Five Roaring Reads
Ray Jaxome
Published by Ray Jaxome at Smashwords
Copyright Ray Jaxome 2012
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Chapter One – The Naked Mind
The path was closed; the building was sitting there lonely and forgotten above a cliff face that was slowly eroding towards it. It was an exceptional find. Just what I needed. I looked up at it and smiled, then turned towards my executive producer. She was tall, blonde, thin, a perfect beauty who was aware of it and capitalised on it throughout her life. Most of the people she extracted favours from wouldn’t have believed she had a brain.
She was my secret weapon.
“It would look good, in the right lighting. Scary. What was the bloke who built it thinking?”
His name had been Carl LeBore. One of the world’s most famous architects, which means that no one who really matters has ever heard of him. He had a sad story, something about going insane and killing his cat. I shrugged, not wanting to explain that he had been mad. After all, who else would put a perfect replica of the temple of Solomon up a fifty foot cliff?
“Doesn’t matter. The site fees are within budget,” I said, smiling to myself. The old owner had seemed so grateful that his property would be in a movie. Even if it were a third rate horror.
Zombies at the Temple on the Cliff. I think Carl would have been proud. My assistant nodded. She wrote down some notes, then looked up at me, “Do you think there’s anywhere we can drink?” she asked.
“I think I saw a pub on the route in. A red hunt,” I said, pointing towards the road “Maybe we could stop there Leanne,” she smiled back, and walked to the car. You see, that is one of the main reasons I hired her. I need someone to do the driving for me, ever since the incident.
The film script is in the back of the car. I glance through it again. It’s no great deal, just some steady money and another credit. I had to take what I could get. Even if that meant, well, selling myself to the highest bidder as Leanne said. At least it was more money than I could make working at a real job. As we turned into the pub car park Leanne looked away from the road for a second. “What was it like?”
“What was what like?”
“The stroke.”
I paused for a moment. It had started on a nice sunny day. For once I wasn’t depressed, upset, heck I’d even taken a holiday because I had been under the weather. Suddenly, I felt odd. The left side of my body became heavy. I’d turned around and tried to call someone for help. But somehow the numbers hadn’t meant anything.
“Scary,” I said.
“But you’re OK now?”
If OK is wondering every ten minutes whether you will still be alive the next day, waking up in a cold sweat after nightmares, being worried every time they took your blood pressure because if it was too high –
“I’m fine,” I said, “What about the movie? Do you think it’ll be a hit?” I said with a little wry smile. We both knew this one had DVD release written all over it. Maybe it might make a little money in the theatres. But it wouldn’t attract the best actors, or the best press, and that was why they went for a has-been like me. I might not be working correctly, but I was probably the only thing the newspapers would talk about when the film was released. No, I’m not bitter. Just realistic.
“it's money,” Leanne said, with a little smile in return, “If we can get a decent actor on it,” she added. I nodded, I’d been phoning people up I used to know. Some actors still owed me favours, and some felt sorry, and I’d damn well use every single bit of sympathy to make the movie.
I wanted my life back.
This was my best shot of that, so I plotted with Leanne, and schemed, and cajoled script writers who were only doing this to buy their new home, and actors who’d rather be doing cocaine, and cameramen whose wife wanted them to go to Barbados for a holiday, well, I got them to the set at 9 AM on Monday morning ready to shoot.
I looked up at the temple with a smug smile. The set designers had done a spectacular job redecorating the inside. It was covered with cobwebs, with dribbly candles, even with a coffin.
“Will we be ready for shooting soon?” I asked the cameraman, and he nodded. There was even a little catering van set up where the crew could eat unhealthy breakfasts for cheap.
Half an hour later, we started filing.
The first shots went like clockwork. People managed to remember their lines, went in the correct position, sometimes even managed to act convincingly. I stopped the camera rolling to give a few occasional directions but most of the film was shot in one. That would help the budget a little, I thought.
We film out of order. We don’t film from the first moments of the movie to the last; instead we film scenes when the actors and scenery is ready. It saves money. So right after lunch we were going to film the climax of the movie. I checked on the guns, they were fine, and I checked that we were using the right type of ammo.
When I shouted action, the hero raised his gun up to his eye, shouted “This is for Roxanne!” and shot. Once. Twice. Three times.
And the Villain gave a convincing scream and fell towards the ground.
“And cut! Great acting!” I shouted out, but the actor didn’t stand up. For a second or two no one knew what to do. But after the pause the entire crew moved towards him like a tidal wave. The blood on his chest was real. It was spreading through his clothes, drenching his front.
“Call an ambulance!” I shouted.
Before the ambulance even got there he had stopped breathing. All we could do was watch the ambulance drivers working on him, but you could see that it was hopeless. They trundled him towards the ambulance. As it left, two police cars came roaring up, and the officers walked out. They wore guns.
“Can you tell me what happened?” the police officer asked me. But then, for the second time in my life, the entire world went funny. My left lost its vision, almost like a curtain descending.
I stammered out “Get an ambulance,” but the words came out funny.
The least thing I heard was Leanne shouting that I was having another stroke. I’ve lost everything from there until I woke up in clean white sheets in the hospital. My mind was fuzzy, not entirely there, and when I tried to raise my left arm it felt heavier than normal.
“He’s awake!” Leanne shouted, then she bent over to me, “Are you ok, Tom?”
I tried to speak but the words came out weird.
“He’s awake?” asked a voice from past the door. In walked a police man. He leaned over me, “So, what happened? Why did you kill the actor?”
Just past the door a consultant ran into the room and screamed at the police officer. He walked out of the room reluctantly. I lay in the bed, feeling terribly tired and scared. The police officer said I put the bullet in the gun. He couldn’t think I meant to kill the poor man? I tried to lean forward, to get out of the bed so I could go to him and explain it wasn’t true but my body refused to do what I wanted it to do.
But I could still hear, and in the corridor I could hear the police officer speaking.
“He killed the man,” the police officer was speaking loudly into the phone, “And he’s using this as an excuse – “
Then a porter came into the room a wheeled me out towards the MRI scanner. It took a long time for them to scan me, and the machine was terrifying – like putting your head into a tunnel. I couldn’t even tell them how I felt. All I could do was sit there like a big lump as the machine hummed at me.
The consultant came in a few hours later. “I’m sorry, but you have had a major stroke,” the man said, “At the moment it seems like you have difficulty speaking, and your left side is paralysed. You can swallow, which is good. We’ll get a physiotherapist in to start teaching you to walk, and a speech therapist to try to teach you how to speak.”
I tried to ask a question but the words came out garbled.
I tried to ask about the actor – but I couldn’t even remember his name. All I could remember is seeing the blood dripping down his chest. He must be dead. It seemed like the doctors never left me alone. They poked me, and prodded me, and eventually a buff and tanned occupational therapist walked into the room and started moving my legs about.
“While we’re doing this, I need you to imagine how it feels to walk.” he said.
Bloody idiot.
But the git kept on working my leg, even when I tried to get him to stop. Although, the words I used probably didn’t make any sense. The police officers had obviously been shooed out of my room by the consultant, but he couldn’t stop them posting a guard outside my room. He stood there ominously, but I am not sure what he was supposed to be doing there. I couldn’t even go to the toilet without help.
Having half a mind subjects you to a huge number of indignities, which I won’t go into. After several weeks, I had made just about enough progress to talk. Although half the time the words came out funny.
I could hear the police officer fighting with the consultant one day.
“We’re entitled to speak to him! It’s our job!”
“I don’t want you upsetting him. He...”
The police officer must have turned and left. But he came back with a court order. The consultant couldn’t stop him coming into the room to interview me. The police officer who walked in had grey hair, and the start of a stomach that might end up with him in the bed beside me. He glared down, “Why did you kill the actor? Only you touched the gun. You were the one that loaded it. We have it on camera, right from the start.”
“Law... law...” I mumbled, trying to ask for a lawyer. I knew the old advice: never say anything to the police without a lawyer present even if you are innocent. Especially if you are innocent.
He kept on asking questions. I kept on trying to form the language to ask him to get the lawyer. Neither of us got very far. Finally, he stormed out of the hospital room. I knew he would be back. But I could hardly remember anything from that day.
Somehow, though, I had to find out what had happened. Otherwise, I knew he would be back. To arrest me. Every waking moment I racked my brains to try to remember what had happened during filming.
Leanne walked into my room looking worried one afternoon, “I’m sorry, boss, people are talking behind your back. Saying dreadful things. How you murdered – anyway, my entire family keep on telling me not to work for you... and...” I could see she was crying. I wanted to be able to wipe away her tears, “I’m not going to do it. I know you’re not guilty. You couldn’t be. I want to help you.”
If I could have smiled I would have looked like the Cheshire cat. My mouth wasn’t working properly, though, so I settled for squeezing her hand. She squeezed back.
“Get... Get... Video.” I said. I knew the words didn’t come out right. But finally she seemed to understand what I meant.
“You want to me to get the video of him getting shot?” Leanne asked, and I nodded, grinned happily that she had worked it out.
It took her a while, but we had a master copy of the tape, and she set it up like a movie theatre. I think even my bodyguards police officers were interested in what was going on. A nurse came in and started to tut.
I could see why the police officers thought I did it. You could see me standing right by the gun, loading the bullets in. I’d even carried them to the table, and bought them myself. The gun lay there until the star of the movie picked it up. No one else came within a yard of it. He put it in his left pocket like the script required, then I called for the scene to start.
In between being shot, no one else came near the gun.
At that moment, even I could not be sure what I didn’t kill him. I mean, I couldn’t remember the actual events. That’s pretty usual when you have had a stroke. Maybe part of my forgotten memories was pulling the trigger as it were?
Leanne flipped back on the video.
“Watch what pocket he puts the gun in,” she said, and I watched the video more closely. He put the gun in his left pocket. I watched the firing scene again, and I saw what Leanne had seen.
He took the gun he’d used to shoot himself with out of his right pocket.
Leanne pointed to the screen ecstatically, saying again and again, “He didn’t use the gun you provided, Boss, he didn’t!” she was practically dancing in the middle of my hospital room. Finally a nurse came in and looked disapprovingly at us.
Going through the video frame by frame, Leanne pointed to a glisten of sliver by the hero’s left foot. He walked past, nonchalantly, and someone bent down to pick it up.
“Who is she?” Leanne asked.
If I had been able to speak properly I could have told Leanne. She was the hero’s wife. But, despite that, Leanne called the cops. The detective who spoke to her was quite testy, but he came and watched the footage. He walked back to the evidence locker and checked the pockets. Sure enough, there was a hole in the left, and an enterprising guy could easily drop the gun down his trousers onto the ground.
“We’ll have to talk to her,” said the officer, “Find out her side of the story.”
It didn’t take them long to get the truth. He’d been diagnosed with terminal Alzheimer’s a few months before, and he wanted to go out with a bang. He’d co-opted his wife for part of the scheme. He shot himself, reckoning it was a better death than any he’d get from the medical profession.
I couldn’t blame him.
The lawyers are no doubt arguing, trying to get her off. I don’t have any grudge: he died how he wanted to. As national news.
As for me, they sent me to a rehabilitation clinic a month later. Someone else made my movie. I had my name in the credits, but I am not all that interested in it any more. Every day, they come and work on me. Half the time I can hardly cope with the exercises they make me do.
I have an overriding motivation, thought.
Leanne came to me a week after we solved the case. She was all dressed up, in the sweetest black dress I had ever seen. She talked for a few moments and I was wondering what was coming.
“I guess this isn’t traditional, but since you can’t do it yet,” she said, then got down on her knees and pulled the case of a wedding ring out of her pocket, “Will you marry me?”
“N-N-No... Not until I can walk up the aisle,” I replied.
She laughed. So I guess I have motivation to live too. She comes to me every day in the afternoon to give me extra practice. She says I am going to walk and talk soon.
I believe her.
Chapter Two – Beware the Swamp
There was once a boy who was born on the edge of a huge swamp. The swamp was eerie, smelling of sewage and full of snapping gators and things that would sting or bite you. His mother, a white haired woman with a quick cuddle or smile, warned him every day before he went to play that he should not go into the swamp. It was very important not to do that, otherwise –
Well, Timothy didn’t want to upset his mother, so he never did find out what the otherwise was.
Not until he met Anne.
Anne was a young red head girl, who had come to the edge of the Swamp from the big world outside. She was the same age as Timothy, but she seemed more sophisticated. Timothy was sitting down, looking at the edge of the swamp when she heaved herself down besides her.
“What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the edge of the swamp.
“The swamp,” replied Timothy. Even speaking to her made his ear blush; Timothy could feel it radiating so much heat she must have noticed, “Mother says not to go there. Otherwise – “ he paused for a moment.
“Otherwise, what?” Anne asked.
There was a moment of silence, and Timothy thought about it. He didn’t want to have to tell Anne he didn’t know, but he also didn’t want to look like a fool, “I’m not supposed to tell young girls,” he said finally. It was a mistake. Just that sentence made Anne’s mouth jut out, as she glared at him like she wanted to put a knife through his eye.
“Maybe we should find out,” Anne said, standing up, “Maybe we should go into the swamp-“
“Anne, no, my mum says no,”
“She’s not here. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” and then Anne walked towards the edge of the swamp. Timothy walked by her, pleading with her to stay back, but she just shook her head and walked on regardless. Timothy stood at the edge of the swamp watching Anne walk into it, shouting at her to come back.
He waited by the edge of the swamp for hours, until the sun started to fall beneath the horizon. Then his mother came looking for him, and found him at the edge of the swamp. She heaved a sigh of relief when she saw him sitting there, then walked over and boxed his ears.
“What are you doing giving me such a fright?” his mother asked, “You know you’re meant to stay away from the swamp,”
“She went in there,” Timothy said, miserably, “I told her not to, but Anne went into the swamp.”
His mother was silent for a moment, then she grabbed him by the arms and shook him, “When was that? Why didn’t you get me? You know it isn’t safe in the Swamp!” that last sentence was punctuated with a shake that was almost strong enough to push him to the ground.
“I told her not to!” Timothy said, but his mother was dragging him towards the house. She walked towards the kitchen and brought out the big shotgun, then put a couple of shells into it. Timothy was scared now. She didn’t seem like the same woman as he had known. She walked to the door, and turned round, “Stay here!” she ordered. Then she walked out of the house, into the swamp.
Sometimes hours pass like minutes.
This wasn’t one of those times. The clock in the hall ticked one tock every thirty seconds. After what seemed like an eternity the door slammed open, and Timothy could see his mother standing there with the shotgun. She was covered in blood, almost from head to toe. Timothy was shocked, backing away from her.
“I’m sorry, Timothy, I couldn’t get there on time. I couldn’t rescue Anne.” his mother said to him, and Timothy detected a hint of tiredness in the voice, “That’s the reason I told you not to go into the swamp. I can’t always rescue people who go into the swamp.”
Timothy ran to his bedroom and cried. After fifteen minutes, his mother came in with some hot milk, and a hug. She explained that Timothy shouldn’t tell anyone, that it was dangerous, that she shouldn’t even tell a policeman or woman,,,
“Not even that nice one who came round last month?”
Not even him.
School was almost like normal, although teachers got together and whispered about the presence of Anne, or rather her disappearance. Apparently the entire neighbourhood was being searched. But Timothy remembered what his mother had said, and he didn’t dare to tell anyone what he had seen. Maybe they would think he was lying. He knew now that he should have listened more to his mother, and he never went to the swamp again, not for the rest of the summer.