Expecting to Die

Kids, she told herself. With the bodies of men and the brains of children. Boys
who think they’re invincible and way smarter than they are.
So, if those dunderheads were hiding something about Destiny Montclaire’s

---

death or Lindsay Cronin’s disappearance, they were bound to screw up, and she
was going to catch them.
She only hoped it happened before someone else died.
* * *
The forest around Reservoir Point was nearly dark.
Eerie.
A sliver of moon rising through the wispy clouds.
It was much like the night Bianca had been running for her life, certain a
monster was chasing her down the mountain, bearing down on her, its hot, horrid
breath at her back. She could remember the feelings. The terror. Calling up those
raw emotions for this, her big scene recreating the moment “Big Foot” chased
her into the canyon, was easy.
The crew had set up at the top of the very trail she’d run down almost a week
earlier. There were lights in play, enough to pick up the action, but dim enough
to make it obvious to the viewers that it was night.
Bianca closed her eyes. Gathered herself. Tapped into her raw emotions of
terror and pain as she waited at the top of the trail, wedged between two huge
boulders, standing on her mark, ready to race down the hillside.
She was pumped. Adrenaline raced through her bloodstream and her heart was
pounding, her nerves tight.
Get this right. Do it!
She’d read the loose script, and Barclay Sphinx had talked to her about what
he wanted from each scene.
For this one, she was supposed to run through the woods as if she were scared
out of her mind, to keep looking over her shoulder and to show panic, fear, and
pain. All she had to do was remember how she’d felt that night and she was
there. The cameraman—a bearded guy named Rob—would basically be playing
the part of the monster chasing her, the lens Big Foot’s eye, so she’d have reason
to turn her face and really emote. Showing pain shouldn’t be a problem. Running
on her ankle was certain to ensure a level of agony. Even now, while she was just
waiting, it throbbed. She gritted her teeth. Her doctor would freak if he knew she
was doing this, but she didn’t care. Poised for flight, she rotated the kinks from
her neck, then swatted at a mosquito that buzzed near her head.
She’d been told that since Rob would be following her, she was supposed to
look like she was running fast and hard, when, in essence, she would be slowly
jogging so he could keep up without jostling the camera too much and they
could get good, clear footage that wasn’t too jerky.

---

Other camera operators would catch the action as she headed downhill, one
midway and the other at the bottom of the incline when she pitched headlong
into the creek, where the “dead body”—really little more than a life-sized doll—
was in place beneath the water. It didn’t look real with its fake hair and painted
eyes, but she had been assured it would appear genuine in the film. And it could
be doctored, made to look more real through computer-generated imagery, post
filming. The images of it would be grainy and distorted, so the viewers would
only get a glimpse before the camera cut away; most of the horror was left to the
viewers’ imaginations.
Sphinx had explained to Bianca that there would be several takes of her run
down the hillside and all the footage would be reviewed, edited, and spliced
together to make the filming appear seamless and “real.”
Mentally she’d turned a corner by pushing back her doubts about Barclay
Sphinx’s motives. She told herself they didn’t matter, that the filming tonight
was the first step to achieving her goals of becoming a star, even though she was
a little disappointed in the script as the story line surrounding this episode of the
series was only minimally about her.
Still, she was one step closer to Hollywood.
“Okay, everybody. Places!” a disembodied voice called from somewhere
behind her, and then, “Action!”
She took off. Jogging headlong down the path, breathing more loudly than she
needed to, looking over her shoulder, hoping that raw panic was evident on her
face. She remembered frantically racing down this very path, the twists, the
turns, the sheer terror of the monster chasing her, and oh, yeah, the pain! She
winced as she passed the second camera, maybe overplaying it as she hobbled,
but the pain was real enough, each step downhill sending a jab of agony through
her ankle.
She heard the cameraman behind her, pretended it was the monster she’d seen
the week before, and kept glancing fearfully behind, reminding herself the red
light blinking on the shoulder cam was that gold eye of whatever creature had
torn after her through these stands of hemlock and pine.
She heard the creek before she saw it, noticed the camerawoman on the bank,
and headed straight for the stream, which rushed and cascaded more loudly than
it had before, as the crew was piping in more water from a truck situated
upstream, out of view of the cameras.
For effect, Bianca was panting loudly as she passed the camerawoman on the
fly. She recognized her mark, the edge of the stream where the water eddied and
pooled, saw the exact spot where she was supposed to trip over an exposed root
and fall with a little scream into the water.

---

Almost there!
From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of the mannequin, lying just
under the surface, half hidden in the dark pool and tethered by an invisible bit of
fishing line. Everything was in its place.
Now!
Her toe hit the root and she pitched herself forward, her arms flying out as she
screamed for effect and hit the cold rush of water. Uncomfortable, but not
terrible. God, she hoped it looked as if she’d stumbled. She submerged and
focused on the doll.
The mannequin stared back.
Eye sockets were blackened. The lower half of the face was only a skull, as if
something had eaten away the tissue.
This wasn’t the doll! The mannequin! This thing in the water was real. A dead
woman! With rotting flesh flaking from stark white bone, pale hair floating
around a face without eyes, rotting flesh hanging by sinews, a gossamer dress
wafting in the current.
Bianca shot to the surface and shrieked for all she was worth, her scream
echoing through the canyon. She scrambled wildly away, splashing water,
slipping on the bank, trying to get away from the horror of the dead girl’s face,
the terror that seized her throat. Coughing and sputtering, she staggered to her
feet. Pain screamed up her ankle. She fell, slid back toward the water and the
wretched, rotting corpse. “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God!”
Heart thundering, she flailed backward, scuttling frantically backward up the
bank, eyes stretched wide, her body soaked, her fear real.
Then, like a bolt of lightning, it hit her. The production crew and Barclay
Effin’ Sphinx had played her.
“What the hell did you do?” she cried.
“Cut! Cut!” a voice called loudly, then Mel, a production assistant who’d been
beyond the scope of the lights, ran forward. “You’re okay,” she said. Small,
athletic, hair cropped close to her head, she grabbed hold of Bianca’s arm.
Bianca yanked her arm back. “I’m definitely not fine! You put that horrid
thing in there. You made me think there was a real girl down there.” She pointed
a shaking finger at the stream. “What the hell is that?”
“Don’t worry. It’s not real. Hey, can I get a towel over here?” she called to
someone behind her.
“I know it’s not real.” Now, Bianca silently added, I know it’s not real now.
Mel admitted, “We switched out the mannequins.”
“But that’s all wrong . . . I mean you were going to fix it in post-production.
CGI or whatever.”

---

“We wanted to get your real gut reaction. Your horror.” Someone gave Mel a
terry-cloth hand towel, which she passed over to Bianca. “And it worked,” she
said as Bianca swiped the dripping water from her face. “Your expression was
perfect. We wanted to see that terror, that fear, to get it all in one take, and you
were fantastic!”
“I was scammed. I want to talk to Barclay.”
“It was his idea to change things up and surprise you, make it real to enhance
your performance.”
Bianca was burned. Who did these people think they were? Obviously, despite
anything else he’d said, Barclay Sphinx didn’t have faith that she could act,
could pull off the scene on her own. God, she was pissed. Tossing her hair to one
side of her face, she wrapped her hand around the strands and squeezed,
wringing out the water, feeling like a fool, or worse yet, a naive teenager who’d
just been shown how foolish she was.
Crap!
Mel said, “The point is, it’s done. Unless something shows up in editing,
we’re good here.”
Bianca was pressing the towel to her face.
“Oh, watch that. Don’t dry yourself off too much. We need you wet for the
next scene.”
Bianca wasn’t sure she wanted to do any more scenes. She was starting to
believe that her mother was right about the whole damned show. “You got any
more ‘surprises’ for me?” she snarled.
“That only works once.” Mel flashed an encouraging smile.
Bianca tossed a look to the creek, where the hideous, lifelike mannequin lay
beneath the surface of the water, the blond hair still wafting in the current.
Her face burned with embarrassment, and she had the absurd feeling she was
about to cry.
“Now come on,” Mel said. “Let’s get moving. Back to the parking lot. We
want to wrap up that scene with you talking to your mom about what happened.”
Bianca reined in her emotions with an effort. “She’s not my mother,” she
muttered, following after the woman to the gravel-strewn area where the party
scenes had been filmed. The campfire, though gas-fueled and controlled, was
still burning, a couple of rocks and a few sleeping bags scattered around it, while
farther back, out of the camera’s sweep, were all of the equipment and vehicles
—cranes, light poles, trucks and the like—and people clustered and waiting.
Beyond the perimeter of the set, there were other vehicles, curious bystanders
hoping for a glimpse of the filming, reporters thinking they might catch a story,
as this was, after all, the scene of a recent murder.

---

“Take five,” Mel told her, waving toward an empty chair. “And you can put
your ankle brace back on. We won’t film you any lower than your waist, so it
won’t show.” She started to walk away, then turned and added, “But don’t dry
off, okay? The next scene will be you, here.” She twirled her finger to include
the parking area, where three pickups and a couple of sedans were parked around
the perimeter of the lot, about ten feet from the campfire pit. “That’s the scene
with your mom, the woman cop.”
That was another thing that bothered Bianca. Michelle being cast as not only
her mom, but a policewoman, a detective. They had her dressed in slacks, a
blouse and jacket, her hair clipped behind her head, a fake gun mounted on her
belt, boots with significant heels, not at all like her mother’s, which was
probably good. But acting as if Michelle were her real mom, that would be
tough. Michelle was okay and all, and really cool usually. . . but . . . she just
wasn’t her mother.
While waiting for the scene to be set up, Bianca grabbed a bottle of water
from a cart, cracked the cap, and took a long swallow just as Maddie and Lara
approached.
Eyes shining, Maddie said, “Is this the coolest or what?” She was taking in all
of the action, watching the new scene being set up with one eye on Teej, who
was joking around with Austin on the far side of the campfire.
“I guess.”
Mel was heading to Teej and Austin, directing them to sit next to the campfire.
Her gaze never leaving Teej, Maddie said to Bianca, “I can’t believe your
mom didn’t want to be a part of it.”
“She doesn’t believe all this stuff about Big Foot. Thinks it’s all a lot of hype.”
“So?” Lara asked. “I mean, when does something like television come to
Grizzly Frickin’ Falls. Never.”
Bianca said shortly, “Mom’s busy.”
“Oh, well, yeah, with the investigation,” Lara said.
For a second, Maddie and Lara both tried to look sad, almost as if on cue
acting like they cared about Destiny. It kinda made Bianca sick.
Maddie broke the uncomfortable silence. “I’m going to grab something to
drink. They’ve got Diet Coke. You guys want anything?”
“That stuff’ll kill you,” Lara advised.
“Oh, right. When? In about a hundred years?” Maddie tossed her hair and
headed toward the drink cart, and Lara turned back to Bianca.
“At least Michelle gets to play your mom in the series. Kinda keeps it in the
family, and besides she’s so cool. Sorry to say, but way cooler than your real
mom.”

---

Bianca pressed her lips together.
“She’s hotter. Be better for the show,” Lara went on. “I mean, no offense, your
mom’s okay, but she doesn’t have the same ‘it’ factor that Michelle does. This is
way better. She makes a better cop.”
“What?”
“I mean TV cop. Oh, come on, you know I’m right.”
Bianca glanced over at the area tagged for the next scene: Bianca’s meeting
with her cop mom. If the production crew had intended to make Michelle seem
like Regan, they’d already got it wrong, Bianca thought. In heeled boots and a
tight outfit Regan Pescoli wouldn’t have been caught dead in, Michelle was deep
in conversation with Barclay Sphinx. Her platinum hair, braided and falling over
a shoulder, gleamed in the production lights as she, intent on what the producer
was saying, leaned a hip against a Jeep that had been fitted with a light bar and a
sheriff’s department logo.
“See what I mean?” Lara said as Barclay even touched Michelle lightly on the
shoulder as he went through the scene with her.