A woman runs screaming from the video camera, the camera work amateur and shaky. The nozzle of a gun appears on screen, a thick black pointer, its tip wobbling against the running woman’s ass. There’s a loud crack, and the woman falls. The camera, relentless, is drawn to the fallen woman, and the smoke from the spent bullet can almost be smelled wafting up through the lens as the camera zooms in and leers at its subject.
She is still alive, but no longer screams, her hair a tangle of sweaty black, her eyes underscored by sleep circles so dark they look like bruises, and as she tries to scoot away from the camera on her back like a crab, a black gloved hand comes into view pointing the gun at her neck. You can hear the heavy breathing of the cameraman, and as the sounds of an oncoming climax nears, the bright explosion of the gun nozzle blinds the electronic eye of the camera for a moment until it refocuses, re-meters the scant incoming light. When the picture is once again clear, we see the damage the bullet has done.
The woman no longer moves. She lays there, her throat a rose in fresh bloom, the residual petals dotting her face and chest. Her eyes remain open and void of fear. It is as close to a miracle as anyone can ever hope to witness. A brief bridge that spans the chasm between life and death caught on tape.
Carter’s thumb misses the stop button twice before finally finding it’s mark. He stands, the hint of sweat licking at the collar of his shirt, and looks out the window, making sure Angie hasn’t pulled into the driveway. He knows how he gets when the tape is new, his total immersion into the picture, his obliviousness to outside noises. He knows this can be dangerous and shudders at the thought of his wife of ten years catching him.
He shuts the blinds. Sits back in his chair, the remote in his hand, presses rewind, then play. Again the black and the static and the picture popping on like a quick jab to the gut.
Angie comes home first, followed shortly by their eight year old daughter Brittany. By then, Carter has set the dining room table and taken out the meatloaf which he’d hastily stuck in the oven over an hour ago.
“How did your day go?”
It’s Angie’s usual opening question at the dinner table. She bites a piece of meatloaf off her fork, then reaches over to cut Brittany’s slab into bite-size chunks.
“Busy.” Carter catches himself nodding at his food a bit too long. “And yours?”
Angie begins a soft-spoken litany of the day’s events, and although Carter tries to follow the thread of her speech, he can’t concentrate. He left work early today, and the newness of the video flows through his head like molten steel.
“Are you okay?”
“Huh?” Carter realizes both his wife and daughter are staring at him. “Yes. I mean no. A bad headache.” He gets up from the table, pats Brit on the head. “I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“You haven’t even touched your food.”
“I’ll eat at my desk.”
Angie brushes Brit’s long blond bangs from her eyes. “You shouldn’t let them work you so hard.”
“It’s part of the job, Angie. You know that.”
“Doesn’t mean I like it.” She turns her attention back to her plate.
Carter feels Brittany’s eyes dig into him. He takes his meal to the den and locks the door. The meatloaf sits untouched and forgotten as he picks up the remote and presses play. He turns the volume down next to nothing
Black. Static.
The woman running through the trees.
Stop. Rewind. Play. Stop.
Rewind.
Two hours later, he ejects the video from the VCR and places it in its black plastic box. He opens the bottom desk drawer and buries the box beneath a stack of Playboys. He locks it and forces a smile on his face before leaving the den.
After a month, the tapes wear down, a white static veil shrouding the image. He needs a fresh face, a new scenario. He leaves his money in the hiding place; an empty videocassette case nestled inside the hollow of a maple tree in a nearby park. An even fifteen hundred dollars cash. The first one was only five hundred dollars, and he sees the cleverness of it now. He would have balked at fifteen hundred the first time. Now it seems reasonable. He needs them.
When he comes back later in the evening, he scopes out the park, and when he’s sure no one is watching, he pulls the cassette box from the dark maw of the maple. It now contains a videotape. He can only speculate as to its contents. But he doesn’t watch it right away. He waits irritably for the long night to end.
He calls in sick the next day and drives downtown to a large hotel. Before entering the revolving glass doors, he looks up at its facade. It looks back down at him, the sun a harsh wink in each of its many windows.
In the room, he puts the chain across the door and shuts the thick maroon curtains. He takes off his clothes. Pops the video into the VCR. Picks up the remote and presses play.
Black. Static.
Then—
INT. AN OLD ABANDONED BARN — DAY
Sunlight pours in through the worn wooden slats of the walls like spotlights. Straw is strewn about the floor as well as splintered pieces of wood, beer cans, fast food wrappers, cigarette butts. A twenty-something prostitute enters the picture looking back at the camera and smiling. She chews gum, wears too much make-up, sports badly frizzed hair. She has the voice of a serious smoker.
“I don’t know about this. You shoulda brought a blanket.” Her steps slow as she searches for a place to sit down. “You grow up here? Is that the deal?”
She finds a place where the straw isn’t too moldy. She tosses aside some large rusty nails. “Is this where you want it?” She winks at the camera.
The cameraman’s hand comes into view holding three hundred dollar bills.
She frowns at first, perhaps because the camera is recording this transaction, but she takes the money just the same and tucks it into the pocket of her tight skirt and raises an eyebrow in mock seduction.
Her expression suddenly changes. The cameraman’s hand comes back into view holding an evil looking hunting knife. Its large blade reflects the incoming sunlight into her wide-open mouth. She screams for the first ten plunges as her blood speckles the camera lens. There’s a dull clang as the knife is dropped to the ground. The camera zooms in slowly on her face. The cameraman’s breath pounds the microphone in quick, distorted bursts.
Again, there is that miracle captured as her life vanishes, her breath making a final, hasty exit through the heavily lipsticked moat of her lips.
Stop. Rewind.
“Where’ve you been?” Angie asks, the moment Carter walks in the door.
His briefcase is tight under his arm. “What do you mean?”
“I called work. They said you called in sick.”
“No.” Carter shakes his head. “No, that’s not right. Who told you that?”
“The receptionist.”
“No. I was there. She must not have seen me come in.”
“I left five messages in your voice mail.”
“I didn’t get them. I had meetings all day.”
Angie’s eyes burrow into his skull.
“Who took your call? Was it Denise? If it was Denise, she doesn’t know her head from her a-hole.”
He watches her as she mulls this over.
