Darren Shan - Slawter

“I’m telling you this because of Davida Haym,” Dervish says, interrupting my thoughts. “I went through her disc earlier. From the outline it sounds like fun—demons run wild and take over a town—but I don’t like it. The few demons she described are very realistic. She mentions rituals you can use to summon them. She’s gathered information cleverly but I don’t think she knows how dangerous that information is.

“I’m going to accept her offer to work on set as an advisor. I want to make sure she doesn’t accidentally summon a demon or supply others with the means to. The chances of that happening are slim, and in the normal run of things I wouldn’t bother with her.

“But I need to get away from here for a while.” His eyes are dark, haunted. “I haven’t been the same since I came back. The nightmares… fear… confusion. Maybe my brain will never properly recover and I’m doomed to live like this until I die. But I’m hoping I can shrug it off. I’ve been living the quiet life—too quiet. I need something to focus my attention. A challenge. Something to sweep away the cobwebs inside my head.”

“But you’re protected by spells here,” I note. “You might not be safe outside Carcery Vale. Lord Loss…”

“Remember the book in the cellar?” Dervish says. “Unless I dig myself out of this hole, I don’t think I’m safe anywhere.”

I nod slowly. “How long will you be gone?”

“However long the shoot lasts,” Dervish says. “I’ll ask Meera to keep an eye on things while I’m away.”

“Meera’s going to be staying with me?” I ask, not minding the sound of that one little bit—Meera Flame’s hot stuff!

“No,” Dervish says. “You won’t be here either. Unless you object, I want to take you with me. Billy too.”

“You want to take us on set?” I yelp.

“Davida said I could,” he reminds me. “Well, she didn’t mention Billy, but I’m sure that won’t be a problem.”

“Brilliant!” I gasp, face lighting up. Then doubt crosses my mind. “But why?”

“Two reasons,” Dervish says. “One—I need you to look out for me at night, to help me if the nightmares continue.” He stops.

“And the second reason?”

“I don’t trust Prae Athim and the Lambs. They might pull a fast one if I’m not around.”

“You think they’d kidnap Bill-E?”

“It’s possible. Right now I want Billy where I can protect him, twenty-four seven. I’ll rest easier that way.”

“So we’re going into the movie business,” I laugh.

“Yep.” Dervish laughs too. “Crazy, isn’t it?” He checks his watch. “Three-thirty in the morning. Ma and Pa Spleen would hit the roof if we phoned Billy at such an ungodly hour.” He cocks a wicked eyebrow at me. “Do you want to ring or shall I?”

“I’ve always wanted to eat human flesh. I mean, it’s not an obsession or anything. I wouldn’t go out of my way to kill, skin and cook somebody. But I’ve always been curious, wondered what it would taste like. So, when the opportunity dropped into my lap, yeah, I took it. Does that make me a bad person? I don’t think so. At least, not much badder than—”

“Worse than,” Bill-E interrupts.

“Worse!” Emmet winces. “I keep tripping on that. ‘Not much worse than, not much worse than, not much worse than…’ ”

I feel sorry for Emmet, watching him struggle to learn his lines. It’s not easy to keep a load of words that aren’t yours straight inside your head, then trot them out in a seemingly natural fashion. I used to think actors had a great life. Not any more. Not after a week on the set of Slawter.

Slawter, as Davida told us when she visited Carcery Vale, is the title of the movie and the name of the fictional town which features in it. It’s also what they’ve called the huge set which Davida’s crew has constructed. It’s an amazing place. They found a deserted town in the middle of nowhere. Rented the entire area and set to work restoring the buildings, clearing the streets of rubble, putting in fake lamps, telephone wires, signs for restaurants, hotels, bars, etc. They also erected a lot of fake buildings which look real from the front but are entirely empty on the other side. Walking down the streets, it’s hard to tell the real buildings from the fake ones—until you open a door.

There are trailers on the outskirts of Slawter—the movie veterans refer to them as the circus— where many of the cast and crew sleep, but a lot of us are staying in the old, real buildings. Since we’re so far from any other town, Davida decided to turn some of the buildings into makeshift hotels, so everyone could stay in one place, in comfort. The “hotel” where Dervish, Bill-E and I are staying looks like a butcher’s shop out front, but it’s cosy inside.

I’ve been told this isn’t the way films are normally made. Usually the crew does a bit of location work, then heads back to the studio to shoot the interior scenes. But Slawter is the studio. There are huge warehouses, built beyond one end of town, where the interiors can be shot. And since all the outdoor action in the film is set in the town, everything can be done on site. They even do the editing here, and the special effects. Often, on a big budget film, there might be several teams around the world working on effects at the same time. But Davida wants to keep total control over this project. She refuses to farm out any of the work, even though it makes life much harder for her. This is her baby, the jewel in her movie crown, and she’s doing it exactly the way she wants—damn the inconvenience!

She even insists on keeping the cast together for the duration of the shoot. Emmet’s worked on a couple of films before and explained how, if you have a small part in the movie, you only turn up for a few days, shoot your scenes, then head off. Even the big stars don’t hang around the set the whole time.

Well, here they do. All the actors, cameramen, artists, carpenters, caterers— everyone— had to agree to stay here until filming is finished. Davida kept everything secret in the build-up to shooting. Now that we’re all on set and the cameras are rolling, most of the secrets have been revealed. Copies of the full script have been circulated and we’ve seen some of the demon costumes. To make sure none of the secrets leak to the outside world, Davida arranged for everyone to remain in Slawter until the entire film has been shot.

It costs a fortune to keep us here—food and drinks are free, games have to be organised to keep people amused in their spare time, two swimming pools have been built, tennis courts, a football pitch and so on—but Davida doesn’t care. Her other movies made a load of money and she’s managed to convince her backers that this one is going to be a mega blockbuster, so she’s free to spend whatever she likes.

Not having any jobs to do, Bill-E and I have been enjoying the filming. We wander through Slawter, watch scenes being shot, check out the old buildings and fakes, hang out with some of the other kids and generally just have fun. It’s great. Reminds me of when I first moved to Carcery Vale, when Bill-E and I spent pretty much all our free time together. We’re best buddies again, breezing along in a little world of our own, no Loch Gossel or other friends of mine to complicate the situation.

You can divide the children of Slawter into three groups. There are the actors, twenty or so. Most haven’t much experience, or have only been in a few films, like Emmet Eijit, who’s our best friend here.

Then there are the actors’ relatives. It’s a big deal being a child actor. There are all sorts of rules and regulations. They can only work so many hours a day. They have to be schooled on set. At least one of their guardians—normally a parent—has to be with them all the time. And there have to be other children for them to play with. Juni’s in charge of that side of things. She makes sure the kids are being looked after, having fun, not feeling the stress of being part of such a costly, risky venture.