Moonlight Films
Middle of nowhere. 10 PM. Frank Iero is at the bar of the umpteenth motel during his long-ass trip state to state.
He doesn’t like his job, but he needs something to do to survive, at least until he finds a better job: he’s a sales representative and, although he likes travelling and driving for hours, it’s boring like hell because he’s always alone and his clients are rarely collaborative.
Frank is staring at his third drink of the night, poking mechanically at the ice cubes, when an anxious man sits at the stool near his, simply ordering his drink and not saying a word more. The man looks like he’s suffering, he has deep and purple bags under the wide eyes, the face looks emaciated and utterly pale, he breathes heavily. When his drink finally arrives, the man swallows it down in a gulp and slams a bunch of bills on the counter, leaving the bar hurriedly. Frank can only look astonished at the fluttering black coat of that odd man, following him with the eyes till he exits the bar.
Returning to his drink, Frank notices there’s a plain business card, with “Moonlight Films - 555-0348” neatly printed on the paper: it must have fallen from the man’s wallet, but it’s too late to give it back. Turning the card, he reads the words ’30 sec’, ‘It’s moonlit’, ‘1 week’ written in a rushed handwriting; puzzled, Frank puts the card in his jacket pocket with a shrug and heads to the parking lot, to smoke a bit at the fresh air.
Relaxing at the feeling of the burnt tobacco filling his nostrils, Frank takes in his surroundings, watching other business men driving in and out the motel parking lot, ready to spend a lonely night or, if they’re lucky, in nice company of a more or less cute whore.
Trying to get another cigarette, he feels the smooth and rectangular surface of the business card lost by the strange man at the bar. Frank re-reads the telephone number and the notes in the back, trying to decipher what they could mean; ’30 sec’ may be the length of the call or of the recorded message you’re going to listen to, or the time you have to wait before talking; ‘It’s moonlit’…what is moonlit? Is that a riddle? Is that a password? And what should ‘1 week’ mean? You can phone back within a week? Or you’ll die in a week, like that creepy Japanese girl of “The Ring” likes to tell to whoever watches her goddamned videotape?
Frank has always been more curious than a monkey. He HAS to find out what’s behind the “Moonlight Films”, uncaring of risking his own life in case it turns out it’s some illegal activity or something.
He’s wasted too much time, he has to call that number and start to make his brain cells work.
Oh, great: whenever he needs it urgently, his cellphone’s battery is soon to expire. Not wanting the phone to die right in the middle of the call, Frank looks for a payphone and finds it out of the main entrance of the motel; once he has inserted some coins, he dials the number and promptly somebody picks the phone on the other line.
“Hello?” Frank says out of habit, but he knows he has to wait. Silence. He listens to thirty seconds of…nothing.
“Is the road from life to death dark?” a monotone voice asks out of nowhere, surprising Frank a bit. With the heart pounding fast for being startled, he glances at the business card he still has in hand and turns it, reading out loud the second line of scribbles, “It’s moonlit”.
“Parker Street 23, apartment 2D,” the voice says dryly, before hanging up.
Frank is weirded out by the odd call. There IS a Parker Street in the city he arrived a few hours earlier: what should Frank do once he’s at that address? Get more instructions? Receive something? Kill somebody???
Better sleep on it.
---
It’s kind of pointless saying that Frank doesn’t sleep well, he stares at the ceiling for hours, wondering what the hell there is at the apartment in Parker Street. He conveniently wrote the address down before tucking himself under the covers, just in case he’d forget it, but it’s indelible in his mind: he keeps repeating inner self what the man said, the address, his own conjectures. He’s already obsessing over this “Moonlight Films” thingy, only a couple of hours after the ill-looking man lost a business card at the bar…He feels he must solve this mystery and get over it very soon.
---
Today is the day for Frank to get it over with Parker Street and the Moonlight brainteaser.
Looking back and forth the paper where he wrote the address and the address plate, he’s a bit perplexed by the crumbling building. Oh, but it’s obvious, every good horror movie has some scenes set in tumbledown edifices, yeah, it must be something like that.
After stepping on the short staircase, Frank faces a rather long and large hallway, dimly lit by weak naked lamps dangling from the ceiling. Checking again the note, he reaches the end of the corridor and climbs the stairs to reach the second floor.
2A…2B…2C…here we are, 2D: Frank takes a long breath and turns the sticky knob, opening the door on a small and dirty apartment.
Once inside, the smell of tobacco and rotting hits his nostrils, making him gag enough to walk hurriedly to the cracked windows, inhaling urgently some fresh air. After recovering a bit from the stench, Frank looks around the miserable room, the wrinkled and ripped wallpaper, bits of bare wall, brown stains of unexplained origin on the walls, on the floor and especially on the carpet.
A paper bag on the old coffee table catches his attention: getting closer to it, he notices there’s “Frank Iero” written on the bag in red sharpie. Opening it with shaky hands, he fishes a videotape without labels or anything; checking again inside the bag, Frank spots a ripped off sheet of paper with “$10.99” written in the same red sharpie of his name on the bag. Surprised, he snatches a ten and a one bills from his wallet, because he doesn’t have coins enough to pay, and leaves the money on the table before grabbing the paper bag with the videotape, ready to leave the stinking room.
The knob doesn’t turn, Frank can’t open the door; he even tries to break the door down pushing it with the shoulder or kicking it, but with no chance. Frank can’t help but starting to panic a bit for what he thinks is the best prank somebody has ever pulled, wonderfully organized and played.
His gaze goes involuntarily back to the coffee table, where he can still see the eleven dollars he left. Moving towards it, he stares at the money and at the paper bag he still has in the hand: rummaging in every pocket he has, Frank finally has the 99 cents needed and replaces the videotape with the money, leaving on the table the bag with the charge and, bare videotape in hand, he heads back to the door that finally opens. Frank doesn’t want to stay in that room and in that building any longer and runs downstairs back to his car, driving fast to return at the motel.
---
With his heart still pounding rapidly, Frank slams the door of his room shut, throwing the videotape on the bed and heading straight to the minibar. He needs something strong, like, yesterday.
Gulping a mini bottle of vodka, Frank heavily sits in the armchair and stares at the videotape on the bed, biting his thumb nail nervously. Why has he taken it? Why has he even paid for it? And why, essential question, the door didn’t open and he was forced to leave the paper bag with his name on it and exactly $10.99 in it?!
He’s torn: he doesn’t want to watch the videotape because he’s still creeped out enough by the rather spooky experience he just lived, but he wants to know more about the “Moonlight Films” and see if what he did was worth it.
---
The chamber is all on the tones of brown and red. The wallpaper looks dirty and too thick to be simple paper; if you squint more at it ,you’ll notice what look like moles and possibly hairs, and the more you stare at it, the more you’re inclined to think that the stains look like blood. The room is well furnished, with tons of ornaments on almost every surface, but they all look too…soft.
All of a sudden appears a tall man wearing all black, dragging another man who’s fighting lazily to get free, like he’s been drugged.
The man still standing opens a drawer and takes out a slim case. In the background there are the moans of the man on the floor, struggling against whatever they gave him to make him innocuous, and the sickening noise of flesh against flesh when the drawer has been opened and closed. A low thud follows the case after it’s thrown on the nearby table, and the man in the black hoodie uncoils the case open, revealing shining and perfectly kept tools, from scalpels to forceps to cleavers.
The soon-to-be-butcher kneels in front of the laying man, taking all the time to undress him; he then chooses with confidence a scalpel and, again on the floor, facing the camera, he slowly traces an ‘x’ on the pale body of the laying man, who twists his face in pain but unable to scream too loud because of the drugs he’d been forced to get.
With expert hands and using his tools like they were extensions of his fingers, the slaughter cuts and removes muscles, bones and organs, tears the skin off the body, being careful not to let the victim die immediately. He’s unaffected by the pained screams of his prey, who’s now feeling what’s going on after the drugs lost effect; the cries and begs are ignored, until the shock and the hemorrhage finally set in and cause the victim to faint, suffering the torture without any more conscious pain, till the death dawns on him, somehow freeing him.
Grabbing other instruments from the case, the murder becomes a skilled artisan who assembles, sews, combines the poor remains of the victim in well done but repugnant furniture.
Soaking in blood, the butcher stands up and arranges his new decorations here and there in the room; he then makes his way to the camera, switching it off.
---
The TV is blank, the videorecorder is blinking a green 00.32.28.
Frank is staring at the screen speechless. Has he seriously just watched a murder and dissecting to make pieces of furniture? He doesn’t bother to switch the TV or the VCR off, he simply bolts to the bathroom, vomiting violently in the toilet; every scene he just saw is still so vivid in his memory, the agonizing screams of the victim are ringing in his head, making his own blood thump in his ears. Unsteadily, Frank stands up and crawls to the sink to refresh his face, then stares at his own reflection in the mirror: bloodshot eyes, white skin, hair stick to his forehead both for the sweat and the water.
He makes his way back to the bedroom on uncertain legs, sitting on the armchair with a shaky sigh. The TV is right in front of him, the green numbers on the recorder are stabbing his eyes, remembering him he just watched a thirty-two minutes length homicide with consequent crafting of a chair out of bones, a couple of pillows out of skin stuffed with some flesh, a vase made with other flesh. That explains the dark colors of the room, the soft edges of the furnishings, the wrinkled surface of desiccated skin that papered the walls.
Anger and disgust finally kick in and Frank throws himself on the videorecorder, throwing the videotape on the other side of the room once the device finally spits it out. He cries his eyes out, bawling hysterically and fighting the urge to puke at any particular his mind keeps showing him.
---
The next days go on with anguish, Frank can’t make himself leave this fucking city yet because he has to give the videotape back in less than a week. He hasn’t watched it anymore, by the way.
He doesn’t want to think about what could happen if it’s not returned within a week…If whoever in the video has been able to kidnap, kill and torture somebody like that, Frank doesn’t want to be the next fucking victim only because the due date hasn’t been fulfilled.
Now he can totally sympathize for the man at the bar, his own reflection in the mirror is as pale and traumatized as the other man’s. Frank can’t help but blame that man for letting him in that situation: if only he hadn’t lost that damned business card! …but who does he want to kid, it’s all his own curiosity’s fault.
---
The seventh day has arrived and Frank can finally get rid of that hell of a videotape.
He wants to forget that city, that apartment, that video…all that blood, and those screams…Geez, he’s going to puke on the mat at the entrance of 2D.
Frank hurriedly pushes the videotape in the mail slot of the door and sprints back at his car, lighting the business card on fire and throwing it out of the window car, driving off as fast as he can, looking forward for his business appointment due in five hours.
He hopes his mind won’t wander back at the videotape during his long and lonely drive.
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A plain business card lands on the concrete, the borders a little scrunched and scorched. “Moonlight Films” is printed right in the middle.