Emma Clarke's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The curtain fell shut behind Emma, and the last of the candlelight vanished. The hallway swallowed her whole. She could hear Vincent's rings clicking somewhere ahead, but she could not see him. She could not see the floor. One wrong step in this dark could send her tumbling, and no one would come. "Keep close," Vincent said. His voice floated back to her, flat and bored. "The stairs are steep. My last girl learned that the hard way." Emma stopped. Her hand found a cold wall and pressed against it. She thought of the contract in his jacket, her name drying on the paper. She thought of three women who signed the same and never reached a premiere. Fear told her to freeze. But freezing in the dark was how people fell. She slid her free hand into her coat and found her phone. Her thumb woke the screen. A white glow spilled across the hallway. She turned on the flashlight. The light showed a narrow stairwell dropping into more dark. It showed Vincent, ten steps below, turning to squint up at her. And it showed the man standing three feet to her right. He wore blue coveralls and a pale mask with two black slits for eyes. He did not move. He held nothing, said nothing. He simply stood against the wall where the dark had hidden him, watching her the way a cat watches a door. Emma's breath stopped. She had walked past him blind. If she had reached out in the dark, she would have touched his sleeve. "Ah," Vincent said below. "You've met my other actor. He doesn't talk. He's very good at his job." The masked man tilted his head at her. Slow. Curious. Emma held the light on him and did not look away. Her acting teacher had a rule for stage fright. Pick one thing. Control it. She kept the beam steady on those black eye slits. "Down here," Vincent called. "Now, Emma. We're losing the night." She made a choice. She would not walk in the dark again, not with that thing behind her. She kept the flashlight raised and moved down the stairs, one hand on the wall, her eyes flicking back to the masked man with every step. He watched her go. He did not follow. Her shoe found each stair. The light held. She reached the bottom and stood on solid ground, breathing hard, phone shaking in her fist. She had crossed the dark. She had not fallen. Vincent smiled at her, and it was worse than his frown. "Good girl. You can see in the dark now." He gestured at a set on the studio floor, painted to look like a fairground ride, all steel curves and a great looping track. "That's a problem. My scenes work better when the girl can't." He reached up and flicked a switch. Every light in the room died at once.