Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth

Charlie was puzzled for a moment, brows narrowed. Then he smiled. “If that’s your scene, it’s cool. But are you The One Who Will Open the Earth? Can you help us find the Subterranean Sea?”

Leech considered, and shook his head, “No. That’s too deep for me.”

Charlie made fists, bared teeth, instantly angry.

“But I know who can,” soothed Leech.

* * *

The movie people were losing the light. As the sun sank, long shadows stretched on reddish scrub, rock-shapes twisted into ogres. The cinematographer shot furiously, gabbling in semi-Hungarian about “magic hour”, while Sam and Al worried vocally that nothing would come out on the film.

Leech sat in a canvas folding-chair and watched.

Three young actresses, dressed like Red Indians, were pushing Junior around, tormenting him by withholding a bottle of firewater. Meanwhile, the movie moon—a shining fabric disc—was rising full, just like the real moon up above the frame-line.

The actresses weren’t very good. Beside Sadie and Squeaky and Ouisch and the others, the Acid Squaws of the Family, they lacked authentic drop-out savagery. They were Vegas refugees, tottering on high heels, checking their make-up in every reflective surface.

Junior wasn’t acting any more.

“Go for the bottle,” urged Al.

Junior made a bear-lunge, missed a girl who pulled a face as his sweat-smell cloud enveloped her, and fell to his knees. He looked up like a puppy with progeria, eager to be patted for his trick.

There was water in Junior’s eyes. Full moons shone in them.

Leech looked up. Even he felt the tidal tug.

“I don’t freakin’ believe this,” stage-whispered Charlie, in Leech’s ear. “That cat’s gone.”

Leech pointed again at Junior.

“You’ve tried human methods, Charles. Logic and maps. You need to try other means. Animals always find water. The moon pulls at the sea. That man has surrendered to his animal. He knows the call of the moon. Even a man who is pure in heart...”

“That was just in the movies.”

“Nothing was ever just in the movies. Understand this. Celluloid writes itself into the unconscious, of its makers as much as its consumers. Your revelations may come in music. His came in the cheap seats.”

The Wolf Man howled happily, bottle in his hug. He took a swig and shook his greasy hair like a pelt.

The actresses edged away from him.

“Far out, man,” said Charlie, doubtfully.

“Far out and deep down, Charles.”

* * *

“That’s a wrap for today,” called Al.

“I could shoot twenty more minutes with this light,” said the cameraman.

“You’re nuts. This ain’t art school in Budapest. Here in America, we shoot with light, not dark.”

“I make it fantastic.”

“We don’t want fantastic. We want it on film so you can see it.”

“Make a change from your last picture, then,” sneered the cinematographer. He flung up his hands and walked away.

Al looked about as if he’d missed something.

“Who are you, mister?” he asked Leech. “Who are you really?”

“A student of human nature.”

“Another weirdo, then.”

He had a flash of the director’s body, much older and shaggier, bent in half and shoved into a whirlpool bath, wet concrete sloshing over his face.

“Might I give you some free advice?” Leech asked. “Long-term advice. Be very careful when you’re hiring odd-job men.”

“Yup, a weird weirdo. The worst kind.”

The director stalked off. Leech still felt eyes on him.

Sam, the producer, had stuck around the set. He did the negotiating. He also had a demented enthusiasm for the kind of pictures they made. Al would rather have been shooting on the studio lot with Barbra Streisand or William Holden. Sam liked anything that gave him a chance to hire forgotten names from the matinees he had loved as a kid.

“You’re not with them? Charlie’s Family?”

Leech said nothing.

“They’re fruit-loops. Harmless, but a pain in the keister. The hours we’ve lost putting up with these kids. You’re not like that. Why are you here?”

“As they say in the Westerns, ‘just passing through’.”

“You like Westerns? Nobody does much any more, unless they’re made in Spain by Italians. What’s wrong with this picture? We’d love to be able to shoot only Westerns. Cowboys are a hell of a lot easier to deal with than Hells’ Angels. Horses don’t break down like bikes.”

“Would you be interested in coming to an arrangement? The problems you’ve been having with the Family could be ended.”

“What are you, their agent?”

“This isn’t Danegeld, or a protection racket. This is a fair exchange of services.”

“I pay you and your hippies don’t fudge up any more scenes? I could just get a sheriff out here and run the whole crowd off, then we’d be back on schedule. I’ve come close to it more’n once.”

“I’m not interested in money, for the moment. I would like to take an option on a day and a night of time from one of your contractees.”

“Those girls are actresses, buddy, not whatever you might think they are. Each and every one of em is SAG.”

“Not one of the actresses.”

“Sheesh, I know you longhairs are into everything, but...”

“It’s your werewolf I wish to sub-contract.”