Creepy - Clinging Affection

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

The Clinging Affection***Written by: Ben Larned and Narrated by: JV Hampton-VantSant***Bonus Episode: "Captive of the Underworld" written by: Matt Thompson***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***Sound Design by Pacific Obadiah***Title music by Alex Aldea Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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Creepy presents The clinging affection, written by Ben Larned and narrated by J.V. Hampton Van Sant. Hauntings, like all relationships, are contractual. One enters an agreement when they take on another person,

living or dead, willing or otherwise. An exchange of energy, be it a word, action, or being, that imprints on you as you imprint on it. I would never have entertained this idea before. I would never have believed that ghosts make agreements, the terms of which only occur to us when we break them. I blame the Los Angeles rain, a rare gloom that lowers the sky and humbles the palms, forcing one to seek their thrills inside. A bachelor by choice, I liked entertaining in this kind of weather. I live alone in a one-bedroom off fountain,

where every building has been cut out of a different era, recast in plaster, and covered in ferns so no one will be able to be able to beets, notice. I used to take great pride in this apartment. My guests always remarked on its charming chalet design, silver-gilded furniture, stocked bookcase, the Tiffany lamp that I stole from a house party. Most of all, they liked its sensibility, robbed from time and therefore not quite real or beholden to consequences. Such an atmosphere made them easy to convince. Before the incident, I was an expert at manufacturing affection. I attribute this talent to my very social parents,

always trying to pair me with their friend's daughters, rich, vapid girls, whom I could charm and bring to orgasm, but never enchant or love. Men were my preferred targets. I moved well with their body, and what they did to me I did to them, only with more skill and grace, until they were in love,

and I was sated, eager to get them out of my house. Most of them didn't put up much of a fuss. They texted a few times, may be called. One spent an hour pleading at my door, then screamed bitch and kicked a dent in the frame, before dissolving, like all the rest. Never let anyone tell you that men are not sensitive. But, however cold-hearted it sounds, once I explored and mapped a man, he lost his intrigue. It was a nearly effortless cycle, and endless too, when that intrigue became a need. The digital age simplified my cruising process, once I employed its most controversial tool,

the dating app. My hetero friends prefer apps with swiping and connections, mutual interest displayed like takeout menus. I like the transactional ones, grids of faces and bodies, names that can be extracted but never remembered. Souls glimpsed but never joined. Anonymity suited my efforts back then. I orchestrated my trists like a knickers-staining drama. Starting with a two, tour of my apartment, I lavished anecdotes upon the knick-knacks and trophies, hinting toward the bedroom down the hall, ending at the fireplace, where we would listen to records and discuss books. As I complimented the boy, let him tell me who he thought he was, I slowly touched his hand, forearm, thigh, lips, and mouth.

warm, like he'd just swallowed Earth. Once he remembered his body's purpose, I led him down the hall to the spread of my king mattress, where we could really get to know each other. Having feigned heterosexuality for long enough, I can say with confidence that gay men make the most picturesque love. No one choreographs in the bedroom like we do. And no wonder, with the anxiety of our forebears, hovering over the sheets,

reminding us to be careful, quick, and above all else, exquisite. One might suggest that we have it easier than they did, having little need for secrecy. But, in order to read it. reach exquisiteness, one must first plow through a gauntlet of rejection, scammers, and blockers, and one-word-repliers, men who are ugly enough to be desperate and pretty enough to treat others like scraps. I was no desperate case. I spent five hours a week at the gym. I look good in swim briefs, as one must in Los Angeles. And I still fell under the guillotine. of standards.

The chance can drive one to madness, as one sends message after message and hears nothing back. Rejection leaves burns, and psychic ice does little to soothe them. Therefore, it is a leap of faith to invest one's heart in commerce. And there is always an investment. vestment of heart in commerce of the flesh. Even so, I do not wear loneliness as a garment or exude it like an odor. At least I didn't then. I could have avoided my predicament, a wise soul might claim,

had I left all these games behind and resigned myself to quietude. That soul has obvious. never experienced a Los Angeles night, the oily partial darkness that wells from volcanic faults and ocean trenches, sprawling through luxury apartments and highways and thrumming bars across miles of desert and sea to form an interconnected map of want. It's a mood in which to indulge fantasies. One's thoughts become an alleyway, all smoke and damp red light, shapes curving in the fog, lips pursing with violent desire.

One longs to follow this mood to its end, to be as I have been, naked in the hills at sunrise, basking in a hot tub with porn stars, highs wearing off, fondling each other's dicks. There is no chance of this happening in the comfort of one's home, or at the neighborhood dives, or any game night no matter how queer. So one goes on the apps, enduring the scalding grid in the hopes of accessing those nether experiences. On that faded I crave such access. I had been denied it for almost two years, preoccupied with a live-in partner. A pretty boy, but when his touches were the only ones I felt, they took on a clammyness that made him unpleasant. After weathering the fallout of that split,

I thought I deserved a night of amoral devotion, and having kept the apartment for myself, I could entertain as I pleased. When the sun dimmed and the rain began in earnest, I built myself a crimson mood of anticipation. I turned on the Tiffany lamp, dropped the Sarah Vaughan on the record player, and opened a bottle of That night, I achieved prime form. I stoked my fire and leapt between dialogues, balancing tender innuendo with raw horniness, hedging my bets on several men at once. It occurs to me how I must have looked, sprawled before the blazing hearth, scrolling feverishly through photos of men I'd never know, but I recalled, to the quick triumphant high when the notification buzzed against my palm,

or a low spreading chill if the vibration did not come. Digital courting is more precarious than physical seduction. Using only words, one has to probe their narrow, twisted minds and find a way in, if not to the core, then at least some threshold or window. Some are easy prey, some take teasing, flattering, challenging, some require all at once. Why did I subject myself to this process? I knew these men were as good as objects. I needed them like a wino needs grapes, or a junkie yearns for the stab of a needle.

It's the feeling, not the means, that I craved. I looked at their firm muscles, their groomed body hair, their lips and ridges, and couldn't help but get hard at the thought of running my tongue along those sacred contours. But I had forgotten the great imbalance of the male mind. That Saturday, though, I worked my deftest charms. By midnight, I lost all their attention. Alone by the fire, my crimson mood frayed and cracked. I feared, with all the drama of aging, that I had lost my touch.

The civil hours of the night were long past, and I had resigned myself to a pleasureless sleep, when the app sent a familiar tremor through my hand. A friendly red dot alerted me to the message. Are you alone? The face that asked was green, awash in swimming pool light. The neural chatter in my mind faded out. drawing to attention by his watery smile. From any other profile, the question would have struck me as absurd.

But even through his photo's grain, I could tell that this boy was wide-eyed and soft, with downy hair and yearning lips. There's nothing absurd about a face like that. I replied, alone, but not lonely. A challenge to which he answered. No one should be alone on a night like this.

A little idealistic for my taste, but I took the bait. Our conversation grew rich, bordering on decadent, as he described a lover who left him after years of loyalty to drown, more or less in his tears. But he was done crying, he said. Concluding his story, he wrote, I can see you.

My tired eyes re-scanned the message. He had simply asked, Can I see you? Unacceptable question, which I answered by sending my address, He replied with a winky face and started on his way. Feeling victorious, I poured the last glass of wine and spread myself over the couch. The rain continued to fall on my lover and his approaching lust.

Now and then I'd look out the window through droplets and yellow blue light and wonder if I saw a shadow approaching. but none of them turned, none came to my door. I realized that I had grown tense waiting for this boy, like his arrival was a cure for some illness. I reminded myself that I was no junkie. I could live without a mysterious twink, but the longer I waited, the sharper my desire grew,

until I knew he wouldn't come. I woke hours later convinced that someone was crouched beside me. It was not sound or shape that made me think so, but the air's density, displaced by new weight. I knew I had locked my door, but the presence was unmistakable. I could almost hear it breathe. Slowly, so as not to alert the intruder, I lifted my hand to turn on the lamp. My fingers brushed skin, cold and vicious to the touch.

The bulb flickered on and revealed a shadow, a stain, then no more than a gasp, my own filling my mouth with mildew. I coughed and choked, sure that the person had fled in. into the bedroom. Was that a hand scraping the wall? A last taunt from the dark? Then I adjusted to the light, the clean air and silence, and knew I was nothing but alone. After I checked the locks, I stumbled down the hall and collapsed on my bed in a fetal mound, giving no thought to being followed. Mourning brought a chill that I couldn't shake. Even though I hadn't fucked someone undeserving, I felt brittle, full of iniquity.

I checked the app and found no messages, no evidence of the boy who never showed. There was only the regret of my failed attempt, the tragedy of a wasted mood, Enabled by the rain, I was more than ready to wallow. I attributed this dower feeling to sex, though I hadn't managed any. My blood is Puritan enough, despite all my experience, to bring shame in full spasms. Perhaps the punishment of ancestral ghosts, white judges,

whose wigs drip into eternity, pleased that their moral shackles hadn't fully rusted. Sticking a proverbial tongue at them, I wrapped myself in blankets, reheeded the coffee, lit a small fire and sat inches from its glow. The glassy cold would not leave. Strange, I remember thinking, that I couldn't see my breath.

Fed up with shivering, I stripped and forced myself into the shower. My thoughts darkened and smeared in the heat, and as my skin turned red, so did my Puritan blood, until I was no longer so chilled. I shut off the water and made to exit. But I could not. A boy stood against the shower screen. His head leered behind the frosted glass,

the suggestion of green skin and the glint of a long dead eye, tears thick with algae. I slid back the screen and prepared to defend myself against what I didn't know. I found the room empty, the apartment quiet. But the boy's essence lingered, undoing the water's effects and riddling me with cold. When I closed my eyes, I saw his shadow lying in my bed, staining the blankets, wailing loss into my marrow. The image passed quickly, but it left its mark.

At the time, I was not inclined to believe in ghosts. They seemed like a comforting fancy at best, a false promise of life after death. Confronted with one, I rejected the evidence outright. I was tired, disappointed by last night, prone to unnatural ideas. Determined to forget, I brewed. an unhealthy amount of green tea, and smoked the rest of a joint. No matter what I did, whatever logic I presented to myself, I couldn't shake the possibility. Throughout the afternoon, I watched the corners and mirrors, the quivering fronds of my houseplants,

waiting for another manifestation. I thought back to the gun. Gothic stories I'd liked as a teenager, the ones about pompous men who looked too deep into history, and came back with a souvenir, a ghost wrapped in sheets, groping for warm flesh and vengeance. Those stories were warnings, fables about the consequences of playing with unknown forces. Thinking of those arrogant narrators, I sensed that I'd done wrong, and the ghost meant to exact punishment. Room to room, I became a fugitive in my own apartment. With so few of them, I knew I wouldn't be hard to find. I was drifting toward sleep when I heard it.

movement in the hallway, pacing steps, shifty and wet. Hello? I said, still feigning confidence. The steps halted, then crashed toward me, into the living room, against my body with a rush of cold. I flailed and gasped, air hissed, and gurgled, the Tiffany lamp swung to the floor. Before the glass had settled, I bolted through the hall's long dark, locked my bedroom door, and hid myself in the sheets. I shut my eyes and did not move, like a child who believes that, if he keeps very still, the monsters would not smell him. Of course I knew that there were no monsters,

and certainly no boy dripping, limp-necked at the bedside. A boy who once had downy hair and yearning lips, now all green and water-logged, buried too long in the folds of desire. I knew I would not see him if I opened my eyes, nor feel him sagging onto the mattress, laying on me with all the weight of undeth. Of this much I was certain, as desert cold seeped in the window and pre-dawn light bruised my eyes. It was then that I realized the cold spread from beneath, not desert air but damp, spindly fingers of ice.

When those fingers cupped my balls, I could no longer doubt. I leapt from the bed, ripped the sheets off the mattress, and beheld, moldering in the threads, the shape of my lover. The sun broke that morning, and the dust resettled over Los Angeles. People emerged in their workout clothes. The road swelled with fearless drivers, the damp absorbed into concrete and earth. The city does not remain shrouded for long. It's only my apartment that does.

If a boy were to visit now, he would find much less to admire. The low-hanging clouds have tinted the windows and filled the walls. There are droplets in the plaster, always threatening to seep onto wood. one's skin. The plants have withered. The books are fat with mold. The Tiffany lamp has not been, will never be, replaced. Even the furniture retains a smell. I've taken down the mirrors, covered any reflective surface in case I see him over my shoulder. And in the center of my king mattress, no larger or darker or clearer, the ghost's outline remains. I spend all night wandering to get his stench off of me. As I walk, I ponder my tormentor, about whom I know nothing.

Not his name, or how he found his way into the app, or how he died. and what it felt like. Least of all, how many other boys have taken him on, and what has become of them. Hauntings have a way of humbling a person. I go about my day in silence, at the office, the grocery store, on the freeway, encased in an imperceptible shimmer of rot.

Sometimes my coworkers whisper about how tired I look, how unwell, and have I been forgetting things lately. I dare not tell them, yes, a ghost has embedded itself in my mind, and I do not know what to do. For how does one get rid of a stain on the mind? I never understood why people feared ghosts. I always assumed that, if they were real, they would exist only as echoes and sensations. Hardly dangerous, as they don't last very long. I refuse to admit that some sensations never end. A ghost is as simple and terrible as that, a feeling you can't wash out,

and loneliness, that fine emotion of the grave, leaves the most eternal stain of all. My lover doesn't need theatrics to impress upon me. His body has not risen from the mattress, no matter how many times I've dreamt of his slick, gurgling decay. My infection is one of ideas, and no matter how skeptical I claim to be, I would give anything to pluck it out.

It occurred to me as some sort of revenge. To snare a dumb muscle boy, lie him down on the mold outline concealed by a layer of sheets and fuck with abandon. If he shivered as he came, I would know it had worked. The stain would fade and the sunlight would touch me again. It started as a fantasy, but helpless people are suckers for fantasies.

Checking the app has become an automatic part of my day. At work meetings, in the bathroom, in stopped traffic, a level of my mind is always devoted to the grid. It would not be so consuming, I'm sure, if any of the men replied. In the weeks since the incident, I have not received so much as a hello. Maybe it's something in my photo, or my choice of words, or the cell phone signal itself. Sometimes I wonder if my profile loads at all. But I cannot know, and I cannot ask,

because no one ever answers. My dilemma has become urgent. The loneliness that I feel is no longer superficial. It is a plague, an ever-hungry virus, which these men feed with their ignorance, grossly unaware of what it feeds in turn. So I send message after message, not to make them love me,

but to remind them that I'm here. I'm not to be ignored. I do it to haunt them. I doubt that I'll maintain this existence much longer. Perhaps it's my own fault for entering these transactions without respecting the terms. One cannot go through life as a ghost.

One cannot hinge their existence on the affection of others. Any day now, I might sink into the mattress and join my lover in the dark. That, or I will find someone lonely enough to take him from me. Open yourself to want, and reap the consequences of being wanted. Whistle, and he'll come to you one way or another. Creepy Presents Captive of the Underworld Written by Matt Thompson The return letter came on smudge notepaper

Written in a spidery uncertain hand Dear Mr. Belter I am of course happy to speak with you on matters of history Do not think however That any great insight may be gleaned from my reminiscence The past is the past Some of us have never escaped its clutches, and what wisdom can I express without the benefit of hindsight? Yours, Frank Ziegler, April 14, 1955, with a date and time for meeting.

The return address was up in the Hollywood Hills, somewhere within the dark twists and turns north of sunset. The word suggests a caution, the weariness of one for whom you. trust doesn't come easily. And who could blame Frank Ziegler for that? This town eats its own. So many artists of his generation failed to make the transition from the talkies. But it wasn't the talkies that did it for him, nor changing fashions or fickle public. I told him my interest was strictly the early days of Tinseltown.

It was the truth in its way. My journalistic career on the skids, I decided to focus on Hollywood history, figuring there might be some mileage and appealing to older readers. Although as far as Ziegler knew, I could have been anyone. A stringer for one of the syndicated rags out on the East Coast say or a shutterbug after an easy sale to the scandal sheets. But sometimes a man will forego trust for the sake of unburdening his ownburdening his own. soul. Or, perhaps just for the company. I arrived shortly after the allotted hour. His mansion was both proud and crumbling, a little like the man himself. As I swung onto the driveway, a tall stooped figure stood waiting, clad in a smoking jacket and crisply pressed slacks. He looked older

than his years, way older. What did I expect, though? The guy had been living in obscurity, as silent as his movies, for three decades. It was no surprise he'd become his own ghost. He stumbled as he was ushering me within. I offered to help him across the threshold, but he waved me away with pale slender fingers, flanking the heavy wooden door, a set of Egyptian-themed carvings,

but, of course, stared me down. Their feline gaze following me until Ziegler ease the entrance shut and gloom enveloped us. The interior of the mansion didn't look as if it had been cleaned since the silent era. Some of the old movie magic was still there, though. Just about. The wood-paneled hallway opened out into a large high-ceiling drawing room piled high with junk. The faded scarlet drapes were drawn tight. The only light coming from a pair of Tiffany lamps perched atop an oak writing desk.

He bade me to sit on a threadbare love seat. Well, Mr. Belter, he said. You're a lucky man. I haven't spoken to a reporter in many years. But there are stories that need to be told. Rumors that must be quashed. What's her poison, by the way? It smelled of decades gone by.

Dusty memories of a lost golden age. Ashy leavings spilled from the fireplace. Cobwebs fluttered in a downdraft. Their ends skimming across the crimson-flect rug my feet were slowly sinking into. Whiskey and soda suits me just fine, I repeated. If you're stocked up. Know that I am. The flicker of a smile passed across his face.

While he was engaged in clinking ice around, I took a better look at the place. A wide, drago-patter-dye van sat between us. A dusty film projector positioned behind it. Film canisters lay in haphazard piles. I wasn't close enough to read any of the titles. But I didn't have to. I knew what they'd be. From the early 20s

onward he directed hit after hit Half forgotten now These were the movies that created Hollywood As much as anything did Mythical romps of dubious historical accuracy And wide angle emotions And each and every one of them starred his muse

His wife His life Carrie Goddard America's sweetheart A reverend A reverie of beauty and fame even the lowliest could consider their own, even if just a little piece of her, but it didn't last forever. What does?

Although some dreams end somewhat less abruptly than hers. How did it go down back in 1925, there on the sound stages of the newly fledged Universal Studios lot? The film being made was captive. of the underworld. The big set piece was prepared. The camera's ready to roll. And that was the last time anyone saw the estimable Carrie Goddard alive. My reverie was broken by Ziegler tottering back, a pair of whiskey glasses held before him.

He eased himself onto the dive van with a pained sigh. To the magic of the movies, he said, and drained his glass in a single gulp. I took a more tentative sip. The liquor was good quality. Seemed he didn't want to settle for any second-rate method of drinking himself to death. I indicated the film reels. On top of the nearest pile were a handful less filth-coded than the rest. You'd have guessed from looking at them, and nothing much else was ever watched.

Do you screen the old movies often? I said. Mr. Belter. Now that is a story in itself. But will we speak of nothing other than the past? It was hardly likely to be the present. Not that I'd tell him so in such a brutal manner. We talked shop for a while.

He seemed uninterested in, and indeed ignorant of, much of the modern-day movie world. I tried a different task. Are you still in contact with anyone you worked with in the old days? He gazed into the depths of his glass a little too long. I was about to change the subject when he answered. In a voice so low it was barely audible over the ticking of the grandfather clock from the hallway.

All of those people are long dead. That wasn't true at all. But I believe Ziegler was speaking in metaphorical terms. to him, he meant. My attempts to communicate this opinion to him fell on deaf ears. Tragedy is the strange bedfellow of comedy, Mr. Belter, he said when I grow out to a halt. Which side of the bed would you say I lie on? I picked my words carefully.

You never did turn your hand to comedy as far as I'm aware. tragedy was more your matier indicating the canisters he said and have you seen many of my films the important ones yes mr belter there's only one important film i made the one they remember me for if remember me they do i took a deep breath Captive of the underworld? Even though I could hardly have answered any other way, his look suggested I may have overstepped the mark. He rose to refill our glasses, working in silence as I sat waiting. The subject broached I considered how to move the interview in the direction I wished. Surely I could get him to talk.

Wasn't this why I was here? But what is there to be so? said about captive of the underworld. In truth, it makes for poor entertainment indeed. An incoherent mess of stray plotting, overwrought performances and literary fabrications. Viewing this retelling of the Orpheus myth almost convinced me that I, too, had been consigned to Hades. Its soul-saving grace is the performance of Carrie Goddard in the role of Eurydice, doomed

wife of Orpheus. Flashing dark looks in the direction of the camera at every opportunity. The viewers left feeling she might walk out of the screen at any moment. A manifestation of timeless, eternal beauty. And then comes the scene. In the original telling, Eritacy dies as a result of a snake bite. But that was nowhere near the spectacular vision Ziegler had in mind. No.

His star was to perish beneath a collapse and wall. Her screaming face captured and unforgiving close-up. Orpheus's tragedy was to be writ large, as large as the Hollywood land sign, as vast as history. No one ever found out precisely what went wrong during the chaotically choreographed stunt scene, a miscue, perhaps,

or maybe the wrong grade of foam brick. All we know is that Carrie Goddard didn't make it out alive. No liberation from the halls of the underworld for her. They rushed her to the hospital, but by the time she was pronounced that the scandal sheets of the day had gotten hold of the story, and Ziegler it was who was held fully responsible for her demise. Not unfairly, I should say. Captive of the underworld was planned to be as defecutive. finding moment, an achievement to rank with the works of DeMille and Gantz.

Filming, though, was never completed. The accident, and its shabby, legally dubious aftermath, caused Ziegler to walk away from the entire mess without a word of explanation to the press. Now wishing to write off their investment, the studio hastily patched together a final cut from the available rushes. The resultant mismash broke box office records, although Ziegler refused to even acknowledge the film's existence, disappearing from public view while the storm raged and finally abated.

Stories about him circulated, alcoholism, spirituality, depression, and the legend of captive declined along with its maker. Mr. Belter, Ziegler held the glass out to me with trembling fingers. I could smell mothballs on him, merging into the alcohol reek that swirled in his wake. He settled himself back onto his divan. Do you think I spend all day here alone drinking? He said. I picked my words with care.

I should hope not, Mr. Ziegler. Well, I do, he grimaced as if he'd sacrificed a game piece too early in the contest and changed the subject. Our conversation wound onward, my pencil flying across the pages of my notebook. His recall was extraordinary. He remembered the names of each and every actor, technician, studio executive, critic, Not that he seemed to have too many kind words for most of them. As the afternoon wore on into evening, his bitterness intensified. Captive of the underworld hadn't been mentioned again.

Carrie Goddard remained a barrier between us, a specter at the feast, an unspoken presence. From the direction of the desk, a bulb popped. The light dimmed. He lit an oil lamp, the flames sending skittering shadows across the ceiling. I'd hesitated long enough. My heart in my throat, I said. May I ask you more about your final film? Moments past.

Silent sweeps of an invisible clock hand. His gaze flicked past me. Captive of the underworld. We can work. Watch it together if you wish. Behind those curtains is a projection screen. His eyes almost twinkled as he depressed a switch beside the projector. The heavy yellowing draped set against the far wall draw apart with a pained swishing.

I much prefer the older style of viewing, relic, that I am. I'd like that, I managed to say. This was beyond. my wildest hopes, to sit with him as he observes the demise of Carol Goddard. Intrusive? Surely. But could there have been a greater hook for my planned story? But then his mood shifted. Eyes downcast, he said. A ghost haunts Hollywood. This town and everyone who walks its filthy streets, Once again, his voice a little more than a whisper, I had to strain to hear what he said next. There can be a fine line between life and death, Mr. Belter.

Unseen forces guide us through this world. Curses are not easily lifted. I waited for him to go on, unsure of my role in his personal psychodrama. His expression faltered. Had he said more than he'd intended? He pursed his lips, letting his glass fall to the floor. We seem to be out of refreshment. Would you excuse me while I fetch a new bottle from the cellars?

By all means. He shuffled from the room, footsteps clattering on the hallway tiles. A door opened and closed. Alone at last, I wasted neither time nor moral reflection and headed for the pile of canisters. The topmost one bore the legend, captive, one. Those beneath it continued the sequence. How many times did he watch it? Here in this dusty tomb of a house.

I worked the lid off. The reel looked worn in your transparency. A mess of papers lay strewn across the writing desk, telling myself this was only my job. I sifted through them. Prescriptions for medications I'd never heard of. A final demand from a Beverly Hills liquor store. An unopened letter from the Mount Zion Rehabilitation Center.

He'd thank me for this. His suffering, his torment, could only end with some kind of redemption. It was the public who made him, and they that unmade him. So many years it passed. Only in the glare of publicity could he find the forgiveness he deserved. The clock ticked onward. Where was he? Suddenly afraid he'd fallen on his way down to the cellar.

I went in search of him. The doors leading off the hallway opened into closets or near empty rooms. In the kitchen, I discovered a pile of filthy peasant. pans and a larger pile of whiskey crates. Had he abandoned me? I retraced my steps. Mr. Ziegler? My tentative inquiry reverberated from the wooden panels in the hall.

Where are you? Answers came there none. I sidled along a narrow passageway towards the rear of the property, through a mock-stained window above an exterior door. a light flashed. Once. Twice. A voice sounded, agitated. His? The illumination intensified, a regular flickering in lurid white. Curiosity triumphed over caution. I eased the door open. Moonlit lawns stretched into the distance, strewn with garbage. I took a few hesitant steps into the semi-darkness.

Mr. Ziegler? I said. We should go. A blast of light interrupted me. I leapt about a foot into the air. To my left, an annex wall rose three stories high. Upon it, images flared. Toga-clad crowds rushing alongside a rushing watercourse,

bearded elders silently declaiming, scantily-clad women with hands pressed to their brow. Unseen speakers cut in, loud enough to rattle the windows. Screams rose above the clatter of horses' hooves. The roar of a crowd merging into the pounding of water. A calliopee swirled. Behind it all sounded a cackling laugh devoid of amusement. Ruted to the spot, I could only watch as the picture cut to a face I recognized instantly.

I knew the scenes had been familiar. This was captive itself. The presence of a soundtrack had confused me. How long had Ziegler spent creating it? Matching sound meticulously to image. Carrie Goddard, the terror in her eyes only too apparent in close-up, fled from the baying mob along slide a harbor wall. As the first stone struck her torso, I flinched, despite myself.

jeering faces crowded the projection field. Miss Goddard cowered, arms raised to protect her face. The noise from the speakers ramped up and up and up until the shrieking was a continuous blast of pain and terror, my ears ringing and agonized sympathy. A slab of stone hit the ground beside me, sending up a billow of dust. Then another fell.

and another. The pictures cut away to the pursuers. Their expressions displaying naked, avarice, and cruelty. Carrie Goddard raised her head and opened her mouth wide. Even though I knew what was coming, even though I had seen it before, I could barely watch. Run, I cried to myself, or maybe I shouted it to the night. Run and don't look back. But the stream of time flows on. and the force of will alone will not erase a thing. When the wall collapsed, I tried to turn away. Paralyzed I could only watch, helpless, as she vanished beneath the deathly avalanche.

The images faded and died. The speaker is cut out. From an adjacent property, a distant voice yelled, Keep that goddamn noise down! Blinking. I let my eyes adjust to the waned moonlight. Some stray movement caught my eye at an upstairs window. It was gone as soon as I saw it. I let my breathing return to normal. Ziegler certainly had some explaining to do after that little performance. Back inside the house I headed for the staircase, Who did the guy think he was?

Inviting me here and then subjecting me to that? As I climbed upwards, my fear and concern turned to anger. I'd have a few words to say to him, our Mr. Ziegler. That to mention some advice about his health. And I came out onto the landing, where Carrie Goddard was waiting for me. They say a sudden shock can't care. kill you. For endless moments my lungs refused to bellow. My heart refused to pump.

Carrie stood near enough that I could have been beside her in seconds. Life size now. Her smile fluttered from the gloom beyond her figure shadows stretched away into Merck. Possibilities raced through my mind. Had she survived to be imprisoned in this the cane museum by a madman? Had Ziegler hired a look-alike to keep him company in his wasted, pitiful existence? I wanted to speak, but what could I say to her? Before I could force my lips to move, she turned away and sashayed towards the far end of the landing. The adrenaline ebbed a little. My thoughts cleared. Now I could take it in. She was before me in, in monitoring. She was before me in monochrome.

A color bleached apparition already beginning to dwindle. At the moment of my realization, her figure winked out, and darkness fell, smoke and mirrors, of course. Once an artist, always an artist,

our Mr. Ziegler. I fumbled for the light switch, nothing doing. I followed in her steps, her after image still dancing behind my eye. headlights. Halfway along the passage I passed the head-height mirror, a projector been concealed behind a curtain, its spindles clicking to silence. I tried a door, locked. The last door, the one Carrie Goddard

had been heading for, was the only one ajar. Dim illuminations seeped from within. My breath hoarse in my ears I willed myself to turn tail and leave But stronger still the story willed me onward Knowing flight was impossible now I stepped closer My flesh tingled Closer still

Closer A rustling sounded A choking sob A click I pushed the door open Frank Ziegler stood before me. Jacket hung on his gaunt frame like a burial shroud. Hollow cheekbones cast shadows across thin, bloodless lips.

The bedroom wasn't large. A single lamp sufficed. In its light, he resembled a cadaver, dressed for a funeral yet to be formally arranged. A costume had been laid out on the single bed. A woman's dress, ripped almost in two, crimson streaks marring its fabric. He must have kept it all these years. Would this blood reanimate the essence of Carrie Goddard?

Could her Eredacy be rescued from the underworld? Lifted from the drear realms of Hades by the force of love alone. The man was insane, obsessed, beyond. redemption beyond humanity. Blackness smeared my vision. I smelled death. My head swirls. Time churns. Years turn to days, to hours, seconds. Pale dots shift, reform, coalesce. Ziegler stands within the confines of a mirror now as figure moves, approaches. My own feet may catches every step, nearer, ever nearer. All I can see is the ruined crags of his face,

the graying teeth and yellowed eyes, awareness returns, an icy slap of wind. The frame shudders, the real catches, slows to half motion. With infinite patience, reality, grisly reality, reasserts itself. All of me that was David Belter melts away. I am Ziegler, and Ziegler is me, and Belter is no more.

The memory of him recedes into the depths of my mind. In existence snuffed out as easily as Cary's ever was, but she lives on, in celluloid at least. my error in giving her immortality was this, I would, in time, become her. In the same way I attempted to fashion her as an extension of myself. One's dreams may reflect reality, or is it the obverse? Do we dream the monsters of our psyche into being?

Have I transcended the realm of the corporal? Toral, drunk with my deluded reenactments of Cary's demise, lamplights shimmer. I lie on the bed, clutching the musty clothing to my breast. This mausoleum of a house closes in. The walls alive with tarnished memories, rotten words and deeds. The legend fades. even Orpheus failed eridacy at the last. On occasion the thought occurs to me, am I to join them?

If so, what memorial shall I leave to guide those that follow me? My pictures are all that I can give. Infected with death's poison I may be. But let them act as a guide from the nether world. A salt trail to the deepest regions of Hades and back Nowadays I catch sight of my face in windows, mirrors, whiskey bottles The reflection is distended As I've seen through a scrying mirror to the afterlife

Will I too wander those damned halls for all eternity Carrey inhabits me as a parasite rules its host Sucking out the goodness from my soul and replacing it with corrosive acid, I no longer wish to endure the sight of my own ruin. Many nights I have promised myself, this, this shall be the final time I watch captive of the underworld. And when the credits roll, I too shall know the eternal pain of Orpheus.

The agonies of creation and the redemptive power of obliteration. My only hope is that in my final moments the God smile on me as I have smiled on them, celluloid burns with a cleansing flame. It would only take a stray match for it to become kindling. Tonight then. Give me the courage. and in years to come Maybe the likeness of Carrie Goddard

will be seen here late at night smiling her greeting as her lover watches silently from the wings the faintest of reflections from his camera lens sending dots of light to cross her alabaster skin For more information on this podcast including how to submit your own story for consideration.

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