THE BLACK ALBUM: A Hollywood Horror Story by Carlton Kenneth Holder Page A

fog.
The house with the stained-glass window sits far in the background. The record,
covered in plastic, sits in a freshly dug hole. Atop a small hill, Henry
shovels dirt onto the flagitious object, burying it deep. Henry can feel
himself slipping again, more now. His skin is electric, on fire. Henry can feel
the demon Jeremy’s soul beginning to take full possession of his body, seeping
in one pore at a time. But the boy has a trick of his own this All Hallow’s
Eve. Henry lifts his mournful and repentant face heavenward. “Fight the Devil.”
    If he can’t have his body, no one
will. The boy puts the gun to his head. He only hesitates for a second before
pulling the trigger. The camera pans away. We see the muzzle flash light up the
night. We hear the gunshot and its ghastly echo.
    The evil crawls back down into
Hell.
    At least for another year.
     
    In the prologue finale, we return
to the home's basement. The needle has reached the end of the record. No music
is playing now, just the constant repetitive scraping of needle against empty
dead vinyl. The camera drifts through with voyeuristic effect, slowly revealing
a concert poster hanging on the wall. It reads MATHALUH LIVE. Below this: IN
CONCERT (with play dates). Only the ‘in concert’ has been crossed out and a
dripping, bloody, finger-smudged ‘s’ has been added to live. Mathaluh Lives!
End of prologue. Opening credits run.
     
    Loveless sat back from his
laptop, content with his writing. Hell, the thing was practically writing
itself. There were moments when he felt as if he was only the vessel through
which some outside force was working. But that was just his imagination, the
filmmaker reasoned. As much as he wanted to continue writing, the child in
Loveless won out. He wanted to go out and be among the costumed denizens of the
night on the wickedest night of the year. Loveless convinced himself that this
was research. Besides, it couldn’t be more perfect. This year Halloween fell on
a Saturday.
    The filmmaker drove to the
touristy part of the mountain: the Lake that was Arrowhead’s namesake. This
community relied heavily on weekend and summer tourists to consume overly
expensive goods and pricey meals. When you lived in Los Angeles and couldn’t
get away to take a true vacation, Lake Arrowhead was a nice little weekend
getaway, woodsy, rustic and romantic. You could stay at a resort style hotel or
one of the many quaint bed-and-breakfasts, sail on the lake or ski the slopes.
Holidays always drove the number of visiting out-of-towners up. Halloween
falling on a weekend was an extra boon.
    Loveless parked and got out. The area
was full of shops and restaurants. Aside from the weekenders, it was also
overflowing with local kids and their parents, teenagers, and their friends.
Most of the costumes were homemade, some store bought. Still, Loveless could
appreciate the ingenuity of many of the outfits. Vampy vampiresses were a
popular choice for female teens weaned on “Twilight” and “The Vampire Diaries.”
Teenage boys reveled in zombie masksor glued on latex that looked like
mottled dead flesh hanging off their pimply pubescent faces. The little kids
were all worked up in their ghost, wizard, and superhero costumes as their
parents chased patiently after them. The lake was where you went to show off
your costume after knocking on doors around town.
    The filmmaker, wandering through
this horror pageant, found himself near the end of the lake. In a dark corner
there was a video game arcade. The neon sign above announced “Gary's Arcade
Asylum.” The outside of the establishment was painted black with popular video
game characters gracing the walls around the storefront window. Inside you
could see not just the usual arcade games, but also desktop computer consoles
set-up for popular online games. The arcade employees inside - all young - wore
black. Heavy metal rock music blared out through the open front door. It seemed
a popular youth habitat. A