Call the Shots (Swim the Fly #3)(94)

“Wow, that’s . . . really generous of you, Nessa . . . and you would make a pretty kick-ass Nashira,” I say, wondering how on earth I didn’t see that before. “But we still don’t have a leading man. There’s no way Hunter will —”

“Haven’t you heard a single thing I’ve said?” Nessa asks. I wait for her to continue, to tell me what obvious answer I’ve missed, but she just looks at me expectantly.

“What?” I ask. “Do you know another guy who would be willing to — Ohhh. It’s me. I’m the guy.”

“You’ll be great,” Nessa insists. “You know this character like nobody else. We know these characters like nobody else. And if you’re in charge of the characters, then I know this movie will be in good hands.”

“What about Cathy? We won’t be able to hide this from her.”

Nessa smiles. “Don’t worry. I’ll deal with Cathy. Just say you’ll do it.”

My stomach is all clenched up as I think of all the confrontations I’ll have to have to make this work — with Coop, and Matt, and Mr. Nestman, and Uncle Doug. “I don’t know if I can. I mean . . . I don’t know.”

“Yes, you can.” Nessa reaches behind her neck and unclasps the chain with the cross pendant. “You just have to believe you can do it.” She drapes the necklace over my head and fastens it. “And make the choice.”





IT SEEMS ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE but we’ve nearly done it. Five days after Nessa convinced me to take charge of the film — and with a small advance on my allowance — we are just a single sequence away from finishing it.

And just under the gun too, because in less than twenty-four hours, we will be screening our movie at TerrorFest. If all goes well, we’ll get this final scene in the can, onto the computer, edited, and burned onto a disc before we have to head into the city tomorrow afternoon to turn in our submission by the deadline.

“Quiet on the set,” I say as I adjust the padding under my shirt. I decided to give myself some fake Hunter-like muscles so I look more Rogart-esque in the movie. If I’d had a few months to buff up, I would have done it naturally, like most actors do. But as we’re on such a tight schedule, I had to make due with some special-effects magic.

Coop and Helen are standing by with their cell phones, ready to get the shot from two different angles. Matt and Valerie are upstairs editing everything together on my computer. The two of them have done a masterful job, I have to say. They’ve managed to salvage some of the old scenes — especially the humanzee ones — and cobble them together with the new Nessa-and-me stuff. With the addition of some close-up shots of mottled monkey paws and chomping mouths, and Helen’s kick-ass soundtrack, Matt and Val have put together something I think we can all be proud of.

“Can I just say one thing before we start?” Mr. Nestman asks, buttoning up his military jacket with one hand and looking down at the script pages in his other.

I point at him. “No, you cannot. Sorry, Mr. Nestman. There’s no time.”

“But it’s just this one line here.” He gestures at the script. “Where I say —”

“Nope. Don’t even want to hear it.”

“But it’s only —”

“Zip it. Now. Or I will take away your single-card billing and bury your name in the end credits. Are we clear?”

I can tell by his scrunched-up face that he is not happy about this, but he backs off.

Nessa smiles and waggles her eyebrows at me as I walk by. “Very sexy,” she says.

I head over to Coop and Uncle Doug, who are standing by the “lab table.” We’ve lined the surface with a variety of colorful smoking beakers and test tubes. The rest of Uncle Doug’s basement is filled with kennels holding my foster dogs, cats, and ferret, which Helen has made up to look like zombie-beasts, with matted-down hair and blood makeup and everything.

“Okay,” I say. “It’s the grand finale. Nashira and Rogart have led Colonel Ballcock to Dr. Schmaloogan’s basement hideout.” I pick up a glass jar filled with orange Gatorade. “This is the vampanzee antidote. It’s the only thing that can stop the zombie-vampire-chimpanzee virus from continuing to spread.” I motion to Uncle Doug. “But now that you know you’ve been found, you want to destroy it.”

“Got it.” Uncle Doug slips on his long blue doctor’s coat. “No problema.”

“And you know your lines?”

He taps his temple. “All up here, Seanie. Don’t you worry about Uncle Doug.”

“Great.” I turn to Coop and Helen. “This is going to be a frantic scene, so I need you two to keep each other out of the frame. Okay?”

Coop nods. “We’re on it, boss.”

“And at the very end, Rogart and Nashira have their final kiss. I want you to linger on that shot because that’s how we’ll end the movie.”

Nessa was the one who insisted on changing Rogart and Nashira back into lovers. She said she always felt that the brother-sister angle was weak and that a romantic connection upped the stakes. Hey, I wasn’t gonna argue. It gave me an excuse to make out with Nessa all week. And make out we did. Some of those kisses. Man, oh man. They felt really real. Especially as the days went on.