Night of Tara - by Ross Eron Thompson

MONSTERNUTS MOVIE REVIEW: GATORSAURUS

October 13, 20—

By: Conner Creighton

Today on MonsterNuts, we review Gatorsaurus, the latest cinematic effort from our favorite director, the lovely Tara Giallo.

For those of you unfamiliar with our site and our love affair with Tara Giallo, here's a quick recap. You all remember Tara Giallo as the adorable, precocious eight-year-old in the classic horror movie Necromancer, produced and directed by her father, legendary horror director Giorgio Giallo, creator of so many legendary classics – Hell Knight, The Blood Creek Hatchet Murders, The House on Farmer's Road, just to name a few – and how we all thought it was so awesome that Tara was following in her father's footsteps, jumping headfirst into the horror genre.

After all, if there's one thing the horror industry is lacking these days, it's true horror stars. Gone are the days of stars like Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Fay Wray, Lon Chaney (both of them), Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, et al. Today, the same actors you see in horror movies are the same actors you see in any other movies. No one specializes in horror anymore.

Unfortunately for us, after Necromancer, Tara decided to embark on a number of failed ventures outside of the horror realm such as an abysmal attempt at becoming a teen pop star, supporting roles in a series of direct-to-video action movies starring her long-time boyfriend, rapper Zack “Freaky Z” Matheson (including Big City Hustlas and Bullets & Benjamins), and even a series of hokey self-defense workout videos.

Then, three years ago, our prayers were seemingly answered when, shortly after her mother supermodel Bella Carina-Giallo was killed in a tragic automobile accident, leading Giorgio Giallo to become a recluse, Tara Giallo announced that she would be carrying on her father's legacy – producing, directing, and starring in a series of low-budget horror movies. But our hopes were quickly dashed. Yes, Tara Giallo was indeed directing and starring in horror movies, but these were horror movies of the worst kind: zero budget, community theater acting, and PlayStation 1 CG effects. It's movies like Space Python, Grizzly vs. Sasquatch, and her latest effort, Gatorsaurus, that give horror movies such a bad reputation among the general public.

Well, that rant went on longer than I expected, so I'm going to have to cut my review of Gatorsaurus very short. Here it is: DON'T SEE IT! IT SUCKS! Thank you for your time.

Seriously though, don't see it. It really does suck.

*        *        *

“Where the hell does this guy get off?”

Tara Giallo was sitting in a rolling office chair in front of a computer screen in her Lakeside Hills micro-mansion reading an online review of her latest movie. Her ex-boyfriend Freaky Z was walking by getting ready to leave for a live performance at a nightclub downtown.

Taking notice of Tara’s frustrated outburst, Freaky Z said, “What’s the matter, babe?”

“Oh, nothing,” Tara replied, “I shouldn't take these reviews so personally. It’s just one jackass's opinion.”

“Are you sure you won’t go to the club tonight to see me perform? This is my big comeback show,” Freaky Z said.

 Tara had ended her relationship with Freaky Z shortly after her mother’s death. Their entire relationship had been tainted by years of sordid tabloid reports of physical and verbal abuse, but really the only abuse going on in the relationship was his abuse of alcohol and drugs. Now that he was out of rehab, Tara, out of the kindness of her heart, was letting him stay with her temporarily until he could get his career back on track. The performance at Club XYZ tonight was supposed to be the first step in his comeback.

Tara sighed and said, “No, I really need to finish this new screenplay. I want to have it done before we start filming next week.”

“But you have time to read lame-ass movie reviews?”

“You know I really don't like your type of music.”

“Aw, baby! Why you have to be like that?” Freaky Z responded, putting his hand over his heart, “That really hurts, you know?”

With yet another sigh, Tara rolled her eyes and said, “I don't even know why I keep you around.”

          Freaky Z kissed her on the cheek and walked towards the door, saying, “’Cause I'm irresistible like that!”

          After he was gone, Tara said out loud to herself, “Seriously, why do I keep him around?”

Tara closed out the MonsterNuts window and went back to the screenplay she was typing, entitled Army of Yetis. Filming was to begin shortly in Canada, with Canada substituting for the Himalayas. The film dealt with survivors of a plane crash having to contend not only with the harsh winter elements, but also with a tribe of fearsome, man-eating yetis.

She knew in her heart that the reviewer from MonsterNuts was right. Her movies were bad – terrible, in fact – and unworthy of the Giallo name. But they had enough of a cult following to turn a profit, and that was all she really cared about at this stage in her career. Sure, she could make more money by copying her father's formula, but that was exactly the thing she didn't want to do. That meant no slashers, no zombies, and no demons from hell. She stuck with concepts that her father had never touched: giant killer reptiles, nature gone amok, and – yes – man-eating yetis.

As she typed away at her keyboard, Tara noticed a glimmer of light reflected in the window that faced the street in front of her. Then she heard footsteps on the hardwood floor behind her. She looked up at the glass and saw the reflected image of a large man holding a silver hatchet high above his head. In one elegant motion, she slid her chair to the left just as the silver hatchet sundered the cool air (where her head would've been) before crashing down onto the desk, and with her right leg, swept the would-be killer’s legs out from under him, sending him careening headlong onto the floor, cracking his forehead on the edge of the wooden desk as he fell.

Tara grabbed her cell phone and sprinted to the kitchen, frantically trying to dial 911 as she ran. She recognized the would-be killer as Hatchetman, the villain from one of her father's early movies, The Blood Creek Hatchet Murders – or at least someone dressed like him. The dingy, bloodstained T-shirt and blue jeans, the long, greasy black hair, the Neanderthalic physique, and – more than anything else – the distinctive cardboard clown mask were unmistakable.

In her panic, she misdialed twice before finally reaching a 911 dispatcher, but by then Hatchetman had regained his composure, and came barreling through the kitchen door waving his hatchet wildly above his head and grunting incoherently. She slid open a drawer and began hurling silverware at the fiend. This slowed him down long enough for her to grab a large kitchen knife and make her way to the refrigerator. When Hatchetman was close enough, she quickly open the freezer door, slamming it into his face. He stammered backwards, dropping his hatchet. Tara took advantage of his dazed state and stabbed him repeatedly in the chest. Hatchetman screamed in pain, and then, much to Tara's shock and amazement, he began to melt away like a candle in a microwave oven until all that was left of him was a puddle of slimy, green ooze.

Officers Darius Silver and James Browning were sent in response to Tara's 911 call. Officer Browning seemed dumbfounded by the whole situation, while Officer Silver seemed to insinuate that Tara was on some sort of hallucinogen, despite the evidence of the damaged desk, the scattered utensils, and the puddle of what appeared to be coagulated pond scum on the kitchen floor. Realizing the two officers were merely humoring her, Tara didn't argue as Officer Silver told her in a mock serious tone, “We'll keep our eyes peeled for any suspicious activity in the area, Ma'am. In the meantime, why don't you get some shut-eye and call us if anything else happens?”

“Well, that was a complete waste of time,” Tara muttered to herself as she made her way into her bedroom. She sat down on the edge of her bed for a moment, realizing that there was no way she was going to get any sleep at this time, but was still too shell-shocked to do much of anything else. She tried calling Freaky Z, but could only get his voicemail.

“Of course,” she thought to herself, “He’s probably in the middle of performing right now.”

In an instant, the stillness was shattered by the sound of someone smashing through the bedroom window. Tara turned to see someone dressed like Calvin Carver, the psychotic killer from her father's most successful film, The Thirteenth Hour. Again, the outfit was unmistakable: a blue track suit and a ghoulish rubber goblin mask. He held a meat cleaver in his hand, slicing the air wildly and menacingly as he chased Tara out of the bedroom and down the hall.

          Tara decided that this time the best course of action would be to get to the garage, where she kept her car – a yellow, late-model Ford Mustang – and get away from the house as quickly as possible. Clearly, she was being targeted by someone – or a group of someone's – who were fixated with her father's movies – and with her. She made it into the garage, locking the door behind her, only to find that all four tires on her Mustang had been slashed. Her first instinct was to pop the trunk and take out the car jack, but she quickly realized that with Calvin Carver just on the other side of the door, there was no way she would have time to change four tires, and besides she didn't have four spares.

At that moment, Calvin Carver broke through the door. Quickly, Tara jumped up onto the rear end of the car, leapt in the air, and brought the car jack crashing down onto Calvin Carver's head. She then opened the passenger-side door, lifted Carver’s head up onto the door jamb, and began slamming the door into his skull repeatedly, until he, like Hatchetman before, melted away into a puddle of green slime.

Tara put in another call to the police only to be patched through to Officer Silver, who this time flat out told her that she was either crazy or just making stuff up to try to get her name in the press, and that next time she should just skip the middleman and go straight to the tabloids with her story instead of bothering him.

Frustrated, Tara sat down on her sofa, but only for a minute or two before realizing that the longer she stayed in the house, the more likely she was to get attacked by another lunatic dressed like a character from one of her father's movies. Then, suddenly, a thought occurred to her. What if there was some kind of connection between this pair of home invasions and the scathing article she had read earlier on MonsterNuts? Could this all be some sort of sick stunt by these horror cinema cultists to scare her into making the type of movies they think she should be making? She was casually acquainted with the author of the Gatorsaurus review, MonsterNuts founder Conner Creighton, having attended several local horror movie conventions in which he had taken part as well. He certainly was passionate about his favorite pastime, but passionate enough to hire goons to dress up like movie monsters and break into her house, threatening her with bodily harm? It sounded crazy, but then again so did everything else that had happened so far this night.

Tara went to her computer and did a search for Conner Creighton's address. She knew he lived in the same city, but not exactly where. It turned out to be clean over on the other side of town, on Creekside Drive. She obviously wasn't going to get anywhere in her car, so she called a taxicab.

Most people would have recognized by her demeanor that Tara was not in the mood for casual conversation, but this cab driver insisted on making small talk. Tara hoped that her disinterested, monosyllabic responses to his inquiries about her feelings towards the weather and the local football franchise would give him a hint, but it was not to be.

Then much to Tara's dismay the cab driver suddenly recognized her and said, “Hey, I know you! You were in that Space Cobra movie, weren't you?”

“Yes, that was me,” Tara hesitantly replied.

“Ha! I thought you looked familiar,” he laughed, “Yeah, that was a good one. Your dad used to make scary movies too, right?”

“Yes. Yes he did,” she told him.

“He did that one with the.—with the, uh—the guy that dressed like a knight and he killed people.”

“Hell Knight,” Tara said.

“Yeah, that one,” the cab driver continued, “I like that one. He’s the team mascot of his high school, and the football players are always picking on him and hazing him. So for an initiation ritual, they make wear his mascot uniform, which is a suit of armor ‘cause they’re the Knights, right? And they make him waterski in the armor, but when they’re pulling him behind the boat, his hands slip off the rope, and he sinks into the lake and drowns.”

          “I know,” Tara told him, “I've seen the movie a dozen times.”

“And so then on the anniversary, he comes back from the dead, and all those football players and their cheerleader girlfriends are camping out by the lake. So he starts killing them one by one out of revenge.”

          Tara started to tell him again that there was no need for him to detail the entire plot of the movie, as she had already seen it plenty of times, it being one of her father's more popular movies, but she stopped herself, figuring that he would probably keep going anyway no matter what she said.

“And he looks bad ass, you know? He’s big and buff, and he has that iron helmet, and that—that—what you call it? A mace! Like that guy!”

He pointed to a figure standing motionless in the middle of the road. As they got closer, Tara could see that the figure was dressed in a tattered school uniform, with iron gauntlets, grieves, and a medieval knight’s helmet, and did indeed hold a heavy mace in his hand – just like Jacob Knight from the movie Hell Knight. The cab driver, realizing that Jacob was standing still and making no effort to get out of the way of the cab, was about to swerve out of the way, when Jacob hurled his mace at the cab. The windshield shattered, and the mace slammed thunderously into the cab driver’s face, crushing his skull against the headrest. The cab veered to the right, barely missing Jacob Knight, who stood, unflinchingly, in the exact same spot on the black asphalt, as the car careened past him and into a drainage ditch on the side of the road.

Tara took a moment to regain her composure and then glanced out the back window to see Jacob slowly pacing toward the cab. She checked on the driver but he was gone – his head smashed into a fleshy, crimson pulp. She picked up the bloodied mace and exited the vehicle. Jacob was lumbering toward her at a snail’s pace, but she decided not to wait for him. Letting out a guttural scream, she brandished the mace with two hands and charged at him. When she got within striking distance, she leapt into the air and swung the mace at his head. But he blocked the weapon in midair with his left hand, and thrust his right palm into Tara’s chest, sending her flying backward, landing hard flat on her back in the grass. Within seconds, Jacob was standing over her. He wrested the mace from her grip, lifted it over his head, and brought it crashing down onto the ground. But Tara rolled out of the way just in time, scrambled to her feet, and ran back to the cab. She shattered the driver’s side window with her elbow and pulled the keys from the ignition, then ran around to the trunk, opened it, and looked for something she could use as a weapon. Just as Jacob came up behind her and lifted his mace in the air again, she turned and rammed a crowbar into his left eye. Jacob fell to the ground, letting out the most inhuman howls Tara had ever heard in her life.

Tara slammed the trunk shut and ran back to the driver’s side door. She opened it, and pulled the cab driver’s body out, laying it on the ground. “I hate to do this to you, Bud,” she apologized, “But I have no intention of joining you anytime soon.” She climbed in the driver’s seat, fired up the motor, and gingerly made her way out of the ditch and back onto the road. She hadn't noticed before, but the cab driver had been taking the long way around, driving along the outskirts of the city rather than through downtown to get to Creekside Drive. There was hardly anything along this stretch of road except for vacant lots, cornfields, empty wooden buildings that serve as fireworks stands in the weeks before Fourth of July or New Year's Eve, but stood abandoned at this time of year, and a few old farmhouses. Had she paid attention to one particular old farmhouse and cornfield, she would've noticed a familiar-looking scarecrow slowly turn its head and watch her pass by.

“What was that address again?” Tara thought to herself, pulling from her hip pocket the scrap of paper upon which she had written Conner Creighton's address. Just as she began to glance at the paper, someone popped up in the seat behind her and shouted in her ear, “Pull over, bitch! I gotta take a piss!”

          Tara slammed on the brakes, and the person behind her went flying through the empty space where the windshield used to be, landing with a thud a few yards in front of the cab. The lanky figure rose slowly to its feet, and Tara immediately recognized it as Frankie Crowe, undoubtedly one of her father's most memorable creations.

          In the movie The House on Farmer’s Road, a farmer named Frankie Crowe was lynched by the local townspeople after he shot and killed a pair of local teenagers who had driven onto his property to make out in the back seat of their car. However, because of a pact he had made with the devil, Frankie returned from the grave in the form of a demonic scarecrow to take revenge on the townspeople with his newfound supernatural powers. Tara didn't know whether or not this in-the-flesh version of Frankie Crowe would have those same powers, but she didn’t want to stick around to find out. So she hit the gas and attempted to overrun the scarecrow standing in front of her.

But just as the cab was about to make impact, Frankie jumped up onto the hood and stretched his right arm out to the side. A long, gleaming, razor-sharp scythe blade emerged from his sleeve, and he thrust it at Tara who ducked out of the way, jerking the steering wheel, and sending the cab careening into a telephone pole. Once again, Frankie was thrown several yards from the cab giving Tara a chance to get out of the car and rummage through the trunk once more. She saw some road flares and a can of gasoline, but before she could grab them, she saw Frankie running toward her, this time with two scythe blades – one protruding from each sleeve. But as soon as she spotted him, he stopped dead in his tracks, staring past her down the road

She turned, and there, much to her surprise, was Jacob Knight. He had removed the crowbar from his eye socket, and was now holding it in his left hand, with his mace in the right.

“Ooh, I've been waiting a long time for this!” Frankie exclaimed.

Frankie charged at Jacob and swung at him with one of his scythes, but Jacob nonchalantly parried the attack with the crowbar, batted Frankie out of the way with the mace, and continued staggering in Tara's direction. Tara, meanwhile, was getting back into the driver’s seat of the taxi.

“Oh, no you don't,” Frankie shouted. His tongue stretched out from his head, wrapped around Tara's leg, and pulled her away from the cab. Jacob raised his mace to strike her. His tongue springing back into his mouth like a rubber band, Frankie jumped in front of him and said, “Uh uh, I saw her first.”

Again, Jacob knocked Frankie out of the way with his mace. Enraged, Frankie stretched his arms out in a Christ-like pose and said, “Enough playing around.”

          Jacob stopped and looked down, as the very ground in front of him began to stir. Two pale gray hands clawed their way out of the loamy soil. Within seconds the rotting, undead corpse of a cheerleader rose out of the ground and stared Jacob Knight in the face.

“Remember me, Jacob?” the zombie said, “It's me, Cindy. You had a crush on me, remember? But you killed me anyway. Why did you do it, Jacob? Why?”

Jacob stared, puzzled, at Cindy the cheerleader. Then more zombie versions of Jacob's victims began to emerge from the ground around him, all chanting phrases along the lines of, “Remember me?” and “Why did you kill me, Jacob?” Jacob screamed as the zombies all grabbed him and slowly pulled him down with them, as they returned back under the dirt from which they had arisen.

“Don't you just love high school reunions?” Frankie joked, turning to Tara, but his smile turned upside-down when Tara threw a road flare at him shouting, “How about a little fire, Scarecrow?”

Frankie's flannel and denim attire quickly went up in flames. He yelled in pain, screaming, “You bitch!” and ran straight toward Tara. She tossed the can of gasoline at him, and he caught it, stopped running, stared at the can for a second, then looked back at Tara, who had rolled under the car for safety. The gas can exploded, blowing Frankie into a myriad of flaming bits.

Tara rolled back out from under the car, observed the carnage, and said aloud, “Yes, that was smart. Just stand there staring at the can. Don't throw it away or anything.”

          Her celebration was short-lived, however, as she heard a rumbling under the earth behind her. She turned to see Jacob Knight clambering back to the surface. Looking around, she spotted one of Frankie's scythe blades lying on the ground near her. She picked it up and, as Jacob was halfway out of the ground, swung it with all her might and lopped off his head.

“Stay down this time,” she shouted, as she looked around at the remains of her fallen opponents, who, just like the previous two, began dissolving into green ooze.

          Tara got back in the cab, pulled away from the telephone pole, and headed back down the road.

The rest of Tara's journey to Creekside Drive was blissfully uneventful. She found Conner Creighton's house to be a quaint, split-level affair in a cul-de-sac, in what looked like it was, at one time, a nice suburban subdivision maybe forty or fifty years ago, but was now looking a little run down and shabby. As she walked up to the door, she realized that she looked a mess, but didn't really care. She knocked at the door twice before it was finally answered.

“Hi there,” Tara said to Conner Creighton, “You know me right?”

Conner stared at her for a second before saying, with a tone of quivering uncertainty, “Tara Giallo? What are you doing here?”

“Shut up and let me in,” she said, shoving him to the side and barging into the house before he even had a chance to respond.

          Conner stared in disbelief as Tara went straight to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of soda from the refrigerator, and began gulping it down.

          After chugging half the bottle at once, Tara wiped her lips, sighed a sigh of refreshment, and explained, “I just got attacked by Hatchetman, Calvin Carver, Jacob Knight, and Frankie Crowe.”

Conner was still speechless. Tara paused for a moment waiting for him to say something, and then finished the rest of the soda.

          “I don't know. Maybe it was just a bunch of guys dressed up like them,” Tara continued, “But the weird thing is, after I killed them they dissolved into some sort of green slime. It was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. And Jacob kept coming at me even after I stabbed him in the eye with a crowbar, just like in the movies. And Frankie seemed to have all of his demonic powers. He raised freaking zombies out of the ground, for God’s sake. It doesn't make any sense.”

          Finally, Conner got up the nerve to speak and asked, “So what does all this have to do with me?”

          “I don't know,” Tara said, “I just read your review of Gatorsaurus and it pissed me off. And somehow I got the crazy idea that you might have something do with this, or at least know something about it.”

Tara could tell just by looking at Conner that he was completely baffled, so she continued trying to justify her reason for being there, even though – now that she was actually saying it out loud – it sounded really asinine.

I just had this weird notion that maybe, since you so desperately want me to make the kind of movies that my father did, that you might hire a bunch of goons to dress up like those characters and frighten me into it.

          Conner raised an eyebrow and asked her, “Have you been taking any sort of – you know – medication?”

“I'm not on drugs!” she shouted, “God! Why does everyone keep thinking that?”

“Well,” Conner said, “You still have that Freaky Z guy living with you, don’t you? At least, that’s what Hollywood Tonight says.”

“He's clean now,” she explained, “He went to rehab. And I've never used that stuff. I get this crap all the time. People think just because I'm in the movie business that I must be on drugs.”

She added, sarcastically, “Because all celebrities are on drugs. Don't you know that?”

“All right, calm down. I’m sorry,” said Conner, “Here why don't you sit down? Would you like another soda?”

          “No, thanks,” Tara said, sitting down on the sofa. Conner sat down on the easy chair to her right. She buried her face in the palms of her hands and moaned, “Why is this happening to me? What did I ever do to anyone?”

          She looked up and spotted a peculiar-looking book sitting on Conner's coffee table. She picked it up and said to him, “Is this what I think it is?”

“It's the Diabolicron,” he said, “From Rise of the Undead, your father's first movie.”

Tara began turning the ragged, yellowed, parchment pages of the leather-bound tome, skimming the handwritten medieval text and studying the hand-drawn images of demons, witches, and werewolves found within.

“Is this real?” she asked Conner.

A proud smile came over Conner's face. “Of course, it's real,” he said, “I bought it at a Hollywood memorabilia auction last month. It's one of three that were made for the film.”

“No, I mean is this a real medieval spell book?”

“Oh! No, no. It's just a movie prop,” Conner clarified, “It was handmade by Sam Timore.”

“Sam Timore!” Tara recollected, “He was the makeup artist and set designer on all of my father's early movies.”

“Yeah, didn’t they have some sort of falling out?” Conner asked.

Tara nodded and said, “They had some kind of disagreement over a script Sam had written and wanted my father to produce, but I don't know the specific details. But what I do know is, I don't think this book is just a movie prop. I think the spells are real. Look at this one here,” she said, turning to a particular page she had glanced at earlier, “It's a spell for bringing drawings and paintings to life. Why couldn't it work with images on film, like a character from a movie?”

Conner was taken aback. “You can't be serious,” he said, “That's impossible. There's no such thing as magic.”

“Sure there is,” said Tara, “My grandparents were from Eastern Europe. They knew all about magic and the old ways. They used to tell me about it when I was little. If Sam Timore really made this book, then he knows the spells. He could've used this spell to bring those characters to life and send them after me to get even with my father. I know where he lives. He lives in Stoneridge, just north of town.”

Tara stood up, tucked the book under her arm, grabbed Conner by the hand, and said, “Come on, let's go!”

Before Conner could react, the TV remote went flying across the room, shattering a glass picture frame hanging on the wall. Muffled, high-pitched giggles were heard all over the room. Tara and Conner both looked in the direction from which the remote had been launched and saw a diminutive, scaly, brownish-green, goblin-like creature with glowing, yellow eyes staring at them. Suddenly, more of the creatures began popping up all over the room, grabbing random objects, and tossing them at Tara and Conner.

“Creepies!” Conner cried to Tara as they ran toward the front door, dodging various flying objects – books, vases, and even furniture.

          “This is more than just creepy,” Tara snapped back, opening the door and running out in the yard, “This is dangerous!”

          “No, Creepies,” Conner reemphasized, “From your dad's movie Creepies. They were these little goblins that would—.”

          “Destroy cars?” Tara asked, pointing at the taxicab, which had been completely disassembled by about ten or twelve of the little gremlins. She looked at Conner and asked, “Do you have a car?”

          “Yeah, follow me,” he said, leading her to a carport housing a slightly-old Toyota Corolla. They jumped in and took off down the road as quickly as they could.

         

“All right, so we're going to Sam Timore’s house in Stoneridge, right?” Conner asked.

“Not yet,” Tara answered, “First, we need back up. You know where Club XYZ is?”

Conner answered in the affirmative and headed straight for the downtown club. When they arrived, Freaky Z had just finished up his set and was in his dressing room counting the money he had made for the show. Tara and Conner ran in, both out of breath.

“Zack! Thank goodness you're still here,” Tara exclaimed.

Before Zack could reply, the club manager walked in, and handed him a brown, paper package. He said, “This was just delivered here. It's for you,” and left.

“Zack, whatever you do, don't open that!” Tara shouted.

Conner threw in, “I'd do what she said. Whatever’s in that box, it's probably nothing good.”

“What the hell's going on here, Tara? Who is this clown?” Zack asked, tearing open the package.

Tara and Conner both yelled out at the same time, “No! Don't open it!”

But it was too late. Zack had unwrapped the package to reveal a red and yellow jack-in-the-box.

“Is this what y’all are so afraid of?” he asked, “It's just a toy! Watch.”

He started turning the crank, but Tara tried to yank the jack-in-the-box out of his hands. He pulled away and continued turning the crank.

“Man, what are y'all on?” Zack hollered. The song finished, and the lid to the jack-in-the-box sprung open, but nothing came out.

“See? I told y'all it was nothing.”

But as soon as the words left Zack's mouth, an evil-looking, living toy clown holding a knife jumped out of the box, clung to the front of Zack's shirt and slashed his cheek. Zack pulled the clown off of himself and threw it against the wall.

“It's Mr. Punch from Pop Goes the Evil,” Conner shouted, “The only way to kill him is to get him back inside, and then destroy the box.”

“Got it,” Tara yelled as Mr. Punch sprang back to his feet and charged at her. She kicked him away, then ran at him and pinned him to the floor with the heel of her boot.

“Quick, give me the box,” Tara ordered. Conner picked up the box and tossed it to her. She tried to pick up Mr. Punch, but he bit her hand. She stomped on him a few more times, then picked him up again, shoved him into the box, and shut the lid. She opened up the window and threw the box out into the street, just in time for a passing truck to run over it, shattering it into a hundred pieces, which then dissolved into ooze.

“Would somebody please explain to me what the hell's going on here?” Zack yelled.

“Somebody is trying to kill me,” Tara told him, “I know where he lives. We are going there now. We need you to come along.”

“Oh, hell no!” Zack shouted at her, “I ain't going nowhere with you! I've had it with you, you crazy bitch! This is it! We’re done! I'm sick of your psycho stalker fans always sending you jacked-up shit! First a severed head and now this! I'm going back to the house to pack up my shit and get the hell away from you!”

And with that, he left. Conner looked at Tara, who stood staring speechlessly in the direction in which Zack had left, and said, “A fan sent you a severed head? Really?”

“It was papier-mâché,” Tara explained, “Forget it. Let's go!”

They walked out of the club and got back into Conner's car, but when he started the engine, the hood flew up and smoke poured out. Exasperated, he got back out of the car and walked around to the front where he saw a troop of grinning Creepies hard at work destroying the engine.

“Forget it,” Tara shouted, “Let's hop a bus.”

They ran down the sidewalk until they spotted a bus just leaving its stop and flagged it down, paid the fare, made sure the bus was stopping in Stoneridge, and sat down in a seat about halfway down the aisle. The only other person on the bus besides the driver was an elderly man who, judging from his dress and odor, was more than likely homeless.

Tara and Conner were both physically and mentally exhausted from their ordeal and said nothing to each other for the next few minutes. Finally, Conner broke the silence, saying, “I hate to say it, because I have a lot of respect for your father, but Creepies was a really shitty movie.”

“The one with the jack-in-the-box wasn't much better,” Tara chimed in, giggling.

“Yeah, but at least that one was funny,” Conner countered, “The other one was just made so they could sell Creepie dolls to kids. I'm sorry, but Giorgio really sold out on that one.”

“It wasn't as bad as that series Sam Timore did after he left my father's camp and went on his own,” Tara recollected, “Remember those movies about the evil Christmas elf?”

“Oh God, yes!” said Conner, “Scary Christmas! That was one thing I always respected about your father; he never watered down his movies by making pointless sequels. But with Timore, it was Scary Christmas 1, Scary Christmas 2, Scary Christmas 3, and on and on and on.”

All of a sudden, a cheerful but demented-sounding voice rang out from behind, saying, “Ooh, someone’s been naughty this year! Here's a nice big lump of coal for you!”

Conner and Tara turned around quickly and saw the evil Christmas elf from Scary Christmas sitting in the seat behind them. Then, from out of nowhere, a meteor-sized lump of coal fell out of the sky, crushing the entire front end of the bus. Tara and Conner scrambled to the emergency exit in the back and climbed out. They heard a voice from the bus shout out, “Help me!” and turned to see the homeless man trying to climb out the back door after them, only to be ensnared and dragged back into the bus by a long strand of silver tinsel. A torrent of human blood gushed forth from the door.

Tara grabbed Conner's hand and pulled, saying, “Come on! We'll have to go the rest of the way on foot.”

“Look out!” Conner screamed, and pulled Tara to the side just in time to avoid a stampede of eight reindeer rushing by. Tara was about to thank Conner, when she felt a sharp pain in her ankle. Looking down she saw an army of little tin soldiers armed with bayonets stabbing at her heels.

“Let's keep moving,” she said, kicking the tiny soldiers away, and the two of them began running down the sidewalk.

“I never made it to the end of Scary Christmas,” Tara said to Conner, “How do they kill the elf at the end?”

“They impale him with a giant candy cane,” Conner replied.

“Seriously?” Tara asked.

“Yeah, the only way to destroy him is by wounding him with something that symbolizes the spirit of Christmas.”

Just then, the elf dropped out of the sky, knocking Conner to the ground and tying him up with a shiny red ribbon. The elf shouted, “All aboard!” and somehow a model train track appeared under Conner, and a toy train with a razorblade cowcatcher began heading straight toward him. While the elf admired his handiwork, Tara looked around and saw a pine tree growing in front of a nearby house. She broke off a branch and ran it through the elf's chest from behind. Both the elf and the train disappeared in a burst of candy sprinkles, which dissolved into green slime not long after settling on the ground. Conner got up off the ground and dusted himself off.

“Yep, just like in the movie,” he commented, and then added, “Where are we anyway?”

“We're in Stoneridge,” Tara answered, “And look! There’s Sam Timore’s house right there.”

She pointed to a crumbling, three-story Victorian house at the end of the street, just a few blocks from where they stood.

“How could we be in Stoneridge already?” Conner asked, “We weren't on the bus that long.”

“It's almost like we were brought here on purpose,” Tara commented, “But we don't have time for philosophical discussions right now. We have to get to that house.”

Tara and Conner began running towards the house, but when they got to the end of the street, a series of heavy iron chains suddenly shot out from the two houses to their left and right, forming a barrier preventing their advancing any further down the street.

“Oh god, oh God, oh God,” Tara stammered, “This is exactly who I hoped we wouldn’t run into.”

They turned around, and standing behind them was a tall, gaunt figure in a long, black, leather coat with piercing, dark eyes, no hair, and a pair of rail spikes protruding from his forehead like devilish horns. It was Nimrod, the demonic antagonist from Giorgio Giallo's film Necromancer.

Tara whispered to Conner, “I've never told anyone this, but the real reason I never wanted to do horror movies like my dad’s after Necromancer was because I was so traumatized by Nimrod. Even though I knew he was just an actor in makeup, he still scared the wits out of me. I have nightmares about him to this day.”

Nimrod walked straight up to Tara, his eyes staring straight into her's the whole time. When he got within a yard of her, Tara straightened up and said firmly, “Whatever you're going to do to us, get it over with. We’re through running.”

“This was never about you,” Nimrod said in a distant, echoing voice. He gently put out a hand, grasped the Diabolicron, which Tara had held close to her side through the whole ordeal, and swiftly snatched it away from her.

“It was about this,” and with that, Nimrod and his chains dissolved into the shadows, leaving Tara and Conner standing alone in the middle of the street.

“You mean all this time they were just after the book?” Conner laughed in disbelief, “You mean we could have just given them the book and saved ourselves all this trouble? That's hilarious! So, we just leave now, right?”

“No,” Tara growled, “Sam Timore tried to kill me. He's not going to get away with it. You don't have to come with me if you don't want to, but I'm going into that house.”

Turning her back, Tara marched down the street through the high iron gate that surrounded the house and into the yard. Conner shouted, “Wait for me!” and was soon right behind her. It was nearly sunrise by this time, and the dismal overcast sky was beginning to lighten. No sooner had they entered the yard than Tara stopped suddenly, looked around curiously, and whispered to Conner, “Did you hear something?”

“Like what?” Conner inquired, as a soft, low moan drifted through the cool, morning air.

“Like that,” Tara answered.

“Look!” Conner shouted, pointing towards the edge of the yard. A zombie had risen out of the ground and was lumbering slowly toward them. Soon the moans were everywhere, and the yard was full of zombies.

“It's the zombies from Rise of the Undead!” Conner exclaimed.

“Quick! Inside the house!” Tara screamed. They ran toward the front door of the house as the zombies clumsily pursued them. Tara had to knock one down with a kick to the gut and elbow another in the face before finally making it through the door and into the house, with Conner close behind her.

As they slammed the door behind them, the walls rattled, stairs creaked, and dust and cobwebs drifted down from the rafters.

“This is like every haunted house from every haunted house movie ever made,” Conner commented.

“Look! They even have the requisite suit of armor,” Tara chuckled pointing at the empty, metal suit that stood against the wall halfway down the foyer, a tarnished axe loosely fixed in its hands.

“And there’s the standard portrait of the creepy, old guy whose eyes follow you wherever you go,” Conner pointed out, laughing at the portrait which hung over the staircase, depicting Sam Timore dressed like a Scottish Lord.

“My instincts tell me he's upstairs. Come on,” Tara said to Conner.

Sure enough, they found Sam Timore in an upstairs study seated behind a large oak desk, upon which sat the Diabolicron and the Eye of Ra, the golden pyramid-shaped talisman used in the movie Necromancer to summon Nimrod from his home dimension, the Necropolis. Nimrod himself stood to Timore’s right.

“Ah, Little Tara,” Timore said, clasping his hands together, “I've been expecting you. Look at you! You've grown so much since the last time I saw you.”

“Stuff it, Sam,” Tara snapped, “What's this all about? Why did you send all those freaks after me?”

“Didn't Nimrod tell you?” Timore chuckled, “I wasn't really after you. I was after the book. You see there were three copies of this book. Two of them were simply movie props that I constructed using the original as a model. This was the original – an actual medieval spell book that was passed down in my family for generations. Somehow, my original got mixed up with one of the props, and your father ended up with the real Diabolicron. I didn't realize this until years later, and by that time your father had gone into hiding.

“Now, you see, most of the spells in the two phony books were just gibberish, whereas the real book had the real spells. But there were, fortunately, a few spells that I had the foresight to copy verbatim into the fake books. One of those was the spell I used to summon the ghouls that I sent to your house. I figured there was a chance that your father may have passed the book along to you, and if not, I could at least use you to lure your father out of hiding and reacquire the real book that way.

“Of course, it seems the book somehow ended up in this fellow’s hands, which I hadn’t forseen. It was so kind of you to lead us to him, Tara.”

 “But why?” Conner asked, “What do you need the book for?”

“There is a particular spell,” Timore continued, “That I needed – a transmutation spell that will only work for the next few months due to the spell requiring the Earth to be a particular distance from the planet Venus. The spell will give me the power I need to complete my life's work.”

“And what might that be?” Tara inquired.

“Did your father ever tell you the reason why he and I parted company all those years ago?” Timore asked.

Tara shook her head. Timore giggled. He was clearly enjoying playing the melodramatic villain role.

“Let me tell you, then,” he said, “I had worked for years as your father's top makeup artist and set designer, but I wanted more. I had this idea for a movie called Metal Monster about a Satanic heavy metal singer named Rikki Blades, who uses subliminal messages in his songs to make the kids who listen to his records kill each other. With each death he gets closer to a certain number that will complete a dark ritual, transforming him into a full-fledged demon and lieutenant to Satan himself.

“I had the whole script written out and I pitched it to Giorgio with the idea that he would direct the picture and I would play Rikki Blades. But Giorgio said to me, ‘Look, Sam, you're my best friend, so I feel comfortable telling you this. Your script is lousy. I'm not going to direct this piece of garbage.’ And that was the end of our friendship.

“So, I struck out on my own, but nobody wanted to produce my script. They said the subject matter was ‘too controversial.’ So, I did Scary Christmas instead, with the idea that I could use the profit from that to produce Metal Monster myself. But Scary Christmas was so successful that all anybody wanted to see was more Scary Christmas movies. I couldn't win.

“Meanwhile, your father started making the stupidest movies – like the one with all the little goblins, and the killer jack-in-the-box. And I thought, he would make this tripe but he wouldn't make my movie? What a bastard! And I wanted nothing more than to get even with him.

“Then I remembered that transmutation spell! I could use that spell to become Rikki Blades – the demon Rikki Blades – for real, and then I could have my revenge on Giorgio Giallo.”

“If you can find him,” Tara interjected, “I don't even know where he is anymore.”

“That's where you come in, Tara,” Timore explained, “If one of my ghouls had killed you, your death would surely have brought Giorgio out of hiding. If you managed to escape with your life, you would more than likely seek him out, either to obtain information, or to warn him of the danger. Either way, you would lead us to him. But since you’re here now, we can simply hold you as bait, and let him come to us.”

“You're assuming that I'm actually going to let you go through with this spell,” Tara told him.

“I already have, dear,” Timore replied, “Almost, anyway. I just have to recite the final word.”

He paused for dramatic effect before uttering the final word of spell, “Transfiguro,” and then the lights in the house flickered, a clap of thunder sounded outside the window, the walls began to shake, and – in a flash of fire and brimstone – Sam Timore metamorphosed into a 7-foot-tall, long-haired, white-faced, demonic rock star, with glowing, red eyes, clad in black leather and glistening metal spikes, chains, and skulls. Timore – or Rikki Blades, as he was now – cackled maniacally at the success of his sinister spell.

Scared out of his wits, Conner backed into a corner. But Tara, in a rage, lunged at Rikki Blades and began attacking him with vicious punches and kicks. Blades was taken aback at first, not expecting this sudden offensive fury, but quickly regained his composure and began fighting back, first with punches, then removing his chain belt and swinging it around wildly. Nimrod, meanwhile, stood silently at his post.

While Rikki Blades was occupied with Tara, Conner suddenly had a brainstorm. He ran toward the table and seized the Eye of Ra with both hands. The golden talisman was shaped like a four-sided pyramid capped with a lapis lazuli keystone engraved with the symbol of a stylized eye. If it worked the way it did in the movie Necromancer, turning the keystone would send Nimrod back to the Necropolis.

“Behold, Nimrod,” Conner yelled, “I now possess the Eye of Ra! I command you to destroy Timore, or whatever he is now, or I will send you back to the Necropolis.”

“Do it,” Nimrod plainly stated, “To me, the tortures of the Necropolis are the sweetest pleasures. It is being in this world that torments me.”

Tara was close enough to hear this exchange, and turned her attention from Rikki Blades, snatching the Eye of Ra from Conner's hands and holding it high over her head.

She shouted at Nimrod, “Then destroy Rikki Blades now, or I will smash the Eye of Ra to bits, and you will be trapped in this world forever!”

For the first time, Nimrod showed a hint of emotion. “You wouldn't dare, child,” he shrieked.

“Try me,” she sneered.

Nimrod saw no sign of fear or hesitation in her eyes and turned his gaze to Rikki Blades.

“Don't do it, Nimrod,” Blades pleaded, “I am your master! I brought you here! I command you to destroy them!”

Nimrod extended his arms palms outward to either side. The walls of the house shook again, and dozens of heavy chains tore through the boards, the sharp hooks at their ends sinking into Rikki Blades’s flesh. Blades wailed in agony. Then, Nimrod dropped his arms to the side, and the chains quickly drew back from whence they came, tearing Rikki Blades’s body into dozens of pieces and carrying them off into oblivion.

Nimrod turned back to Tara Giallo and said, “Now release me, child.”

Without hesitation, Tara turned the keystone, and a smoking portal opened up beneath Nimrod's feet, swallowed him up, and then closed again as quickly as it had appeared. The Eye of Ra then dissolved into a mass of green ooze in Tara's hand.

“Could you hand me a towel or something?” Tara requested of Conner.

Conner picked up a doily from a chair in the corner and tossed it to her. As she wiped the ooze off her hand, Conner said, “That was so intense! What do we do now? I mean, in the movies, the credits would just start rolling right now. But this isn't a movie. We have to go back to our normal lives having gone through all this! How do we – how do I –?”

Tara put her hand on his shoulder and turned him around to face her. “Shut up,” she said, and planted a huge kiss on his lips. She then fell backwards onto the floor, pulling Conner down with her.

“I can’t help thinking we forgot something,” Conner told Tara.

Tara replied, “I told you to shut up.”

Of course, had they bothered looking out the window, they would have noticed that the zombies had made it out of the front yard through the gate and were now running rampant through the streets of Stoneridge. And a few miles away, half the city – from Creekside Drive to downtown – was being overrun by Creepies.
 
(c) 2013 Ross Eron Thompson all rights reserved