Boarding Party • 19. "The Show Must Go Wrong" Part IV (Patreon)

Angus Shimoda pranced across the stage. “Oh! Lady Helena, I implore you to tell me what hath got thou so preoccupied that thou hath cast me no attention?” he asked, taking Andrea’s hands into his own. 

“Oh, Sir Ubaldo, I wish for nothing more than to unburden myself from these shackles of secrecy which hath been so cruelly latched betweenst my lips!” Andrea Filmore replied, breaking a hand free from Angus’ grasp to dramatically rest on her forehead.

Angus dropped down to one knee, clutching onto Andrea’s frilly skirt in an effort to keep himself upright. “Tell me at once: who forced these shackles unto you? I shall have them paid dearly for how they restricted y—” 

“No, no…!” Reginald Stewart interrupted as he stood up from his seat, shaking his lowered head in thought. “Let’s try that again, but this time, try to lean over Andrea as you deliver your lines. You’re the one in control, you’re on her side, but you’re the one in charge.” His gaze drifted from the two dramatis personae to the sloppy scenery surrounding them. “Sir Archibald DeFonz,” he boomed, “is afflicted with cataracts at such an advanced stage that his eyes now resemble two, circular mirrors. Yet, I bet that even he could tell that this is a piss-pitiful excuse for a brick wall! Look, you can still see blotches of tan all around the edges!”

“Ahh, who gives a shit? The audience won’t be able to see it from that far!” Majel called out as she tried to sneakily uncork a bottle of sherry behind a flat, wooden “tree.” 

“I give a shit!” Stewart yelled. 

The cat pointed to the chandelier that hung above the auditorium. “Just dim all these stupid lights you have on and nobody’ll know the better!”

He took several steps towards her, gritting his teeth as he talked. “Miss Marchmain, it seems as though you’re somehow unaware of this production’s magnitude: Queen Horatio—Her Royal, All-Supreme Majesty herself—will be in attendance, just like she has for every Opening Night the Stewart Drama Company has celebrated thus far! Now, I don’t intend on that stopping anytime soon, so I insist — no, demand — that everything be perfect down to the last detail! Do you hear me?”

“Too well…” the cat groaned, rubbing her temples.

“I’ll fix it, director!” D’anna offered. Her face and her lavish disguise were covered in splotches of paint from the backdrop she’d been working on. (It looked quite realistic, although it looked more like the grassy fields of rural Veridia than the intended setting of a princess’ bedroom.)

Stewart clapped his hands together and flashed a forced smile at the elf. “Good! That way, I’ll get an acceptable set, you’ll get the praise you so utterly need by calling out to me like that, and Miss Marchmain will get to spend more time with her liquor. Everybody comes out a winner!” 

As he walked away, Majel flattened her ears and muttered a one-word, four-letter descriptor for him that won’t be repeated here. 

Meanwhile, the corps de ballet were gathered together, and not in the diamond chassé en arrières they were supposed to be perfecting. Rather, they formed a circle of gossip, speaking to each other in hushed tones lest any supernatural parties decide to eavesdrop… 

“Every time I lock a door, it unlocks, and every time I unlock a door, it becomes locked again!” one of them cried out. “Now I always have a key on me, just in case I’m ever barred from entering my own bedroom!” 

“Ever since Margaret saw… him, I’ve been hearing strange noises in the middle of the night! A blade scraping against the floor, bones jingling together, the creaking of doors — OH! It’s so horrible! I’ve been able to rest, but it feels like I haven’t slept in days!” 

“I’ve heard that everyone’s spirits have been going missing, too! I can attest to it — I kept a bottle of sherry stored in my closet, but now it’s been replaced by thin air!!”

“My sherry’s been snatched as well! The glasses were still there, but the bottle was gone!” 

“Someone stole the crate of champagne I was saving for the cast party! I thought I was going mad!”  

Cain watched them from the rafters, cursing underneath his figurative breath. Damn that Majel, blasted cat! It’s bad enough that they know he existed, but now they think he’s an alcoholic, too! 

He shook his skull to clear his thoughts. He couldn’t be soaking in that sweet, sweet fear he’d been stirring up when there were exits to board up and escape routes that needed re-checking — not only to bar others from coming or going, but to make sure that he, and only he (oh, and Majel and D’anna, too) would be able to leave Her Majesty’s Theatre, disappearing at a moment’s notice with pockets full of riches. 

A man stood beside the stage, one hand resting on the rapier sheathed at his waist. Barton had been one of the guards hired (begrudgingly, on Stewart’s part) to help ease the crew’s paranoia over this… ugh, “Spectre of the Theatre,” as the cast and crew had dubbed him. 

He was keeping watch over the stage, listening to the dancers babble on and on about their ghostly visitor, when he heard a muttering coming from above — someone whispering something about a failing liver…? Drawing a rapier, the guard looked up and spotted him: a skeletal figure clad in black robes, scanning around with hollow eyes. 

Barton tiptoed around the edges of the backstage, circling around the corps de ballet and trying to look as nonchalant as you could whilst carrying a sword and gazing upward. He quietly stalked his prey, venturing forth alone so as to take him by surprise; any attention drawn towards the mysterious intruder would just entail a commotion and an escape. 

Stepping on the metallic staircase with as softest of footsteps as his boots would allow, Barton crept closer and closer to the cloaked figure crouched in the fly loft. The Spectre’s bony face was contorted into a wicked smile, reveling in the hysteric recountings of his treachery echoing from the stage. After making sure that he was blocking the staircase, Barton finally made his presence known. 

“You there!” he said in a hushed yet demanding tone, aiming the rapier’s sharp tip inches away from the ghoul. 

The Spectre’s cape formed a circle as he shot up into the air and twisted to face his new adversary. With a flash of his hand he raised a sword of his own and struck the rapier — FWOOSH, DINK! 

There was a mutual, unspoken wish for silence: The Spectre did not want to give away his cover, and Barton did not want a riot to break out, lest an escape could be made in the chaos. This agreement led them to argue, not with words, but with the precise language of swordplay. Against Stewart’s catty berating and the corps de ballet’s chatter, their relatively quiet duel drew no attention beyond its participants (unless, for some reason, someone were to look directly up at the dark bannisters at that very moment).

The Spectre attempted to lurch at his opponent, but Barton twisted his body in the nick of time. Similarly, the only thing the guard could slash was a bit of the cloak’s sleeve. Their footwork followed all over the shadowy fly tower, gently swinging from platforms only held in the air by a few strands of rope (which they also happened to be swinging sharp blades mere inches away from). 

Growing desperate, Barton climbed up a few steps and jumped towards The Spectre, his sword pointed at the middle of his skull. With only a split second to defect, the ghoul acted on instinct. He dropped his weapon and, with both bony hands, pushed the guard over the railing. His head got caught in a curved line of rigging, tightening around his neck and keeping his body suspended in the air like a jumbled, macabre marionette. 

Not wanting to leave any evidence of their duel, The Spectre picked up his cutlass and leaned over the railing. He figured that he’d cut the body free and dump it in some recluse closet, where nobody would discover it until after he, Majel, and D’anna were already sailing towards Saint Khan’s with a whole theatre’s worth of booty.

However, he misjudged the upkeep of this supposedly grand theatre. A wobbly guardrail gave way, sending him tumbling towards the spider’s web of rope. He and the now-dead guard were trapped like mummified flies, hanging a hundred feet above the stage. The skeleton tried to wrestle himself free from his new confines, but the wriggling caused Barton’s body to tip over the web’s edge…

“Not to interrupt you, Gwendolyn, but has anybody seen Elisa today?”

“No, I haven’t!” 

“I haven’t either!”

“Ugh, I can’t believe her!”

“That girl, I swear…!”

“This is the fourth day in a row that she’s been tardy to rehearsals!” 

“And the day before Opening Night, no less!” 

“She’s probably catching up on her rest — you know, after seeing that boy all night.”

“I swear, I think we ought to just—” 

The corpse of Barton dropped towards the stage, dangling from a shoddy-looking noose and turning the corps de ballet’s conversation into a choir of blood-curdling screams.

“THE SPECTRE OF THE THEATRE!” one of them screamed. 

“My god, he was real! Oh…!” Andrea Filmore cried before fainting in Angus Shimoda’s arms.

“How could we not have known…?” Angus Shimoda yelled before fainting into Andrea’s arms, which wasn’t nearly as romantic that time.

Majel looked up and scowled. “Gods dammit!!” 

She turned towards D’anna, pointing at The Spectre with a thumb. “And he treats us like we’re the ones who throw the wrenches!” 

D’anna didn’t reply, since she was still frozen with terror upon seeing Barton. For someone who spent most of her days in the company of zombies and psychopaths, you think she would be used to the sight of a corpse by now…

With a sigh, Majel wrapped an arm around the elf and guided her off-stage, away from the body. 

Meanwhile, Stewart raised a finger into the air. “THE BODY CAME FROM UP THERE! GUARDS, BRING ME THE SKULL OF THE SPECTRE!!” 

A quartet of guards nodded, hup-hup-huping from their posts near the entrance of the theatre to the fly loft’s staircase. 

“Shit!” Cain huffed to himself. He reached into his belt’s pouch and pulled out his dagger, desperately trying to free himself from the ropes. If it came down to it, he’d have to leave his arms behind and jump for it, but that was an absolutely last-case scenario.

The skeleton’s cuts began to grow more and more erratic as he heard the thumping of marching boots on metal bannisters, the guards closing in on him. He freed his left arm, but the ropes constraining his right arm seemed to have a bizarre amount of pressure placed onto them. He’d managed to whittle them down to a dozen or so strands before the guards reached him, wielding their rapiers and pistols. 

“Well, well, well!” one of them sneered. “Feeling all tied up, are—” 

With one last swipe, Cain severed the pressure-bearing ropes. Everything happened so fast, he could only make out a loud jingling noise and a blinding sweep of light. Only until the dust settled did he realize the cause of all that pressure: The theatre’s wobbly chandelier, now free from most of its support, swung towards the stage and ended in a deafening CRASH. 

There was a sudden silence where there had been a collective screaming before. Pinned underneath the chandelier were the bodies of Andrea Filmore, Angus Shimoda, and (almost) the entire corps de ballet (sans the still-missing Elisa). The impact of the chandelier tipped over D’anna’s backdrop, taking the lives of eight more actors — including the understudies for Sir Ubaldo and Lady Helena. 

After taking a few seconds to process what had happened (as everybody else had done), Cain climbed onto the bannister, pushed the guards out of his way, fumbled for the edge of his cloak, wrapped it dramatically around his face, and booked it towards a far-away part of the theatre’s many hallways. 

D’anna and Majel stood off to the side, their eyes wide-opened in shock. D’anna’s mouth was agape — Majel’s would’ve been, too, but she didn’t want to spit out any of her sherry. 

Reginald Stewart fell to his knees and began to sob. Not because of the combined twenty-seven lives of his performers being brutally taken from them, not because he’d have to get a replacement chandelier hung up as-soon-as-possible, but because he now had less than twenty-four hours to whip Lady Amelia Marchmain and Lady Lenore DeLancie — the understudies to the understudies — into shape for tomorrow’s Opening Night, lest he suffer the scorn of Queen Horatio. 

The show must go on… he figured, even when it really shouldn’t…