Emma Clarke's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

The dark returned all at once. Emma stood on the studio floor, phone shaking in her hand, its white beam the only light left. The painted ride loomed at the edge of the glow, all steel curves and looping track. Vincent's voice came from the black beyond it. "Put the phone away," he said. His rings clicked as he stepped closer. "The scene needs your fear real. You can't act blind with a light in your fist." Emma kept the beam up. She swung it toward his voice. The casting director stopped in the glow, red jacket, gray hair, eyes half-shut against the light. He did not blink away. He smiled, patient, like a man who had won this argument three times before. "My other actor is already in place," Vincent said. "He works best when the girl can't see him coming. Turn it off, and you're my star. Keep it on, and I tear up your contract." Emma's throat went tight. The role was everything. She had signed for it, followed him underground for it. But her light had shown her the masked man on the stairs. Without it, she would not know when he moved. She made a choice. She would not go blind for him. But she would not lose the role either. "You want fear," Emma said. "I'll give you fear. But I control the light." She turned, sweeping the beam across the set. It caught a huge green backdrop stretched on a metal frame behind the ride, bright and flat. She stepped toward it, keeping her back to the vivid wall so nothing could hide there. Then she swept the beam wide, once, and killed it herself. Dark. She counted her breath. She snapped the light back on and pointed it fast into the shadows to her left. The masked man stood six feet away. Blue coveralls. Pale mask. Two black slits fixed on her. He had crossed half the floor in the dark, silent, closing the gap she'd guessed he would close. Emma did not scream. She held the beam on him and let her real terror shake into her voice. "That's my mark," she said, loud, for Vincent. "I light when I choose. I see him every time. And you get every second of this on film." Vincent was quiet. Then he laughed, low and pleased. "Clever girl." He clapped once. "Fine. Keep your little light. The camera loves a fighter more than a victim." Emma had won. The role was hers, the flashlight still in her hand. But the masked man had not stepped back. He tilted his head, studying her new rule, learning it. Vincent had agreed too easily. Somewhere above, a heavy door scraped shut, and the stairs behind her were gone from the dark.