We made it through the final showing – hoping nobody would blab to Ma that we’d left the foyer unattended for twenty minutes. It was pitch black by the time we ushered the last of the customers out, dabbing their eyes, snotting into tissues. LouLou led me into the staff toilet and got to work transforming me into a zombie bride.
“I have to say,” I commented, as I leaned back so fake blood wouldn’t spill into my eyes. “This isn’t how I saw today panning out at all.”
She laughed with the cap of the fake blood still between her teeth. “I know.” She examined my face, deciding where to splodge next. “Harry is a very persuasive person. I knew nothing about filming or zombies until he started here. Now I’m somehow the official make-up artist and also Zombie Number Four.”
It was midnight by the time we emerged from the toilets.
What the heck am I doing? I thought, as I walked towards Harry wearing a tattered wedding dress, veil and splatterings of blood.
His mouth dropped open. “LouLou, you’re a genius. She looks perfect.” He had a ton of camera equipment on him – a tripod bag, a big DSLR camera around his neck. He’d changed out of his uniform into a plaid shirt. I knew he meant perfect zombie bride but I still found myself blushing under my veil.
“Where’s your costume?”
He took off his camera so he could zip up his coat. It was a nice one – a brown leather jacket with fleece inside, like a pilot’s. “I’m not in tonight’s scene. Alas, Audrey, we don’t meet and fall in love until Scene Fourteen.”
LouLou, who was playing with the alarm, yelled. “It’s set! All out – go go go go GO.”
The alarm emitted aggressive beeps and we all hurried out of the staff door, me tripping on my train as we emerged into the stark winter’s night.
Harry’s friend’s car was already parked out front – the music blaring. I went red as the entire car turned to look at me.
“Right, I’m off,” LouLou said. “Have a good time, guys.”
I turned to her and my make-up must’ve been good because she jumped a bit. “You’re not coming with us?”
“Zombie Number Four got killed off last week,” she said. “And by the looks of it, they can do their own make-up.”
I followed her gaze back to the scary car full of scary strangers. Their faces were totally zombified – they all had grey skin and odd contact lenses and blood smears. They smiled – except the girl from last time. Rosie.
Harry opened the car door. “Hey, everyone. This is Audrey. She’s a proper actress and she’s going to play our zombie bride.”
The guy at the steering wheel with yellow contact lenses yelled, “WELCOME, ZOMBIE BRIDE,” over the music, and everyone else waved.
“I wish you were coming,” I whispered to LouLou, who was rifling for her car keys.
“Ahh, you’ll be fine. They’re a friendly bunch. Just don’t do drugs,” she added.
“Drugs?”
But she had no time to explain. Harry had shouted for everyone to scooch over and slammed his equipment in the boot. He climbed in first, somehow finding space for his gangly body, while I stood there, arms crossed in the cold – feeling awkward and new and unwelcome. Especially as Rosie stared intently at me through the rear window, chewing gum with proper attitude. She made direct eye contact and blew a neon-blue bubble. It popped without her even blinking.
Harry grinned up at me from the back seat. “You’re going to have to sit on my lap, Audrey.”
I rolled my eyes. “Really?”
He gestured around him. “Do you see any more room?” He pointed to a guy squashed up next to him, with ultra-blond hair and a scattering of spots on his chin. “I mean, you can sit on Rob’s lap here, if you really want to. But considering you don’t know him, I think that’s going to be weird for both of you.”
Rob smiled at me. “Hey, I don’t mind it being weird.” He patted his knees and everyone in the car groaned.
I chewed my lip. “You planned this,” I said, relenting, and climbing in on top of Harry – which was pretty damn hard in a wedding dress.
“Maybe, maybe not.”
The car had the strong tang of sweet smoke. Harry introduced me while I sat myself down on his knees. “So, this is Tad, driving. And Rob, whose knees you’ve so rudely rejected.”
“My knees are mortally offended,” Rob said, with a friendly smile.
“Up in front is Jay.” A boy in a backward cap swivelled in his seat and said “Hi”. “And over at the end we have Rosie.” Rosie glared at me, still snapping her gum. But she waved, while glaring. Which is quite impressive really. A bit like rubbing your head and patting your belly.
“Are you sure you don’t mind I took your part?” I asked her, trying to make peace. Although Harry had reassured me ten gazillion times that she didn’t mind.
She chewed her gum and took slightly too long to answer. “It’s a bit late now if I do mind, isn’t it?”
My stomach flip-flopped with the awkward but Harry just laughed and said, “Rosie, stop being a dick.” And she laughed, but with him. Then she glared at me again.
Tad put his car into gear and I twisted around, my face almost right in Harry’s face. “Is there a seat belt?”
“Somewhere up my butt crack there is a seat-belt thingy,” Rob replied. “I don’t think it’s going to be easy to remove.”
“Relax, Audrey, the woods are only a five-minute drive away.” Harry’s hot breath tickled the back of my neck.
The car screeched off into the darkness and I grabbed hold of the window winder to steady myself. Harry instinctively – or deliberately – put his arms around my waist. It was an obvious “move” but I was actually quite grateful for not feeling like I was about to fly out the windscreen. I was very aware of his lap, and the things boys have in their laps. He couldn’t have planned it better, which I’m sure was the point.
“So, you’re an actress then, Audrey?” Jay shouted over the music blasting from the car’s speakers.
“Umm, sort of,” I yelled back, my bum sliding over Harry’s knobbly knees as we rounded a corner.
“She’s come up with a brilliant twist on the zombie bride,” Harry said, his mouth right in my ear, his hands too tight around my middle.
“She’s going to be a feminist freedom fighter,” I explained self-consciously.
I felt Harry nodding behind me. “Like a zombie Kill Bill. It’s inspired. I’m tweaking the script tomorrow.”
“Do I still get my brain eaten tonight though?” Rob asked. “Because I’ve been practising my brain-being-eaten scream all week.”
“I can confirm Audrey will still eat your brain.”
“Sorry about that.” I smiled.
We whipped around another corner and Harry’s grip tightened around me again. I saw Rosie notice. She’d stayed silent through the whole exchange, apart from the snapping of her gum. I decided to be the bigger person and make the first move. I mean, Harry insisted she hated acting but I had taken her part. It was up to me to make peace.
“So, you all out of college then?” I asked, leading with a group question.
They murmured yes, none of them mentioned uni or anything.
“She’s Dougie’s little sister,” Harry explained.
“Ahh, cool, how’s Dougie?” Jay adjusted his hat. “You kind of look like him actually.”
“He’s good, he’s fine. Everyone says we look alike.”
Rosie finally spoke. “So, you must be, like, much younger than us, right?” she said, pointedly.
“Just one year. I’m in upper sixth.”
“Aww cute. Though you look even younger. Like fourteen.”
I ignored her, as that is the only thing you can really do with a deliberate put-down like that. I decided to try again with her later, when she didn’t seem so cross. I twisted in Harry’s arms. “So, how long have you been making movies?” I asked him.
“Since I was a child.”
“Harry’s awesome,” Rob said. “Don’t let his U in Film Studies put you off this movie.”
“You got a U? I didn’t even know it was possible to get a U.”
His eyes darkened a little but he styled it out with a smile. “They didn’t accept my coursework.”
Rob laughed. “He was only supposed to make a movie trailer, but he got carried away and made a full-length feature film about a serial killer. I was the serial killer,” he said, brightly.
“So they failed you because you over-delivered?” I asked.
Harry’s eyes flashed dark again. “Yes.”
“That hardly seems fair.”
“Life isn’t fair, Audrey.” It was the first time he’d said anything without a side-helping of charm in his voice.
The car drove through complete blackness and the local woods stretched out creepily either side of us. The car was going way too fast, the music was way too loud. I didn’t know any of these people. It felt scary and unreal and odd – but also exciting. I’d been working all day but I didn’t feel the slightest bit tired.
“Hey, Harry?” Rosie called over the music. “Remember when we had to film that dirty scene for it, and we almost got arrested?”
I smiled in the darkness. Knowing what she was doing.
Harry laughed. “That was a hard thing to explain to the policeman.”
“I was literally in my bra,” Rosie told the car. Obviously so the whole car could picture her in her bra.
“They thought we were dogging,” Harry explained.
“Me holding a camera didn’t help,” Jay added.
And I laughed too because I knew Rosie wouldn’t expect me to. “Do you always give yourself the leading roles so you get to kiss people?”
“What can I say? I’m the best kisser.”
The car erupted into groans and protests. Rob offered me and Rosie a “demonstration” to “let us be the judges” and I couldn’t stop laughing. But Rosie said, “You are a very good kisser, Harry,” her voice loaded with meaning – and I had to try very hard not to roll my eyes.
The car jolted to an abrupt halt, right in the arse-end middle of nowhere.
“Let the brain-eating commence!” Harry cheered.