Makeup artist

“Come on Emily, you know we’ve got a lot to do. We start shooting in two weeks and Jake wants to be sure you’ll have the cadaver prop done in time.” Gazing contentedly at her drawing Emily turned to Liz and showed the up and coming actress the portrait. “This would be perfect for the cadaver.” Liz peered at the picture her brunette hair falling over her shoulder, hazel eyes shining mischievously. “Handsome. I can’t wait to see how you pull this one off.”

The cadaver Emily needed had to be a male, 6’0, sandy hair and brown eyes, surfer type dude. Being new to the movie business she was stuck working with small, tight budget film crews, working on those bad movies that premiered on the syfy channel without ever appearing in theaters. Her work was impressive though. Every cadaver she produced was incredibly realistic. Everything down to the smallest detail was perfect. The way she worked it had to be.

It always felt like forever, the most frustrating part of her project. Finding the perfect person. She couldn’t wait too long to start or get it done too soon. Timing was essential or else it wouldn’t work for the movie shoot. Scrolling through the applications sent to her she deleted one after the other. Too tall. Too scrawny. Wrong eye color. Eventually she was down to four applications left in her inbox. They were all close. Having the dimensions Jake asked for was the most important aspect. The rest Emily could work her magic on to fix. Steven. Steven Lance fit the bill perfectly. The right height exactly, right size, right eye color, right hair color, right demeanor. Deleting the other applications she started on an email.

Steven Lance,

I’ve reviewed your application to be a model for the cadaver on the movie “Shark Detective” and I think you would be the perfect fit for the role. Would you be available to meet this thursday evening at seven o’clock so I can meet you and begin working on the prop? If you accept this offer please let me know and I will email you directions to my workshop where we meet.

Thank you for your time,

Emily Sol

Tuesday she had her answer. Steven had responded to her email saying he was more than happy to land this role and would be most cooperative. It was almost a shame. Steven seemed like a nice guy, just trying to make a name for himself in the movie business. I wonder what skeletons he has in his closet. They were vague thoughts, but there was some truth to them. Everyone had something they were hiding, even the clean cut, honest looking people. She needed to focus. Work was work and Emily had a lot to do.

Almost all of Wednesday was spent preparing her workroom. Everything from her work table, her materials, and the drinks she would give to Steven had to be prepared properly to ensure everything would be set and she could finish the bulk of her project by Saturday. About half a cup of coffee, a tablespoon of vanilla, sugar and creamer and finally a few tablets of Zopiclone. This concoction was sure to render Steven unconscious and make beginning the process of turning him into a work of art easier. Presuming he agreed to drink it. Just in case Emily prepared a syringe of the drug dissolved in a saline solution. Shooting for the movie was supposed to start the next Wednesday and every detail had to be perfect.

“Emily!” Liz leaned on the corner of the door, peering in but going no further into the workshop. Emily smiled and headed over to the aspiring actress.

“ I thought you hated seeing any part of my bodies?” Liz wrinkled her nose and shook her head in agreement.

“I do. But I was just coming to let you know Jake has been making some changes to the script. Don’t worry, no changes to your cadaver, but he wants to do a last minute meeting at some point and he said to keep our calendars open.” Typical, always making things more complicated for my timeline. Emily gave the brunette a hug. “Thanks for the heads up!” Liz squirmed laughing but still obviously slightly distressed and disgusted “No! Don’t touch me with those nasty chemical smells!”

The tangerine sun was setting, casting a haunting orange on the door to Emily’s workshop. Only one car was in the parking lot as Steven arrived in his beat up forest green pickup truck. She must like working without distractions. The door barely made a sound when he pushed it open. The smell hit him like a wall. Formaldehyde and other chemicals made the workshop smell more like a morgue than a makeup artists studio. Emily was sitting on a chair next to her work table, sipping a drink with a strong odor.

“Glad you could make it.” Her sapphire eyes were fixed on him, raven hair pulled back into a tight ponytail.

“Me too, this is my first time working as a model for a prop. Should be exciting.” Steven smiled uneasily, the abandonment of the workshop disturbed him.

“I’m sorry for having you meet me so late, I had to do a lot of running around earlier and this was the first time I had available to have a decent conversation. I know it stinks in here, all the chemicals and materials used to make props can become overwhelming.” She had seen his distrustful scrutiny of her studio and hoped that this excuse could put him at ease. Handing him a drink she smiled as she took a sip of her own. “This should help, I use it to avoid the smell in here. I know it’s strong but it’s better than what I work with.”

Steven gulped down the strong liquid she gave him, it tasted like sweetened coffee and bitter vanilla. She was right, this was better than the deathly smell of her studio. “Why don’t you tell me about your experience as a model so far, it would help me capture your likeness more in the cadaver.” He nodded and sat down in the chair she offered him. It was comfortable, warm blue fabric over a lightly padded armchair. I could fall asleep in this. Where was his resume? Steven looked around confused. Why was his mind so cloudy? This was not going to make a good impression on his first job as a prop model. He just felt so tired. So lethargic. So… dead.

Emily sat down her cup and went over to Stevens limp body. She checked for a pulse and watched his breathing. Slow shallow breaths, slow weak pulse. Perfect. Grabbing his arm she tossed him over her shoulders and fireman carried him over to the worktable. A syringe filled with air laid on the counter, ready to start the progress of making a prop. After injecting the air into his carotid artery Emily removed his clothing and pulled out the rest of her materials that couldn’t have been left out while Steven was conscious. Checking for a pulse and not finding one she began her work. It shouldn’t take more than a few hours before she could set the body to the right stage of decomposition needed for the shoot.

After disinfecting the body Emily set to work draining all the fluids, replacing them with Metaflow, formaldehyde, and black dye. The body was supposed to have dark veins on the skin left intact, the face, chest cavity and one of the legs had to be torn apart as if a shark had ripped off the flesh. Starting with the typical dissection cuts she peeled back the skin in all the places that needed it and used a serrated tool to shred the flaps of skin. Something to cause the rips and tears, make it look like he was mauled by a shark. It was getting late. Sliding the tray the body was on into the freezer she checked her watch and headed to dispose of her gloves and wash her hands. So much more to do.

The old waste plant was abandoned as usual, everything just as she had left it days before. The plates and everything in the truck was the first to go. Everything she could pull out went into the incinerator, burned to ashes. She filed off the VIN and went to work painting the shell of truck with sulfuric acid. It wouldn’t be enough to destroy the truck entirely, but it would be enough to remove any paint and damage it beyond recognition. Now for the frame. Emily taped around all the places she would have to cut. Glancing at her watch she shook her head. It would have to wait. Just like everything else her motorcycle was hidden in the exact same place it always was, inside a rusty shipping container behind a dozen rotten crates. Currently she needed to return to the workshop, it was almost five in the morning and there was a body to work on.

Everything was going well. Almost. The body was ready, frozen in the state she needed it, smell disguised, perfect, just as she wanted it. It just nagged her that she hadn’t finished cutting up the frame. Emily rarely fell behind schedule, but Jake had called the surprise meeting preventing her from finishing her disposal. The frame was all she had left to take care of and that should be a piece of cake.

You’ve got to be kidding me. Since before Emily had even arrived in California that marina had been closed for years. Yet now construction workers meandered about in neon orange vests, tape blocked traffic from even approaching the marina. This was the one thing she hadn’t anticipated. The one thing she thought she could count on was gone. Dumping the frame required no prior planning other than a location and now her location was gone. The waste plant would have to be a temporary hiding site until she found another way of disposing the last few pieces of the truck. Perhaps a scrapyard would do the trick.

A flyer drifted by in the wind. Steven Lance’s face smiled happily as the water in the gutter drenched and destroyed the missing persons poster. It didn’t matter. The street was lined with those posters, and so was the street next to it. Emily removed another flyer from her windshield and sighed. They would never find his body. She was too good at her work for that to happen.

“Emily Sol?” Looking up from her drawing she saw two men in suits standing in the entrance to her studio. One was tall, scrawny with dark eyes and the other was about two inches shorter, balding and heavyset.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes actually, you can. I’m agent Myers and this is agent Park. Have you heard of a Steven Lance?” She knew exactly why they were here.

“Of course, there are flyers all over town with his face on them.”

“We were combing through his emails and found that he was corresponding with you the week he went missing.”

“I know. I was really disappointed he didn’t show up so I could meet him. He seemed like the perfect person to model my cadaver after.” This answer obviously disturbed, yet relieved them at the same time.

“When was the last time you saw Steven Lance?”

“I didn’t. I was supposed to meet him on Thursday at seven so I could use him as a reference for the cadaver I needed to make for the movie but he never showed up. I had to use just pictures as a reference instead.”

“We might need to talk to you again. Here’s a number you can reach us at if you think of or find out anything”

“Sure thing.” Emily smiled as she pocketed the card. More cleaning to do. As if she wasn’t already busy enough.

The lights were out, nothing but her black light shining on the floor in the studio. Emily had already cleaned but just in case she was doing an extra sanitation in case they went looking for DNA. Bloodstains were easy to explain. The chemicals used to mimic them tested the same as blood itself. DNA was not so easy. You can’t make fake DNA. No traces anywhere. Her work table, tools and everything else was clean. Turning on the lights she got to work making a mess. Spilling chemicals, wiping down the mess superficially, ensuring everything looked clean but under a black light would show up with everything that should in a makeup artists studio.

Just as she suspected the FBI did search her workroom. And just as she anticipated they found nothing. They apologized and left ruling her out as a suspect just as she knew they would. Before she went into the business of creating prop cadavers for movie sets Emily had been a mortician. After the bodies had finished the viewing she had her fun, creating the corpses shown on TV in horror movies or murder mysteries. That’s why she decided to take her skill to film. Her preservation methods ensured they lasted for the duration of the filming. They were always cremated in the end of course. No one could ever see her work and know they were real bodies.