20. The Rules of Horror #2
"He's upstairs!" Sam answers, shoving the girls outside. He's out of breath, his chest heaving. "We pushed him back and bought some time, but he'll get back up. We have to get the hell out of here, right now!"
"To the gates!" I yell.
I have Ollie tucked tightly under one arm, heavy as a boulder, and with my free hand I reach for Selene's. I lace my fingers through hers—her hand is small and freezing in mine—and pull her with me down the porch steps, plunging into the fog.
We start running down the dirt driveway.
The early morning air is biting, thick with moisture that pierces the lungs like ice needles. There's a dense, low-hanging fog crawling across the ground and wrapping around the trees, making everything look ghostly. The sound of our ragged breathing and the crunching gravel fills the void.
We're almost halfway there.
Then, a groan of pain.
Susan trips badly over her own feet and crashes to the ground, landing hard on her knees and palms.
We freeze.
"There's another damn horror movie cliché," Cole huffs, running a hand through his hair, looking down at the blonde girl on the ground.
We all turn to glare at him. Cade doesn't waste a second: he grabs Susan by the elbows and hoists her back onto her feet.
"Seriously... do you have a single shred of tact anywhere in your fucking brain?" his twin scolds him, though the shadow in his eyes tells me he was about to make the exact same joke.
"Keep running!" Levi roars.
We resume our flight. The fog seems to be thickening. A raven lets out a sharp, harsh caw that sounds like a mocking laugh. I feel my heart hammering in my temples. The sweat on my skin turns to ice.
Finally, the colossal shadow of the great wrought-iron gates emerges from the gray mist.
We made it.
Josh and Sam throw themselves at the iron. They shove with all their brute strength, forcing the gates wide open with a metallic clang that echoes across the valley.
We cross the threshold, spilling out onto the dirt road that leads to civilization, panting, ready to scream for help, and...
We freeze. All of us. Like we've been paralyzed.
There is no escape.
Blocking the road completely, parked horizontally across the dirt, is a perfect line of four massive, black pickup trucks. And, with demonic synchronization, their high beams flick on all at once, blinding us in the fog.
A second later, the horns start blaring. All of them together. A mechanical, deafening, continuous, aggressive roar that makes us curl in on ourselves, clapping our hands over our ears.
"Feels like we're in fucking Christine," Cole comments under his breath, squinting against the glare.
Carolina, standing next to him, shields her face with a hand. "What?!" she yells, trying to be heard over the blaring horns.
"Stephen King!" he yells back.
I squeeze Selene's hand even tighter, feeling her tremble against my palm, as the headlight beams burn my retinas and Avenged Sevenfold's Nightmare blasts at full volume.
Special Episode – HAUNTED SPURS: Best of the First Days (Behind the Scenes)
[An old-school film countdown appears on the screen: 3... 2... 1…]
[Sound of magnetic tape rolling]
[REC – FIXED CAMERA 01: PRODUCTION TRAILER]
The inside of a production RV parked out in the woods. The room is bathed in the bluish glow of a dozen monitors broadcasting live feeds from the rooms inside the estate.
Aunt Tina looks like she's about to achieve liftoff. She claps her hands, her heavy bracelets clinking together. "It's a masterpiece! Look at the tension! I'm crying tears of joy!"
Behind her, Mayor Nino dabs his shiny, sweaty forehead with a plaid handkerchief, pointing at a screen. "Camera three! I want a close-up on the twins! Wait, no, on Ron. The audience loves broad shoulders!"
In the center of the small console, Mrs. Lacey, the reality show's art director, is wearing a massive pair of headphones and a ridiculously cliché French director's beret. She's frantically scribbling on a clipboard.
"SPIRITS! SPIRITS!" a voice squawks off-camera. The frame shifts to Pedro, the myna bird, perched on top of a monitor. He's learned how to perfectly mimic the caw of a raven.
Francis, sitting in the corner precariously balanced on a stool, chews on the cap of a Bic pen, taking notes at the speed of light for the Gazette. "Tomorrow's headline: Horror and Hormones in Elm Hollow... brilliant.”
[TV STATIC TRANSITION]
[REC – INFRARED CAMERA: OUTSIDE WINDOW]
The greenish, grainy night-vision footage shows a production crew member dressed entirely in black.
He's crouched just below the living room windowsill.
He listens to Katherine's voice reading the legend inside.
The man looks directly at the hidden camera in the bushes, flashes a thumbs-up, grabs the wooden frame of the open window, and yanks it shut with brutal force. SLAM!
Muffled screams erupt from inside the house. The man in black slaps both hands over his mouth to muffle his laughter, visibly cracking up.
[CUT]
[REC – HIDDEN GOPRO: BARN LOFT]
Top-down view. Long shadows cast by the sunset. Levi and Emma are walking cautiously below, looking tiny in the frame.
A heavy work glove enters the lens. A production assistant, lying flat on his stomach across the rotting loft planks, holds his breath. He watches the monitor on his phone. The exact second Emma takes a step forward, the PA shoves a bale of hay, sending it tumbling over the edge.
Thud. A cloud of dust explodes. Emma screams.
The PA winks at the GoPro.
[CUT]
[REC – FIXED CAMERA 01: PRODUCTION TRAILER]
Mrs. Lacey drums her fingers on the console, biting her lip as she stares at the master bedroom monitors.
"Okay," she murmurs, her eye critical. "Ron and Selene are in bed. The sexual tension between those two is about to crash our servers. Now we need a thunderstorm. I want thunder, I want rain."
The two young PAs sitting at the audio mixers exchange a look of pure panic.
"And... how the hell are we supposed to conjure up a thunderstorm?" one whispers to the other. "We didn't rent rain machines!"
Suddenly, a natural flash of lightning illuminates the RV windows, followed a second later by a deafening boom of thunder that rattles the floor. The first heavy drops of rain start drumming against the roof.
Mrs. Lacey sits up straight, a triumphant smile spreading across her lips, and adjusts her beret. "Okay, that is a fucking stroke of luck. Action, people!"
[CUT]
[REC – RAW FOOTAGE: BEHIND THE SCENES, HAIR & MAKEUP TENT]
Three production assistants are staring at three wooden toothpicks sticking out of a technician's closed fist.
"Whoever draws the short straw is the killer," the tech says.
One of the guys closes his eyes, reaches out, and pulls. The toothpick is tiny.
The guy stares at the piece of wood, then looks over at the heavy, foul-smelling black slicker stained with corn syrup and the raw leather mask. He drops his head back. "No... please. Have you seen how huge those guys are? They're gonna kick my ass. Fuck me."
[CUT]
[REC – FIXED CAMERA 04: WEST WING BATHROOM]
The frame is fogged up with steam, showing the blurred silhouettes of Dustin and Sierra under the running water, fused together in a tangle of limbs that is definitely pushing way past a PG-13 rating.
The bathroom door creaks open silently. The PA, geared up in the full killer costume, peeks his head in. He expects to scare them half to death, but instead, he freezes for three solid seconds, visibly awkward and embarrassed by what he's watching live.
Finally, he raises the plastic axe and bangs it twice, hard, against the glass of the shower stall.
Dustin yells. Sierra shrieks, grabbing a towel to cover herself up.
[CONFESSIONAL: DUSTIN AND SIERRA]
They're sitting in the behind-the-scenes RV, wrapped up in warm fleece blankets provided by production. Between them is a giant bowl of buttered popcorn. They are watching a monitor broadcasting the other contestants' live escape with rapt attention.
Sierra sighs, chewing on a piece of popcorn. "Okay, I'll admit it... I'm a little bummed we got eliminated first. It was just getting fun."
Dustin nods, grabbing a handful of popcorn.
"Man, at first I was kind of pissed that you guys were spying on us while we were having shower sex... but, well, thinking about it now, it was actually kind of a turn-on."
He looks dead into the camera, grinning.
"And, by the way... that fake head? Damn, it looks exactly like me! The beard, the nose I broke in that 2004 rodeo. How the hell did you guys replicate it so well?"
They exchange a look loaded with wicked intent.
[Slate claps.]
The shot lingers for a couple of seconds as Dustin and Sierra completely ignore the camera and go right back to making out passionately, knocking the popcorn bowl onto the floor.
[CUT]
[REC – FIXED CAMERA 07: KITCHEN, INFRARED]
Behind the half-open door of the large pantry, the camera operator—framed by a fixed ceiling lens—is clutching his heavy gear to his chest and... chewing slowly. He's holding a massive ham and cheese sandwich.
From the other side of the door, in the dark kitchen, comes the click-clack of dog nails on the hardwood. Sniff. Sniff. Ollie's wet snout pokes through the crack in the door, sniffing frantically. The operator's eyes go wide in the dark. He stops chewing. He breaks into a cold sweat.
The sound of footsteps (Ron and Selene approaching) distracts the dog.
[CONFESSIONAL: CAMERAMAN]
The tech scratches the back of his neck out from under his baseball cap, looking a little mortified.