Author's note: It was supposed to be a documentary that delivered justice. When Caroline's crew turned it into a tacky found footage experiment, she thought the worst that would happen would be a blow to her ego. Instead, she'll be lucky to make it out alive.
Warning: Violence.
"Filmmaking can give you everything, but at the same time, it can take everything from you."
— Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
The Ferris wheel leaned precariously against the overgrown scrub brush, and the scrape of metal on metal made Caroline wince. No — shiver. But it was more than that — this place carried secrets that she intended to reveal. She looked back over her script, nervous that she'd overlooked a crucial detail. This documentary was too important to the community.
"This amusement park opened in 2000, at the time called Jazzland, as it was meant to be a celebration of the region's musical heritage, featuring zydeco, blues, and jazz-themed rides. Unfortunately, its success was short-lived, and even after Six Flags absorbed it into the franchise in 2002, the park still floundered under its rebranding as Six Flags New Orleans. When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, it brought devastating floods and the park never reopened." Taking a breath, Caroline gestured behind her, hoping the camera had been angled properly to capture how the bayou had reclaimed the twisted wreckage. "Since then, plans have been submitted by various developers, but all business deals fell through or construction work mysteriously came to a halt. It's clear what's really going on here — misappropriation of federal relief funds and illegal backroom dealings. We're going to get the truth for the people and ensure those responsible are brought to justice." It felt good to do this; to pursue her dream of being the kind of filmmaker that could bring attention to the wrongs she sees in the world.
"And that's how a film dies before it even gets made, people," came the hateful reply from Damon, the director and quite possibly the worst person she'd ever met. He embodied every awful film student cliché, and yet somehow had convinced the faculty in the Arts and Media Department that he was the next David Lynch.
Which is how Caroline ended up on the wrong side of this project, dependent upon this idiot manchild for her passing grade. "This is the direction we signed off on as a group and Dr. Saltzman approved," she said through gritted teeth, not bothering to hide her irritation.
"Yeah, well, Old Man Saltzman changed his mind after I pitched him my new vision for this film," Damon said smugly. "We're shooting gritty, supernatural-elements-meets-found-footage but with all the gravitas those bullshit imitations lack." That icy blue stare gleamed with greed as he revealed, "This entire area is one giant paranormal magnet. Between the dozens of disappearances over the years and weird sightings, all we need to do is catch something spooky on film and we're golden."
She glanced around suspiciously, realizing that the steady chatter of the rest of the crew had gone silent and no one seemed willing to meet her assessing stare. Well, fuck. Elena was making stupid moon eyes at Damon again — not that it mattered — boiled celery had more of spine than she did. Stefan busied himself cataloging the contents of the equipment bags, but it shouldn't have surprised her that Damon's codependent brother clearly was siding with him.
Caroline scoffed, "Seriously?! You want to chase those stupid local legends about vampires in New Orleans? We're supposed to be doing a story that underscores how economic recovery post-Katrina hasn't truly happened and exposing the scandalous incompetence and greed of government leaders!"
Elena stepped forward with a tremulous smile, handing her a wrinkled notepad with hastily scrawled images. "Caroline, this is going to be so much better, I promise! Damon is a genius," she sighed, a faint blush staining her cheeks when Damon winked at her.
Muttering under her breath, Caroline flipped through the pages, instantly recognizing Damon's unforgivably sloppy, completely random method of storyboarding. Unbelievable. She'd spent weeks painstakingly crafting her storyboard, carefully considering the messaging for each camera shot. Then, she'd emailed the lists to the rest of the team – even providing filters to search by theme, budget and location. Ungrateful bastards.
She glanced around, taking in the rusted rails from the decaying rollercoasters and the graffiti-smeared cinderblocks that formed the skeletal remains of a food stall. This project should've been about exposing corruption and holding the bad guys accountable for their actions. Instead, they were doing a Blair Witch-meets-Dracula steaming pile of manchild ego-stroking. You need this grade. Your scholarship depends on it.
"Fine. But our schedule was created to take advantage of the daylight. Can I assume the new schedule calls for night shots and so now we're camping? Did you even bring camping equipment," she asked, directing her question primarily to Stefan, since Damon treated him like his assistant anyway.
Stefan eagerly nodded, tossing her a lumpy bedroll and some patched canvas that possibly was a whole tent — back in the '90s. "We'll set up camp and then take a look around. Damon really wants to get a feel for the space before he begins his masterpiece."
"Gotta really soak it in; can't rush art you know," Damon interjected with an oily smile, already leading Elena away to wax poetic on the importance of setting the scene to properly capture his vision. Caroline rolled her eyes, but mostly decided that setting up the camping gear with Stefan was a small price to pay to avoid having to hear Damon mansplain her major — again.
The faint rustling of tree branches kept Caroline awake, despite the hours of traipsing through the dark woods carrying film equipment while Damon poorly narrated his opening remarks. But it was a sharp crack of a stick and then another and then another that made her slowly sit up from her bedroll. Something was wandering outside the tents. No, not wandering. There was a purpose to the steps.
Caroline knew boar and alligators and even the occasional black bear roamed the bayou, but this felt…wrong. Tiny hairs rose on her arms as she tried to slow down her breathing and remain as quiet as possible. From Stefan's snoring in the tent underneath the weeping willows, it was obvious he hadn't heard anything. She silently cursed that she'd insisted on staking Damon and Elena's tent on the furthest corner of the clearing. At the time, she'd just wanted to ensure she didn't get a front row seat to their icky sexcapades. (Damon once referred to his sex drive as 'studly Uber', which told her everything she needed to know about that.)
Unfortunately, it wasn't quite a full moon, so the light was too weak to see very much. But she could hear…nothing. Which was more than a little unsettling. All evening, they'd constantly had to retune their sound equipment to offset the screeches of some kind of nocturnal birds and steady buzzing of insects as the crew stomped around the wood searching for whatever bullshit they could film that Damon could pass off as supernatural.
A long, jagged shredding noise tore the air. It sounded like...no. Something sharp sliced into the threadbare fabric of Stefan's tent. Fuck. Was that a knife? Thinking fast, she quietly knelt by her equipment bag, fingers seeking out the familiar shape of the shotgun mic. It wasn't much of a weapon, but the weight of the metal cylinder made her feel slightly better. As the first ragged scream rang out, she was on her feet and tumbling out of the tent before she realized it belonged to Stefan.
Snarling rage. Menacing shadows. Shredded bits of tent fabric twisted along fur. FUR. "Stefan," she screamed, paralyzed in terror as she watched enormous jaws rip into his throat. He gurgled and his limbs began to spasm, but it wasn't until the creature planted its paw possessively on the bloody remains of Stefan's ribcage that Caroline sprang forward, screeching and wailing as though that would somehow undo what had happened. Stefan was dead.
When it lifted its head, muzzle dripping with gore, she let out a strangled moan, not fully understanding what she was seeing. It was a wolf, but it also was...human? This wasn't real. The slow, torturous growl that rippled outward almost sounded like furious, garbled human words. Werewolf. A line of solid muscle rippled underneath its coarse fur, and then it leapt at her, claws at her chest and foul breath on her skin.
However, there was a movement too fast for Caroline's eyes to register as something slammed into the werewolf, knocking it away from her. She gasped for air, tears pouring down her face from the pain. The beast's claws easily had sliced through her jacket and t-shirt, blood blooming wetly as she scrambled to stand up. The chaotic movement in the shadows made her jump, letting out a screech she quickly tried to stifle. What had knocked the werewolf off of her appeared to be a vampire. A vampire?
It hissed and gnashed its fangs as it grappled with the werewolf, and Caroline didn't have time to wonder which monster to root for when suddenly the vampire managed to punch into the beast's ribcage, messily pulling out a mass of flesh that must have been the heart. The werewolf shuddered and lay still on the ground.
Whatever meager thanks was forming on her lips fell away as the vampire eyed her with a malicious gleam. Those dark eyes glittered as he flashed in front of her, licking a broad stripe from her neck down to her chest. When he bit down savagely, she screamed loud and long until she choked on her cries. Getting bitten fucking hurt. There was nothing sexy or alluring or mysterious about it. The searing pain made her flesh feel like it was boiling off of her bones. Blood. He was eating her blood.
That horrified thought seemed to yank Caroline out of her shock, and she tightened her grip on the shotgun mic, swinging it up in an arc that smacked the vampire across his forehead. "Bitch," he seethed, roughly shoving her back into a tree trunk. The sharp edges of the bark dug into her skin, but she was too frightened to care. Operating purely on instinct, she managed to swing the end of the mic up once more; this time the metal rigging buried itself in the vampire's chest. She panicked when the vampire still lunged at her, and braced for a bite she knew she wouldn't survive.
But then a sickly gray pallor came over him as his flesh rapidly cracked and peeled. Caroline watched in amazement as he collapsed to the ground in a pile of dusty bones. She leaned her head back against the tree, trying to catch her breath. Stefan was dead. Because a werewolf killed him. Because werewolves were real. And vampires. Don't forget about that. She killed a vampire.
She tasted something bitter in her mouth and swallowed back the scalding bite of fear. All around her, the woods were alive with sinister snarls and shadows that ferociously rip into each other. Move. Move now or die. Taking a breath, she quietly slipped through the brush, doing her best not to stumble in the dark. With a flash of guilt, she remembered Elena and Damon and immediately headed in the direction of their tent. With so many...things out there ready to tear each other and her apart, she couldn't risk racing across the clearing to them. Instead, she quietly moved along the thick tree line, doing her best to stay in the shadows.
"Damn it, Elena, leave your shit! We've got to get the fuck out of here," Damon hissed, jerking her out of the tent.
She cowered beside him, Elena's voice hesitant as she shakily asked, "What about Stefan and Caroline?"
"They're dead. And if they're not dead, they will be soon. We can't worry about them."
Elena quickly nodded, looking at him gratefully as she allowed him to lead her into the clearing.
Caroline paused in the scrub brush, irritated not only by their selfish decision to leave her and Stefan behind, but also their unbelievable stupidity in running out in the open. Which is why it wasn't a surprise when the monsters found them. As a werewolf charged Damon, there was a sickly popping noise followed by a horrified scream. Stay or go. Caroline gripped the metal tight, ready to charge in to help, but it was too late. She looked on helplessly as the creature easily ripped away an arm, blood soaking the ground as Damon stopped moving.
Elena's choked screams snapped Caroline out of her frozen state, and she raced toward the Ferris wheel where one of the rusted baskets violently swung back and forth. The bodies struggled with enough force to knock the basket free from its bracket to clang on the ground. A vampire was digging her fangs into Elena's throat just as Caroline rushed forward, ramming the mic's metal rigging deep into the base of the monster's neck. She ripped it out fast, hoping to get in a few more jabs, but she was knocked aside by something huge.
However, Caroline only caught the brief brush of fur before her attention was drawn to the more immediate threat — the vampire unlatching her fangs, sloppily spraying blood as she gave an unearthly shriek. Turning her feral gaze on Caroline she spat, "You have to hit the heart."
Elena struggled to sit up, hands uselessly pressed to her throat as rivulets of blood poured down. 'Run' she mouthed at Caroline, just as the vampire lunged for her. Nails sliced down Caroline's cheek, but then the vampire was brutally tossed off of her. She caught sight of a growling werewolf attacking the vampire and she carefully scrambled away to check on Elena.
But it was too late. Bloody hands lay limp at her sides, and Elena's glassy-eyed stare told Caroline there was no going back. Heart thudding in her chest, Caroline realized she was the only one left. She was next. The werewolf and the vampire will still in battle, shedding blood and fur and vicious snarls, and Caroline blindly raced away, her body pushing her to run as far and as fast as she could. She refused to be easy prey.
The rotted trunk of a cypress tree partially hid the opening to the dilapidated funhouse. Crawling into the gaping, toothy mouth of a sinister clown was the last thing she wanted to do. With the way her night was going, it would probably summon a demon. But she didn't have a choice — something was coming after her. She could hear the footsteps racing through the bayou, crashing through the underbrush in its haste to get to her.
The man who suddenly broke through the clearing looked wildly behind him as he continued to run. He was being hunted. Caroline let out a shrill whistle to catch his attention. He swiftly ran to her, pausing briefly as though assessing the danger she posed. She understood his reluctance, but she didn't have the luxury of waiting for one of those things to see them. She ducked inside, running past a row of shattered mirrors and moldy plaster. From the rustling noises, it appeared he'd decided to follow her after all. The funhouse seemed to have been a maze at one time, but only a few mirrors remained intact. They reached an unspoken agreement to hide with their backs to a wall, carefully positioned so the mirrors would help them keep track of what came through the front.
Catching her breath, Caroline glanced up, noticing how the hole in the sagging ceiling spilled just enough moonlight to reflect in the mirrors. When she flicked her gaze over to the man, she did her best not to gasp. Even in the dim room, he was unfairly attractive with those cheekbones and powerful-looking forearms. Nope. This is so not the time.
"Are you alright, love?"
Fuck her life. She was fighting to stay alive and was blushing like a teenager because a cute boy had an accent. "Um...well, my classmates are dead. Werewolves are apparently a thing. Oh, and vampires. And I accidentally learned that you can stake a vampire with a shotgun mic, so all that wooden stake crap you see on TV is total bullshit. So, it's safe to say I'm rapidly changing my definition of 'alright'."
Despite the intense, dangerous situation, he shook his curly head, chuckling lightly, "You seem to be handling it quite well — or, is this an everyday occurrence for you, love?"
"It's Caroline. And no, I'm a film student and we were here to..." she trailed off, staring down at her trembling hands as images of the attacks swirled in her mind. She should be dead right now.
"God, we were supposed to be here to make a documentary about how this amusement park was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and was never rebuilt because economic recovery is nearly impossible with all the greedy politicians, but then my team overruled me and wanted to do this tacky paranormal investigation thing and exploit local legends instead and I was just so mad and it doesn't even matter now because I'm going to die here, um..." she gestured helplessly, tired of calling him 'Hot Accent Guy' in her head.
He looked amused by her outburst, which struck her as weird, but she reminded herself that everyone dealt with trauma in their own way. "It's Klaus. And you're not going to die here — you're far too capable."
She could feel the steel resolve of his gaze, and it was strangely flattering that he didn't see her as weak. Nodding at the blood splatters on his torn henley, she observed, "It looks like you're pretty capable too. How'd you end up here?"
He seemed to consider his words carefully, finally telling her, "I got separated from my sister — she has a...fondness for the local legends."
Caroline gasped, "Oh no — is your sister..." she trailed off uncertainly, unsure of how to ask him if his sister had survived.
"Alive?" A secret smile touched his lips, almost as though he was enjoying a private joke. "I can assure you, Rebekah's far too stubborn to die."
Blinking back tears, she fought to keep her voice steady as she told Klaus, "We need to go find her." She started to rise to her feet, knees shaking a bit at the thought of trying to outrun monsters again.
Klaus grasped her hand, his touch gentle even as he firmly pulled her back to the ground beside him. "You would help me look for my sister? But you don't even know us."
The surprise in his voice was painful to hear. Caroline got the feeling that he didn't have a lot of people in his life that he could count on. "Sure I know you — you're Klaus, the guy with an accent who's weirdly calm when faced with life-or-death supernatural stuff."
He let out a delighted chuckle, telling her, "With loyalty and bravery like that, you've no doubt caught the eye of many a discerning suitor."
She snorted, leaning her head back against the crumbling sheetrock. "Every moment I haven't been studying or working three shitty jobs has been spent researching my film subject. Not much time for suitors." Scrunching her nose, she added, "Although I doubt any of them would get how exciting it was when I finally connected all the shady business deals for this land through multiple shell companies that lead back to Mikaleson Global and its subsidiary, Hybrid Inc."
Caroline relished the look of surprise on Klaus' face — he didn't seem like the type that was caught off-guard or impressed easily. His tone was intrigued as he asked, "Those are quite powerful enemies. Aren't you concerned for your safety?"
She rolled her eyes, gesturing around the dank room that was so musty she'd started to take shallow breaths. "Seriously?! You think I care about corporate white guy fuckery right now? We just stumbled into a supernatural clusterfuck where vampires and werewolves are real."
Frowning, she thought back to the raw, focused aggression she'd witnessed throughout the night. "This is probably going to sound crazy, but is it possible that this wasn't random violence? Like maybe the two species are at war?" At Klaus' raised eyebrow, she shrugged her shoulders, sheepishly adding, "It almost seemed like the vampires were following orders." At his choked gasp, she waved him off, cheeks heating in embarrassment as she said, "I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous."
Klaus smirked, displaying a set of dimples that she absolutely should not be attracted to given the dire circumstances. "Actually, you might be onto something considering some of the bizarre folktales in this region."
Caroline leaned forward eagerly, unable to curb her curiosity as she asked, "Really?"
"There's of course the usual claptrap of how vampires and werewolves were created through curses, but then there's even more inventive whispers that one of the werewolf packs was cursed to stay in wolf form except for the full moon and were driven out of New Orleans by a vampire."
Despite being captivated by his storytelling, she asked skeptically, "One vampire banished the werewolves?"
Chuckling, Klaus replied, "If you think that's farfetched, you'd be amazed by the other foolishness out there about an even more powerful creature that rules New Orleans as a king and is said to be both a vampire and a werewolf."
"And I'm sure all of his consorts run around his court in latex bodysuits, begging to polish his scepter," Caroline dryly added, enjoying the look of pure delight that came over Klaus' face at her ridiculous suggestion. She giggled and then clapped her hand over her mouth, realizing she was being far too loud. What was it about Klaus that made her forget they were being hunted by monsters? The hasty movement pulled the wounds on her neck and chest, causing her to wince. The ongoing ache of her injuries had been pushed to the back of her mind as she'd struggled to survive this nightmare, but now she could feel the burn of those fangs and claws.
Klaus immediately noticed her discomfort and asked sharply, "You're injured — who hurt you?"
Touched by his concern, she gave him a soft smile. "Your guess is as good as mine." Pointing at her chest, she explained, "Werewolf, but then a vampire knocked it away. Of course, when he got done killing it, he went after me." With a wry smile, she added, "But then he ended up on the wrong end of my shotgun mic, so I guess I won." With a snort, she gestured toward his torn, blood-splattered henley, observing, "It looks like you won too."
Cocking his curly head, Klaus smugly revealed, "A few times." He seemed to be thinking very hard, but the emotions flashed across his face too fast for her to read. Finally rising to his feet with a sigh, he offered his hand. "I suppose we should go look for my sister after all. Despite being quite formidable, her sense of direction is rather lacking."
"You're not worried," she asked in confusion.
"Only for those who mistake her for prey."
As they crawled through the wreckage of the funhouse, Caroline was oddly energized — despite the danger, she felt oddly safe. It became even more apparent when several werewolves emerged from the woods, growling lowly as they crept forward. She gripped the metal cylinder in her hand and felt Klaus tense beside her. Bracing for the worst, Caroline was shocked when the wolves suddenly stopped advancing and melted back into the bayou.
"They're afraid of us," she said in an awed whisper, excited that it seemed she wasn't as powerless as she'd thought. She glanced over at Klaus, happily telling him, "We make a great team."
His enigmatic smile felt like a promise as he said, "I agree, love."
