Estronomicon Sketchbook 2009

MARK HOWARD JONES long pin from his waistcoat pocket and plunged it quickly into Peter's arm. He felt nothing. "That's good, very good," smiled Harbilt.

"I don't suppose you've ever thought of yourself as a film star, have you?

But that's what you'll be. It's a shame that everyone will think you're just a cleverly-crafted marionette, but there's always a downside to everything."

Glancing up at the screen for a few moments, Harbilt mused: "It's remarkable the effect this film has. Ancient images plucked from deep inside the human soul; thieves of the self. Simply that, terrors that mankind has brought with it since before it knew who or what it was." In his hands glowed the soulstone, pulsing even more darkly and insistently than it had on the screen a few moments before.

He stood over Peter now, uncomfortably close and obviously aware of the effect he was having. "I'll leave you something of yourself so that you can put real 'soul' into your performance." He ran his fingers down Peter's cheek, flicking away the involuntary tears, before glancing sideways at Sean's paralysed figure. "But your friend has to go. I found him insulting and unkind.

Nothing for him."

Peter forced his thoughts to move through the sludge filling his mind. He knew Harbilt was trying to kill them both; but why?

The director droned on: "I'm very grateful to you and your friend for showing such an interest in my work. Now I'll be able to make another film; I'll be able to use your energies to capture more images in front of the cameras. I can finally return to my great love, the cinema. Thank you."

The images on the screen - rolling flesh choking a floppy broken-boned woman in some grotesque sexual encounter - rose and fell in brightness as Peter's eyes were assaulted by their power. He felt soft tendrils dig inside him, drawing him out to where the obscene power of Harbilt's creation could grab and tear at him, devouring his being. He fought against the nausea; dignity was the only thing left to him.

"That's right, Mr Hughes. I see you now understand that all my films are, in fact, documentaries that merely faithfully detail my actors' despair. I'm no storyteller ... can't seem to make it work." Caught off guard by his confession of failure, Harbilt smoothed down his rumpled waistcoat, hoping to find fresh composure in its pleats. "You were right about the French couple. They were certain they recognised a friend who had disappeared over a year previously; - 65 -