DD Warren 00 - The 7th Month

and that his hands remained in front of him, legs spread shoulder-width apart for balance. If ax man came up, Joe would be taking him down again.
    Ax man didn’t try to get up. Instead, sprawled on the ground, he groaned.
    D.D. stepped closer to Joe.
    Her heart was pounding too hard from the short burst of adrenaline. She could feel a stitch developing in the left side of her stomach, not to mention a now sharper ache in the small of her back. Running after the ax man hadn’t been a great idea. Bending over to cuff him would be an even worse one.
    The baby had spoken. Time to stop playing cop and return to the business of being a mom.
    She had a couple of zip ties in her coat pocket. She held them out to Joe and let him do the honors. Later, she hoped Alex and her boss would be pleased with her common sense. In the meantime, she noted that Joe didn’t need any instructions in how to use zip ties to restrain a grown man.
    With the attacker’s hands secured in front of him, Joe hefted the groaning suspect to his feet. And D.D. found herself face-to-face with a vampire.
    “It was my girlfriend’s idea,” Will Kent was lamenting ten minutes later, sitting in a cold metal folding chair in the middle of the green room, hands still tied, security guard looming at his shoulder. Six feet tall, probably one eighty, with a face painted chalk white, natural eye color obscured by jet-black contact lenses, not to mention a set of presumably fake fangs pressed into blood red lips, the wannabe actor looked like a freak show and talked with a lisp.
    D.D. and Joe had led him back to the set to discover the crew in disarray, Natalie unharmed but in hysterics, and the director studying the outtakes to see if any of them might be usable.
    “I mean, I was busy the day of the audition,” the twenty-year-old continued to whine/lisp, “and my schedule’s lousy anyway for callbacks. So Rhonda said I should sneak in, show you what I can do.” Will glanced at the director, Ron LaFavre, his gaze hopeful. At some point during the tousle, probably when Joe Talte had body slammed him, Will had bit his lip with his prosthetic fangs. The blood smeared on his chin lent a nice touch to his costume.
    “A vampire?” the director said.
    “Well sure. Vampires are hot, you know. Exactly what you need to make this movie pop. Anyone can be a Gravestone Killer. A vampire, on the other hand, really rocks. Besides,” Will added belatedly, trying to scratch at his leg with his tied hands, “my werewolf costume’s at the cleaners.”
    “A vampire,” the director said.
    “How’d you get in the cemetery?” D.D. wanted to know.
    “Backside. There’s a hole in the fence. Most of the locals know about it.”
    “When’d you enter?”
    “Shortly after six, before the grounds got too busy. I made a little shelter by a row of bushes. Been hanging out in my sleeping bag for hours, you know, just trying to stay warm until it was time for action.”
    “How did you know it was time for action?”
    “Heard the director yell action.” Will looked at D.D. as if she were an idiot. “It’s a cemetery. Sounds travels.”
    D.D. frowned at him. “What about the real Gravestone Killer?” she asked him.
    “What about the real killer?” the kid said.
    “Did you see him? Maybe interfere with his ability to show up on set?” D.D. looked around the green room, at the director, who had a faraway look on his face; at Donnie Bilger, who was clutching a cup of coffee for dear life; and at Joe Talte, who’d asserted himself into the situation with such authority, no one even questioned his right to be here. “Isn’t the Gravestone Killer part of the scenes on the schedule tonight? Has anyone seen him?”
    “A vampire,” the director said again.
    Don was frowning, looking at Joe as if he would know.
    “Haven’t seen him around,” Joe muttered. “Mark Smerznak is his name. And yeah, he should be here.”
    “I’ll have a PA check his trailer,” Donnie said, already sliding out his cell phone and exiting the green room.
    No sooner had the producer exited than Natalie came striding in. D.D. gave the blonde credit. She had her chin up, her hair tossed back, and man, could she cover ground in three-inch heels.
    Natalie marched straight up to the vampire-costumed kid, and without looking at the director, the security guard, D.D., or Joe, slapped the kid hard across the face. Kid rocked back. When he righted himself, he had a fresh drop of blood on his