "That was me."

  "In God's name why?"

  "Because Todd wanted me to," she said. It wasn't the whole truth, of course, but it was enough for now.

  "Where is Todd?"

  She looked away from him, just for a moment. It was all she needed to do.

  "Oh Lord, no. Not my Todd."

  "She stabbed him—"

  "Katya stabbed him? Why?"

  "It's too complicated . . ."

  "Well, later then. Where's Katya now?"

  "I think she's in here somewhere."

  "So why did you come down?"

  "Why'd you think? To find you."

  "Oh you sweet . . ." He grasped her hand hard.

  "Now can we please go?" she said.

  "Do you know the way to the door?"

  She glanced over her shoulder. The wall she'd strayed from was still visible. "Yes. I think so. Back to the wall. Make a right. And then we follow it until we reach the door, which will be on the left."

  "Very organized."

  "I hope I'm right," Tammy said. She started to get to her feet. Jerry tried to persuade her back down on the ground.

  "I'm too big to be crawling around like this," she said.

  Jerry nodded. "And you know what? I'm too old," he said. "If she sees us, she sees us. Yes?"

  He scrambled to his feet, and together they headed back to the relative security of the wall. There were noises from every direction. Some were the by-now-familiar cries of frustrated ghosts; but there were now also sounds of mounting destruction. The revenants were venting their fury by taking the room apart. Tammy could hear them tearing at the walls, bringing down waves of tiles. And after the shrill crash of breaking tiles came the deeper din of wood beams being smashed, timber wrenched from timber with the squeal of unseated nails.

  Tammy and Jerry stayed close to the wall; but the air was quickly filling with particles of dust, which suggested the destruction was getting closer to them. It was impossible to tell from which direction: perhaps from all.

  "May I?" Tammy said, slipping her hand into Jerry's.

  "Be my guest."

  The door was in sight now, and though the din was sickening, Tammy dared to think they might get out of this alive, with a little luck.

  No sooner had it crossed her mind than there was a massive disturbance in the fog close by—so large a disturbance that the fog actually parted like a pair of drawn drapes.

  Tammy dragged Jerry back the way they'd come, two or three steps, no more.

  As she did so the ghosts came out of the gaping fog, and flung themselves at the wall around the door. They tore at it—and at the wall surrounding it—with such force that part of the ceiling above the door came crashing down. Pieces of shattered tiles, splintered wood and plaster flew in all directions. Tammy and Jerry turned away and shielded their faces. A barrage of shards peppered their backs.

  When the noise of the demolition ceased and Tammy looked back, a haze of plaster dust had replaced the fog. She inhaled and it caught in her throat, reducing her to a coughing, tearful mess. Jerry was in the same, or worse, condition.

  Tammy spat out a mouthful of the white soot, and wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. Not the smartest thing to do. She felt plaster particles scrape between her irises and her lids; a new flood of tears came. As she wiped them away she felt Jerry catch hold of her arm, seizing her so hard that she stopped coughing, and blinked the tears out of her eyes to cleanse them. Then she looked round at him.

  The ghosts who'd demolished the wall were now tearing at the exposed sub-structure of the wall, reducing it to splinters. But it wasn't the scene of destruction Jerry was looking at. He was staring ahead, back toward the center of the room.

  "She always knew how to make an entrance," he whispered.

  Tammy followed his gaze.

  The drapes of mist were beginning to close again slowly. But walking up between them, l
ike a diva preparing to take her place center-stage, and armed for this final scene with the knife she'd used to stab Todd, was Katya Lupi.

  THREE

  "Hello, Tammy," she said. "I suppose you thought you were going to get out of here alive. Well you're not. Sorry to disappoint you."

  "Enough's enough, Katya," Jerry said, doing his best to sound authoritative.

  "Oh you know me better than that, Jerry," Katya replied. "Enough's never been enough for me." She looked at Tammy. "Did he tell you I took his virginity? No? He didn't. Well I did. He was a sad little thirteen-year-old, with a dick about as big as this." She waggled her pinkie. "Do I exaggerate, Jerry?"

  Jerry said nothing. She went on, her tone darkening. "All that I've done for you, and you're ready to creep away, ready to leave me alone. That's all you men ever do, isn't it? You creep away."

  "Not Todd," Tammy said. "Todd wanted to trust you."

  "Shut up. You couldn't possibly understand what was between us." She pointed the bloody knife at Jerry. "But you. You understood. You knew how I'd been deserted in the past."

  This was the big scene, Tammy thought; no doubt about that. And she was playing it for all she was worth, as though she could finally be absolved of all she'd done, in the name of deserted womanhood.

  "You're pathetic!" Tammy cried. "Why don't you do something useful with that knife and slit your fucking wrists!"

  "Oh no. This isn't the end for me," Katya replied calmly. "This is the end for him. And for you—" She poked the knife in Tammy's general direction. "Your miserable lives are certainly over. But not me. I was always a chameleon. Wasn't I, Jerry? From picture to picture, didn't I change?" He didn't reply to her, but she pressed the point, as though she simply sought verification of the truth. "Well didn't I?" she said. "Grant me that much."