Candle in the Attic Window(3)
There’s laughter and Danielle seems a bit embarrassed by her vehemence. More drinking follows, more talking, but nothing of substance. Eventually, they all agree to get some sleep on the cots they’ve brought with them. One by one, the lights are dimmed or extinguished and then, in the dark, someone turns off the camera.
Alexia Cole, Former Actress
I never wanted to go back to that house. Zach said I was the only actor who’d ever been in one of Zenda’s movies that they could track down, but I don’t know. I don’t know who else was in them, or if they’re dead, or in hiding, or working, or retired. I don’t know if Zach and his company even tried to track anyone else down. I don’t much care.
I was the little girl who gets kidnapped in Gothic!, Zenda’s first movie. I was 13 at the time. After that, I was in a few other movies, always little parts: someone’s daughter, someone’s niece, a girl someone talked to in a flower shop. I was in some commercials as I got older, and then I got a recurring part in one of those murder mystery TV shows. Evenings at Sullivan’s, I don’t know if you’ll remember it. I wasn’t a main character or anything. I was a waitress at the titular bar where the amateur detectives got together to solve the crimes. That’s it. My hair was always in a braid down my back. Anyone who recognizes me at all these days usually recognizes me from that.
After my mom died, I quit the business. She was always the one who’d wanted me to be an actress. I bought a partial share in a restaurant up in Seattle and I never looked back. That sounds good, doesn’t it, that I never looked back? But of course I did, or I wouldn’t be here.
I’m not honestly sure why I agreed to do this documentary. Nostalgia? I don’t think so. The paycheck they offered me for it was a pretty big incentive. Easy money for spending a weekend in Zenda’s old house, dredging up the past.
I’d forgotten about the nightmares. They started back up the night after I agreed to the job. I used to have them all the time after filming Gothic! They’d have been enough to make me quit right then, if it hadn’t been for my mom. But I can’t ever remember them after I wake up. Just that there’s a white hand. That’s it. You’d think I’d been in that stupid Phantom Hand movie, instead of Gothic! But, truth be told, I never even saw it. I never saw any of Zenda’s movies, not even my own, and I don’t care to.
The camera comes back on to darkness. There’s nothing to see, but there are sounds. Movement, people talking. “Did you hear that?” a voice says, close by.
“Someone screamed?”
“Is everyone here?”
A light comes on, from somewhere off to the side of the frame, blinding.
“Where’s Alexia?” Danielle says. “What happened to Alexia?”
“Maybe she went to the bathroom?”
The camera is lifted up and carried along as the group moves, at first in different directions and then en masse toward the staircase. There they find Alexia, standing at the bottom, staring up. She looks strangely white in the dark, as though her clothes got lighter since she went to sleep. She’s staring up into the shadows at the top of the stairs and doesn’t seem to notice them approach, until Thom puts his hand on her shoulder. She jerks away, turns to stare at him with big, dark eyes.
“Hell with this,” she says, after a long, silent moment. “Hell with this!” Danielle tries to approach her, but Alexia pulls away. “No. I’m leaving. I’ll call a f*cking cab. You guys can take it up with my lawyer how much of that money I don’t collect. I’m gone.”
She walks away, headed toward the front door. Danielle disappears off camera, following her. The camera stays, swiveling up to peer into the darkness where Alexia was staring. “What happened?” Thom’s voice asks quietly. “What did she see?”
Thom Dorn, Documentary Crew
Before we got started, I sat down and watched all of Zenda’s movies over one weekend. In order. I don’t know what I was expecting. Some kind of connection, maybe? Some overarching something that you wouldn’t have noticed normally? Some indication of the mystery that was coming?
I got nada. Zilch. They’re just a bunch of crappy old movies. There’re some good bits and mostly, they’re harmless. Just boring. But man, it’s disappointing, y’know? Whenever a movie gets lost, or disappears, or never gets finished, you always want it to be something special. A masterpiece. Something magic. And chances are, this thing, this King in Yellow, chances are it was just going to be another boring old horror movie, destined for an eternity of afternoon cable.
Maybe not getting made was the best thing that could’ve happened to it.
The camera goes off after Thom’s question and when it comes back on, Danielle is in the middle of talking, saying that they should stay with Alexia until the cab comes.
“You can,” Zach says. From his voice, you can tell he’s the one holding the camera again. “We need to see what she saw.”
They’re at the top of the stairs, standing at the beginning of some upstairs hallway. Maybe the one that recurs in The Phantom Hand, it’s hard to tell. Thom and Caleb are holding lights.
“What’d she say?” Caleb asks.