Chapter 24: CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Benita Corovelli and Cal Torrence clutched each other like two sweaty wrestlers fighting in a championship match as they tried to focus on making love. Cal had taken Benita to his room in the guest building, but the talk had been empty and meaningless. She had looked into his eyes, touched him in all the right places, admired his muscles, stroked his chest.

“I want to be with you forever,” she breathed. Lying naked on a bed in his room on the second floor of the guest building, he had his arms around her neck, drawing her closer.

“We can’t let him see us,” he said.

“Don’t worry about him, Cal. He is nothing to me.”

“We can’t leave,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Fear in her voice. “We can leave when the RCMP man leaves. His plane is out there. We will ask him.”

“What about the film?”

She laughed, suppressed it. “I don’t know if it will ever get done? He keeps changing his mind more often than a woman.”

He had to agree with her. Creighton seemed to be wandering aimlessly as far as this film was concerned. What had started out as a fantasy with fire breathing dragons had turned into... what? Science fiction? Something romantic?

Poor Clarence Fenwick’s special effects were no longer needed. Now the man was playing the part the late Bill Tallard had auditioned for.

He tapped his lips. “I thought I heard something,” he whispered.

“Let’s make love,” she said.

He listened. Someone was out there, he was sure of it.

“I want you so much,” she said, not bothering to lower her voice.

“Shut up,” he hissed. He stood up, grabbed his underwear, danced as he tried to put it on. Shirt, pants, buttoned, zippered. He didn’t know who might be snooping out there, but whoever it was, could have seen more than he... or she was supposed to.

“Someone is spying on us,” he said. “You better get dressed. I’ll leave first. Give me five minutes.”

“Let’s make love,” she said again, begging.

“We have a film to shoot.”

“I don’t care about the damn movie, Cal. Please...”

“Don’t beg, Benita, please don’t beg.” He went to the door, opened it. “Five minutes, then come out.”

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“Promise you’ll make love to me later.”

“I’m not promising anything.”

He walked not more than a few feet from the house when someone tackled him from behind. He hit the ground hard, rustling leaves as his face tasted dirt. He managed to turn around, get into a sitting position. Harold Creighton stood over him like a cocky wrestler.

“Goddamn fucking son of a bitch.” Creighton looked down at him, hands balled into fists. His eyes dared Cal to stand up.

“What the hell...?”

“You stay away from Benita, you hear me?”

“I didn’t...”

“Want me to ask one of those aliens? I was watching you two.”

“We didn’t fuck.”

“You would have if I hadn’t interrupted you.”

“She doesn’t want you, Creighton. You’re an old man, a has-been.”

“And you can give her what I can’t, is that right?”

He stood up, brushed dirt from his clothes. “I can do what I want, I can see whoever I want, and I can fuck whatever woman I want.”

“Fuck the script supervisor, not Benita. She belongs to me.”

“You know something, Creighton. I’m out of the picture. You can take your movie and shove it up your goddamn ass.”

“Fine,” Creighton said. “I don’t need you. You couldn’t act your way out of a morning fog.”

“And as a director, you stink worse than the manure pile on my Grandpa’s horse farm.” He walked away, thought of leaving this place with Benita. To hell with Creighton and his film. It would never get done because the dissension among the cast and crew was getting intolerable. Bill Tallard was dead, his role replaced by Clarence Fenwick; Chester Harrison was more worried what was in his pocket than trying to learn his lines; Andrew Delmore was still around somewhere, moping in one of the houses, refusing to continue with his role; the cameraman, Ned Wilson, complained he was growing tired of shooting trees and alien homes and squirrels and deer; and the script supervisor, Giselle Lambert, sank into a crying fit when Creighton yelled at her to pay attention to what was happening on the scene instead of admiring a cute arctic fox that had ventured into the village before darting into the forest again, bushy tail waving.

Maybe these aliens were casting a spell. They didn’t want Creighton and his cast and crew here, and using any means to get rid of them. Who had killed the old man? Arak? Creighton was the likeliest suspect, but he didn’t seem like the kind of man who could just kill an old man in cold blood. If Montelier’s case was certain, Creighton would have been arrested and taken to the nearest town, and then transferred to someplace like Toronto.

He wished he were on his grandfather’s farm. Even the smell of horse manure would be more inviting than this place right now.

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