Page 7 of Dumbstruck
The kind where normal eggs emptied of their contents overnight. I’m surprised she hasn’t heard about it, but I’m guessing her new relationship with the author is keeping her attention. “Nothing too crazy, but you know how people are talking. So this is the rig you’ll be in?”
As Bonnie talks me through the jump she’s going to be making, my thoughts stray down the street to the hardware store like they’ve been doing pretty much nonstop since last night. More specifically, I’m thinking about the woman behind the counter inside. Coming across June’s house last night was purely accidental. Seeing her in pajama pants and a messy bun was a happy side effect of that accident. Even dressed down like she was, something about her scratched an itch I didn’t notice I had until I kept running and instantly wanted to turn back for relief.
The freeze frame image of my face on the TV behind her—visible through one of the front windows—got me wondering if she’s more interested in me than she’s pretending to be. Whether or not the two of us have potential, I plan to show June how interested I am.
It won’t go anywhere, but it would be nice to have a little fun while I’m here.
“It should be fine, right?” Bonnie asks breathlessly.
Ah man, I didn’t hear a word she said before that. “I’m sure,” I say, hoping that’s the answer she’s looking for.
Thankfully, Bonnie smiles and nods like my assurance was all she needed. “Wish me luck!”
“Good luck,” I say and pray she doesn’t need it.
Twenty minutes later, disaster strikes. Bonnie makes the jump, but the rigging catches halfway between the two buildings. She jerks upward, and everyone gasps as it drags her higher. Fear shoots through me as I helplessly watch her keep rising until she comes to a sudden halt at the top of the crane. Dangling high in the air.
“Get her down!” Beckett shouts through the megaphone at the same time one of the assistant directors calls the fire department.
People start shouting, scrambling to find a way to help Bonnie, who is pale as a ghost but unharmed. What if the rigging breaks? What if she falls? I force a breath before panic overwhelms me, but there’s nothing I can do to help.
I swear under my breath, but Bonnie’s bodyguard appears, shoving his way through the gathered crew until he’s directly beneath Bonnie. He won’t be able to do much but slow her fall, but at least he’s there.
“It’s the curse,” someone whispers.
“There’s no such thing as curses,” I whisper in return, more to myself than anything. I rub my jaw and squint up at my costar, wishing I had a way to help her. I can’t just stand here and wait…
In my search for a way to be helpful, I find Beckett under a canopy and breathing into a paper bag.
“Whoa,” I say, patting him on the back. “You good?”
“I knew it!” he says. “I angered some long-dead spirit by letting Bonnie touch the script, and now it’s attacking the movie and trying to get rid of her.”
I can’t decide if I prefer ghost over curse, but I’m pretty sure Beckett’s losing it. “Dude, will you calm down? It’s just a technical problem.” Ihopeit’s just a technical problem.
“What if she falls?” Beckett groans and returns to breathing into the bag. I didn’t think people actually did that, but he is a pro at bag-breathing. “What if she falls from the rigging and dies? Or is disfigured? Have you seen how many people are talking about Bonnie Aiken right now? This film will be ruined, and we’ll have to shut down, and I’ll never make a movie again because I’ll be the guy who got Bonnie Aiken killed by an angry ghost!”
His panicking is doing nothing to help the whispers circulating among the crew, but something in his spiral sparks a thought. What if someone—a real someone, not a ghost—is trying to shut down the movie? People in this town haven’t been quiet about how much they hate us being here—even June said as much.
Leaving Beckett to his hyperventilating, I slip through the panicked staff and down the alley Bonnie’s dangling over, making my way to the crane that lifted her up. The two operators who are running the thing look terrified as they whisper back and forth, and neither looks confident that they’ll be able to fix the problem.
“Can you get her down?” I ask.
Both men jump and stare at me. “Oh! Mr. James. Um, we’re working on it as fast as we can.”
“Any idea what caused the malfunction?” I don’t know why I’m asking. I’m far from a mechanical whiz, and I never even drove the tractor back at home because Dad knew I wouldn’t be able to fix it if something went wrong in the middle of a field. I stuck to horses, though I can’t claim to be a horse whiz either.
I’m not a whiz at anything. Jack of all trades, here. Some trades. A few trades. Blegh.
If it were me in that rigging and I fell, I have no idea what else I could do with my life. Assuming I survived. And that’s a terrifying thought, one that makes me think I should get in touch with my agent and make sure my schedule is fully booked next year.
“Well…” One of the operators fiddles with a switch while the other shields his eyes to look up at Bonnie, who seems fairly calm given her situation. Her assistant is shouting something to her, and she waves back at him. “We think it might be a…”
I lift an eyebrow when he doesn’t finish his sentence. “A what?”
“We have no idea what caused it,” the other man says with a sigh. “But we’re working on it.”
“It must be something in the wiring,” the first guy says. “But it was fine an hour ago.”
