“Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked quietly.
Her heart seized and resumed beating. He was referring to it. The reason for her irrational fear of the dark. She clicked the candy against her teeth in a nervous, rhythmic gesture, then stopped.
“It happened on the set of the first movie I ever had a significant part in. It was called Duplicity. It was a spy espionage film. Completely forgettable.”
She paused when she realized how stupid she’d sounded. Filming Duplicity had become the single most unforgettable experience of her life. John said nothing, but she sensed his focused attention.
“There was an elevator action scene that I was in with another actor—Jessie Aims,” she began, the volume of her voice just above the sound of the trickling water that filled the cave. “The scene took place in a Los Angeles high-rise and the special effects department had rigged up an elevator. We’d already done six shoots of it, but Charlie Jawankowski, the director, wanted one more.”
She swallowed thickly, resisting a wild urge to open her eyes and scatter the toxic memory. There would only be darkness there, as well. John touched her neck and stroked her, reassuring her.
“There was a cameraman who was in the elevator with us for all the close-ups,” she continued quietly, calmed somewhat by John’s touch. “His name was Dustin Shremer, but everyone called him Dust. He was young. In fact, we both turned twenty-four while we were shooting Duplicity. Our birthdays were two days apart. The crew gave us a mutual little cake and champagne party. Dust was like the resident kid on the crew. Everyone rode him, but they were proud of him too. It’s not easy to get a cameraman position on a major motion picture, let alone for someone so young. I wasn’t great friends with Dust or anything, but I liked him. Everyone liked him.”
She held her eyelids clenched tight, but the images were unavoidable.
“It all happened really fast. Jessie and I were in our places on the elevator, and Dust was the last to come on.” She paused and bit at the mint, causing it to splinter in her mouth. “I’m sure you’ve heard the story about what happened then.”
“Just the bare essentials I recall from the news story. It happened five or six years ago, didn’t it?”
“Seven years ago this summer,” she rasped.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he said, his fingers stroking her hair. “I only brought it up because—”
“I know why you did,” she said in a pressured voice. She exhaled and tilted her head further back on his shoulder. “I want to tell you.”
She took a deep breath.
“Dust came walking onto the elevator and the doors shut on him. They aren’t supposed to do that, of course. There was some kind of technical malfunction. Jessie and I tried to pry back the doors, but they wouldn’t budge,” she said in rush, the image flashing crystal clear in her mind. “He was caught around the shoulders, but as he struggled to back out, his neck got stuck between the doors. At first, Dust was sort of laughing, but then the doors started to choke him. He began gasping for air. I can still see the expression on his face—” She made a shaky sound. “We were trying to so hard to pry back those damn doors, but . . . then, the elevator car started to go up.”
“Jesus,” John muttered.
“The elevator dragged Dust’s body with it. There was . . . this . . . sound. I can’t describe it, but I’ll never forget it. I wake up to it a lot of nights, hearing that sound. That’s when all the lights went out.”
“Only go on if you want to, Jennifer,” he said quietly, but she continued.
“The carriage jerked really hard. I was sure the car was going to fall down the shaft. We were fifty-eight stories up. Then the elevator started going up again. It eventually got stuck between two floors.”
“All I remember ever reading was that you were in an elevator accident on a set, and that a crewmember had died. It mentioned you were stuck on the elevator for quite a while. How long did it take for them to get you out of there?”
“About four hours. Four of the longest hours of my life.”
He exhaled deeply. Jennifer was pressed so close to him, she felt his movement as if it were her own. She sensed his presence next to her like a lifeline.
“It was pitch black in there,” she continued in a hushed tone. “We had no means of communication with the crew, although we could hear them yelling to us after a while. I was in shock. Jessie was hysterical. I couldn’t say anything that would calm him down. It was like he couldn’t even hear my voice when I tried to talk to him. Eventually, everything shut down inside of me. I sat down in the corner of the elevator, and didn’t try to intercede with Jessie anymore. He’d go quite for a while, then he’d start up again. He kept screaming and cursing that he was soaked . . .”
Her voice broke. She turned her face into his chest and sobbed quietly. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight against him.
“I didn’t realize why until later. When they finally pried back the elevator doors and we could see . . . it was horrible. There was blood everywhere. Dust’s blood. It was all over me too. I just hadn’t noticed because of the shock, I guess. His head had been severed from his body when the carriage dragged him up.” She gasped and turned on her hip, putting her face more firmly in John’s chest. She couldn’t stop tremors from wracking her body. The image was blinding her. “It was there. In the elevator car with us,” she said against his warm skin. “Most of it, anyway.”
* * *
John blinked, horror and compassion rising in him in equal measure when he realized Jennifer was referring to the cameraman’s head and brains being in the elevator with them.
No wonder she was terrified of the dark. For most sighted people, the dark became fertile territory for the imagination. Horrors could fill the void. But then the light came on; everything returned to normal again. Fears could be laughed at. Dark, ominous shadows were proven to be a lamp or a scarf blowing in the breeze.
Jennifer’s experience had taught her different. She’d learned that whatever terrors could be conjured in the dark might be far worse when the light came on.
He pulled her closer and stroked her back, feeling her body quaking against him.