The Hanging Hill Read Online Free Page A

mangling of his left arm, been mesmerized by the machine’s rolling cylinders, engineered to squeeze the wash water out of soaked bedsheets. Little Reggie placed his fingertips into the rollers and the ravenous machine had done its job: it had pulled him forward like a limp rag, mashing and crushing his arm up to the elbow.
    Forty years and several crude surgeries later, his left arm remained bent and locked at a severe angle. It looked as if it were frozen inside a permanent plaster cast without the need of a sling. Ever since he was a child, fearing the taunts of his classmates, Grimes had worn long-sleeved shirts and sweaters, even in the summer, hoping to forever hide the patchwork of quilted flesh grafted to his ruined arm.
    Of course there was no way he could act in Shakespearean tragedies or Broadway comedies without the ability to move his left arm. No way could he become a movie star when the bare skin of his forearm resembled a mound of white cheese slices melted on top of each other.
    “Bravo!”
    The whole cast was onstage, standing in a line. They locked hands and took one last group bow. When they rose out of it, they beamed.
    Grimes grinned.
    He knew that at least one of those bright, shiny faces would soon be filled with tears.

10
    “Excuse me Pardon me.”
    Grimes pushed his way through the standing-room-only crowd to the curtained exit closest to the stage. The house was, of course, packed. The show, completely sold out. Reginald Grimes musicals always were, long before they opened. He had been the Hanging Hill’s artistic director for nearly twenty years. Fresh out of drama school (which he had only been able to attend thanks to a scholarship provided by an anonymous donor), he was awarded a generous grant (given by another anonymous donor), to become artistic director of the Pandemonium Players—the acting company in residence at the Hanging Hill Playhouse throughout its repertory season.
    He pulled open a door labeled “To Stage,” and headed up the cinder block hallway toward the greenroom, the lounge where the cast typically assembled following a performance to meet and greet their friends and adoring fans.
    “Good evening, Mr. Grimes!” said the stage manager. “Wasn’t the show terrific tonight?”
    He narrowed his eyes. “No. It was not. Tell the cast I wish to speak to them. Now.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Lock the door. No one is to be allowed into this room until I am finished giving my notes.”
    “Yes, sir!”
    As the stage manager assembled all the actors, Grimes stood silently in a dark corner, hidden in the shadows behind a funnel of dusty light cascading down from a dim ceiling fixture. Dressed in a black turtleneck and black slacks, he all but disappeared, although there was no mistaking the sheen from his gleaming coal black eyes. He stroked his pencil-thin mustache. Smoothed his eyebrows with the middle finger of his one good hand.
    He waited.
    Soon the entire company was standing in a hushed half circle in front of him: Thurston Powell in cape and fangs; Amy Jo and Laura Joy Tiedeman, the actresses playing the tap-dancing Transylvania Twins; the chorus boys and chorus girls decked out in their werewolf and bat costumes.
    Grimes didn’t say a word. Not at first. He let his stillness fill the terrified thespians with dread. An actor’s life was a hard one. Paying jobs were few and far between and it was the director who determined which actors worked and which went back to the unemployment line. Grimes had the power to crush each and every one of their dreams as surely as that horribly antique wringer washer had crushed his.
    Finally, he spoke.
    “I saw the show tonight.” He let his words hang like icicles in the air. “I have a few notes.”
    Thurston Powell, the dashing leading man, nodded eagerly, pretending to be delighted to hear an honest critique of his performance. The man was a complete suck-up. No wonder he played such a convincing vampire.
    “Kelly?” said