: Prompting Needed_

Cast Call

Chris rapped on the door once more and grimaced at the soreness in his hand. His knuckles were still sore from the night before. Catching himself on his fist at the ice rink had not been the greatest way to end a date. He glanced down at the clipboard again. The thick black lines that struck out most of the actors' names made the page look like a barcode. The only three to not have black over them matched the line of doors he now faced. The name plate on the one to his left read 'Lucian Mark'. Chris sighed. He had always thought that the act of renaming yourself for the ease of advertising was a silly tradition. Eventually, practical names were going to run out and the recycling would begin. As clear by the last name 'Mark', recycling was well underway. He knocked again on the door with his aching hand. The silence that answered was starting to become a trend today. No one wanted to be up for a five-in-the-morning cast call but here they were. No, maybe not here in the case for 'Lucian'. He knocked again. Wincing and shaking his hand, he called out, "Mister Mark? We're on set in ten." He leaned in and pressed his ear onto the door. There was no sound coming from within. Fine. "I'll be right back, sir."

He stepped across the hall to Alyson Shanks' room and knocked. Immediately, a loud thump, the sound of something shattering, and two voices crying out in exaggerated dismay came out from underneath the door. "Yeah, who is it?" Miss Shanks called. She giggled and 'shh'ed' whomever she was with. A deep voice answered her, and they both began giggling again.

"Miss Shanks, it's nine 'til on set." Chris tried to stretch his hearing beyond the door. Who was she rolling around in there with?

"Coming!" This brought a fresh peal of laughter.

"Out in a jiffy," the man called out. Something else fell onto the floor beyond the door and then a frenzied series of cries and impacting sounds started to shake the door.

Chris stepped back and crossed off Shanks' name. Good for them. He adjusted his pants against the stirring he plaintively ignored and stepped back across and forward to the last door, Mister Greg William Clark. Chris switched up and tapped his other hand on the door this time, sparing his knuckles. The door opened before the third knock and Mister Clark stood just within the room, fully dressed in a layered suit in midnight tones of red and brown velvet. A thickly incensed air fell out and over Chris, and he coughed once after a sharp gasp before he could raise a hand. Clark frowned, his mighty whiskers framing his chin. He looked as if he had slept in the makeup of the oil baron he was to portray. Chris's nose wrinkled. What was that smell? And why did it turn his stomach?

"Casting call in... seven, right?" Clark looked up from checking his watch. The older man's voice was smooth and – for some reason – sounding very European instead of normal, flat Midwestern American. He must be deep in method, Chris thought as he tried to look past the other man's shoulder.

"Are you burning incense in there," Chris asked. He tried taking in another breath but something in the scent tickled his throat again and he turned to the side this time to cough. This time he felt a small wretch dig at his gut.

"No." Mister Clark walked further out into the hall and turned to look left and right down both lengths. "But you know what? Come here." His arm shot out to grab Chris by the arm. Chris jerked back, his back hitting the opposite wall with a 'whoomph'. "Don't be like that, you little scamp." Mister Clark leapt forward and snagged Chris's arm and then twisted his body to throw the aide into the open door. Chris fell headlong into the odiferous room and skidded to a stop on his side. Whatever was causing that smell was now close by and was screwing its way into his nostrils. His head rolled wildly to find the source. Something in the smell reminded him of the time he had found his cat behind the washer machine. It was sweet, strong, and made his airways want to close instinctually. He gagged, bile coating the back of his throat.

"What the hell, man?" Chris pushed himself up and felt the metal prongs of the clipboard beneath him dig into his palm. It was then he saw what was causing the stench.

Lucian Mark's head stared from under Mister Clark's makeup table towards a spot right above Chris's head with a glassy gleam to his dead eyes. Above his eyebrows were the words Theta Chi branded into his skin. Chris suddenly felt very detached, his thoughts circling idly as he wondered if the marks had been made by a heated clothes hanger. He supposed it must have been due to the width of the 'writing'. Where Mister Mark's body should have been was nothing but a faintly wet pile of human flesh and blood. All of this was ringed neatly by a collection of herbs and leaves that were smoldering in a circle around the man's remains.

"You see?" Mister Clark said, his fake British accent dripping with forced congeniality. "That's not incense. It's potpourri. A vast difference," he said with a roll of the r, "I can assure you."

Chris vomited, his stomach contents splashing on the cheap carpet in an uncontrolled torrent. Amid the carnage and dried leaves, he quavered before sitting up and scooting back away from the velveted monster he now recognized as an unhinged murderer. Inconsequential things were starting to grab his attention as his heart rate rose and his vision sharpened. His hand stung from the clipboard's puncture wounds and his palm was smearing more blood onto the floor of this cheap-assed hotel. His mark-down sheet looked more like an abstractionist's painting of a zebra now. He shot a glance to Mister Clark who now stood a mere foot away. In his hand was a blackened clothes hanger (You were right, Chris.) and a very saturated towel that dripped too-dark blood on the floor. We're never getting our money back from this place, he thought stupidly. He paused, his breath holding against the potpourri the stench of singed flesh. "Do we rent or buy our space here," he blurted stupidly. His heart raced, he could feel each pulse against his teeth. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. "That was a dumb thing to-"

Mister Clark paused from his advance. "I'm sorry. What?"

The last stack of coherent thought fell away within Chris at that moment and his mouth began to work like a fish's. He felt light-headed. He felt weak. The edges of his vision were starting to creep in and close around him. He was alone. He was-

"WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FIFTY-SHADES OF GREY IS GOING ON IN HERE?" Miss Shank's voice was loud and sharp, and it cut through Chris's encroaching brain fog, a beacon of sane light from an unlikely lighthouse. He jumped. Something in his chest moved aside so his lungs could remember how to breathe. He screamed and pointed his punctured hand at Mister Clark as the actor turned to brandish his burnt hanger at the newcomer. Little flecks of blood flung from Chris's hand, and he watched as the drops colored darker red points into the man's velvet tunic.

"I... uh..." Mister Clark's voice wavered, it's accent completely gone and replaced with its flat, Midwestern tilt. "Shit."

The smallest pop of compressed air filled the silence between. Mister Clark jerked as if stabbed then began convulsing as he fell stiffly to the floor. His breath came out in sharp jerks as his muscles tensed and locked him into an electrified pile of spasming nerves. Twin points of metal jutted from his chest that led to a stun gun that was aimed from behind Miss Shank's shoulder. Chris gasped and curled even further into the back of the small room to avoid the flailing of Mister Clark's limbs. He watched as a man – the night security guard, Chris realized – stepped out from around Miss Shank to walk towards Mister Clark.

Chris's brain let loose a flood of emotions he couldn't catalogue. His mouth worked a bit in silence before he finally said, "Cast's call in four."