Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
“Baby?” Jamie asked again softly. “Are you okay?”
There were so many things swirling in his mind at once that he couldn’t even begin to untangle them. But he was, surprisingly, okay.
“Yeah. I’m ready to terrify some people.” Edgar grinned, and the twisted gray face in the mirror grinned back at him.
***
Amelia shouted, “Action!” and Edgar spun to his left as he and Leila had practiced. When Leila turned, he was right in front of her. Amelia’s camera was close to capture Leila’s expression. Her face twisted into a mask of horror, and she screamed and bolted from him. Edgar jerked backward.
“Cut!”
Amelia peered at the playback. Edgar’s heart was pounding, and his ears were ringing. Never in his life had someone responded to him that way. He knew it was a movie, of course, but his body still felt the startle, still felt the actor’s fear like it was real. He felt…awful.
Was this how a ghost felt when Edgar screamed or ran? This sensation of shame, guilt, and sadness that made up the ultimate rejection?
“You okay?” Leila asked breathlessly, jogging back toward him. “Hope I didn’t shatter an eardrum or anything. Amelia told me to really go for it.”
She grinned and smoothed the edge of her hijab.
“I’m fine,” he assured her. “Just startled.”
“Yeah, about that?” Amelia said.
She spun the camera toward Edgar and pressed Play.
Leila’s terrified face filled the screen, and as she screamed, Edgar watched himself look even more afraid than she was and practically scramble away from her.
“Uh. Oops.”
“Yeah,” Amelia said gently. “If you can look a bit more…”
“Like I’m not terrified of the human I’m supposed to scare.”
“Yup, that’s the one.” She patted him on the shoulder and called, “Reset and let’s go again.”
The second time Leila screamed in his face, Edgar tensed every muscle so he wouldn’t move.
“Um, let’s try you over here, Leila,” Amelia said, setting up the shot so Edgar was only in the corner of it. This time, he had been trying so hard not to move backward that he ended up pitching forward, as if his ghost was drunk or clumsy.
They tried a few this way. “Better,” Amelia said, but she frowned at the camera.
Jamie walked over to her, and they talked quietly. After a few minutes, Amelia gave a thumbs-up.
“Okay, Edgar, let’s try it so that you turn and immediately run toward Leila. We’ll shoot it from behind so we only see her face and the back of your head. No matter what, you just chase Leila, okay?”
“Okay,” Edgar said. He was feeling more and more like this had been a mistake. Now he was ruining Amelia and Jamie’s movie.
“It’s all good,” Jamie said. “This is totally normal. We don’t know if a shot’s gonna work until we try.”
Edgar calmed a little. “Okay.”
When everyone else turned back to their tasks, Jamie blew Edgar a kiss. Edgar felt warm beneath the heavy makeup.
As they set the shot up again, Leila leaned in. She was athletic and funny and had been keeping everyone entertained during their downtime. Now she said, “I don’t know if it’ll help at all, but what if you scream too? Or yell? They’re going to add a sound for the ghosts, so maybe they can mix your scream in?”
It was worth a try, Edgar supposed. He thanked Leila, and she gave him a wink.
“I’ve been an extra in six movies, and Jamie’s right. It’s always like this. You’re not fucking up.”
Edgar’s shoulders slumped. “You sure?”
“Yup, totally sure,” she said. “So you think you can scare me? Cuz I’m not sure that you can.” Her voice was a challenge, but her expression said this was all in good fun.
Honestly, Edgar thought that just seeing him made up like this should be enough to scare her, but she was clearly unimpressed.
“Um. What about this isn’t scaring you?” He gestured to his makeup.
Leila cocked her head like a babysitter might, to sugarcoat something for her charge. “Weeeeeeell, kinda everything,” she said. “You’re just—sorry, I hope you’re not pursuing a career in haunting like Jamie or anything because your entire being is deeply unscary.”
“No. I work at a cat café.”
She put a hand to her heart. “Yeah, that seems much more your speed.”
“But you don’t even know me.”
“No, but…I’m not sure I can explain it, but you emanate noncreepiness. It’s a vibe, same as when you can tell someone does seem like a creep.”
Edgar frowned. “But if you saw me unexpectedly. In an alley or something?”
Leila considered him.
“Yeah. If you jumped out at me in an alley, I’d be terrified. But I’d be terrified if a not-covered-in-ghost-makeup person jumped out at me in an alley too. Being startled is always, you know, startling.”
Edgar nodded, considering.
He remembered all the times that he’d seen people he thought were living, but then the light had struck them in a certain way and he’d realized they were ghosts. When the figures were far away, there wasn’t the element of immediate fear that he felt when a ghost appeared from nowhere near him. He wasn’t scared of them after the initial jolt of recognition, because the startle didn’t require action. No fight or flight, just walking in the other direction.