Chapter Three:

Yugi opened the door to their apartment, hanging his keys from the key rack beside the front door. Joey bounded in behind him and immediately made a beeline for the refrigerator. He set his signed DVD cover and the pen on the counter and opened the fridge, grabbing a soda. He snagged the phone off the wall over the counter with his other hand.

"Wait 'til I tell T about this!" he said cheerfully to Yugi. "Us, being in an Erica Lynch flick!"

Yugi frowned. Joey's smiled faltered. "Yug'?"

"You're still going to do it?"

"What do you mean? Yeah, I'm still going to do it! Aren't you?"

"Joey, I can't be in a movie!"

Why not? You've been in front of cameras loads of times!"

"Yeah, during duels. And the Grand Prix promotions. This is a little different!"

Joey hung up the phone. He set his unopened can of pop on the counter, then came over, putting his arms around Yugi.

"I guess I should have kinda asked you, shouldn't I? But I was just so excited! Yug', this is awesome! Please, tell me you'll do it!"

Yugi looked up at Joey in horror. Joey looked back down at him, his smile pleading. He rubbed Yugi's back gently.

"We don't know how to act," Yugi said weakly.

"She always takes people off the street, and the movies always turn out awesome. Bet she'll coach us."

Yugi bit his lip worriedly.

"Please, Yug'?"

"Joey…"

"I know you hate cameras and attention, Yug', but I never understood why. You're totally awesome, and everyone knows it."

Yugi flushed and looked down. He didn't try to explain his fear of the spotlight. "You really think we can do this movie?"

"Yeah! And even if we can't, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! It'll be fun."

Yugi bit his lip again, then smiled and looked up at him. "Okay, Joey. I know how much these movies mean to you. I'll do it for you."

Joey grinned broadly. He hugged Yugi tightly and kissed him on the mouth. "Oh, thanks, Yug'! I promise, I'll do something for you, I owe you one. This is going to be awesome! Ah, I gotta call T!"

He kissed Yugi again, then let him go and grabbed the phone again. Yugi left him in the kitchen to call Tristan while he went out into the living room. He sat down on the couch and picked up the remote, flipping on the TV. As he flipped through the channels, he saw with surprise that the news was running a segment about Erica Lynch and her arrival in Domino. Footage of the promotion earlier at the hotel was being shown, and he saw himself and Joey on the screen, being shown off by Erica at the podium. The newscaster, sitting to the right of the video screen, was talking.

"… and as you can see here, local game legends Yugi Moto and Joey Wheeler, of Duel Monsters fame, have been selected to star in the famous filmmaker's latest horror flick. Erica Lynch is famous for choosing people she meets on the streets to star in her movies, most of whom have never before acted in any productions and are never seen in movies again. She is also famous for the string of bizarre and tragic deaths accompanying the productions of her movies, especially the five-part series known as Deathstrike. Some say her movies are cursed, resulting in the untimely, and often brutal, demises of her actors. Erica Lynch has dismissed the claims, saying that if there are curses on her movies, she's not the only one. Here's what she's had to say on the matter."

The video of the promotion was replaced by a clip that was obviously from an interview of the filmmaker. Erica Lynch was sitting in a chair in front of a poster case holding a poster of Deathstrike V. She was clearly responding to a question from the interviewer. "Curses are everywhere. Movies, sports, even families. If you believed in curses every time someone insisted there was one, no one would ever do anything! On sets, I've had people say the location is cursed, or the movie itself. I'd wouldn't be half as famous as I am today if I ever paid any attention to that nonsense. What's happened with my movies are tragic, but you can find a pattern in anything if you look closely enough. Some of those deaths, they were pretty obvious in coming. And some were accidents. The fact that those people were filming in one of my movies is just a coincidence. After Graveyard of Horror was done and out in theaters, one of the extras, Katie Maxwell, died in a plane crash. Am I responsible for accidents now? I'll always be grateful to those who starred in my movies, and I always send my condolences to the families, but I can't give up my dreams to appease a little curse which may or may not exist. Is that what people want?"

The newscaster came back. "It's pretty obvious to anyone that that's not what people want. Sales of Erica Lynch's movies have always been immense, but each new death only drives them up more and more, proving once and for all, a little tragedy provides a dark glamour of the morbid that some people can't resist. Turning now to sports-"

Yugi turned off the television. He sat in thought on the couch for a moment. He hoped he knew what he was getting into, agreeing to do this with Joey.

"Tristan's totally jealous," Joey announced as he came into the living room. He flopped down on the couch with a contented sigh, putting his arm around Yugi's shoulders. "He didn't believe me at first. I heard the news in the kitchen, so I told him to turn it on. He asked me to ask Erica if he can come watch the filming. I'll ask her on Tuesday."

Tuesday was the day he and Yugi were supposed to go back to Erica Lynch's hotel and officially sign to star in the movie. Erica had asked them to wait that long in the hopes that, in the intervening four days, she'd be able to find the rest of her main cast, though she was set to cast two weeks if need be. Joey was going to just be able to keep their appointment and then get to work on time. Maybe.

After the initial announcement that Yugi and Joey were her next two stars, Erica had ended the promotion and taken Yugi and Joey into the hotel's meeting room, the same one in which she would conduct her 'auditions' later in the week, to discuss the details, introducing her producer, a man named Kevin Landau. He looked like a hard drinker, but he was as friendly and effervescent as Erica herself.

Yugi, who had still been dazed by the sudden change in events, had pointed out as they were sitting down that he and Joey were famous, and therefore not what she usually chose.

"Famous?" Erica had said. "Oh, right! The Duel Monsters craze. I *thought* you two looked familiar." Her brow wrinkled, then she waved her hand dismissively. "This time, I don't care. It's a brand-new project, and I have to have you two."

"And having some famous faces might be a new twist the fans will enjoy," Kevin had said. "We've never done it before, after all. Might draw the Duel Monsters crowd, too."

Yugi, who had thought pointing out that they were famous would be a snag, had looked to Joey, who had still been grinning broadly. He knew he would get no help there. Joey was too excited by this, blown away, and not in the same way Yugi was.

"Right!" Erica had said. "So, here's how it goes, you two. Be back here on Tuesday, at noon. We'll go over all the contract business, the planned hours and such, the locations, your pay, etc, the whole nine yards. We'll get you the first parts of your scripts, too. This is the way it works. I only give out the first third of my scripts to my actors. It's my belief you'll be much more genuine if you don't know what's going to happen to your character beforehand. As such, I film more linearly than most people do. In the movie business, scenes are often filmed out of sequence, to cut down spending on renting locations, on commutes, etc. It's often also to help keep weather and city events from interfering in outdoors scenes. But I like to keep my actors guessing on what happens next. If you know your character bites it in Act II, isn't that going to affect your performance in Act I? My first movie, I did it the traditional way, and one of my girls threw a real bitch fit that her character was the first death to give the audience a fear rush. Quit on the spot. Threw me off a whole four days while I tried to find a replacement. Since then, I do it my way."

"Now there's a line you'll hear a lot," Kevin had said with a mix of sarcasm and affection. "Everything is done Erica's way. Better take that to heart right now."

"Damn straight. Any questions?"

'Is it too late to back out now?' Yugi had thought bleakly. Out loud, he asked, "What's the movie about?"

"Uh-uh," Erica had said, wagging her finger. "Wednesday, you'll know all about it. So, is noon good for you two?"

"Yep!" Joey had said cheerfully. "This is awesome, Ms. Lynch-"

"Uh-uh," Erica had interrupted again. "Call me Erica."

"Erica. Thanks a lot for this!"

"No, thank *you*. I'm really expecting a whole new experience working with you. Don't disappoint me!"

"We won't!" Joey had agreed.

They had looked to Yugi, who had smiled weakly. "We won't," he had said reluctantly.

Now they were home again, and it looked like he was stuck for it. Joey was so excited, so happy, that Yugi couldn't bring himself to disappoint him. He had swallowed his fear of being in the spotlight for Duel Monsters. He could probably do it for the movie, too. Besides, Erica might see him in front of the camera and change her mind. He was not an actor, and neither was Joey.

"Are you sure this is going to go all right?" Yugi asked Joey. "She really only hires amateurs?"

"Yep! Told ya she was famous for it."

"But-"

"I told ya, I guess she trains people, or something. You've seen the movies… well, parts of 'em., and no one's really that bad, are they?"

Yugi shook his head. The actors weren't George Clooney, but they weren't horrible. Not the sort of robotic, unnatural-sounding actors typically found in cheesy horror fare. It was hard to believe that off-the-street grabs by Erica could produce movies that raked in millions, but it was true.

"The news piece mentioned that Erica Lynch doesn't buy into the curse on her movies," Yugi said. "I would have thought she would have played it up."

Joey shrugged. "They're just accidents. Cursed movies? Come on."

"Yeah, but… you said it yourself, it's happened in a lot of her movies. The news made it sound like it had happened in more than those Deathstrike ones."

"Well… there have been a couple in other pictures. But it's just the Deathstrike ones that something's happened in each of them, so those are the ones that everybody knows about. Besides, Yug', I bet some of it's fake. Promotion stuff, ya know? 'We made a horror movie and someone died during it, come see it.' You know, the whole morbid curiosity thing. And people have died during other movies. Accidents with the stunts and equipment and stuff. But if it were really so dangerous, they won't let her do it. You're not afraid of getting hurt, are ya?" Joey had looked at him intently, and added earnestly, "Yug', if you want to back out, you can. I don't want you to do something you don't want to do."

Yugi stared up into the warm brown eyes and smiled. He didn't want to do it, but for Joey, he would.

"No, it's ok. Let's give it a shot."

Joey grinned. "I can't wait for Tuesday to get here! You'll see, Yug'. This'll be something we won't ever forget!"

tbc...