She wrapped a porcelain hand around the stem, her red-lacquered fingernails tinkling against the glass. “Aren’t you drinking?” she asked, her eyes reflecting the bright spotlights. She took a sip.
Staring at her with intense dark eyes, the young man parted his full lips, revealing white teeth that glinted in the light. “I never drink
wine
.”
I almost laughed out loud at the familiar line. Count Dracula had said the same thing to Renfield in the original 1939 film. But when the man in black suddenly jerked, as if having a spasm, I gasped. Seconds later he shot up into the air like a rocket and disappeared into the branches of a eucalyptus tree.
“Awesome!” I said, clapping. I could feel my heart racing.
I looked around, certain I’d be joined in a round of cheery applause. But when I saw frowns on the faces of those nearby, I stopped.
“No! No! No!” Lucas Cruz yelled from behind me.
Cruz, as everyone called him, was the eccentric producer /director at CeeGee Studios, located on Treasure Island. Five years ago, he set up his computer graphics /film company in one of the long-empty Pan Am Clipper hangars on the island. Since then, he’d produced a number of sci-fi and horror films that featured his cutting-edge special effects. One of his films had starred local San Francisco resident Robin Williams as Cosmo Topper in a remake of
Topper
, the popular 1937 ghost film
.
In spite of Robin’s talents, the movie had quickly gone to video.
Cruz had hired me to plan a “wrap party” to celebrate—and publicize—the end of production on his latest horror film,
Revenge of the Killer Vampires
. I’d seen a few clips of the jump-the-shark spoof of vampire flicks that had ravaged theaters around the country. The two “hot” young stars, Jonas Jones, who played the vampire, and Angelica Brayden, the love interest, would no doubt become ET, TMI, and
Gossip Guy
regulars once the film debuted. And I was lucky enough to have just witnessed a preview of the skit from the movie that would be performed at tomorrow night’s party.
The wrap party would have been simple enough to host if Cruz hadn’t wanted the event held in a cemetery—“for the ambience.” After overcoming my initial resistance, I researched the possibilities online and found a
Wall Street Journal
article that mentioned the growing popularity of murder mystery parties, scavenger hunts, and other events held in cemeteries. Hollywood Forever cemetery in Los Angeles projected movies onto its mausoleum walls. Davis Cemetery in California offered bird walks and poetry workshops. Others presented Shakespeare festivals, family picnics, and even weddings.
The idea behind this: “To nurture warm feelings about the cemetery.”
Weird, I thought, but why not?
I made some calls but found San Francisco’s few cemeteries unreceptive to the idea. The City had been forced to move many of its cemeteries, due to rising costs of land and lack of space, and those that remained didn’t readily open their doors for entertainment purposes. But when I contacted the powers that be in neighboring Colma, I got lucky.
While the historic town of Colma is quaint, with brick-paved roads, ornamental streetlamps, a railroad depot, a retro city hall, and ethnically diverse restaurants, Colma is best known as the final resting place for the who’s who of San Francisco’s dearly departed. Among its permanent residents are newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst; business magnate William Henry Crocker;
San Francisco Chronicle
founder Charles de Young; the infamous, self-proclaimed Emperor Norton; and baseball legend Joe DiMaggio. Even Sheriff Wyatt Earp came to rest in Colma. It’s now known as “the City of Souls,” and it’s also where many deceased former San Franciscans have been “relocated.” In fact, now the dead outnumber the living one and a half million to sixteen hundred.
After Cruz paid a hefty rental fee, the city administrator agreed to let us host our party at Lawndale, one of the neglected older cemeteries that had gone bankrupt, thanks to the plethora of the more prestigious cemeteries—sixteen, to be exact—that had opened in the area.
Cruz had quickly found the spot in the cemetery he wanted—a large open-air mausoleum with a patio, surrounded by acres of untended headstones. At the moment, production crew members from CeeGee Studios were working out the logistics of “vampire flight” gone wrong. Two men were trying to retrieve Jonas from the treetop, while others attempted to fix a glitch in the rigging that was supposed to lift the young star up and away in a dramatic disappearing act—but not up and into a tree. It looked as if Jonas, aka Count Alucard (“Dracula” spelled backward), was going to need more flying lessons and a better pulley system.
Still, I was impressed, and I thought the party guests—the primary stars, select film crew, important media, and a few local dignitaries—would be also, at tomorrow night’s party. That is, if they weren’t too superstitious to enter a graveyard.
I didn’t relish the idea of hosting a party in a graveyard—it seemed somewhat disrespectful—but Cruz had promised to make a large donation to the charity organization of my choice. That was something I insisted on when I hosted large parties for clients. This time I’d chosen the American Red Cross. Given the type of party, it seemed appropriate to help out an organization known for its blood drives.
“Watch the trees, for God’s sake!” Cruz yelled as crew members adjusted the young actor’s hidden flying gear. “I want him lifted up and over that whatchacallit—that monument there—not flung around like Peter Pan on crack. This is supposed to be thrilling, not embarrassing! Reporters and photographers from TMI,
Gossip Guy
, and Buzz Online will be here tomorrow night!”
Cruz ran both hands through his thinning hair, a habit he had when he was anxious or upset. It was probably why he had thinning hair. Dressed in a T-shirt, saggy jeans, and a hoodie that read “CeeGee Studios,” he looked more like a maintenance worker than the man in charge. He wasn’t the easiest person to work with, and I sensed I’d regret taking on this job, but in the past he’d helped me out with some of my parties that required unique lighting, background decor, or special effects. Consequently, even though I’d been buried under a pile of party requests since I’d hosted the Séance Party at the Winchester Mystery House, I felt I owed him and couldn’t turn him down.
Besides, helping one another is what we Treasure Islanders do.
While Cruz and his crew continued to work on the “disappearing Dracula” glitch, I went over final plans for the party decorations with my own crew. Tonight we were setting up the lighting, unloading the larger props, and doing logistics; tomorrow we’d turn the old mausoleum into a mini-Transylvania.
Delicia Jackson, part-time actress and my office mate on TI, was in charge of the vampire black and bloodred helium-inflated balloons. Currently she was tying the balloons to headstones and monuments in the designated party area. Tomorrow she’d dress for the theme, in a sexy “Vampira” costume. Unlike the star of the film, Angelica, who wore a wig, Dee didn’t need fake locks. Her long black hair was perfect for the part.
Berkeley Wong, my events videographer, had already helped Cruz’s crew with the atmospheric lighting—headstones with eerie backlights, indirect spotlights, and dozens of candles. He’d be back again tomorrow night to videotape the event.
Duncan Grant, all-around gamer, computer whiz, fan of extreme sports, and Berk’s office roommate on Treasure Island, was busy connecting wires behind some gravestones. He’d been thrilled when Cruz had hired him and a few of his friends as movie extras. At the moment, he was hooking up the creepy-voice recordings he’d made earlier on his computer, and placing tiny speakers around the party area. At twenty, with his curly red hair, baggy skater pants, and a black T-shirt that cryptically read “Take Flight,” he still looked like a high school kid playing with electronic toys. But these were high-tech playthings. Each time someone walked past a headstone, a disembodied voice said, “I vant to suck your blood,” “What a long neck you have,” or “Bite me.”
Everything was going to be perfect, I promised myself.
“Those are awesome!” I called to Brad, my . . . whatever. I refused to call him “boyfriend.” The hunky crime scene cleaner, who also rents office space on the island, had generously volunteered to help out. At the moment, he was setting up Styrofoam tombstones made by the graphic artists at CeeGee Studios. Each marker had been hand painted to look cracked and crumbling, then lettered with funny epitaphs such as, “To follow you, I’m not content; how do I know which way you went?” and “Here lies a man named Zeke, second-fastest draw in Cripple Creek.”
“As long as I don’t find my name on one of these . . . ,” Brad said, securing a fake headstone to the front of a real one with duct tape. Out of his white Crime Scene Cleaners jumpsuit and in black jeans and a black T-shirt, he looked like one of Cruz’s creative staff.
I opened a box and began sorting through the garlic “necklaces” I’d be placing on the portable party tables that would soon be covered with red tablecloths. I’d ordered dozens of little wooden crosses and small rubber bats, which I planned to set at each place, along with plastic vampire fangs that doubled as napkin rings. But it was the centerpieces that would catch the eyes of most guests tomorrow night. I’d had minicoffins made out of Plexiglas that would be filled with red-tinted water and topped with a floating, black rose candle.
I hummed as I worked, probably because I found the surroundings serene and relaxing. While most of the Colma cemeteries had expansive lawns, color spots of flowers, and statues of weeping angels, the grass here at Lawndale had turned brown and the flowers had long ago died. But the headstones were still intriguing, documenting lives often taken prematurely by complications of childbirth, disease epidemics, or wars. Lawndale also had a pet section up the hill called “Pet’s Place,” reserved for burying animals. Not to be confused with Stephen King’s
Pet Sematary
, where the pets actually came back to life after they were buried, this one was filled with tiny headstones featuring names of well-loved cats and dogs, interspersed with the occasional parakeet, gecko, or monkey.
I suddenly sensed someone standing behind me. Half expecting it to be Brad, I turned around and came face-to-face with a grizzled old man in a frayed 49ers baseball cap, wearing dirty overalls and a plaid flannel shirt. His tattered brown boots were caked in mud, his beard caked with bits of dropped food.
Backlit by the work lights the crew had constructed, the man seemed to loom larger than life.
“What’s going on here?” The man spat, then grimaced, revealing a row of crooked, yellowed teeth. He swung the beam of a heavy flashlight around the crew. Everyone stopped working and stared at the man—and at the large shovel he held in his other hand.
I was about to explain, when Cruz bounded over, nearly tripping over a cord. “I should ask you the same question, buddy,” he said to the man who was nearly twice his size. While Cruz may have had a big bark, I had a feeling this guy had a bigger bite. Those creases in his aging face weren’t made by lots of smiling.
“I’m the owner and manager of Peaceful Kingdom, and you’re on private property.” He spat again, and I realized his lower lip was filled with chewing tobacco.
Reluctantly, I stepped up to take over from Cruz, who had a short fuse to match his short stature. While the big old guy held a menacing flashlight and shovel, I still had some garlic bulbs in my hands, and I knew how to use them if it came to that.
“Hi.” I reached out a garlic-free hand. “I’m Presley Parker, from Killer Parties. We’re hosting a wrap party for a recently completed film, and we have permission to be here.”
“A what party?” he asked, ignoring my hand—thank God—and aimed the flashlight right in my eyes. He reeked of alcohol, tobacco, and dirt.
I shaded the glare. “A wrap party,” I said, enunciating. “To celebrate the end of—”
“I don’t care if it’s a crap party; you cain’t have it here!” He gave his shovel a menacing shake.
“I’m afraid we can,” Cruz said. The flashlight shifted to his face. “I don’t know anything about your Peaceful Kingdom or whatever, but you don’t own this place. We have documentation from the city of Colma allowing us to rent Lawndale Cemetery for our event.”
“Listen, you maggot, and listen good. My name’s Otto Gunther. Me and my wife, Carrie—God rest her soul—we’ve owned this here cemetery for over fifty years and you’re trespassing. So git.”
“We’re not going to ‘git,’ Otto,” Cruz continued, “but we are going to call the police and have them settle this.” He turned to me and pulled out his cell. “Right, Presley?”
I glanced at the others who had gathered to watch the real-life drama. No one looked particularly frightened, but they did seem eager to find out what would happen next—except for Brad, who was nowhere in sight. I looked back at Otto. His angry expression was easily visible in the party lighting.
Or was that an expression of fear I saw behind those bloodshot eyes and rigid grimace?
Otto’s hand shook as he held the flashlight on Cruz. “You’re trespassing on hallowed ground, people, and you’re disturbing the dead. The owl portends that if you’re not gone by midnight, Death will follow.... Death will follow. . . .”
He turned and vanished back into the darkness.
Cruz looked stunned at the man’s own special effect of appearing and disappearing, then shook his head. “ ‘The owl portends’? That’s all I need. A nutcase in a cemetery . . . and a flying monkey in the trees. What else can go wrong?” He was still muttering as he returned to the problem at hand—fixing the vampire’s own disappearing act.
I looked into the dark recesses of the cemetery where Otto had disappeared and wondered about the unkempt giant of a man. Where had he gone? And why had he claimed to be the owner of Peaceful Kingdom, whatever that was? At the moment, his kingdom didn’t look so peaceful.