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from A Yard Full of Bones
by Armand Rosamilia and Jay Wilburn
Prologue
His mother had been dead for a week before anyone had bothered to call him. It had been another two long days before he’d been able to escape Hollywood, and work, and the upcoming divorce, and fly to Vermont.
He’d steered clear of his ancestral family home in the woods. The funeral had been attended by a few townsfolk, who didn’t bother to speak to him. They looked at him sideways. So many of them were gone now.
He was sure his mother had badmouthed him for leaving her to deal with the property all those years ago. He’d rented a sedan in Montpelier, avoiding the upgrade and anything fancy. One of the older suits from the back of his walk-in closet was too tight and had it let out so he could breathe in it. A change of clothes in a backpack with his toiletries and he’d been on a plane.
She’d made sure there would be no burial and had her ashes sealed in an urn and a thick metal box. Only he could take it with him, under the condition that it would go back to California and her ashes spread in the Pacific Ocean. His mother had never even left Vermont in her long, dark lifetime.
Vermont was cold and overcast and reminded him too much of his childhood and the hardships and tragedies. The loss of family member after family member. He could not find the sun.
He was now alone and he needed to break the cycle. Getting rid of her ashes would be the thing to unshackle his family from this curse once and for all, as if it really mattered now that he was the last living member. Being a homosexual meant the Silverstein name ended with him.
Still, an icy finger ran up and down his spine whenever he thought of the house in the woods. It had been years since he’d woken from a nightmare he could definitively trace back to his childhood and his life.
And the yard full of bones.
Ghosts made of shadows followed you wherever you went, more prominent as you got older and had more behind than before you.
He decided when he got back to Los Angeles he’d write again, like he used to do in the old days, before fame and money and Brock became his life. Before they were expected to direct for the studios.
Before it had all gone to absolute shit.
Gloria picked him up at the airport. He refused to answer any of her questions.
“Act like my fucking assistant and only worry about what I want, not what you want,” he’d snapped at her. “Get me a bottle of wine and something to write on.”
She’d left him in the spacious living room. He needed to get rid of this stifling furniture. Too many ghosts and memories blocked the view of the future.
It was the last time he saw her, this loyal woman who’d sided with him during the initial split with Brock because he recognized that the man was out of control. Out of his mind on drugs and drinking heavily like the old days when he could handle and manage it. That and the other thing. Maybe the thing that was his real addiction and downfall all along.
Mel needed a fresh start. Perhaps a move to Vancouver. Find an isolated spot and write a novel. He’d always wanted to work on a book instead of film anyway. Visually, in a reader’s mind, was where the challenge lied. On screen it was too easy to just… watch.
He knew it didn’t matter where he lived really. Darkness found him everywhere.
They came for him hours later, as he drooled on the couch, pen in hand and unfinished notes about a haunted ghost novel he’d been thinking of for a future movie.
Melvin Silverstein, also known as producer Mel Silver, didn’t feel the razor slide across his neck or feel the blood rushing out of his body, too intensely dreaming of a new book and a new beginning he was not allowed to chase.
That was not his bit; that was not the part he was called to play.
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