Saturday 24 June 2017

'The Last Reel'

Over at the splendid Pseudopod you can hear a reading of a story from ST #10. It's 'The Last Reel' by Lynda E. Rucker, which went on to feature in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror #18 (2007). So there. It's one of those cracking stories where people chat about movie endings, and end up facing a real life situation even more fraught than any on celluloid.

Working in a kitchen had left her inured to minor cuts and burns. ‘Let’s see what’s in the box.’
Let’s not, he wanted to say, but what came out when he followed her back to the bed was, ‘Three movies featuring a head-in-a-box. Name them.’
‘God,’ she said, ‘do you have to be so morbid? 'Seven'.’ She lifted the lid.
‘That’s one,’ he said, so he wouldn’t shout something stupid and hysterical like Don’t look inside!
‘It’s filled with photographs,’ she said. ‘'Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia'.’
‘That’s head-in-a-bag, not head-in-a-box,’ he said desperately.
‘Oh, for God’s sake. Picky, aren’t we?’ Her voice changed. ‘That’s weird.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know how she got hold of these. It’s all pictures of me.’ 

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