Chapter Four

An arm reached out and grabbed her from somewhere in the darkness. Yanking her roughly aside, a hand clamped across her mouth, cutting off the scream that rose in her throat. She tried to turn around but whoever was holding her had her locked in a vice-like grip. She watched in terror as the straggle of passengers moved further and further away. It was only then she realised that it was she who was moving away from them. She was being carried along, half suspended with the points of her heels grazing the tracks below. Then without warning, they leaped and she felt herself sucked through a vacuum. Floating on nothingness for what seemed like hours, they finally came to a stop.

She was thrown down on a hard surface, temporarily knocking her unconscious. When she came to, dread coursed through her veins. She was in the strange ballroom of her nightmare but this time she didn’t appear to be imagining it. She looked up to see Coffee Breath’s pockmarked face looming over her.
‘You!’ She met his unflinching gaze. ‘What the hell is going on?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to know,’ he said nastily.
‘Very nice you two, let’s take a short break.’ The director stepped out from the shadows signalling a rap. Lacey and her fellow actor dropped their assumed guises and gratefully slumped into their seats at the side of the sound stage as the production team and crew milled around with clapper boards and cardboard coffee cups. As the make-up girl approached though, Lacey detected a distinctly hostile air. When she had entered Lacey’s trailer earlier that day she had been chirpy and chatted incessantly in her cockney accent about how much she loved Lacey’s work on the series. But now all expression had deserted her features. Wielding a blusher brush as though it were a deadly weapon, she descended on Lacey’s face and attacked her cheeks with gusto. Now mere inches in front of her, Lacey saw that the girl’s skin was scaled and pale green, her eyes a muted pink. She seemed possessed. Lacey screamed for help but no one heard.

Looking wildly around Lacey saw that the area had been abandoned, scripts tossed aside, chairs overturned and coffee cups lying on their sides spewing their lukewarm contents onto tables and floor. The panic began to gnaw its way up through her insides. Her heart throbbed violently and her skin felt clammy and hot. Not knowing what to do, she carefully extricated herself from beneath the girl’s unblinking stare and moved slowly away, watching the girl who remained in position in front of Lacey’s chair. As she moved further towards the exit Lacey caught sight of a pair of shoes sticking out from behind a train carriage on-set. Brown suede lace-up brogues with denim cuffs above them. She moved closer, and as she stepped round a most shocking sight lay before her. Brown brogues was embroiled in an intense make-out session with a pair of scarlet pumps from which protruded a set of fishnet-stocking encased legs belonging to none other than Winnie Gravington. Lacey’s on-screen nemesis and an aspiring starlet famed as much for her private school-girl etiquette as her acting talent, Winnie currently had her hands glued to Coffee Breath’s head as she energetically probed his mouth with her tongue. Feeling nauseous at this most disturbing of revelations, Lacey’s instinct was to back away. But. She paused, realising Winnie and Coffee Breath, real name, Gus, were probably the only other people still on set at this precise moment. With the exception of course of alien make up girl who was still posing in front of Lacey’s abandoned chair, blusher brush in hand. Taking a deep breath Lacey ventured nearer the empassioned pair writhing around on the makeshift train track.

‘Winnie? Gus?’ she said in a small voice.