Horror In Hollywood Short Story Contest First Place Winner: “The Hollywood” by Joanne Askew

The Hollywood

By Joanne Askew

The door slid open. The two guards stood, armed. One jerked his e-gun, prompting her to move. Its chrome caught the light. Its purple battery throbbed inside its cylinder, and violet shadows oozed into the barrel. She placed her drink on the award shelf near the door that gathered dust – twenty-three figures stood there with her name engraved. She nodded to the guards, throwing a cardigan over her shoulders – not that it mattered what she wore, she knew she’d wake up in something different.

She walked down the corridor of the actor’s quarters on The Hollywood, her left leg appearing from a red silk slit with every stride she took in her dress. She had a good cabin, three bedrooms, mini-bar, walk-in wardrobe, but she was of Ancient Hollywood blood – it was a given. In moments she would be someone else, for someone else’s entertainment. Her body, her voice – not hers. They never had been, not on The Hollywood.

The guards were silent, only the gentle clicking of their weapons against their navy uniforms filled the hall. She flicked honey-coloured hair behind her ear, pulling a darker strand forward like her great-great-great-grandmother before her. She had the same mannerisms, same wicked smile, and same acting talent. She had seen her movies – the old ones from the 2000s with their organic presence so rich, so pure. Not at all like the faux shots of today.

Betty Reynolds, named after her great-great-grandmother, paused a step ahead of her guards, waiting for them to open the door to Makeup. She stepped forward, but one of her guards laid their hand on the small of her back. She stopped, turned her head, and let out a breath. He removed his hand, looking to the floor, abashed. Betty stepped away from him, into the room with only a four by four inch window in the steel, moist door, algae forming in its hinges. If the actor’s quarters had an inch of dirt, the Actor’s Union would know. Shame they don’t fight for freedom like they fought for immaculate suites, Betty thought.

Betty stepped through the door. The Guard bolted her in. The sound sent a vibration to Betty. The room, steel sheets of metal coating the walls, one vent above her, a control panel on the side, was cold. She pulled the cardigan close to her skin, ready for sedation. The lights went red. The gas came. She thumbed at the cardigan’s material. She saw black at the edges of her vision. She was gone.

***

“Your script, Ms. Reynolds.” The comms tablet, already loaded with her next words, landed on her stomach as she woke from Makeup. 

Betty blinked, sending moisture across her eye. She pressed her lips together, and lipstick hung on them. Her eyes felt heavy, lashes coated with thick mascara.

“Betty? Betty, honey – it’s go, go, go, no time.” Tyreece cooed, his soft words hiding his malice. “Betty – it’s nearly action time. Get to Set. Up. Now.”

She threw her legs over the bed, affectionately named the Casting Couch. She glanced at the script in her lap. “Tyreece, Patsy Cline biopic? You know I can’t sing.”

“Yes, you can. We downloaded it while you were under. Opens with that old song ‘Crazy.’ You know all the words now too.” He leaned in, moved a strand of her hair that was no longer honey blonde. “Betty?”

She glanced up from the script.

“Hurry,” he said. He rushed to the next actor. It was a man Betty had never seen on The Hollywood. She thought he might have been newly signed, but he was in his early 40s – or maybe made out to be – too late in his career to be a new star. Grey whispers ran through his beard, salt, and pepper against his face. A broad nose demanded her attention as she studied him, but her eyes floated to his heavy brow. He saw her looking. His eyes locked with hers. His lips parted, his gaze narrowing in suspicion. As Tyreece fussed with the new actor, Betty was sure she saw him smile at her. Maybe he was star struck, perhaps he was friendly – but as she returned the smile, he winked and mouthed, “don’t worry.”

She wasn’t worried. She had never been. She had been sad, lonely, angry, impatient, but she had never been worried about The Hollywood; they needed her, they would always need her. She wondered if this man had been groomed to seduce her. Sexual relations between co-stars were encouraged on The Hollywood – it sold movies. He’d have to try harder than a wink.

Betty tried her feet. They were bound by old stilettos, the kind that got banned a hundred years ago because of the damage they did to women’s feet. She was exempt, though; she was an actor. She was exempt from most rules designed to help people. She looked up as the capsule door to the Set opened, steam leaking from its edges. She stepped into the mist. 

The artificially generated 60s studio smelled like The Hollywood, but its walls, close to Betty, were covered in soundproofing, an analogue switchboard framed a glass window looking into a cushioned room with a single chrome condenser microphone.

A voice boomed, coming from nowhere in particular. “Betty, in the booth.”

She nodded, finding a way to the microphone through virtual manual doors that she had never experienced outside of the Set. The lights changed as she stepped in front of the microphone. They turned steely blue by the master fingers in the control room of the Set. They lowered, someone shouted “Action!” and the lights came up again.

Betty’s lips parted; her eyes drifted slowly to her reflection in the glass. She took in her appearance. Brown hair now, short, but in a beehive. Eyebrows much darker, more prominent than before. Her lips were, as predicted, a dark red – the same colour that old blood took days after an injury. She wore a dress with a collar, waterfalls of blue flowers ran down her body, mixing with the buttons in the centre, diving into the pockets that lay on her chest. She refocused her eyes through her reflection, into the tiny room with far too many buttons. An extra, no doubt wishing for the life Betty had, gave her a cue.

She began to sing. “Crazy…” she paused, her voice a stranger to her now. “I’m crazy for feeling so lonely.” She heard a bang somewhere beyond the Set, but she ignored it, carried on with the slow moody song.

Patsy Cline’s voice continued to ring from her. The lights flickered. She saw a silhouette against the wall, a man’s face – harsh nose, murky edges of beard, a heavy brow.

“I knew… you’d love me as long as you wanted.” There was a crackle. It formed somewhere outside the Set and travelled to Betty, growing louder, the crackle turning into a clapping, almost a sucking sound. “And then someday… you'd leave me for somebody new.” The music stopped this time. Its absence made way for the gunshots. They rang, jolted Betty’s ears. 

“Are we cutting or what?” she called out as the lights went down again. The dim emergency lights greeted her with red, shattering the blue hue that so divinely greeted the song. She glanced at the extra in the Set with her. He was gone.

There was a grinding, the kind of noise that only came when two forces struggled against each other for victory. The Set crashed. The 1960’s studio faded away. Betty flinched, pulling her hands up, covering her face. She slowly removed her arms from her head. The Set had malfunctioned, leaving only the bare wiring, sensors, projector lenses, and bulbs, coating the walls.

Betty jerked her head to the speakers at the edges of the Set. They began to wail. They howled the warning that meant evacuation of the Set.

Betty dropped down, unbuckling the torture devices that were stilettoes. She ran right from them, leaving them in the middle of a room that expected the rest of a song.

There was always a door in the right-hand corner, even when you couldn’t see it. But Betty could see it now – a steel sliding panel with a small grip – just big enough for someone to escape from in an emergency.

She lay her hand on the grip and called out. “I’m coming out! Is anyone still there?” 

There was a cough in response, then several more. Smoke leaked into the Set from the escape hatch.

“Tyreece? Anyone there? Shall I come out?” she called against the cracks in the door.

There was no answer. Betty tugged the strange dress collar around her mouth and nose and pulled at the escape door. Like opening a hatch to a submerged ship, the smoke poured out like water across the floor. Betty coughed, her eyes watered at its thickness. She pawed at them, ignoring the layers of black mascara coating her dripping lashes. She knew she’d have to go into Makeup again, but it really wasn’t her fault.

As the smoke cleared, she saw the boundaries of the emergency hatch. Her fingers traced the edges, and she pulled herself through. The mercurial change of atmosphere were tendrils of cool stroking at her face. Why was it so cold backstage?

She steadied herself on bare feet. The smoke was low, twisting around her knees like a serpent. Below the snake was the crew, curled in twisted balls, unconscious on the floor where they had fallen, with digital clipboards and instructions.

Betty let the collar drop from her mouth. “The fuck?” she uttered.

An arm had seized her, throwing her off her fleshy toes into something else, something with texture and warmth. Her face was covered. Next, clear plastic obscured her view as she lost balance, a mask – a breathing mask.

Warm air nestled at her ear. “Don’t worry,” the air said.

She pulled her hands to the arms that bound her, fingernails ready to do their worse. The arms grew rigid but did not tighten. “Let!” She coughed. “Go!”

The arms released. The man, the winking man, let her go.

She retaliated. Straightening her arm, she pushed him against the wall she had emerged from. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m Luther. I’m here to rescue you.”

“What are you talking about? I’m working.”

“Are you?” He looked around, Betty’s arm still across his throat, threatening to apply pressure.

“What happened?”

“I rerouted the Makeup atmosphere while I was in there. Pumped the gas out here. We’ve got about sixty seconds before they start to wake up. How many years have you been on this ship?”

He had a Martian accent – a rough one that came from the orphanages, not the groomed, well-spoken Martians of the science teams out there.

“My whole career – like fifteen years, I guess.” Betty tightened her grip.

“Well, Ms. Betty Reynolds, it’s time you left.”

She applied force to the man.

“Sixty-seconds,” he squawked, pressure on his Adam’s apple.

Betty let go. “Who are you with?”

“Nebflix.”

“Nebflix are taking down The Hollywood?”

“No. We’re just liberating some of their stars,” he said, never letting his eye contact go.

“What are the perks?”

“Shore leave. You get shore leave.”

Betty paused. No actors got shore leave. Not even for a furlough. She could go with this man, the cooperate spy, and see how things were over at Nebflix. Then, she could play innocent if she realised things were better for actors over on The Hollywood, pretend she was abducted.

“Fine. Suit me up,” she said, lips sticking together with dark red. “Shore leave. Better not be bullshitting me.”

He nodded as she removed her arm from his throat. Never breaking eye contact, he bent to his knees, produced a suit pack from his own pack, and unravelled it at her feet.

Betty didn’t feel panicked. She only felt like she was meant to feel as an actor; she felt like a goddess, a man at her feet, begging her to come with him. He pulled the legs of the suit out and lay them in front of her bare feet. She looked down on him as the Hollywood stars had always done in ancient times. Betty lay a hand on his shoulder as she slipped her gentle feet into the suit. Luther’s hands gripped the sides of the suit as he pulled it up her body, taking extra care as the dress she was wearing ruffled at her crotch. When he zipped her up, she gazed into his eyes. There was something there she had never seen. Maybe it was passion, a passion for the arts that Betty had never experienced. Perhaps this man wanted her so badly for his production, he came alive seeing her in the flesh.

“What’s the movie? I haven’t had any better offers than The Hollywood so far.”

“You’ll be Emilia Earhart. You’ll be flying free.” He smiled. Betty noticed him glance at her lips, wanting, wishing.

“Okay. Can Tyreece come? I know he’s pushy – but he’s good at his job.”

“Not a chance. The guy tried to come on to me when I woke up from makeup. We don’t accept that behaviour at Nebflix.”

Betty grinned. “Of course – agreed.”

“Like thirty seconds now. Sign here.” Luther pulled out his comms device.

“What about the small print?”

“Don’t worry – read it later, or else we won’t get away. The Hollywood guards are coming.”

Betty hesitated. The emergency lights changed. Someone had disengaged them. Someone was coming. 

“Fine.” She pulled the hood up over her head and took Luther’s hand.

His pod was attached to one of the outer windows in the corridor. It was the only docking spot he could find apparently. 

“Turn your suit on – the seal isn’t great against these small windows. I don’t know how you ever lived like this.”

She followed him through the open window, into a small space pod. “What do you mean?”

“Betty. Betty Reynolds. You’ve been here for fifteen years?”

She nodded, sitting herself down in the small ship, only one passenger seat, the other seat for a pilot.

He clicked some switches. She watched. The pod dismounted from The Hollywood and sealed itself up again. Her body felt lighter. She removed her hood, copying Luther.

“You see what they want you to see, Betty Reynolds. But, the truth is out there. Like they always said.”

Betty only meant to glance back at The Hollywood, but she stared. The Hollywood got further and further away until she could see the rounded ship with The Hollywood inked across it in white. Hundreds of tiny ships snaked around The Hollywood, guarding, sensing any threat to the vessel. Betty had no idea of how much the ship was guarded. Beyond the tiny security ships was a thin digital shield flashing blue across the dark expanse as it turned itself back on.

“Did you take down that security shield too?”

“It’s just code. It’s easy.” Luther turned around with Betty . “Like Makeup. I extended the Reach of our ship’s digital pod, managed to get on board looking like Dwayne Johnson the third, got to the actor’s quarters before the Reach failed, and I ended up back with this face. The guards still took me to Makeup… like they never even looked at my face.”

“I knew you were different. I knew when you walked in.”

His lips curved. His eyes flickered. “Thank you for noticing me. You don’t know what that means coming from you.”

“How far to The Nebflix?” Betty asked, unzipping her hood as the atmosphere set in inside the small pod.

“We’re not going there.” Luther turned back to the controls. He clicked the comms radio. “We’re coming into land.”

“Where are we going?”

Luther leaned back. The large window at the front of the pod bore a new ship. The ship, at least a hundred years old and with more jagged edges than Betty prior to Makeup, loomed large in the distance, the hand-painted sign across it shrinking as the painter ran out of room. The Betty Reynolds.

“Welcome home, Betty,” Luther said.

Despite her furrowed brow, she grasped at the tablet bearing the contract she had signed. Her eyes flittered over the tiny words like a hummingbird in flight, words that cleared her mind like she was waking from Makeup. Adoration, worship, no external contact, attire to be decided by the BFC board? Daily one-to-ones with premium paying members… launch of new intimate experience with the genuine, non-digital, Betty Reynolds. All membership sales final.

“What are you going to do with me?” Her lip quivered.

“Whatever the Betty Reynolds Fan Club wants,” Luther said, his grin as wide as space before them.