Verwandte Artikel zu Heads Will Roll

Heads Will Roll - Hardcover

Winning, Josh

 
9780593544693: Heads Will Roll
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0593544692 ISBN 13: 9780593544693
Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

Willow’s worst nightmare was being canceled. But the shadows in the woods of Camp Castaway might destroy more than her reputation.

After sitcom star Willow tweets herself into infamy and stumbles blind-drunk into a swimming pool, her agent ships her off to Camp Castaway. Nestled deep in upstate New York, Castaway is a summer camp for adults who are desperate to leave their mistakes behind. No real names, no phones . . . no way to call for help.

Willow’s fellow campers seem okay. Her own favorite actress is even here, making a s’more. And did that jaded writer, Dani, just wink at her? But the peaceful vibe is shattered when one of the campers vanishes and Willow finds a mutilated doll in her room with a threatening message rolled up inside its mouth. Terror grips the group, campers begin to lose their heads—literally—and disturbing past deeds come to light.

Is Willow about to get cancelled all over again, this time for good?

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Josh Winning is the critically acclaimed author of Burn the Negative and The Shadow Glass. He is a senior film writer at Radio Times, has written for Total Film for over a decade, and is the cohost of movie podcast Torn Stubs. During his years as a film journalist, he has been on set with Kermit the Frog (and Miss Piggy), devoured breakfast with zombies on The Walking Dead, and sat on the Iron Throne on the Dublin set of Game of Thrones. Winning lives in London with his cat Penny and dreams of one day convincing Sigourney Weaver to yell “Goddammit!” at him.

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I

A single bar shows in the corner of my phone screen: just one line out of a possible four. If I were yesterday me, the woman who depended on connectivity to survive, the lack of service would flood my system with panic. It would make me pace back and forth until more bars appeared.

But I'm not yesterday me. I'm now me; the one hunched over in the back of a BMW wearing yesterday's clothes, and that single bar makes me damn near giddy with relief.

"Cut me off already," I whisper. "Please just cut me the hell off."

I'm aware that I could stow my phone in my carryall. I could power it off myself without waiting for bad cell coverage to disconnect me from whatever satellite is spinning around Earth firing data at anybody with a SIM card.

But I can't do it.

No matter how much I want to, the command doesn't reach my fingers. The phone has practically grown into my hand, and I need it forcibly removed, like a polished black tumor. Just looking at the screen makes me feel sick and pathetic and lost in a hundred different ways.

I shift my gaze to look out the window.

We drive between pine trees that are so tightly packed, they block out the midday sun. We entered the forest somewhere north of White Plains twenty minutes ago, driving in a black Beamer that smells like bleached lemongrass, and the road has showed no sign of letting up. It keeps going, like the winding Montana travelogue at the start of The Shining, tunneling endlessly into the forest dark of upstate New York.

The gloom is comforting, though. It feels womblike. Protective. Nobody can reach me here. Nobody can take my picture or yell at me in the street or slide into my DMs to tell me real quick just how they're going to take me apart, piece by dripping piece.

I'm breathless with anticipation.

I need this.

I'm so ready to disappear.

Soon, okay? Willow says in my mind. Soon you'll be free.

The car hits a bump and I only just keep hold of my phone.

"Sorry, ma'am," says the driver-forties, jowly and bushy browed. "Only one road in and out of this place, and it looks like they haven't resurfaced since the millennium."

"Which millennium?" I ask. My voice is as cracked as the skin around my nostrils, but still he laughs.

Our eyes meet in the rearview mirror and I try not to shrink from his gaze, imagining what he must see. My Lululemon cardigan hangs off me, foraged from the bedroom floor this morning, and my white jeans are stained with the wine that I spilled last night while rushing to switch off the news. My shoulder-length auburn hair is scraped back from my face, tied in a messy bun.

I haven't slept in three weeks.

My eyes hurt.

They beg to close.

"You're on TV, right?" the driver says, and I flinch. Damn. I shouldn't have engaged. I want to revel in the silence as we travel farther from reality's reach. Besides, I'm afraid what I might say. My mouth has never been my friend.

"That show," the driver says. "The one about the girl."

I could pretend I'm getting a call-I've acted with fake phones enough to know I could pull it off-but the lie feels too big. He must have noticed that my cell hasn't made a sound since the airport.

"Willow," I say.

"That's it! We Love Willow! My daughter can't get enough of you."

A moth flutters in my chest, beating a fragile kind of hope. I can't help leaning forward in my seat.

"She's a fan?"

"Yeah, she was so into you," the driver says. "She had a poster on her wall. It got ripped or something a couple weeks ago, though. Teenagers, right?"

The moth crumples. I sit back, energy draining from my limbs.

"Right," I murmur. "Teenagers."

We Love Willow wasn't a teen show, but it was popular with the sixteen-to-twenty-four demographic. It hit that sweet spot between youthful optimism and knowing realism. Despite a shaky first year in which we struggled to find our audience, the show's title proved accurate by season three: everybody loved Willow McKenzie, the klutzy midtwenties New Yorker who was perpetually broke, single, and jobless but attacked every challenge with can-do enthusiasm, helped by her childhood imaginary friend, Eliza.

I loved Willow, too. I loved being that version of myself. Upbeat, smiley, and open. Most of all, I loved what she gave me. Not just steady work and financial security for the first time in my life, but a best friend in the shape of my co-star, Jenna. We became inseparable within a couple weeks of filming, real-life roommates by the time season one wrapped. We lived together for two years, until my fiancé, Matt, convinced me to move into his Santa Monica beach house.

In so many ways, Willow made me a better person.

But now she's gone. The show's canceled. All because I can't keep my mouth shut.

I check to see if the driver's still looking at me, and I'm relieved that his focus is back on the road. Still, the fact that he recognized me is unnerving. I should have made more of an effort to change my appearance. Dyed my hair and got a home tan kit. I haven't exactly been thinking clearly, though, and tomorrow never seemed certain. Suddenly I feel as exposed as a raw nerve.

There must be something in my carryall. I root around inside it, dragging out clothes, sandals, and books. I tug out a gray bucket hat that I don't remember packing. It's ugly and shapeless and perfect. I put it on, pulling it over my auburn hair as far down as it'll go. My reading glasses are oversized and ridiculous, an impulse buy that I never wear in public. Also perfect.

Adding these layers makes me feel stronger. Less exposed. If you've got no place to hide, hide in plain sight.

"There's the sign," the driver says, and I look up, just as a wooden placard passes the window, too fast for me to read. "Couple miles left. What is this place, anyway? Some kind of summer camp for adults?"

"Something like that," I say.

He looks at me a moment too long in the mirror.

Even after three weeks, it turns out I still care what people think. Every hate-fueled headline has left a bruise, so many of them that it hurts to breathe sometimes, and a part of me still can't believe that the terrible things people said were about me.

The scariest thing is how quickly it all fell apart.

The day after tweetageddon, Matt flew to New Mexico to shoot location work on his show, Crime: L.A. Nights, and he told me I should be gone by the time he got home. I'm still wearing the engagement ring, can't bring myself to take it off. Jenna was there for me for five days, brought me donuts and takeout while I ranted and dry-heaved, and then she ghosted me when it seemed she'd get canceled herself simply for associating with me.

I found myself alone in a house I'd always hated. I never understood why a couple in their twenties needed six bathrooms.

Dark thoughts crept in like rising damp.

Sitting in the back of the BMW, I feel the churn again in the pit of my stomach, and I can't tell if I'm going to throw up or cry.

The tweet was meant to be a joke. I didn't want to offend anybody. I was living in my cozy little Willow bubble, safe in the knowledge that I was loved and understood. That people knew me. They'd get what I was saying.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

I force an inhale and remind myself where I'm headed. Into the calming arms of nature.

As I start to repack my carryall, I notice the tattered color pamphlet sticking out of it. The paper is as thin as silk, but it's all I have. There's no website for Camp Castaway. No Twitter account. No online footprint to speak of. That's sort of their deal.

"This place is so underground, Jason Bourne couldn't find you," my agent said as she handed me the...

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Verlag
G.P. Putnam's Sons
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593544692
ISBN 13 
9780593544693
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
320
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