While filming their first super serious horror film after graduating college, a ragtag team of twenty-somethings (Levi, Pathik, Brad!, and Maggie) encounter a gruesome sight. A dead body falls from the rafters of their make-shift warehouse studio set—and cut scene. As lights flicker on and off and an ominous voice fills them with dread, we skip back to three weeks prior: The team is gathering momentum to start work on their film project at a local restaurant, Osaka-Ya. Here they meet waitress turned actress Kelly and set in motion a terrifying sequence of events, which may or may not include murder. Tracey Lamki and Linh Nguyen join the story just as things get serious. We pick up from this point, before the warehouse, before the falling bloody innards of Gary Stu hit the floor, before the real American terror sets in...
***
Levi sat up straighter at his desk. He had been bent over his computer furiously researching and sometimes typing for the last hour or so. Maggie and Pathik sat on the floor of his bedroom, Maggie had started out painting her toes a vibrant shade of fushia, but had since moved on to painting Pathik's finger nails for him, a soft lavender. The two of them ignored Levi, which was par for the course whenever Levi started to focus on film work whenever they hung out, which was usually every time they hung out.
“I like this color,” Pat watched as Maggie dragged the brush first from the top of his nail near the cuticles and then down in one swift motion. Two brushes and then she gently picked up the next finger and re dipped the brush and then started again.
“It suits you,” Maggie said simply, concentrating on her work. She painted her own nails regularly but never painted someone else's. The angle was awkward. Pat sat cross legged on the rug in the center of the room. Maggie's various polish colors, files, and clippers were spread out around them. She sat across from him near the bed, her right leg stuck out and her glittering toes drying. She bent over his hands, holding them atop her knee and picking each finger out separate and gentle. Pathik smiled.
“You think?”
“Yes, of course. I wouldn't lead you wrong,” Maggie gave him a wink and a giant smile. Pat nodded, almost just to reassure himself.
“Guys.” Levi spun around in his chair. His hair was frazzled, as it usually was, his sleeves rolled up, his eyes wide and energized.
“Mmmm?” Maggie asked, bending over Pathik's pointer finger and using her thumb nail to scrape off a little bit of polish that had gotten onto his skin.
“I think I figured out the monster,” Levi turned back to his laptop and gazed into his screen, searching for the words Yes, Levi, you've done it. “It's a shadow monster.”
Pathik was mesmerized by Maggie's work and just nodded. He had been hearing a lot about monsters the last several weeks—really since their last semester of school. At first it was a very human killer, but Pat couldn't stomach all of the ways Levi would describe their kills, and Levi eventually took pity on him and said he'd make the film something psychological, no blood, no guts. And really, Levi convinced himself, the serious films were all psychological.
When the idea that Levi had started to turn into an actual film project, and Levi enlisted Maggie and Brad, Pathik figured that this was as good a start to adult life as any. Why not take the first year off and work on something creative? That's what they told themselves, but Pat had this sneaking suspicion that shadow monsters did not equal full time work, benefits plans, a five year goal.
“It just makes sense,” Levi got off the chair and sat down on the floor next to Pat, aimlessly picking through the nail polish colors and talking to anyone who would listen. “The monster is really in the background. It's in everything that they do. When Kelly wakes up, when the light hits her and she realizes what kind of trouble she's in, it's the shadows all around her that scare her the most.”
“The possibility,” Maggie said, finishing off Pat's nails and sitting back up. She screwed the top back on the lavender polish and smiled over at Levi. When he got like this he was the cutest thing ever. She watched him buzz inside his tiny little frame there on the rug in the middle of his childhood bedroom. Behind him on a bookshelf she saw an action figure, faded and missing a hand, but memorialized still on the shelf next to Clive Cussler novels. Maggie really should be looking for a real job now that college was over, and there was always a need for light technicians somewhere, but giving up Levi just wasn't an option. She'd rather be broke and painting Pat's nails on a cozy Saturday afternoon than working her ass off for some small time theatre in the city.
“Exactly.”
“The possibility?” Pat pursed his lips and blew onto his freshly painted nails.
“Well, like, what's scarier? A silly made-up monster standing in front of you, or an insidious thought seeping in, settling in, following all around you?”
Pat thought about it for a moment. He didn't know why Levi was drawn to horror and suspense. Pat wanted to make a movie with bright music, bright lights, bright optimism.
“What's the scariest thing you can think of?”
Maggie picked up a navy blue polish, so dark it was almost black, and rolled it between her palms. Pat watched her as he thought about his deepest fears. Why did Levi constantly make him think about his deepest fears?
Strangely the first thing that came up was Brad, but Pat didn't want to admit to it. He wanted to be stronger than the forces that held him down.
Levi looked questioningly at Pat as he considered, not wanting to rush him. Levi had been going over this shadow monster concept for the last hour and had been researching horror movies he remembered that had these kind of non-concrete monsters to contend with. There was one that stood out, which had something to do with an asylum and a machine that tried to reach another plane of existence or of memory or of something he never really understood. In that one the shadow monster eventually peeled off the walls and stabbed through you with a great long pointed arm. It had been real. It had transcended the shadows and formulated right before your eyes. His shadow monster had no shape, not yet.
Pathik settled on, “Gun violence in Chicago.” Maggie snorted.
“It is legitimately terrifying.”
“Well, okay, but like,”
“It looms...”
“In the shadows...”
Both Pathik and Maggie grinned, falling into a fit of giggles as Levi whined at them.
“Guys, come on.”
“The current administration?”
“Ohh yes,” Maggie nodded along, now painting her nails that deep, deep blue.
“Nazis.”
“Yeah, fuck Nazis.”
“That's not what I meant, though,”
“Nazis are an actual threat in 2017 Levi, and I'm not sure what's more terrifying that they exist or that they aren't afraid of being found out.”
“Okay, so the idea of white supremacy?”
“No, the actual physical Nazi, I've had about twenty-three years to get used to white supremacy, but a frat boy with a tiki torch...”
“Frat boys,” two identical shudders rippled through Pathik and Maggie.
Levi sighed and picked at his sock, there was a hole on the bottom, right between his toes, he stuck a finger in it and closed his eyes. There was a part of him that retreated into his art whenever politics came up. He had four years of college to pretend to be sheltered by the world, to pretend that he could create on the sidelines and keep creating and that nothing, not even Nazi's would change that freedom he had. But Levi was lucky like that, here in his childhood bedroom still a year after graduation, his friends, with dark skin, far more unlucky than he could even imagine.
Pat looked over at Levi, he was so lost in his story that everything else paled in comparison. Pat wanted to reach him in that brain of his if for nothing else than to see him smile again like minutes ago.
“Honestly? The scariest thing I can think of is rejection.” Pat's voice was soft and low, he continued to watch Levi until Levi turned to look back at him—dropping his gaze then to his lavender nails, balling them into a fist to see himself without the polish and then revealing them again, over and over and over.
“Ooooh, Pat's got a crush,” Maggie teased him. Pat turned a deep red, but powered through.
“Not like that, though, okay yes like that,” he started, Levi watching him intently. The blush grew from his cheeks across his ears and down his neck. “I mean, like a total rejection. Of me.”
Maggie's smile dropped and she reached out to place a hand, half painted, on Pat's knee.
“No, I know, not from you guys, but,” he looked out the window right above Levi's bed. It looked out onto the street. The neighborhood the Schullers lived on was currently empty, and still a little frozen early into spring. He meant to say, out there, but his voice dropped off. Silence filled the room.
“And isn't rejection a lingering terror, like a shadow?” Levi asked. Maggie finished off her nails and looked up over at Pat and Levi as she blew on her nails. The sun was swept behind a pile of clouds and the room dimmed as if on cue. The whole house was still, paused at this moment: three college grads and their deepest fears settling into the cold floor boards, or mingling with the overwhelming scent of acetone. The space between Pathik and Levi was suddenly lost in the pall of an afternoon gloom. Pat nodded, afraid.
Kelly stared at the glowing screen of her iPhone as she sat on the toilet.
Are you sure you want to come with me? You can't change your mind after this. He doesn't like flakes.
The three blinking dots that told her Tracey was typing out her response stared back at her for a time. The weight of them, she thought, their indecisiveness, said it all.
Yeah.
Kelly could feel Tracey's innocence through the screen and miles of network connecting them. She knew that Tracey didn't really understand what the “employee meeting” was really all about, but her heart was in the right place, and Antony rarely held onto a waitress that didn't join his little club. Kelly wanted to show her friend that there was something meaningful that could be done with your miserable, boring middle class life, that there was an active choice in all of this fuck up. Kelly grinned and, finishing her business, got ready for the night ahead.
She walked to Tracey's place. It was early spring, the weather of Chicagoland still brisk and cold but not unbearable. They lived just a couple of streets away from each other. Kelly in a duplex shared with an elderly couple—she did chores for them every once in a while for a break on her rent. Tracey lived in a town house with her single mother Carol, she had older siblings that had since moved away, but someone needed to look after Carol, to make sure she didn't suffocate herself with her things.
As she neared, Kelly could hear raised voices coming from the Lamki residence. She jogged up the path and the front steps and let herself into the porch and through on to the kitchen. From there it was obvious, Tracey Lamki was throwing a tantrum. She didn't throw them often, not in front of friends anyway, but tonight she was on a roll.
“Kelly doesn't want to go alone!!” She kicked her feet against the old wooden floors of her mother's kitchen, stomped them in place. The kitchen was relatively small. It opened into the living room through an arch way. The molding around the door ways was all thickly painted white. The wallpaper was yellow with horizontal rows of sun flowers and bumble bees every foot or so. Above the kitchen cupboards was a small space where Carol kept a collection of figurines, lunch boxes, and antique advertisements. In the kitchen it was Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Red and black and white polka dots scattered across the room. There was the occasional Goofy, Donald Duck, but only when pictured with the iconic duo.
“Kelly is an adult woman,” Carol started, her voice cool and calm, the motherly voice of reason. She was sitting at the kitchen table, her sewing machine and fabrics laid out in front of her. She was making burp rags for Connie's second granddaughter Jenna, she made burp rags for almost everyone when she found out they were having a baby. The pretty pastels decorated the otherwise plain, old oval table: pink and yellow and purple and green giraffes and ducklings and flowers. She turned away from the machine and looked, pleadingly at Kelly, as if to say do you see what mess you're causing right now? Kelly only gave a smile, a sweet one, and then looked back down at her feet in feign embarrassment for Tracey.
“So are YOU, Mom!” Tracey pulled her coat on and gave a humph.
“This isn't about me Trace.”
“Mom.”
“Trace.”
Tracey gave her friend a weighted look.
“You promised me you'd help me out tonight, you promised two weeks ago.”
“And I'm telling you now that I've got plans with Kelly.”
Carol stood up from the table exasperated. She reached her arm out and grabbed hold of Tracey by the crook of her elbow, pulling her with her into the living room. Tracey threw her head back in protest and walked, grudgingly with her mother, her feet dragging and almost tripping across the carpet when the stepped into the living room.
This room was not covered with sunflowers and bumble bees nor Micky or Minnie Mouse. This room was loaded with Winnie The Pooh wherever there wasn't regular furniture. The carpet was a pea green color, faded over the many years they had lived there. The sofa was light tan and shoved up against the far wall with a ottoman out in front of it. There was a lazy boy chair, faux dark brown leather sitting cock-eyed facing the TV. The rest of the room, which was average for any suburban ranch house in the mid-west, was lined with china cabinets and book shelves displaying a variety of Winnie The Pooh collectibles. This was Carol's favorite room of the house.
She pulled Tracey towards the door to the small office they had attached to the living room, which was mostly used for storage—but had a great bay window looking out into the backyard and the giant maple tree that Tracey used to climb when she was a child. Tracey dug her heels into the shaggy, worn pea colored carpet of the living room and yanked her arm out of her mother's grip. A few stray feathers from the down padding in her coat floated in the air with a poof.
“Mom, please. I'll help you tomorrow.”
Kelly watched with interest from her position in the kitchen. She moved a little bit into the center of the kitchen away from the dining table so that she could have a better view of the living room and the joining office. From this vantage point, with the door to the office only half open, Kelly got only a glimpse of the amount of stuff that Carol owned. Micky and Minnie Mouse where one thing. Winnie the Pooh another, but the office contained a multitude of collections. There was every cartoon character you could imagine: Peanuts, Hello Kitty, The Looney Tunes, The Muppets, Disney, Pixar, and more. In the office, however, most were kept in boxes and clear plastic tubs. There used to be a usable desk in there, but it had long since been used as a shelf for her various collectibles. The bay window was, miraculously, still kept clear. Kelly thought, perhaps, Carol used this as a bargaining chip. I don't have a problem, see, look at all this space. The window really did open up the space.
Kelly rubbed her toes into the wooden floor while she waited. She didn't know exactly what it was Tracey had promised to do, or if she could get out of it, and part of her wanted to just dip out and leave the Lamki's to their obviously tumultuous evening, as if leaving Tracey to deal with her sensitive and broken mother would save her from the coming danger. Kelly had to know, deep down, that it was no place for a girl like Tracey, even as much as the world and the government had let her and her family down. But, ultimately, Kelly didn't care about anyone but herself.
Carol's voice was muffled as she lectured her daughter from the office. Tracey turned back to escape with Kelly through the kitchen and the front door.
“Go go go go go!” She whispered in a rush, scooting around a bookshelf and out into the kitchen.
“TRACEY LORETTA LAMKI!” Tracey stopped dead. Kelly snorted and the covered her mouth with her hand, trying to hide what was obviously a smirk.
Tracey turned red and, if Kelly looked close enough, she could almost see steam coming out of her nose.
Carol stood in the door way of the office with her hands on her hips, a bolt of fabric tucked under her right arm—Kelly could see it featured Piglet quite prominently, a blushing pink, perfect for baby Jenna. The only way you knew the shout had come from her was because there was no one else in the house. Otherwise she was perfectly short and sweet, bumbling around her hoarder house, trying to make burp rags and keep her adult daughter who didn't pay rent in line.
“I HATE YOU!” Tracey screamed at her and grabbed a ceramic figurine so quickly off the shelf that Carol didn't even notice until it shattered against the far wall. A golden and polished Winnie the Pooh, smile frozen in pure joy with the top of his head obscured by the honey pot he was feasting in, crashed and broke into a hundred pieces—embedding deep within the carpet.
Carol didn't breathe for a long moment. Tracey's voice lingered in the house, embedding itself into the pieces on the floor, into the floor boards, into the dirt beneath. Carol dropped the bolt of fabric from under her arm and rushed towards the pieces of the figurine in the pea colored carpet.
In a whimpering rush of fingers and palms, she scooped and she pulled out pieces and pieces and smaller pieces yet of the figurine. The golden belly, stark white on the inside, was itself the majority of the pieces. There was a slight tear in the wallpaper where the figure had hit, but Carol didn't notice that. Carol only noticed the ceramic, the previously smooth and polished ceramic, painted just so, ancient compared to the majority of her collectibles, a most prized possession. Tears started to stream down her cheeks.
“Oh Tracey...” Her mother wailed into the corner where the wall met the floor and held her figurine in her open palms, it's shape distorted, a single piece unbroken that said the word honey.
Tracey turned right on her heels, pushed Kelly out into the porch and was gone.
“Wow Trace. That was kind of harsh?” Kelly asked, more curious than anything if this was how a normal evening was passed in the Lamki household or if she had just witnessed the break down of the century—a rip in the fabric of their family, a tragedy: the last, great Winnie The Pooh figurine and the terrible shag carpet.
Tracey humphed and crossed her arms, refusing to talk to Kelly, the wide emptiness of the neighborhood growing between them. The night air seemed colder than it had on the walk here, an unspoken trauma blew through the trees.
“Well, okay, whatever.” Kelly shoved her hands into the pockets of her long wool coat. It was supposed to be like one you might see on a business woman in New York City, a pale pink, a large collar with large brown buttons. You were supposed to pair it with a humongous scarf in the winter time and leave it open to show off your flowery blouse in the spring time. But her hair was pulled into a pony tail and her jeans were ripped in the non fashionable way, which was the I did chores all day and might have dug a grave way, so in reality she looked like a normal Midwestern girl (maybe a little on the thin side) trying to shove her self into the pockets of a New York City kind of life.
The girls walked on in silence for what seemed liked forever, turning out of the cul-de-sac and out onto the downtown streets of their suburb. It was approaching eight pm and was completely dark outside except for the street lamps and the glow from restaurants and bars. Their town didn't have much, but it had this one street in the center where everything happened after eight pm.
When they rounded the corner onto Clarke, two blocks away from Osaka-ya, the yakiniku restaurant they both worked at, Tracey finally opened her mouth. “I'm sorry you had to see that Kels.”
Kelly nodded but didn't say anything. She turned to look at Tracey who was talking into her feet, her cheeks clearly stained with two long streaks of tears. She had her own hands shoved into the pocket of a down jacket, and walked with her head permanently down. She looked like she had shut down and crawled into herself and that she was only walking on this sidewalk because Kelly pulled her along with an invisible string.
“It's okay,” Kelly said, in a rare moment of honesty. She thought for a second about pulling her hand out of her pocket where it was warm and patting Tracey on the back, but she didn't. She gripped onto the scrunched up receipt at the bottom of her pocket and walked just a fraction or two faster.
The restaurant loomed out in front of them like a shadow. It was dark, only the faint light of the front entryway shown out onto the block. The rest of the street was darkened from what it had been two blocks up on the main drag—where many a restaurant was still open on a Friday night. Osaka-ya was closed for an employee meeting, had been closed all through the supper rush actually. Tracey sniffled once or twice once they had reached the front of the place. Kelly pressed in front of her and lead them into the side door, unlocking it with her key card.
The restaurant was equally gloomy on the inside as it was on the outside. Kelly slid around the side near the kitchen storage and opened up a door that lead down stairs into the basement. From below a warm, orange light glowed and the hushed voices of the group greeted them for a second before everyone stopped and waited.
“Just Kelly,” her voice was rather chipper. Tracey wiped the tears from her face and nudged Kelly in the side with her elbow. “And I got Trace to come along.”
A short grunt of acknowledgment followed and Kelly smiled at Tracey before heading down the stairs.
At the landing Kelly was greeted with a familiar sight. Two Osaka-ya waitresses, Jodi and Padma sat on an old love seat sofa, Jodi with her dress hitched up and her legs crossed underneath her, Padma leaning against the arm rest with her nose in her iPhone. Jodi waved with enthusiasm.
Beyond them, crowded in sort of circle of miss-matched chairs and some half booths from the restaurant above, cracked or otherwise broken, was the rest of the club. All were restaurant employees. There were about ten people there, including Kelly and Tracey, and they were all turned to look at the owner of the place, Antony Meninsky. He stood with his hands on the back of an old desk chair, his head bent down, a look of sheer exhaustion paining his face. Kelly flashed Tracey a quick look. Tracey nodded, terrified. Somehow, as much as she had said she hated Carol, Kelly knew that Tracey would give anything to be in that living room again. She hadn't really realized just what it was she was signing up for. Once it hit her, it would be too late to get out.
Antony turned his head and looked at Kelly, and blinked a slow blink in lieu of a smile or a welcome or even a nod. Kelly took the hint and grabbed onto Tracey's elbow and pulled her into a chair next to the sofa with Jodi and Padma, and she took her own seat next to Tracey. Antony slowly nodded and then lifted his head and took a deep breath.
“We were discussing the Millers,” Antony spoke clearly, distinctly. The Millers landed in the middle of the room with a thud, heavy and foreboding.
Tracey looked from Kelly to Padma and around the circle. There definitely had to be more than one family of Millers in this town, in the greater suburban area. There was Richard and Debra, they had the Miller Industrial Paints and Chemicals plant on the east end of the city with a gigantic warehouse in the business park no one used but had promised to bring prosperity to the suburbs. There was Mr. Miller the junior high biology teacher—Tracey remembered how he would rub his boner against every girl's desk as he walked through during exams. She thought there might have been a Miller, DDS or was he a chiropractor? There was definitely a non-doctor doctor Miller in town. Miller was a pretty common, Midwestern, white suburban name, after all.
Kelly nodded slowly along with Antony, her features screwed into something somber and heavy all of a sudden. The Kelly from moments ago, the it's okay, Kelly, was hidden behind layers and layers of all of these other Kellys. Antony brought out one version of her. When Tracey and Kelly had shifts together and Antony was there, Kelly stood taller. When he was gone she seemed to take over, became controlling and sarcastic and mean. When Kelly was relaxed and alone, Tracey thought she caught glimpses of that Kelly with Linh, she was almost sweet. Tracey couldn't follow along and she didn't know which Kelly it was that Kelly wanted to be.
Antony moved out from behind the chair and stood in the center of the circle. Padma put away her phone and sat up straighter. Jodi grinned and bounced in her seat. Her dark stockings cut off at the thigh and her dress was hitched up to her waist to allow her to sit cross legged as she was, she folded her hands into her lap to cover herself, as if she had forgotten earlier, but was now reprimanded by the invisible glare emanating from Antony. He wasn't even really looking at her. He was looking at Tracey.
“Kelly tells me you can be trusted.”
Trace looked at Kelly, who was looking directly at Antony and nowhere else. Tracey turned back to face the man before her. He was tall and handsome, there was no other way to describe him when you first met him. Half of the teenage customers in Osaka-ya only came for a second time because they were lucky enough on their first visit to see him. Tracey knew what it was like to see him across the restaurant lobby and have your heart stop. She was suddenly and deeply in love with him. She nodded.
“Are you...willing to join us?” His emphasis on the word willing made it sound like she had a choice, for just a moment, but Tracey was doomed the moment she had nudged Kelly in the side at the top of the stairs.
She nodded again and said a meek little, “yes.”
“Alright then, tell me what you know about Richard and Debra Miller.”
“And their son,” Kelly added, earning a swift look from Antony and sending shivers down Tracey's spine. Beneath her down jacket she could feel the goose-flesh prickle and grow. Antony cocked his head and furrowed his brows.
“Oh Brad comes in here all the time,” Tracey offered, smiling despite herself. Antony stood up straighter and took a deep breath, looking Tracey up and down once, twice, and then turned to take his seat at the top of the group.
Maybe Tracey didn't want to be with Carol and her collectibles after all. Kelly smirked, crossed her arms, and settled into the night.
To be continued...here
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