CHAPTER SIX
FAIRYTALE, PART TWO: THE WAR
09 EXT. BATTLEGROUND WOODS - NIGHT 09
THE GIRL takes the sword, turns from the dying SOLDIER and runs as fast as she can right through the middle of the war! Bombs explode all around her. HUMANS and CREATURES fight each other with sticks and swords and torches.
A group of humans starts running right behind the girl with their weapons drawn. It looks like they're trying to catch her! But she turns away just in time and the creatures leap out of the bushes and attack them.
8:40 PM.
A.J. gunned the four-wheeler down a firebreak in the nighttime woods. The only illumination came from seven strategically placed work lamps powered by sixteen extension cords... and light from the crescent moon.
Saddled backwards, I squeezed the seat with my thighs and clutched the camera with every muscle my fingers offered.
Mara grabbed the ketchup-stained sword from Whit's extended hand and sheathed it.
“Run!” the solider shouted.
And she did, tearing through the forest behind our motorized dolly. Her look of terror was amplified by the rattling image and the surrounding commotion, and in the background, Whitney clutched his chest, raised his hand to the heavens, then died.
“Humans!” I shouted. “Action!”
“Grrraaaaaaaaaa!” Ryan Brosh lead the charge of twelve boys, leaping three at a time from the bushes to the path behind the terrified girl. (Ryan--without my permission--had rallied a group of high-school buddies by flashing a stolen photo of Mara. The boys agreed to don burlap ponchos and silly hats... if it meant chasing a beautiful girl with tiki-torches and makeshift swords. Scott, Martin and Dale were cousins on my Dad's side who made the four-hour trip from Sandusky, just to be extras in my movie. The Bullard kids--Zach and Sean--rounded out the human battalion with plastic swords they brought from home.)
A.J. cackled like Dr. Frankenstein and picked up the pace.
“Keep her straight, Age!” I yelled as the tires neared the edge of the path and thin branches smacked the back of my head.
He shouted some reply, but the engine and crunching leaves muffled his words.
“Fireworks!” I screamed and the path blossomed with a brilliant orange surge of Mr. Greenfield's Roman Candles. To our left, Whit's dad lit the fuse on a mortar--wedged in the dirt to look like a grounded grenade--and the explosion echoed with a blistering pop that flung blue sparks in every direction. (Somewhere in the darkness, my father was standing guard with buckets of water.)
Mara jolted as if the timed explosions were spontaneous.
Through the viewfinder, my scene looked wonderfully chaotic; just as I imagined.
At the last mark (indicated by the camouflaged deer stand), I screamed my final cue, “Creatures! Go!”
Mara flashed one last look of horror, then darted left off the path into the foliage, not a second before thirteen masked beasts barreled from the right in an epic clash with the humans. (The creatures were mostly girls draped in gender-masking cloaks made from cheese-cloth and dirt. I placed Mara in charge of recruiting extras, which she delegated to Livy by promising beauty tips and the coolest slumber party of all time. Kimmy and Haley joined the ranks first, then bribed eight more girls with tales of a killer slumber party and high-school boys in medieval costumes. Not only did Livy gather the troops, but she hollowed every eye with black paint and darkened every mouth red.)
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The Accidental Siren
General FictionMara Lynn is the most beautiful girl in the world. James Parker is the ordinary boy who discovers her power. Set on the beaches of Michigan in 1994, the book depicts the joys and consequences of young love as Mara and James meet, shoot a movie, fend...
