Living in Carousel was odd in so many ways, but the thing that stuck out the most to me wasn’t the constant feeling of impending doom or the mysterious residents; it was the petty thievery.

Everywhere we went, we found ourselves reaching out and grabbing things we wanted and shoving them in our bags. Chapstick for sale at a neighborhood newspaper stand? Better grab it.

Hand sanitizer in the bathroom at the diner? I think I’ll take it.

Pillow from the nice hotel we stayed at? It goes in the bag. Pillows don’t weigh much and our magical luggage tags only cared about weight. Unfortunately for me, I had used my luggage tag in my hoodie pockets, which made pillow pilfering impractical.

Still, I always had everything I needed with me. Off-brand candy bars from the hotel mini bar? Mine. Carousel demanded coin for items at its special stores like the psychic emporium or the pawn shop. Even the Eternal Saver’s Club took money for bulk purchases unless you beat the storyline there.

Set dressing, though, it could be pillaged cautiously.

Roxy was said to have been so good at stealing from storyline sets that watching her go through movies was like watching a spy get chased through an open-air bazaar. She picked up a scarf here and sunglasses there. Before you knew it, she had a total wardrobe change between scenes.

I mostly used thievery to get toiletries, candy, and batteries for my off-brand Walkman.

That was what I was thinking about as I woke up over a month after the factory fire. It hadn’t actually been a month, but the calendar said it had. February 12th, 1984. The set disaster would soon be upon us.

I was sleeping on the couch of my character’s rented home, looking toward the Carousel Hills—not quite in the Carousel Hills, but the upper-middle-class neighborhood closest to it. Yes, my character had an overpriced, modernist home that would make a miniature Bond villain proud.

It was one of those places with a flat roof and glass walls. I hated it. We lived in a horror movie hellscape. I couldn’t leave lights on because I knew I was getting stared at by things that went bump in the night.

I couldn’t sleep in the bedroom of the house either because that was where Ramona slept. She liked to have a locked door between herself and the world at night. I didn’t blame her. She was a nice enough roommate, but we weren’t friends yet. When we talked, it was friendly but distant. As odd as she was to me, I was even odder to her.

The couch I slept on was on the second story, and I got a great view of the open wilderness. I didn’t see much of Ramona. I could hear her strumming on a guitar in the bedroom below my couch pretty regularly. It was my character’s guitar, but it didn’t look like he played much. Like most of his possessions, it was meant to suggest a rich and fulfilling life that I didn’t believe he actually had. He was shallow, even for an NPC.

As I stretched, I rubbed my hand over my face and jolted awake at the realization that something was there that shouldn't have been. It was dark outside. Glancing at the wall-sized clock in his house, I saw that it was three in the morning.

I felt around my mouth and chin. It was a goatee. I had a goatee.

What the heck, Carousel?

Where was my hoodie? I hoped and prayed I had stolen more shaving cream recently. I was going to need it.

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A month before I woke up with new facial hair, I was just coming to terms with how this storyline was going to work.

Much of the time between the fire and the film set disaster was spent actually making the movie for Carlyle’s production company. I had a shooting schedule in my car, along with my house key and a complete itinerary for making the film.

I had to actually do work for this story.

Kimberly appeared in her trailer—the kind movie stars get on film shoots—the day of my first shoot. I was nervous as heck when I arrived, and all eyes were on me. I had a whole team of NPCs at my beck and call.

Carousel really wanted me to make the flick.

We were in the production lot shooting on a sound stage that contained an entire neighborhood and the impression of a forest behind the houses. This place was recycled for different movies. Today, we were shooting the inside shots for the scene Carlyle and I had discussed previously—the heroine talking to her mother as the killer stalked outside.

“Gather around people,” one of the NPCs said. Her name was Beverly. She was the film’s Assistant Director.

As the cast and crew gathered, I saw Kimberly stagger out of her trailer and take in her surroundings. An NPC urged her to join the huddle. When she saw me, a calm came over her.

Beverly, the Assistant Director, continued calling people over to herself. Then, she said, “Everyone, this is Riley Lawrence, our new director. Everyone give him your attention.”

Then they all turned to me.

Wait a second, wasn’t my character already the director? We weren’t on screen, so I guess that was okay, but it was weird to introduce me when “I” had already directed the first part of the movie.

Whatever.

What was I supposed to say?

“Folks, we all know what we’re doing. We’re going to all hit it hard and get things done on schedule,” I said, willing it into existence. “Now, let’s get ready for the shoot. Has the new script been distributed?”

“It will be soon,” Beverly said. No sooner did she say it than an assistant of some kind came from an office in the distant corner of the lot and started distributing the rewritten version of the scene I had talked to Carlyle about. The pages said I had rewritten them. I didn’t remember doing that, but the end result was pretty close to what I would have done.

“Alright, people,” I said, looking over at Kimberly. “We’re going to take ten.”

They obeyed, giving Kimberly and me time to talk.

“This is the movie set,” Kimberly said. “The news article about the film set accident—do you think that’s what this is?”

She was a little behind.

“It isn’t right now,” I said. “But it will be.”

We were barely into the Party Phase. She didn’t know of everything that had happened the day or so before at the factory. I did my best to explain it to her.

“We’re Off-Screen,” she said. “The NPCs are still in character.”

It was strange enough. We were Off-Screen for all of this. Scenes that wouldn’t make the final film were usually just not done at all. It would be a few moments before I realized the reason.

Carlyle was on set. He had to be. The Geists seemed to be unaware of Carousel’s nature. The NPCs didn’t turn off around them. It was that simple. Everyone was in character around the Geists.

“The Geists are living the plot of The Truman Show,” I said. “We can’t let them know this is all fake or… I don’t know what will happen.”

“I’ve heard of The Truman Show,” Kimberly said. “Was it a horror movie?”

“Yes,” I said. “Just in disguise.”

“I’m an actress?” she asked.

She was taking it all in and trying to project calmness. Still, it was a lot to be told all at once.

“Yes. I told Carlyle you're good, so do your best,” I said.

“Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. “You know I was in an ad on YouTube once.”

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

“I didn’t know that,” I said.

“It was for a skin cleanser. They wanted us to film ourselves using it. I shot a whole demonstration. They only used a shot of it where my face was covered in suds,” she said. “I hated that cleanser. It was sticky.”

“Hmm,” I said. Our lives back in the real world were so far behind us I had forgotten about Kimberly’s whole mini-influencer thing. “If Carlyle asks, tell him you’ve been in more than that. There is a headshot over in the office with your films on it. He’s also seen at least some of our storyline performances.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Wait, which storyline?”

“The underground lab one, Subject of Inquiry, is all I know. I guess he was told it was a real movie.”

She nodded nervously.

I couldn’t blame her. I was nervous, too. Normally, knowing the audience is watching was something you could push out of your mind. Heck, I was so angry at them for whatever role they played in getting us stuck here that I didn’t care if they were entertained beyond what was required for our survival.

Carlyle was different. I felt nervous about whether he would like my work. It felt so unlikely. I had only worked on a few student films back in college, and those were just assigned projects. Directing a real fake movie was a huge step up.

“Riley,” Carlyle called from the distance. He sounded hoarse.

“Mr. Geist,” I said. “I was wondering where you were.”

“Crawling out of a thousand tons of molten metal,” he said. “Metaphorically, if not literally. How’s the script? Did you get that scene rewritten?”

I nodded and handed him my copy of the revised script.

He started reading it immediately. Kimberly and I just watched as he tore through page after page.

“Wonderful,” he said. “Now, if the rest of the script gets this treatment, I think we’ll be onto something.”

“This is Miss Madison,” I said. “Our leading lady.”

“Kimberly Madison, of course,” he said. “You will have to forgive my manners. I have a one-track mind sometimes. I am very excited to see what you can do.”

“So am I,” she said. “I’ve got to go run my lines. If you’ll excuse me.”

She made a beeline for her trailer. Some NPCs pointed her out like she was a celebrity.

“I will see you on set. I am expecting a phone call about that nasty business last night,” Carlyle said.

He wandered off with my copy of the script. Moments later, that same assistant from earlier returned and placed a new copy in my hand. Carousel was always watching.

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“Now remember, Kimberly,” I said. “We can’t hear what you’re saying in this shot. We are focusing on the shot from the outside. You’ll sound distant. You’ll be doing all of your acting with your face and your body here.”

Kimberly nodded and took a deep breath.

“Action,” I said.

Kimberly started talking on the phone to her character's character's mother. I was down beneath, getting a visual of the scene from near the camera. Funnily enough, I could see what the cameras saw on the red wallpaper. My Director’s Monitor trope didn’t mention that ability. It was funny. That was technically what a director’s monitor was for.

Carousel, or at least whoever made the tropes, had a sense of humor.

“What are you thinking?” Carlyle asked as the scene went on. The camera was being moved around, following the path the killer would take.

“We’re playing this like she’s nervous about the big dance,” I said. “I’d like to try it where she is confident. I mean, she doesn’t know she is being watched yet. I would like to see her excited but self-assured as she looks into the mirror.”

“Let’s try it,” Carlyle said.

So we did.

We tried that and a dozen other ideas I had. Carlyle could afford the film because money was nonsense in this dimension.

We put a camera where the mirror was; we ran it again.

Kimberly did very well. She was always the best actor on the team.

Time flew. I wasn’t even sure that it was because of Carousel’s magic. I watched as Kimberly worked. We shot some of the scenes of her character realizing she was being watched. Kimberly was very good at being afraid. I supposed we all were. Looking afraid was the most natural thing in the world.

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That’s how Kimberly and I spent the next few months. She really was a star. Carlyle was truly impressed.

We had to reshoot some of the scenes of the house and Kimberly’s mirror scene over again on location in northern Carousel. This time, we were shooting the real house, having the camera stalk around like the killer. Kimberly was mostly just standing around in case she came into view for those scenes.

We shot chase scenes running through the woods. We shot fight scenes. We shot Kimberly kissing her character’s romantic interest right before he was disemboweled.

Carlyle yelled cut. That was my job. I felt ashamed for having disappointed him.

“The scream is weird,” he said. “It doesn’t have an identity. Every scream queen should have an arsenal of screams. This is too generic.”

He wasn’t wrong. I thought for a moment.

Kimberly took the critique in stride, though I could tell she felt bad for messing up.

“We should do it in stages, then,” I said. “First, she screams out of pure terror. That’s stage one. Then, starting after the chase to the docks, she screams not out of fear but for help. She’s trying to attract attention. Then, in the finale, she screams not out of fear but out of rage. The final stage.”

Carlyle considered this. “Like a Valkyrie,” he said.

I nodded.

“Kimberly,” I said. “You got that?”

She nodded. “So this scene would be a scared scream, right?”

“Cram those guts back inside that guy,” I said. “We have another take. We’ll do one for practice, okay? Then we do the real one.”

Kimberly smiled at me for some reason.

The scene was reset, and away we went.

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We shot more scenes in the finale. Ramona still hung out around my character’s house. She had chosen to go home with me because she knew my character lived in a good neighborhood due to her years of research. We only spoke about basic things. Food. Work. The meaning of free will. Normal roommate stuff.

During that time, I didn’t see Antoine, Cassie, or Isaac. I was confident that they were out there doing scenes and exploring the world of the story. They were just doing it away from me.

I wasn’t On-Screen much. When I was, it was with Kimberly. She was likely a main character. Antoine was, too. I hadn’t seen Dina. I had only seen hints of Bobby. There was a shoot coming up with the killer attacking Kimberly, but she cleverly unleashed some hounds on him.

I assumed he was the guy providing the hounds to production. Time would tell.

The needle on the Plot Cycle barely pushed forward. This version of the storyline was designed for people who had tried it before. It was doing all kinds of things that would freak out newbies.

Carlyle was enjoying himself. We got to talking a lot, the two of us. He would regale me with tales of movies past. Stories about his father’s era of filmmaking. He laughed and spoke fondly of his early years. He never mentioned being the CEO of any of the companies he had run.

He resented being forced to take care of those businesses.

“Having money doesn’t mean you can do anything you like,” he said with a distant gaze. “There’s always something going on that gets in the way.”

Perhaps that was the trap Carousel had set for him. All the money in the world and no time to spend it doing what he loved. That wasn’t the worst fate, but unhappy rich people are a staple of cinema. Maybe we liked movies about miserable rich folks out of a form of schadenfreude. Maybe it was just because all else being equal, we didn’t want to be reminded of our own financial misery. We watch sad, rich people because it’s a form of escapism.

And people did watch Carlyle. Someone did, at least, because his life never stopped. There was always something going on: traffic accidents, dramatic arguments between lovers, things were always happening. Once, a man with a taste for narcotics bumped into him when we went out to lunch. He recognized the man as an old-school friend.

That was what his life was. Drama. Tension. The longer I spent with Carlyle, the more I understood Jed just wanting to get away from it all.

Eventually, Carlyle told me he was taking a week at a spa in the west. He would be back to help shoot the finale, he promised.

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Of course, that week never happened to me. I woke up a week after our conversation. Time skipped like a child at recess. Carousel had given me a puny little goatee to show time had passed.

I got up from the couch and found my itinerary and confirmed time had passed. "I" had drawn little red "X"s on all of the days that passed without my knowledge.

I kept touching the facial hair over and over. I didn’t like it. It was itchy, and there was no way it looked good. Why had Carousel made me grow it?

I took my time, though, because as I walked to the restroom, I realized I was On-Screen.

First Blood was near, but not near enough.

Still, I got a chill down my spine. My character was minor. I could easily be killed before First Blood, and then my body could be revealed later. That was something I had not considered possible before. It felt like something that would need a special trope to happen. I hadn’t gotten a look at the enemy yet, so as I tiptoed through my terrible rented abode, I felt inevitable death in my future.

I made my way to the upstairs bathroom because its light was on for some reason. On the way, my hoodie (or at least the jacket Carosel had replaced it with) was hanging in the closet. I grabbed it and put it on. I didn’t want to die wearing nothing but boxers. My jeans were crumpled on the floor. On those went. My shoes… were near the door. Why didn’t I keep them nearby?

I continued stroking my strange facial hair. I glanced in the bathroom. I saw a metal razor on the counter near the sink. Carousel was being clear. It wanted me to shave. I wanted to shave, too, but I was hoping to do it Off-Screen.

A loud ring sounded. It was the phone. My character had a landline with one of those long cords from the olden days.

I answered.

“Hey, Riley,” Kimberly said on the other end.

“Kimberly,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Do you remember that scene where my character tries on clothes near some windows?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“And the killer is watching from outside?”

“Yes.”

“I was thinking that was a really good scene and we should do something like that again. I mean not that, but something like that. It was a really spooky scene, you know.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “Really made the character menacing.”

“You understand what I mean, right? Not that scene, but something like it. Can you see what I mean?” she asked.

She was laying it on thick.

She saw something. I knew she saw the killer’s point of view right then, just as I had seen the killer on the red wallpaper at the factory. The killer could probably see me right then, but I couldn’t see them because of the light being on inside.

I hoped Ramona stayed in her room.

I knew what Carousel wanted; it just so happened I wanted it, too. If I could get a glance at the enemy, I could finally get a good idea of what it was up to. That was the offer being made. I get a look at the enemy's tropes. Carousel gets.... what, exactly? A chance to kill me? A tense scene? Maybe it just wanted to say hello after a long hiatus.

I walked across the bathroom slowly. The sink and mirror were in a stupid place—right in the corner of the room next to two windows. The bath and toilet were not visible from the outside, but the sink was.

I walked up to the sink and made sure to keep an eye on the mirror.

“The killer watching from outside was just so scary,” Kimberly said.

“I gotcha,” I said.

I looked down at the sink counter and saw the razor and a little canister of shaving cream. I would be stealing those.

“Yeah,” I said. “We’re going to have to do another scene like that real soon.”