Project 17 (15 page)

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"Getting warmer," Chet's voice says through the receiver, obviously hearing the sound of our footsteps. His voice is followed by laughter--a twisted giggle that practically makes me piss myself.

I stop for a second in the center of the cafeteria when I think I hear something--a scuffling sound. "Chet?"

"Getting colder," his voice continues.

"The guy's totally screwing with us," I say, working my way back across the corroded tile floor.

"He's behaving like a spoiled little B-rat." Greta sighs.

"What's a B-rat?" I ask, giving Liza's hand a squeeze.

"A B-rated actor," Tony explains. "They always have to have all the attention."

"Imagine that," I say, somewhat under my breath.

"Getting warm again," Chet says.

We reach the back of the cafeteria, following Chet's voice as he guides us warmer and warmer, until all his cues stop--just out of nowhere.

"Chet!" I call, taking the door that leads out into a back hallway. There are doors to the left and right.

"What happened?" Tony asks. "Did the walkie-talkie go dead again?"

I shake my head, noticing how the on button is still

lit.

"Mimi!" Greta calls. She presses the walkie-talkie right up to her lips. "Are you there?" But Mimi still doesn't answer.

I reposition my camera so that it rests high on top

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of my shoulder and move to the door on the left.

"It's too late to stay away now," Chet hisses, his voice crackling out through the speaker. "I gave you a chance, but now Mimi's bleeding."

"Don't screw around!" I shout. "Where is she?"

"On the floor." Chet's voice giggles, barely able to get the words out. "She's bleeding pretty bad."

"He's delirious," Tony says.

"Where's Mimi?" I demand.

More giggling--like he
is
delirious, like he's completely lost his mind.

"The guy's just being a dick," I say.

"How do you know?" Liza asks, practically welded to my side.

A second later, I hear Mimi scream--a knifelike sound that cuts right through me. "Mimi!" I shout, pulling away from Liza to bust through the door.

But then Liza screams too. She's pointing straight ahead, right at Chet. He's standing by the tunnel, just waiting for us--like some messed-up mental patient.

"Holy shit," I breathe, feeling my heart pump something fierce, noticing the sick-ass grin across his face.

Blood trickles down from his hand. "Mimi's bleeding," he repeats.

"Oh my God!" Liza shrills. She turns away and starts crying--starts pacing around in a circle. "What happened?" Tony asks.

"What happened is that Chet's jokes suck," I say,

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trying to assure myself that this is indeed one of his stupid pranks.

Chet's holding a giant piece of glass. He smiles wider when we see it, like he's seriously enjoying this twisted shit.

"Where's Mimi?" I ask.

At that, Chet passes out. His eyes flutter open. Blood pools onto the floor around him.

153

GRETA

CHET IS AN
absolute idiot. And so is Mimi.

The whole thing was a joke--the broken glass in his hand, the bleeding, the giggling, the whole
Stay-away-Mimi's-on-the-floor
garbage.

Garbage.

Have I mentioned how much I absolutely
hate
B-rated actors?

And the truly bizarro part? Mimi was in on it. Yeah, that's right. Little Miss Have-Some-Respect-for-the-Spirits-that-Linger herself.

So. Unbelievably. Lame.

Derik's about to blow. Honestly, if I didn't know better, it'd be like one of those cartoons where the top of the guy's head pops off and flames burst out. He's
that
mad.

"It was just a joke," Chet says, standing up. He wipes the fake blood off his hand with a rag. "I bought this stuff

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last Halloween. Thought I'd bring it along for the occasion. It looks pretty real, doesn't it?"

"Such
an idiot," I say.

At the same moment, Mimi opens the hallway door and pokes her head out, proving that she's completely unharmed. "It was
his
idea." She grins. "I don't know why I agreed to it."

"I don't know, either," Derik says, his jaw visibly clenched.

"You're not going to like, kick the shit out of me of anything, are you?" Chet asks, still wiping the faux blood from his hands.

"At least you can use the footage for the Bloopers section of the DVD," Tony offers. "But next time, I'd recommend using corn syrup for the blood rather than that ketchupy substance. It's more authentic looking on film."

"A good point," Chet says. "About the whole bloopers thing, I mean. We could sandwich the scene right between the commentary section and the making-the-movie extras."

"You're an asshole," Derik barks.

"Come on, man." Chet holds his bloody hand out for a shake. "Let's make up and be friends." He tilts his head and makes a frowny face, still having fun with this.

"You're an asshole," Derik repeats.

"Lay off," Mimi says. "It was my fault, too."

"We just got a little bored upstairs," Chet continues. "We wanted to go exploring, and you guys seemed a little intense up there."

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"Did you not hear me when I said that we should stick together?" Derik asks. He balls his hand into a fist by his side.

"Did you see Tony and Greta?" Chet asks. "They were sticking together enough for all of us."

"It was just a joke," Mimi reminds us. "You don't have to get your panties all in a wedge."

"It was a
stupid
joke," I say, working myself into the drama. I stand "center stage," angling my left profile toward the camera, since it shows off my burlesque mole. "Some of us are trying to make a quality film, here. We don't need a bunch of wannabes screwing it up."

"Touché," Tony says, trying to steal my thunder. He grabs my hand and pulls me away from the camera just so he can take my place.

"Bug off," I snap, completely peeved with his lack of dramatic timing.

"Let's go," Derik says.

"Not until you check
this
room out." Mimi nods toward the door she came out of.

Derik follows her in, making sure to film the sign printed on the door: art therapy . I end up following along too, trying to work my way back in front of the camera. Only, once we get inside, Derik turns the other way, filming some majorly lame-o cow mural--all peeling now. I let out a sigh, tired of having to fight for the scenes I get. It's just like what happens in drama class. Even though I'm the most qualified, Mr. Duncan will almost always pick

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someone else to play the lead roles. He says I try too hard and that's my downfall. But frankly, I'm sick of trying at all. Even whiney, pathetic Liza gets more camera time than me.
What,
do I need to blubber all over the place? Will
that
get me noticed? I shoot her my most creepified look-- squinty eyes and biting teeth--to spook her out. But it only makes her suck up to Derik more. The girl is total casting-couch material.

"I read online somewhere that they used to make the patients do art as part of their therapy," Derik explains, moving to the other side of the room to film more acrylic-paint hell--like patient artwork is more interesting than a live-action scene.

"What do you think of filming a scene with
me
creating something?" I ask. "We could simulate what it was like to work in here; I could act like I'm making a collage."

"Maybe later," Derik says, all but ignoring me--no different, I suppose, than Mr. Duncan himself.

I'm so glad I agreed to be a part of this stellar indie film.
Not!

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DERIK

MY JAW SHAKES.
And so does the camera. I take a deep breath to get a steady grip. And pull myself together. "Derik, what is it?" Liza asks.

Some of the others ask me stuff, too. But I can't really answer. I mean, how do you even put it into words?

I zoom in on the series of pictures, somehow still glued to the wall. They're done in a mix of paint and crayon--a patient chained to a bed; a lady dancing with this huge-ass smile across her face, despite the shock treatment tabs stuck to her forehead; a bunch of patients carrying a casket out to the cemetery; a little boy sitting in a hydrotherapy tub, his teddy bear resting atop the canvas cover; a naked patient crouched in the corner of a stark and empty room; a girl caught in a spiderweb made of barbed-wire spikes.

And a woman with the freakiest eyes I've ever seen. She doesn't have a mouth--just those eyes, and a long, pointed nose. When I zoom in closer to capture those eyes, I notice

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it--the number seventeen sitting there in place of the pupil.

"Are you okay?" Liza asks. She puts her hand on my shoulder.

I nod, trying to take it all in--all these drawings and what they mean.

"They're amazing, aren't they?" she continues. "Like snapshots of the past--of what it was like to live here."

I nod, taking a second look at the casket drawing, remembering how I read somewhere that sometimes they made the patients build caskets and make grave markers as part of their therapy.

"You getting soft on us, man?" Chet asks.

I clear my throat and shake my head, still trying to get a grip, remembering how they sometimes made the patients bury the caskets, too. Only sometimes the caskets were buried too shallow and got washed down the hill in the rain.

"Jackpot," Chet says, trying to peel one of the pictures off the wall--the one with the barbed-wire web.

"Lay off!" I shout, even surprising myself. I look at Liza to see if I've scared her. I think I have. Her lips are parted and her eyes are wide. "I'm sorry," I say, taking a step back, trying to keep my cool. "But we can't just take this stuff."

"What's wrong?" Mimi asks.

"I just don't want anybody to sell this stuff, okay?"

"How about the works in progress?" Chet asks. He points to the unfinished paintings still sitting on their easels.

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"None of it," I snap. "I don't want anybody taking or selling any of the stuff they find in this hospital--are we clear?"

"Okay. Why? What's going on?" Mimi asks, her voice all soft, like maybe I'm the one who's crazy now.

"Yeah," Chet says. "What's the big deal?"

"The big deal is that it isn't ours."

"Well, it isn't theirs anymore either," Chet says. "This place is going to be leveled next week. It's just going to be a pile of trash then."

"So let it," I say. "That's not up to us."

"It's not up to you either. I don't have parents who buy me a brand-new truck every year. I could use the cash." Chet tugs a bit harder on the picture and ends up ripping off a corner.

"Don't be an asshole," I say, taking a step toward him.

Mimi gives Chet a pointed look, and he backs away from the picture--from what he's already done. "This sucks," he says.

"Thanks," I say, unclenching my teeth, feeling myself calm down a bit.

"Drrrrrrrama Queen," Greta says, lamely trying to cough out the words.

"Sorry I didn't bring my Oscar," Tony whispers, like I can't hear him.

But I could care less what they think. Maybe I just need some air. Or maybe this place is really starting to get to me. I mean, it's just so weird. At first you don't really

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notice it too much--walking over the patient files just strewn all over the floor; seeing barred-up windows and scratches on the walls from restraints. And the way this place was just left: trays stacked up in the cafeteria still waiting to get collected; an unfinished game of Scrabble left on a rec room table; a book on somebody's nightstand, the bookmark still wedged inside. And all this unfinished artwork.

I mean, after a while it just kind of hits you--that these people were real, that they really lived here. And you can't help but wonder what's happened to them now ... to these people whose histories are being treated like useless shit now.

It makes me wonder if treating people like useless shit became the norm here.

I stare back at the artwork--at those eyes--almost unable to look away. I mean, as cheese ball as it sounds, the art really shows what they felt like--a number, a prisoner, a slave, a headcase.

It only makes me want to make this movie, to get it shown, all the more.

Regardless of whether or not I win the contest.