Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story

Pickett. The woman who went into the sea with him. You're all in this together.'

'To do what, for God's sake?'

'I don't know: promote that asshole's career?'

'I assure you—'

'I don't care to hear your assurances,' Eppstadt said. 'I just need you to take me to this Canyon of yours.'

'It's not mine. It's hers. Katya's. If we went there we'd be trespassing on her property. '

'I'll take that risk.'

'Well I won't.'

'Maxine, tell him he's coming.'

'I don't see why you want to go,' Jerry pleaded.

'Let's just make Mister Eppstadt happy right now, shall we?'

'I just don't want to trespass,' Jerry said again.

'Well you can blame me,' Eppstadt said. 'Tell this Lupi woman—if she ever surfaces again—that I forced you to take me. Where's the waiter? Joe!'

Eppstadt's makeshift bodyguard came over. 'We're going to make a little field-trip. I'd like you to come with us.'

'Oh? Okay.'

'Maxine, do you have a gun?'

'I'm not going with you.'

'Yes you are, m'dear. A gun. Do you have one?'

'Several. But I'm not going. I've had enough excitement for one night. I need some sleep.'

'Well here's your choices. Come now and let's find out what the hell's going on up there, together. Or sit tight and wait for my lawyer to call you in the morning.'

Maxine looked at him blankly.

'Do I take that as a yes?' he said.

There were five in the expedition party. Maxine's assistant, Sawyer, armed with one of Maxine's guns, drove Maxine. And in a second car, driven by Jerry, went Eppstadt and Joe. The larger of Maxine's guns, a .45, was in Eppstadt's possession. He claimed he knew how to use it.

By the time they had left, many of the party-goers had already drifted away, leaving a hard core of perhaps thirty-five people, many of them still on the beach, waiting to see if anything noteworthy was going to happen. About fifteen minutes after Eppstadt's expedition had departed for the hills the Coast Guard called off the helicopter. There had been a boating accident up the coast—nine people in the water—and air support was urgently needed. One of the two search boats was also called off, leaving the other to make wider and wider circles as any hope that the lost souls were still alive and close to the shore steadily grew more remote, and finally, faded entirely.

PART EIGHT

The Wind

at the Door

ONE

The night was almost over by the time the two cars bearing Eppstadt's little expeditionary force made their way up the winding road that led into Coldheart Canyon. The sky was just a little lighter in the east, though the clouds were thick, so it would be a sluggish dawn, without an ounce of the drama which had marked the hours of darkness. In the depths of the Canyon itself, the day never truly dawned properly at all. There was a peculiar density to the shadows between the trees today; as though the night lingered there, in scraps and rags. Day- blooming flowers would fail to show themselves, even at the height of noon; while plants that would normally offer sight and scent of themselves only after dark remained awake through the daylight hours.

None of this was noticed by Eppstadt or the others in his party; they were not the sort of people who noticed things to which so little value could be readily attached. But they knew something was amiss, even so, from the moment they stepped out of their vehicles. They proceeded toward the house exchanging anxious looks, their steps reluctant. Even Eppstadt, who had been so vocal about seeing the Canyon when they'd all been down in Malibu, plainly wished he'd not talked himself into this. Had he been on his own he would undoubtedly have retreated. But he could scarcely do so now, with so many people watching. He could either hope that something alarming (though inconsequential) happened soon, and he was obliged to call a general retreat in the interest of the company, or that they'd get into the house, make a cursory examination of the place, then agree that this was a matter best left with the police, and get the hell out.

The feeling he had, walking into the house, was the same feeling he sometimes got going onto a darkened soundstage. A sense of anticipation hung in the air. The only question was: what was the drama that was going to be played out here? A continuation of the farce he'd been so unwillingly dragged into on the beach? He didn't think so. The stage was set here for some other order of spectacle, and he didn't particularly want to be a part of it.

In all his years running a studio he'd never green-lit a horror movie, or anything with that kind of supernatural edge. He didn't like them. On the one hand, he thought they were contemptible rubbish; and on the other, they made his flesh creep. They unnerved him with their reports from some irrational place in the psyche; a place he had fled from all his life. The Canyon knew that place, he sensed. No, he knew. There were probably subjects for a hundred horror movies here, God help him.

'Weird, huh?' Joe remarked to him.

Eppstadt was glad he'd brought the kid along. Though Eppstadt didn't have a queer bone in his body there was still something comforting about having a big-boned, Midwestern dumb-fuck like Joe on the team.

'What are we looking for, anyhow?' Joe asked as Maxine led the way into the house.

“Anything out of the ordinary,' Eppstadt replied.

'We don't have any right to be here,' Maxine reminded him. 'And if Todd is dead, the police aren't going to be very happy that we touched stuff.'

'I get it, Maxine,' he said. 'We'll be careful.'

'Big place,' Joe said, wandering into the lounge. 'Great for parties.'

'Let's get some lights on in this place, shall we?' Eppstadt said. He'd no sooner spoken than Sawyer found the master panel, and flipped on every one of the thirty switches before him. Room after dazzling room was revealed, detail after glorious detail.

Jerry had seen the dream palace countless times over the years, but for some reason, even in its early days when the paint was fresh and the gilding perfect, he'd never seen the house put on a show quite like this. It was almost as if the old place knew it didn't have long to live and—knowing its span was short—was making the best of the hours remaining to it.

'The woman on the beach,' Eppstadt said. 'She built this place?'

'Yes. Her name was Katya Lupi and—'

'I know who she was,' Eppstadt replied. 'I've seen some of her movies. Trash. Kitsch trash.'

It was impossible, of course, that the woman who'd built this Spanish mausoleum was the same individual who'd escorted Todd Pickett into the surf. That woman might have been her grandchild, Eppstadt supposed, at a stretch; a great-grandchild more likely.

He was about to correct Brahms on his generational details when a chorus of yelping coyotes erupted across the Canyon. Eppstadt knew what coyotes sounded like, of course. He had plenty of friends who lived in the Hills, and considered the animals harmless scavengers, digging through their trash and occasionally dining on a pet cat. But there was something about the noise they were making now, as the sun came up, that made his stomach twitch and his skin crawl. It was like a soundtrack of one of the horror movies he'd never green-lit.

And then, just as suddenly as the chorus of coyotes had erupted, it ceased. There were three seconds of total silence.