Ian Caskey

WE LIVE IN FIRE PROLOGUE Vienna, 1878 … In Statdpark on a lawn blanket by a glistening river, Friedrich performs the nose trick on his three-year-old daughter. He steals her nose with a swipe of the hand and shows her the tip of it, wedged between two fingers, in the clutch of his fist. Plump as powdered dough with rosy cheeks, Miranda gawks at the illusion, wonderment in her glassy blue eyes. She wants her nose back! She reaches for it with demanding hands, her outspread fingers pudgy as a couple of starfish. Bop! Friedrich returns Miranda’s nose with a gentle nudge. She giggles and crosses her eyes, touching the tip of her nose with exploratory fingers to assure its return. A breeze drifts through the riverside stand of empress and horse-chestnut trees, swaying branches and jostling leaves. There are other families out in the park, a couple holding hands on a bench, a girl chasing a boy with a red lollipop, a man walking his schnauzer. Friedrich beams with mirthful joy down at his daughter, an amused smile brimming beneath the tuft of his walrus mustache, the same auburn color as his oiled and flattened hair, reflecting a brilliant sheen of the late afternoon sun across the dome of his head. “Again,” she says. Oh, it’s like their topping a Ferris wheel with a panoramic view of Vienna, the effervescence of the moment making Friedrich as giddy as his daughter. Yes, he steals her nose again and is about to show her the tip of it when a ominous shadow creeps over them, his daughter’s doughy white face becoming dark. He looks up at the sky. A grotesque cloud has moved in front of the sun. The gaiety of others enjoying an afternoon in the park becomes silent. Even the birds chirping amid the empress trees have ceased the bantering of their song. Miranda is also alarmed, pointing with an upraised arm. “Poppa, the sky is turning black.” The grotesque cloud continues to spread like a malignant tumor, gaseous black boils blotting out the blue sky. Within seconds, the park and the city outside the park and the river before them appears as dark as on a moonless night as if an odious curtain of smog has been pulled over the city entire. A man on a high-wheel bicycle topples, remaining pinned beneath the large wheel as he gawks up at the dark and brooding sky. Miranda pushes herself into Friedrich’s arms. “Poppa, I’m scared.” He squeezes her tightly, kissing the top of her head. An abandoned sun parasol, flung by an easy wind, floats down the river, gliding along the top skin of water on the paunch of its ribbed and yellow canopy, its J-shaped handle angled toward the blackened sky. Then comes the first boom, echoing throughout the city, like the sound of cannon fire. People start running. Miranda buries her face in the crook of her father’s shoulder. Another boom, this one closer, sends a shockwave through the air, softly punching him in the face. Friedrich keeps Miranda hugged to his chest as he struggles to stand in search of the best place to run for shelter. Where, where, where might they might find shelter? Desperately searching, he gives the top of her head another kiss, only to feel his lips touching something cold and metallic. He looks down. Miranda? She’s gone! Replaced by a flugelhorn. Why is there a flugelhorn in his hand?! There’s zero time to question such absurdity. He swivels his head, left, right, shouting out for Miranda. Another percussive boom punches him in the chest. The ground quivers beneath him, cracking wide, crumbling clods of grass and dirt dropping into a gaping void. Friedrich loses his balance … falling into the void with a constellation of dirt and grass falling with him, his drop speed into the void quickening. Another percussive boom sounds, this one more like a fist pounding on a wooden door. To see him dropping into the void is to see an anguished father plummeting into a vacuous mouth of darkness with a flugelhorn clenched in his right hand, his eyes still wildly searching for Miranda. *** Vienna, 1915 … The pounding continues on the front door, pounding into Friedrich’s head. He opens his eyes. Here is a much older Friedrich. Decades older than the one who had been in Statdpark with his baby daughter Miranda, the auburn color leached out of his walrus mustache, now white as his frosty brows and the few wiry hairs squirreling out of his ears. In a sleeper’s cap with a pom draped over his shoulder, he stares longingly toward a hairline crack, barely visible within the darkness of the flat, along the baby-blue ceiling. He says Miranda’s name with a pained sigh. The pounding continues … His wiener dog, Liebling, has marched to the end of the four-poster bed, standing at attention by Friedrich’s feet, barking at the pounding on the front door of their top-floor flat. Friedrich’s heart aches for Miranda. Why do dreams always have to kick you into some sort of hellish pandemonium? And the flugelhorn. Why a flugelhorn? Friedrich did have a toy trumpet when he was a kid, never learned how to play it, but never, ever went anywhere without it. It was the first object he’d ever loved and if someone hadn’t been pounding on the Gottverdammt door, he might’ve tried to find an even deeper reason for why the subterranean depths of his mind put that horn in his hand. He has heard good things about a Dr. Sigmund Freud. But for another time. He sits upright, grumbling. More pounding, more barking, Friedrich glares through the length of his third-floor railway flat toward the front door. A muffled voice announces himself from behind the continued pounding on the door. It’s Mr. Koler, the first floor tenant. He is shouting for Friedrich to hurry. The building is on fire. *** Friedrich can smell it, too, a troubling waft of wood smoke. He yells to Mr. Koler he’s on his way, then tells Liebling to hush, who only becomes more excited, incessantly yapping and hopping about the down comforter. Friedrich roughly massages the saggy flesh of his own face, slaps his own cheek. The mantle clock reads a little after 3:15 a.m. He is still sluggish from downing over half a bottle of absinthe. Last night had been the seven-year anniversary of his daughter’s suicide. She was a week short of her thirty third birthday when she ended her life. He wonders if the fire is somehow his fault. Had he blown out the candle, the one he’d lit in Miranda’s honor? Maybe he knocked over the bottle of absinthe on his bleary-eyed way to bed? The green liquor is highly flammable. There are no signs of fire that he can see throughout his flat, his eyes slowly searching, cavernous with sorrow. Those years of agony Miranda could no longer endure, her early thirties spent suffering from an aggressive and incurable form of dystonia and lateral sclerosis, seizures and muscle cramps contorting her body into tormented postures. Suicide had liberated her from the pain, and with it came a small sense of consolation for Friedrich, but the ghost of her torment never stops beating inside of him like a heart-shaped tumor. Another shrill bark spikes into his ears. “Liebling, hush!” He lifts the down comforter from the length of his body and steps out of the bed. His long white night shirt extends down over his knees. The red pom ball of his nightcap continues to hang over his shoulder like a plumb bob. It sounds like the record player is still spinning, the phonograph needle stuck at the end of the album, a crackling hiss amplified through the flowery brass bell of the gramophone. Or is it the fire he hears gaining momentum throughout the building? He picks Liebling up, holding him in the crook of his arm. Liebling has ceased to bark, staring ahead of them with a calculating gaze. Friedrich pushes his bare feet into a pair of carpet slippers. The gown of his night shirt billows as he marches the length of the flat, his saggy jowls quivering with intensity as he opens the door. A panicked Mr. Koler is on the other side, standing there with his head tilted back and a thumb plugged over his nostril. There is blood spattered over his mouth and down under his chin. Bare-chested in a pair of suspender lederhosen, the color of trampled peat moss, the burly Mr. Koler tells Friedrich the Vogel’s flat is on fire and adds while keeping a thumb plugged over his right bloodied nostril, “Mr. Vogel, he-he’s gone insane. He-he won’t leave. I tried to get him and his wife and their baby to leave, but he-he attacked me.” “Attacked you?” Mr. Koler nods emphatically, then turns to start down the stairs. “We have to hurry. The fire has gotten too big.” Friedrich follows after him, Liebling still in the crook of his arm, and halts on the second-floor landing in front of the Vogel’s cream-colored, Victorian door with an ornate brass handle. He orders Mr. Koler to alert the fire brigade from the street-corner call box. Mr. Koler stares at Friedrich like he’s insane. He says, “But it’s too late to try to save them. The fire is too big. We have to leave.” Friedrich insists again for Mr. Koler to go to the call box to alert the fire brigade. Then says, “I’ll go and get the Vogels. We need to get them out of here, especially the baby.” Mr. Koler lowers his chin. A rivulet of blood slides the length of his thumb still plugged over his nostril. “I tell you, Mr. Vogel, he-he’s gone insane. He’s violent.” Friedrich grimaces. “I don’t care what he is. There’s a child in there, and no child is going to perish in my building. Now go!” Mr. Koler scurries down the stairs. Friedrich takes a deep breath and steps up to the Vogel’s front door. The building shudders after the entry way door slams shut behind Mr. Koler. Aside from Mr. Koler and the Vogels, there are no other tenants in the building, except for Friedrich and his wiener dog. Then he curses himself under his breath, realizing he should have handed Liebling over to Mr. Koler. He places his wriggling dachshund on the Velkommen mat and tells himself this will only be a minute. The fiery warmth from the other side of the door has already made Friedrich sweat, a salty bead of sweat glistening down the length of his cheek. He brings his ear close to the door. It almost sounds like the Vogels are entertaining guests, the raging fire on the other side sounding like an overcrowded party chattering among themselves. He hammers the heel of his hand on the door, shouting for them to open up. Getting nowhere, he tries the door, instantly withdrawing his hand. The iron knob is too hot to touch! He bunches a section of his nightshirt, using it as a pad. Of course, the door is locked! Liebling continues to yap by his ankles. Friedrich leaves his dog to bound up the stairs to retrieve the master set of keys …

Pre-assignment - Seven Story Elements Story Statement - In a Faustian bargain to become an industrial/goth rockstar, Lukas must rid himself of a cursed magic lantern before it kills him and his pregnant wife. Antagonist Sketch - The magic lantern is like an evil battery. It serves as a wish-fulfillment device. It has one owner at a time, bound by blood. It is a deadly force, harming or killing those who opposes its owner. It has the ability to create illusions, ghosts of deceased loved ones. It also incites creative genius. Whoever possesses always makes great gains toward their personal pursuits, but at the cost of disturbing hallucinations, death and/or devastation toward those close to them by way of fire and/or spontaneous combustion. There are three human antagonists in the book. 1) a Viennese artist under the spell of the lantern, who uses it to destroy his landlord (prologue, Vienna 1915). 2) A jealous ex-bandmate who wants ownership of a song made under the influence of the lantern by the protagonist. (Winston-Salem, North Carolina 1993). 3) A conniving boyfriend to the protagonist’s mother in-law who intends to sell a much-cherished lake house. This is the primary desire of the protagonist’s wife, to own the lake house. She uses the lantern to destroy the conniving boyfriend to get ownership of the lakehouse. (North Carolina, 1993) Breakout Title - We Live in Fire Burn F#%ker Burn Set Me On Fire Genre and Comp Titles - GENRE: Occult Horror/Music Comp Titles: We Sold Our Souls - Grady Hendrix Your Band Sucks - Jon Fine Gothic - Phillip Fricassi Our Band Could Be Your Life - Michael Azerrad Michael McDowell - The Amulet John Saul - The Blackstone Chronicles Logline Conflict Core Wound - Set in the early 90s, an unknown musician records a song destined for greatness, but when terrifying hallucinations besiege him and a jealous former bandmate dies in a horrific fire, he must rid himself of the cursed lantern before he and his pregnant wife go up in flames. Inner Conflict - A pizza-delivery guy, soon-to-be, full-time Mr. Mom, Lukas resents the impending sacrifice of parenthood interfering with his desire to be an industrial/goth rockstar. His main inner-conflict is Fame Ideation versus Family Obligation. EXAMPLE: On an errand at an antique shop to pick up a cradle, he cuts his hand on a magic lantern, once used in horror theater shows in the 19th century. Seduced by its dark history of inspiring great works of disturbing art, and only with enough money for the cradle, he wants to purchase the lantern, but is there to get the cradle. A historical preservationist comes into the antique shop anxious to purchase the lantern in Lukas's hands. A HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION: Lukas must rid himself of the curse object and discovers the way to do that is to pass it on to an unsuspecting person. Yes, this will free him and his wife of their impending doom, to be burned alive, but how does he determine who he should pass the curse on to? His asshole friend has already been scorched to death by the lantern, so this puts Lukas in position of essentially choosing a random person to be hellishly cursed. He less than 12 hours to pass on the curse. Setting - There is historic Vienna in the early 20th Century. Given this is about a cursed object, rooting it in an earlier time is imperative. The book opens in Statdpark, a famous park in Vienna next to a river … The object itself, a magic lantern/antique slide projector is revealed in an apartment fire. There are several settings: - Winston Salem, North Carolina - Old Salem, with a historical roadside attraction - Dank-ass night clubs - Night Club Parking Lots - Garage Band Rehearsal Space - A Lake House - A Spooky, Druggy House/Former Mill Town House - A Rural Antique Shop/Former Gas Station - A Gothic House - A Small Two-Bedroom Apartment - A Beater Car for Delivering Pizzas