Flicker

Flicker

  By

  Ian Watson

  Copyright 2013 Ian Watson

  ***

  License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this eBook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Book List:

  Movies That Witness Madness Parts 1-7

  The Least Action Heroes

  Schlock Sleaze & Cheesy Bs

  Blood Sex & Scooby Snacks

  FLICKER

  It began with a film.

  Not just any film but The Film, the one constantly playing in his head, demanding to be made.

  When it came to casting, his preferred choice for the female lead was a young Lana Turner lookalike. He watched her for three days, learnt her routine and, eventually, made his move. He didn’t enjoy what happened next, not really, but when it was over he felt giddy and glad all over as he set about preparing her screen test.

  He shot it in his front room, the camera angled to keep the metal rings in the ceiling out of frame. If you looked carefully, you could see the fishing line that ran through the rings and was tied around Lana’s wrists, which held her upright and allowed him, the puppeteer director, to move her according to his wishes. But only if you looked carefully.

  Satisfied with the test footage, he’d begun the search for a leading man. It made sense to have a John Garfield type, with whom Lana had smouldered in The Postman Always Rings Twice, but locating one proved a challenge. He had to settle for a student whose boyish looks were more Michael York than Garfield, which was all wrong, and he struggled more than Lana had, but wasn’t art all about compromise and sacrifice?

  He had a script and storyboards and channelled Hitchcock on set, herding his actors like cattle. Shooting silent meant he had to add dialogue cards and a music track, which he resolved to do once principle photography was complete, but his performers were causing trouble off set. Their participation had not gone unnoticed.

  It broke his heart to leave the picture unfinished, but he supposed that was better than the alternative. There were other Lanas, other towns. It was a question of finding them.

  In the spring of 1982, he was calling himself Alex Burgess and living Nowhere Special, working in a video store. He had a carefully prepared backstory and the right documents, should the need arise. It didn’t.

  He settled down and became complacent. Days came and went, weeks became months, spring became summer. He missed the old ways. One day, a letter arrived.

  The blank envelope contained a Polaroid and a strip of dymo tape. The Polaroid showed Alex leaving home. On the tape, a date was stamped: 1/7/82.

  He knew what that meant. In spite of all his preparation and the meticulousness of its execution, his pursuers had found him. He would die on the first day of July.

  The date came and went. Alex laughed and went back to planning another picture. He felt invincible. Godlike.

  Writing by day, working at night, he hammered out another script in two weeks. He made storyboards and was thinking about casting when his time ran out.

  Death was a skinny sucker in jeans and a too-large jacket who entered the video store late one August evening. Alex didn’t notice him, distracted by talking heads jabbering on TV. He was listening to their argument against screen violence when the man approached the counter, one hand unzipping the too-large jacket while the other delved inside.

  The bullet tore through Alex’s chest and sent him into the shelves, their contents raining down on him as he crumpled to the floor. He lay awhile, coughing blood, nearly buried under VHS boxes with lurid titles and covers. When the thought struck him, he tried to laugh, and spluttered.

  He was leaving the business for good….

  The TV was still audible. He listened to one woman talking about “Video Nasties”, arguing they had a negative influence on society, and that did it. He laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks. Dying among movies supposed to deprave and corrupt, ho ho ho.

  Pain caused a sharp intake of breath, made him grit his teeth. He spat red, then looked up and realized someone else had entered the room.

  Through eyes slick with tears, Alex watched the stranger approach the counter, laying his palms flat on the surface. “Well,” he said.

  To which a voice in Alex’s head replied: No Refunds.

  “Do you know who I am?” the stranger asked.

  Alex blinked, but the world remained blurry. The stranger was little more than a silhouette.

  “I had such high hopes for you, Alex. Thought you might be one of the greats. Guess we’ll never know now, huh?”

  Questions flooded his mind, but Alex was unable to voice them. He was too terrified to speak.

  “I want you to finish your movie, Alex. In fact, I want a franchise. Sequels, tie-ins, the works. Agree to that, and I’ll, ah, kick in some capital. Get me?”

  “I do,” Alex said, surprising himself.

  “Good man. Consider yourself under contract. Honour it, and you’ll be richer than Chaplin. Break it, and you’ll be Frances Farmer. Follow?”

  “Yes.”

  The stranger reached down, brought up a cassette. “You’re the genie, this is your magic lamp. You’ll be moving in real soon. You’ll move out every time someone watches it, move into their head. Have the run of the property while they pay the rent. You can run them ragged, whatever, it doesn’t matter because when they kick it, you’ll move back in to your lamp and wait for the next Aladdin. Is that an unbeatable offer or what?”

  “Just what the doc ordered.”

  “But when you’re back in circulation, Alex, you make sure you go back to your old ways. Because if you develop a taste for the quiet life, then you’ll really know what it’s like to be dead. Follow?”

  “Like a lamb.”

  “Cut and print. You find the sons of bitches did this to you, Alex, and you fix them. Pay the debt that crippled you.”

  Heard that, Alex thought but didn’t say.

  Silence. Alex looked up, but the stranger was gone.

  He knew what that meant. He took a breath-

  -and died.

  And waited.

  And-

  -was in a cold bedsit. A quick search revealed his name to be Albert Victor, a student at the local Polytechnic. It was October, which meant more than five weeks had passed.

  A cop named Sherman got him the necessary details. There had actually been two men behind the shooting. The first was a thug-for-hire called Adamson, in the employ of someone named Kent, who Alex suspected had links to the Lana girl. He didn’t know and didn’t care. The moment they hatched their plan, they were as good as dead.

  Adamson died first. Middle-aged and booze-flushed, it was simply a matter of following the old lush through a few bars until he went home and passed out. Alex torched his house while he slept.

  He tied Kent up and tortured him, removing teeth with pliers, amputating both ears and shattering his knees. He burned the flesh off the soles of his feet with an oxyacetalene torch. Then he shot him in the head, wrapped the body in polythene and dumped it in a park before dawn.

  Within a week, Alex was back in preproduction, attempting to cast his story from the local talent, when the unthinkable happened. Neglecting the traffic while pursuing a potential star, he was struck by a speeding police car and died en route to hospital.

 
He came back a week later, this time as a hulking biker with no hair and a goatee. He told the biker’s friends to take a hike and started renting a cottage whose rustic setting ensured privacy. He’d begun buying or stealing the necessary equipment when the biker suffered a massive coronary.

  Body #3 was another student, a weedy type that lasted long enough to attempt to kidnap a starlet – who plunged a nailfile into his neck.

  Every time he died, Alex lost whatever footage he’d shot, woke up in a different locale and started over. He became blasé about being stabbed, shot or thrown off buildings. He came back every time, but never in a body he liked.

  He was a Welshman for a while (run over), and even he couldn’t understand what he was saying. He was a schoolteacher (clubbed to death), a bouncer (hung himself in jail), a fast food cook (car crash) and, surprisingly, a cop. That had worked out until Alex realized the officer was gay and his partner was the vicious, obsessive, love-you-to-death type.

  The Eighties became the Nineties, which gave him access to better technology. He ditched the tripod and began shooting hand-held, with sound. As movies became easier to make, he realized he could shoot, edit and score a new one every month. He sent copies to the families of his actors.

  By decade’s end, he was shooting a picture a week on a £250 camera, using available light. Forget Hitchcock, he was The Master. He had hundreds of films under his belt and wasn’t ever going to take his final bow, no sir.

  Except….

  He’d begun to notice, and hadn’t wanted to admit to himself, that the length of