Starring The Dead

It was a pleasant, rainy October night in Glasgow. I sat in my favorite Eglinton Toll pub, dividing my interest between the cheery beads on my glass of bitters, and the little phosphorescent snakes the rain was making on the neon-lit windows.

It was pleasant, that is until Rex Bascomb walked in. Then the air chilled, the little snakes writhed malevolently, and the Glasgow night seemed suddenly gloomy.

Just about five years ago in Hollywood Rex had been an ace photography technician. His estate in the suburbs had been a landmark of note. Handsome, strong, and in his early thirties, it seemed certain this lucky bachelor had a rosy future in the film capitol.

Then came the talk that Rex was acting strangely, so I took a run out to see him. I sat in a Chinese throne of a chair, watching the wild light of enthusiasm in the boy genius’ eyes.

“Alex, you old snoop” he yelled. “I might have known that there’s be some talk about the latest interest. When a man’s on the trail of something revolutionary he just can’t help acting strangely.”

I sat back, relieved. I was just a new gadget he was working on.

“Okay, Edison” I agreed. “I’ll be back in a couple of weeks to see your new toy. Maybe I’ll even buy a few.”

“You won’t see me in a couple of weeks. That’s how big this thing is. Neil Williams, Leah Sterling, Bill Lester and I are gong to Tibet to finish it where we won’t be disturbed.”

My eyes opened after that one. When three of the most celebrated cinema stars join a well-known camera technician in a sudden jaunt to Tibet – well, that’s a news note.

“Just the four of you?” I asked, bewildered. “What’s it all about? When will you be back?”

“There will be five of us Alex. A man named Nick will accompany us.”: Rex said his name with a strange note in his voice. “I can’t tell you anymore, and I don’t know when we’ll be back.”

Here, five years later in a smoky pub in Glasgow, I saw Rex for the first time since that interview. He looked thirty years older as he leaned his cuffs on the wet bar. I looked with astonishment at his white hair, his deeply lined face and the way he twitched as if he was scared to death of something. I walked over and watched the glow of recognition in his eyes.

“Alex” he croaked. “I can’t believe my eyes.”

“I can’t believe mine, Rex. What are you doing in Scotland? Have you been ill?”

Not ill, Alex. Haunted is the word. I came to Scotland to hide. Come over here and let me tell you about it. I have to tell someone before it’s too late.”

And there in a corner of a friendly pub, the very presence of horror sat beside me as I listened to Rex Bascomb’s strange story.

“Five years ago, Alex – only five years ago, but it seems like a hundred, our little group embarked for Tibet with unlimited enthusiasm for our adventure. I should say that four of us were enthusiastic, Nick showed no emotion. You never met Nick so perhaps you can’t understand my fasciation at the man. Somehow I felt I’d seen him before, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember where. He was tall and dark, suave, with an olive complexion and a small black mustache. The most notable thing about him beside his hypnotic eyes was his expression. He never lost that mocking half-smile of derision. Nothing ever excited him.

“We found a lonely place in the outskirts of Tibet, and here the great experiment began. The ‘toy’ as you called it – the basis of the project that had made hermits of us – was a new concept in motion picture photography. It was a camera and projector that captured the very souls of the actors on celluloid – not only their images as usual.”

Rex stopped talking and finished his drink with shaking hands. I took advantage of the lull to wake up the bartender and order a couple more.

“What the deuce would be the advantage in that, Rex?”

“An amazing advantage, Alex. You’d feel the presence of the actors in the theatre. At least Nick said so. He had a way of making you believe him, even to the extent of getting us to go all the way to Tibet on his say-so.”

Rex continued, “So while Leah, Neil, Bill and I fretted the monotonous days away, nick worked on his ‘invention’. Sometimes he’d let us into his workshop to see his progress and I’d smell ozone as if high frequency electric were being used – but I never could see an apparatus for generating it. We asked no question, Alex. People didn’t ask Nick questions. We just waited until the day Nick told us it was ready.

“I decided that the first scene we’d film would be a tent shot showing Neil as the father, arguing with his daughter, Leah. He would be telling her not to have anything more to do with Bill. He would walk into the next room where a cutaway wall would reveal him writing at a desk through the following events. The window would be open, and Bill would sneak into the room. There’s be a love scene, embrace and exit.

“When we projected the scene, I noticed Neil and Leah fall asleep at the exact moment their images appeared on the screen. When Bill’s image appeared, his both next time slumped in his seat. The feeling of fullness – personality radiating from the screen, was amazing. When the scene was over, Leah, Bill and Neil sat up and shook themselves.

“Bill turned on Nick angrily. ‘Do you mean to say that every time that picture is shown, we’ll go into a trance?’”

Nick flashed a supercilious smile “Unfortunately, yes. Your personality cannot be in two places at once. This type of film would require limited, and exclusive showings”

“The next day Nick wasn’t to be found anywhere. We searched the area to no avail. Finally, a month passed while Leah and Bill did the nightclubs every night, and the more dignified Neil spent his time growing a mustache which he claimed added to his personality. We’d decided to scrap the whole business and go back to Hollywood when Bill Lester got into a fight in a night spot and was badly slashed. He died soon after.”

Again Rex interrupted his story. I knew that the point was at hand – the real horror that had made a haggard wreck of this once handsome man would come next. I pounded on the bar for another drink. The customers were all gone and a chill was setting in. Rex droned on like a man in a trance.

“After we buried Bill, we decided to take another look at that film. Don’t ask me why. I guess we didn’t know just what to do, and it seemed as good a procedure as any other. So I figured out how to work the projector and put the lights out in the projection room. I was scared stiff and I didn’t know why. Neil and Leah slumped in their seats as their images appeared on the screen. I noted with a cold chill that Neil’s image on the screen wore a mustache where it had been clean-shaven before. Leah’s image had changed it’s hair-do to correspond with the one she currently wore. Finally Neil walked into the next room and Leah remained center screen.

“I wanted to shut of the projector. I didn’t want to see what came next, but I couldn’t help myself. I watched as the window crept open and a worm-eaten, earth-stained corpse in evening clothes climbed rustily into the room. The clothes never altered. Only the people changed. The jaws worked creakily and the words came out in a horrible whisper. I hope you never hear a corpse speak Alex. Then the sight I’ll ever forget. There on the screen was that unwilling corpse I immaculate evening clothes in a love scene with the beautiful and talented Leah Sterling. At last – at long last, the film ran out. Leah and Neil awoke and asked me what I’d seen. I told them Bill had not appeared, and – “

This time I interrupted. “If this is true, why didn’t you just burn the film and forget it? Why didn’t you destroy the whole business?”

“I wanted to, Alex, but I couldn’t. I went on with the ugly knowledge but I was too greedy to burn the film. I wanted to keep it. The equipment and that film were worth a fortune,”

“The day before we were to leave for Hollywood, Leah and Neil drove our station wagon in front of a train and were instantly killed. They were torn to pieces.”

Rex gripped my sleeve, sobbing hysterically, “Can you imagine what’s on the film now?”

Outside the pub, the fog was growing dense. The window was covered with steam. The hour was late and the pub was closing. I dropped four shillings on the bar and followed Rex’s shambling figure toward the door and out into the unfriendly night.

Clearly, Rex was mad. The deaths of his actors and the disappearance of Nick had snapped his mind. I remembered how we humored cases of battle fatigue back in the war, so I asked “Where is this film, and equipment, Rex?”

“I’ll show you, Alex. Just – “ Rex broke off, straining his eyes in the gloom. A big double-decker bus roared by, tearing the fog like a huge moving bonfire, and for just a moment three figures moved into a hedgerow, Rex shook like a man with the ague.

“There they go! They’re watching me, Alex. It’s Leah, Bill and Neil. They whisper to me every night. They don’t want to come back from the grave to act in that film. They want me to burn it so they can rest in peace. But I can’t do it – I just can’t do it. It was greed before, now something else stops me.”

A mile, two miles later, driving through he dense, foggy country we arrived at a forbidding old house. It was wet, cold and disgruntled. Here this nut had led me on a wild goose chase with his crazy story. As we entered the gloomy mansion, I tried to console myself by reflecting on the charitable effect of my trip on my old friend.

Through the darkened corridors into the back of the house Rex shambled, looking fearfully into the shadows with every step-.

Finally we reached a small room filled with photographic equipment, the like of which I ever saw before. Rex pushed a clip of film into my hand.”

“Burn it Alex. Please burn it. Let them rest in peace. The dead don’t want to act anymore. They told me so. “

I held it to the light. It seemed blank even though I unreeled a couple of yard of it,. Somehow it felt alien to the touch, or maybe I just imagined it.

It was the moment to cure Rex. If I burned the film his delirium tremens would end. Perhaps I could make something of the old Rex Bascomb of this shivering, nervous wreck. So very deliberately, I struck a match and touched the film.

The flash and blast of heat were terrific. It filled the room with fire and scotched my hair and eyebrows I saw with terror that the fire was spreading everywhere with amazing rapidity.

“Let’s go out of here, Rex!” I yelled, taking to my heels. “We’ll call the fire department.”

At the door I looked behind me for Rex, but he was nowhere in sight. I dashed through the flames to the little room, and saw him lying on the floor. There was just time before the flam es closed in to see three figures standing over him – and then I ran gibbering from the gutted house.

The bartender in the Eglinton Toll Pub wonders why my hands shake so much these days. He mentioned once that my friend from that October night had burned to death in a fire.

“Had quite a load on, he did – and a case of DT’s if I ever saw one.”

But I know better. I’d seen enough of those three figures to know. And I know who Nick is now, too.”