Dark Labyrinth 1 Read Online Free PDF Page A

him. He knows us, but he does not realize it. Tell him not to fear us.”
    Burbage found he had taken one step backward, and another. The masked figure raised his voice. “ Leave us! To complete our performance!”
    Burbage felt his fear taking precedence over all his other emotions, and he took another step backward, staring at the troupe of spectral figures one final time. Then he turned to flee from the ruins of the Globe Theatre.

    The wreckage of the Globe lay in Maiden Lane, covered with snow, until the winter of 1614 passed. “ And the next spring it was new builded in a far finer manner than before. ”
    —Master John Stow, General Chronicle of England.

Special Makeup

    Kevin J. Anderson

    “Special Makeup” copyright 1991 by WordFire, Inc. Originally published in The Ultimate Werewolf , edited by Byron Preiss, Dell Books, 1991.

    When I was asked to write a werewolf story for an anthology, I didn’t see any reason not to do a funny one! I’ve always been a fan of the old monster movies, and for this tale I drew upon my years of diligently studying Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine.

    * * *

    The second camera operator ran to fetch the clapboard. Someone else called out, “Quiet on the set! Hey everybody, shut up!” Three of the extras coughed at the same time.
    “ Wolfman in Casablanca , Scene 23. Are we ready for Scene 23?” The second camera operator held the clapboard ready.
    “Ahem.” The director, Rino Derwell, puffed on his long cigarette in an ivory cigarette holder, just like all famous directors were supposed to have. “I’d like to start today’s shooting sometime today ! Is that too much to ask? Where the hell is Lance?”
    The boom man swiveled his microphone around; the extras on the nightclub set fidgeted in their places. The cameraman slurped a cold cup of coffee, making a noise like a vacuum cleaner in a bathtub.
    “Um, Lance is still, um, getting his makeup on,” the script supervisor said.
    “Christ! Can somebody find me a way to shoot this picture without the star? He was supposed to be done half an hour ago. Go tell Zoltan to hurry up—this is a horror picture, not the Mona Lisa.” Derwell mumbled how glad he was that the gypsy makeup man would be leaving in a day or two, and they could get someone else who didn’t consider himself such a perfectionist. The director’s assistant dashed away, stumbling off the soundstage and tripping on loose wires.
    Around them, the set showed an exotic nightclub, with white fake-adobe walls, potted tropical plants, and Arabic-looking squiggles on the pottery. The piano in the center of the stage, just in front of the bar, sat empty under the spotlight, waiting for the movie’s star, Lance Chandler. The sound stage sweltered in the summer heat. The large standup fans had to be shut off before shooting; and the ceiling fans—nightclub props—stirred the cloud of cigarette smoke overhead into a gray whirlpool, making the extras cough even when they were supposed to keep silent.
    Rino Derwell looked again at his gold wristwatch. He had bought it cheap from a man in an alley, but Derwell’s pride would not allow him to admit he had been swindled even after it had promptly stopped working. Derwell didn’t need it to tell him he was already well behind schedule, over budget, and out of patience.
    It was going to take all day just to shoot a few seconds of finished footage. “God, I hate these transformation sequences. Why does the audience need to see everything? Have they no imagination?” he muttered. “Maybe I should just do romance pictures? At least nobody wants to see everything there !”
    #
    “Oh, God! Please no! Not again! Not NOW !!!” Lance couldn’t see the look of horror he hoped would show on his face.
    “You must stop fidgeting, Mr. Lance. This will go much faster.” Zoltan stepped back, large makeup brush in hand, inspecting his work. His heavy eastern European accent slurred out his words.
    “Well I’ve got to