We reached the food-laden table just as a young man in a policeman’s uniform furtively grabbed an apple. “Hey!” Debbie said. “Extras aren’t allowed. Stay in your own area.” She did schoolmarm really well. I had probably looked as guilty as the young extra.
“All we’ve got is bottled water,” he said. “And you won’t let us go over to the commissary.”
“We’re about to start shooting.”
“You said that three hours ago.” The young man’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, propelled by both nerves and outrage.
“Yeah, well, you’re a fucking extra and I can replace you in three minutes flat, so if you want to keep your job, scat!”
He scooted away, but I noticed he kept the apple.
“Locusts,” Debbie muttered.
“Don’t you feed them?”
“Only when we have to,” she said. “If we hit Golden Time.”
“Which is?” I asked.
“Over sixteen hours.” She glanced at her watch. “And the way we’re going, that may happen. Jondin needs to get her skinny Álfar ass over here. Look, I need to head over to her trailer and see what’s up. You can look after yourself?”
I nodded. “Sure. Of course. Don’t worry about me. I don’t want to be a bother.” I had been talking to air after the third word.
A young woman knelt on the floor in a corner and snapped open a case. As she lifted the lid I spotted the red cross indicating it was a first-aid kit. I walked over, and she looked up at me with a smile and blew a fringe of curly black bangs out of her eyes. “Hi. Need something?”
“Just curious. I’ve never been on a movie set before. I didn’t know they had medics.”
“Yep. Required by law.” She gave me that bright grin again. “Good for EMTs like me, and we’re kept busy, too.”
“That’s sort of scary.”
“It’s mostly just small stuff. Some grip takes a header off a scaffold. Somebody sprains an ankle tripping on a cable. Today, because they’re messing around with explosives, I double-check my supplies. Everything usually works great, but once in a while somebody gets burned. And sometimes you can get a bad one. I was on a the set for a TV show once, and the guest star had a heart attack.” She patted the case. “But I’m ready for almost anything. I even have a separate case for Jondin.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Álfar physiology is really different from ours. A human-to-Álfar blood transfusion would kill the Álfar—as we discovered the hard way back in the day. That’s why all the Álfar actors donate blood. When you’ve got an Álfar in the cast we send down to Cedars, and they send over a few pints. I’ve got a little fridge where I keep it.” She pointed and I saw the small mini-fridge humming away in a corner.
“This is really cool. I had no idea that a set was like a little city. I mean you’ve got food, and medics, and—”
“And drivers and contractors and our very own tyrant.” The EMT nodded at Boucher, but her smile removed the sting.
I held out my hand. “I’m Linnet, by the way.”
She stood and shook my hand. “Consuela, Connie. My pleasure. Enjoy. It’s fun for a while, but then you’re going to get really bored.”
I got a cup of coffee, and took a blue M&M, and wandered back toward the edge of the set. I watched the color and intensity of the light play across the set. Over the calls from the crew and the whine of dollies and scissor lifts carrying cameras into position there were a series of dull popping sounds from outside. A man wearing headphones, carrying a clipboard, and sporting a harried expression came through calling, “Stand-ins. Stand-ins. We’re ready for you.”
A man and a woman walked onto the set. They studied the floor, and I realized they were looking at multicolored duct tape that had been placed there. The woman was human, but she wore a long silver wig with touches of green and gold mingled in. With the wild hair she was clearly the stand-in for Jondin. The man was shorter than I expected, but his hair color and overall features resembled Michael Tennant. Tennant was a serious heartthrob, and he had wowed me when he stared as Mr. Darcy in a remake of Pride and Prejudice. I sidled over to Jeff.
“Is Michael Tennant starring in this movie?”
Jeff gave me a smile. “Yes, he is.” He correctly read my expression and added, “I’ll be sure to introduce you.”
“Okay.” The word seemed to get stuck in a throat that suddenly seemed too small.
He’s just an actor. Don’t make a fool of yourself, Linnet. Wow! Michael Tennant and Jeff Montolbano. How did I get this lucky?
I was dying to text this news back to my friends in the New York office, but I had turned off my phone. Then Michael Tennant walked in, and I forgot all about texting anybody. He was gorgeous: tousled blond hair and deep brown eyes and a trim, elegant body. I knew he was twenty-eight. I was twenty-seven. He looked to be five-feet-six or seven. A good height for a boyfriend when you’re only five feet tall. I indulged in a few moments of make-believe and built a few castles in the air.
Boucher looked around. A thunderous frown gouged canyons into his sunburned forehead. “Where the hell is Debbie? And where the hell is Jondin?”
The outer door crashed open. Everyone looked around. The sunlight formed jagged streaks around the woman framed in the door.
“So glad you could join us,” Boucher said, the snark dripping off each word.
Then Jondin started shooting.
7
Boucher’s chest blossomed with blood, and chunks of bloody flesh, mingled with scraps of material blew out his back. He didn’t make a sound, just looked surprised before his body tumbled to the floor to lie in an ever widening pool of blood.
People were screaming, and Jondin wasn’t holding back. She raked the gun back and forth across the set while holding down the trigger, the buck and kick of the Uzi sending the barrel climbing toward the ceiling. Bullets skipped and whined off cameras, lights, and microphones. A lighting guy fell screaming from a catwalk high above. His body hit the floor with a meaty thud.
She got control of the gun, and brought it back down only to start shooting again. Bullets ripped through sets and knocked wood chips out of the walls. My body responded faster than my brain, sending me in a dive toward a stack of film boxes. I heard bullets singing and ricocheting as they hit the metal boxes. I wasn’t sure where Jeff had gone. He had been right beside me. He must have gone a different direction to find cover. Or maybe he was dead. I bit my lip and whimpered.
A lot of lead found human targets. Shrieks of pain joined cries of terror as metal slugs tore through flesh and shattered bone. The sound of bullets erupting from the barrel of the machine gun was like a giant’s teeth chattering. A cameraman went down, clutching at his gut. Blood welled around his fingers. The two stunt doubles were down—hurt, maybe dead.
Silence. Which made me all the more aware that my ears were ringing from the percussive force of the shooting. I heard the muffled but unmistakable sound of a clip being dropped and another one being rammed into place.
Between the cracks between the boxes I saw pointy-toed, high-heeled lavender boots approaching my hiding place. Inside I was whimpering. Oh God, I’m gonna die! Oh Daddy. Help me. Somebody please help me.
Another part of me, less limp and terrified, was shouting MOVE, MOVE, MOVE. I looked left and right. To my right was a big, plush leather couch. I slipped off my high heels. My stomach felt loose, and my knees were shaking so hard that my muscles were aching. Somehow I managed to balance on my fingertips and toes like a runner in a starting block and pushed off hard, running for the sofa. Bullets snapped and whined at my heels until I was safely behind it.