Anthony A.

Castro about 2,600 words

1D Oak Crest Court
Novato, CA 94947
(415)897-0305
Tcastro09@comcast.net

Filmeratu
By A. A. Castro
 The rain came down, covering the streets and buildings in a slick veneer of

wetness that reflected the street lights and made everything shimmer like the skin of dead

sea lion. The man, holding his collar up against the rain, turned a corner and approached

a seedy storefront store. The lettering on the awning announced it as Universal Video

Rentals, A Universe of Fantasy Films For You – but the weather had stripped the color

and shine from them over the years. They looked more like bleached bones.

He looked up at the old sign, frowned and pushed the door open. From the look

on the man’s face, the counter clerk could tell he wasn’t from this part of town. Too

well-dressed, too well-fed…but there was something in his eyes, a hunger that he’d come

to recognize thru the years. Not a junkie; no, a collector.

The man walked in. The store was just as seedy inside. There were old

bookcases lining the walls and forming aisles, stuffed with VHS and DVD obscurities.

There was a copy, uncut, of “I Lunghi Capelli De La Morte” with Barbara Steele sitting

next to a tape of “Messiah of Evil” emblazoned with a sticker that screamed “Uncut!

Uncensored! Unbelievable!” He saw vampire movies from Argentina, werewolf movies

from Spain, slasher movies from South Africa…stuff he would normally have never

passed up. But he was looking for something very specific.

He looked nervous as he walked to the counter, visibly swallowing and licking his

lips. The clerk smiled at him, displaying two even rows of perfect white teeth. “Can I

help you find something, sir?”

“Umm, yeah…is Bishop here?”

 The clerk’s smile seemed to grow bigger. “I’m Bishop. I take it you’re the

gentleman who called earlier, Mr. …ahhh, Haggerty, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, I’m Bill Haggerty. Do you have what I’m looking for?”

“And what was that, exactly, Mr. Haggerty?”

The man hesitated. He seemed almost afraid to name what he was looking for.

He leaned forward, his voice coming out in a whisper. “I heard from a friend of a friend

that you have a copy of ‘The Chimes of Midnight’.”

“We’re quite alone, Mr. Haggerty. There’s no need to mumble. Yes, I have a

copy of ‘The Chimes of Midnight.’ Would you like to rent it?”

Haggerty was stunned. He’d searched for a copy of that movie since he first read

about it in high school, thirty years ago. It was one of the most famous lost movies of all

time, a silent horror classic that had completely disappeared after its’ premiere, and here

was this guy offering it for rent like just another copy of ‘Caddyshack’. He couldn’t keep

the eagerness out of his voice. “Yes, yes, I would love to rent it!”

“It can only be rented for one night, Mr. Haggerty. Don’t worry – I know the

history of this film and I know how rare it is. Unfortunately, it is not complete. It’s not

on tape or disc, it’s an actual piece of film. Do you have a projector or a viewer of some

kind?”
 Haggerty’s shock deepened as he realized that what this guy was offering to rent

him was a real, live chunk of the original film itself. “How – how much? To rent, I

mean.”

“Due to the rarity of this piece, I require a deposit that will be refunded only when

you personally return the film to me.”

“OK, that’s fine. How much?”

“$50,000 in cash.”

Haggerty couldn’t contain himself. “You’re shitting me!”

The clerk sighed. “Do you know the full history behind this film, Mr. Haggerty?”

Haggerty shrugged. “Well, yeah, I think I do. It was made in 1921 with no

credited director, but Griffith is assumed to have been. It’s the first horror movie made in

the US that didn’t cop out with a ‘logical’ ending that explained everything – the

character that goes around acting like a vampire really is one. It’s also the only filmed

appearance of the great Italian stage actor Marcello Paura as the vampire.”

He coughed and cleared his throat. “I’m a professor of film studies at the

community college and I’ve spent my life looking for this film. I’ve got the cash.”

The clerk smiled and leaned back on his stool. “Mr. Haggerty, you know what I

call the official story. Let me tell you a different one: at the beginning of the 20th century,
a certain Italian nobleman with a medical condition made a remarkable discovery. His

condition made it impossible for him to be exposed to sunlight or to cast a reflection on a

mirror. You see, he was a vampire. Yes, a real one. What this nobleman discovered was

that his image could be captured on film, as long as he consented to it!”

“After many, many years of appearing on stage under a variety of names and

disguises and delivering what he considered definitive performances of the classics, he’d

found a way to immortalize them…just as he was immortal. He changed his name, like

so many times before, and came to this country.”

The clerk coughed and took a sip of water from a glass. “Once he arrived, he

established a name as an outstanding stage actor. Like so many others, he was signed up

by one of the new Hollywood studios and brought out to California. He made one film,

only one film. After it was completed, he disappeared and was never seen again. The

police searched, private detectives were hired, there was a reward offered…all fruitless.”

“Without their star, the studio hesitated about releasing the movie. They needed

him for the publicity campaign and they didn’t know what to do without him. So, since

the lead actor was the great Italian actor Marcello Paura, they decided to hold the world

premiere in Rome. Now, that was some night…”

Haggerty listened in rapt fascination. There’d been a legend about this movie but

all lost movies have them, some garbage about a curse over all who watched it. But this

was the first time he’d heard the complete story. The weird thing was that the clerk

seemed to be remembering and telling him something he’d seen instead of a story he’d
just heard. He didn’t know how much of this was real, but he didn’t care. The clerk

continued talking.

“Nobody realized what had happened until the premiere was over and nobody

came out of the theater. The carabinieri battered down the doors to get in. The first one

in ran out screaming a few seconds later. The entire audience was still sitting in their

seats and facing the screen, all quite dead. Forensics showed that all the bodies had been

drained of blood but nobody had any kind of wound…not even a scratch.”

“The Roman authorities covered it all up, of course, but the story still leaked out.

Griffith tried to have the negative and all copies destroyed – oh, yes, D. W. Griffith was

the director. One copy survived, though. One copy always survives. Griffith took it

back to Hollywood where it was shown privately to a group of studio executives. Of

course, Griffith refused to see it after what’d happened in Rome. All the executives were

found dead after the screening.”

The clerk’s smile had continued, unwavering, during his entire narration. It made

Haggerty uncomfortable to hear this man tell his story so calmly, almost as if he were

telling the story of a party or a wedding. He had to know, though. Haggerty always had

to know.

“And that’s the story, Mr. Haggerty. Everyone who has seen it since that day has

died, always the same way, drained of blood but with absolutely no marks on the body.

Do you still want to rent it?”

 The clerk waited for Haggerty’s reply. It was all part of the deal; he had to tell

each potential customer the whole story and then they had to make the choice to rent or

not. The decision had to be theirs.

Haggerty licked his lips. “Yeah, I do. I’ve got the money right here.”

“May I see the cash, please?”

Haggerty pulled out a dirty white envelope from the inside of his jacket and

dropped it on the counter, making the pack of hundred dollar bills spill out.

“Thank you, Mr. Haggerty. I just need you to sign the rental ledger while I get

your package ready.”

A few minutes later, Haggerty was back on the street. He had a round package

cradled under his arm as he ran down the wet pavement to his car. He had a smile on his

face, but there was something there that made the hooker on the corner turn away

shuddering.

He got to his apartment some thirty minutes later. He didn’t take the elevator; he

ran up the stairs to the third floor studio where he lived. Haggerty locked the door behind

him, poured himself a scotch and looked at his package.

There it was, a round tin that contained the only surviving fifteen-minute

fragment of the movie he’d spent most of his adult life searching for. His obsessive quest

had cost him a wife and a tenured position at a large university, not to mention his family
fortune. But none of that mattered now; finally, it was in his hands. His fingers slowly

traced the contours of the container as he pondered what he would find inside…

He opened it. It was just a small spool of film, sitting there, nothing more. No

weird miasma, no ghostly voices, nothing…just a piece of film. After the buildup from

the clerk, Haggerty had half-expected to see…what? A vampire clawing its way out? He

laughed at himself for being such a rube and falling for a story.

Haggerty had a small film-strip viewer that he’d “borrowed” from the college

when he found out about Bishop. He pulled up a chair and carefully threaded the leader

thru the machine. He stopped for a second; the leader felt strange and made his hands

tingle, almost like electricity. With an involuntary grimace, he wiped his hands on his

pants and finished the job.

So there it was, the only surviving fragment of “The Chimes of Midnight”,

threaded and ready for his eyes to feast on. Haggerty was almost panting with excitement

as he sat down and started the hand crank…

The black and white image fluttered to life on the viewer. A woman was kissing

an older man on the cheek, followed by an intertitle explaining how she was going to

sleep after bidding her father goodnight. Then the woman was getting into bed while,

behind her, a window was slowly opened and a bat fluttered in. With a puff of smoke,

the bat became Marcello Paura himself; Haggerty had to admit he was impressed by this

early bit of special effects trickery.

 The Baron, as the intertitles announced him, pounced on the girl on the bed. She

resisted, but feebly; she seemed to welcome his bite. Then things got weird.

Marcello Paura got up from the bed and faced the camera directly. No, not the

camera; Haggerty’s skin started to crawl because it looked as if Paura was looking

directly at him, Bill Haggerty. The Italian actor smiled, his lips drawing back, the blood

of the young girl dripping down his chin and staining his shirt. Slowly, Paura started

walking towards him; no, don’t be stupid, he thought; he’s walking towards the camera.

Paura walked directly to the camera, his features slowly filling the entire screen

until all Haggerty could see where his eyes. The image started to change as the black and

white eyes turned red. Haggerty’s mind was reeling; was this some type of hand-tinting

technique? How had they done this?

The entire screen was now a close-up of Paura’s blood red eyes, boring

hypnotically into Haggerty’s eyes and brain. His fingers scrabbled to the power switch

on the viewer, but he couldn’t press the button. He found he couldn’t move at all; those

eyes, they held him. He couldn’t break free, he couldn’t look away; Haggerty started to

shake.

Haggerty felt a strange relaxation then, his fear almost forgotten. He could see

the eyes clearly, like two balls of fire burning him with a sweet ecstasy…he felt

something on his throat and a delicious feeling swept over him…there was nothing to

fear here, he heard in his mind, join me and I shall show you the delights of the land

beyond the forest.

 His eyes closed, Haggerty leaned back. He felt tired, so tired…he was slipping

into sleep, the deep dreamless sleep of death as his life’s blood slowly exited his body. It

was only then that he tried to fight back, to break free, but it was too late. His head rolled

back and his body just slumped there…

It was noon on the next day when Bishop knocked on the apartment manager’s

door. He bribed the man, gave him a few hundred dollars and a story about trying to

recover a piece of stolen property that Haggerty had.

“My client wants his property returned immediately.”

“All right, all right, keep your panties on, will ya? Haggerty’s late on his rent so I

was going up there anyway. You comin’?”

Bishop smiled. “After you.”

The manager opened Haggerty’s door and both men went in. Bishop went

directly to the film viewer and started to remove the film. The manager started to say

something but stopped when he saw a pair of legs on the floor. His eyes moved up until

he saw Haggerty’s face, pale and drawn, an unbreathing corpse.

Bishop placed the film back in its canister. The manager grabbed his arm. “Hey,

you can’t take stuff from here! He’s dead, I gotta call the cops, that could be evidence!”

Bishop grabbed the manager’s hand and pulled it from his arm. “This is the

property that belongs to my client. It’s not evidence; it has nothing to do with…this.
Here” he reached into his pocket “is an additional finder’s fee for you for helping me

recover this.”

“Hey man, you can’t bribe a way out of this! The cops need to see that!”

Bishop sighed. “Oh, please…it’s just a piece of film! My client just wants it

returned with a minimum of fuss. Will $500 be enough?”

A few minutes later, Bishop was walking out of the building with the canister

under his arm. He got into his old Packard and drove back to the seedy video store he

used as a front.

He locked the door as soon as entered and flipped the sign on the door to read

“Closed”. He threaded the film into a viewer but he didn’t watch it. He’d never seen it

because his job was to serve and protect. He measured the strip; yes, it was just as the

Master had promised. It was nineteen minutes long now, not fifteen. The essence that

lived in that strip of acetate had fed well and had grown. It would take years, many

years, but someday the film would be complete again and He would return…

Bishop caressed the canister reverently. “All for you, my Master…all for you.

THE END