This is a work of fiction. Although it references a real historical figure, all dialogue, actions, organizations, and supernatural events depicted in this story are fictional or used fictitiously.
Strike a Pose
by Ramsés Dávila-Luna at The Writer’s Cavern
The crowd at The Majestic Downtown building was packed with Los Angeles's heavy hitters, from movie stars and sports stars to ultra-wealthy business executives. The fashion shows were in full swing, and models strutted down the runway in the latest experimental winter designs. At the head of the runway, the models would strike a pose, not to the camera or the crowd, but to a man named Harry Grym.
Harry sat with a tiny Chihuahua on his lap. The dog wore a pink bow around its neck and sat motionless, with droopy, sad eyes. Harry was in his 80s, and his arms were sleeved in tattoos that mapped the long, strange journey of his life. Despite his age, his skin retained a surprising, almost unnatural gloss, as if time itself feared leaving its mark. Harry had turned trash bags into a makeshift tuxedo and fastened marshmallows as buttons. A fedora sat on his head, and he gently petted his dog, remaining impassive as each model struck a pose.
In the back row, Lisa Peralta watched the show but kept her attention on Harry. Lisa was in her early 20s and stunningly beautiful; she once aspired to be part of this show, but her roommate's recent disappearance made her wary of the lifestyle. Not long ago, she decided to wear her crucifix again, and she would occasionally twirl it through her sweater to make sure it was still there.
Lisa convinced herself that the powers of the night inside that room had swallowed her friend whole, but she was determined to find her friend on her own terms. She touched her fake press badge to make sure it was still secure, then looked around the room. White paper mache shot out of blower machines, making it look like it was snowing. She froze when she noticed a man on the other side of the room staring at her sharply. The figure’s eyes became lost in the paper mache, and after a while, he turned his head away as he focused on the show.
The grand finale took its course, and each model gave Harry one last look as they went back to the dressing room. Even the crowd’s applause wasn’t for the participating talent, but for Harry Grym. The crowd dispersed, and the hot shots in the room mingled with political looks, soft handshakes, and safe conversations.
Harry got up, and his entourage followed him. Lisa zig-zagged through the crowd, doing her best to follow. In the crowd, someone in a vintage horse mask bumped into her, pressed an envelope into her hand, and she took it. Before she could say a word, the masked figure in a black suit and gray hair vanished into the crowd.
“Damn, girl. You are fine as shit. What’s your name?” a man with a French accent said to Lisa as he grabbed hold of her arm to stop her in her tracks.
“Get your hands off me!” Lisa yelled at the man, who retreated laughing.
The big names in the room tried their best to walk up to Harry for a quick picture as he made his way out. Those deemed a somebody laughed and smiled around him; Harry maintained the same serious expression, unmoved by their stage name and plastic beauty. He didn’t even bother to shake their hands. With one direct gaze, Harry caused them to look away in subtle shame and fear.
Harry’s team put him in a wheelchair and led him into a nearby elevator. Lisa spotted a staircase and descended. The crowd beneath the stairs grew larger as people made their way out, but they parted the way as soon as they laid eyes on Harry Grym. Most people bowed their heads in respect, but occasionally someone turned their back on him.
The mysterious figure was ushered into a sleek black SUV. He disappeared behind the tinted windows. Suddenly, a distressed woman burst from the crowd, rushing to the vehicle and pounding desperately on the glass, her screams muffled by the thick pane.
“Am I not worthy? Am I not worthy! Give me a chance, please! I’ll do anything, Harry!” the strung-out woman frantically yelled as her long nails scratched the vehicle. Security guards outside the event pulled her off the car, and the SUV sped off.
Lisa ran a block after the SUV, weaving through the traffic jam outside the event, until she spotted a taxi with its windows down on a street corner. She leaned into the passenger window and nearly tumbled inside.
“You on the clock?” Lisa said.
“I was waiting for you, sweetheart. Just you,” the taxi driver replied.
The taxi driver was an Armenian man in his late 60s. He puffed on a cigarette and blew the ash out the window.
“Follow that black SUV,” Lisa said, pointing in its direction.
Lisa opened the taxi’s back door. In the distance, near the main entrance to the event, she saw the man in the horse mask looking right at her. She hopped into the taxi's back seat and opened the envelope in her hands. The note had hand-scribbled writing that read: “Got your six.”
“You aren’t tweaking, are you? I know you models do some freaky stuff at those events. Don’t do it in my cab,” the taxi driver said as he saw Lisa constantly looking back at the road behind them when the car took off.
“I’m not a model. I don’t do any of that anymore. I’m born again. My name is written in the Book of Life,” Lisa replied as the taxi driver rolled his eyes at her response. Yet that reply stirred something in the taxi driver, and he quickly put out his cigarette in the ashtray holder out of respect for her.
The longer the drive went, the more uneasy the taxi driver got. The shoddy streets of downtown Los Angeles slowly gave way to upscale neighborhoods.
“I don’t think Jesus exists in this part of the city-” the taxi driver said.
“Keep the change. I know what I am doing. There’s no other way,” Lisa quickly replied as she handed the driver a one-hundred-dollar bill. The taxi driver reluctantly took the money and shook his head in disapproval.
After a long, silent drive through increasingly opulent neighborhoods, the taxi finally rolled to a stop before the stone gates of Chester Place mansions. Grand homes, barricaded behind ornate ironwork and weathered sandstone, stood in neat rows. Each fancy home was a testament to old money and secrets that rarely saw the sun. Lisa saw Harry Grym’s black SUV pull into a driveway three houses down and signaled the taxi to stop.
“Be safe,” the taxi driver told Lisa as she got out.
“My answer is somewhere around here. I can feel it.”
“I’ll remember your face in case something happens.”
“My name is Lisa Peralta. Remember my name.”
“I will. Goodbye, Lisa.”
The taxi driver made a quick U-turn and headed back downtown. As Lisa walked up to Harry’s home, she noticed the lights around many homes had gone off. A black van crept up the block in the distance. She walked up to an intercom speaker and pressed the button. Static shot back at her with a mix of grainy audio.
“You’ve been after me for some time. Are you after-” Harry said calmly.
“You got my friend, Lorie. She saw you 7 nights ago. She’s a model.”
“So many come and go. Are you here for a contract as well?”
Lisa paused, not sure what to make of it. She twirled her crucifix through her sweater and said, “Yes, I am here for a contract.”
The gated door opened, and Lisa slowly walked past the gate. As she walked down the driveway, she heard noises from a bush behind her, but when she turned to see what it was, a black cat scurried away.
The front door was propped open, inviting her in. Inside, the main living room was crowded with cages, each one holding a dog. The dogs whimpered and cried when they saw Lisa. One dog in particular, a Dalmatian puppy, clawed at the cage with all its might and barked at Lisa. Most of the dogs cowered in a corner, too afraid to even get near her. The place was dark, and fluorescent red bulbs lit the way inside the home. Lisa pulled out her pepper spray, ready to use it. Past the living room, an older gentleman wearing a cloak at the end of a long hallway stepped into view.
“The contract is this way,” the cloaked man said.
The cloaked figure stepped back into a room off to the side, and Lisa muttered prayers under her breath as she stood frozen in the middle of the hallway. Something inside her told her Lorie was close by, and that alone gave her the strength to move forward.
Lisa was led into a room full of lit candles that formed a giant runway. At the end of the walkway sat Harry Grym with the Chihuahua in his hands. A small, marbled table sat beside him, with a carousel toy on it. Harry took off his sunglasses, exposing the whites of his eyes.
“My friend auditioned for you. You were the last person who saw her,” Lisa said as the door closed behind her.
Harry twisted his neck as he took a whiff of the new scent in the room. “I see more than I would like to. I can feel how you really care,” Harry said.
“I’ve already filed a police report. They know-”
“Everyone that comes here wants something. Money. Fame. It’s all the same. But when you lie to me, I take your shadow.”
Whispers bounced off the walls towards Lisa. A soft gust swept into the room, and the candle flames swayed from side to side. Lisa clutched onto her crucifix as the hairs on her arms sprang up.
“Please, step onto the runway,” Harry continued.
“I just want my friend back.”
“You have to make sure it’s what you really want.”
A mysterious force took control of Lisa’s legs and feet, and she shuffled onto the runway. Shadows stretched out of the walls and filled the room.
Two cloaked figures seemed to materialize from the room's shadowy edges, silently flanking Harry. Without looking at them, Harry reached for the marbled table beside him, fingers closing around the carousel toy. He wound it slowly until the first notes of a haunting carnival tune filled the air.
The whispers around Lisa intensified. The shadows turned to faces and other visible shapes that wrestled with each other. Bizarre, hand-drawn, fractal-like shapes appeared on the walls.
“I know what your symbols mean,” Lisa told Harry defiantly.
“They all know who I am. That’s why they come.”
More black silhouettes crept out of the shadows and stood outside the candle-lit runway.
As Lisa got closer to Harry, she saw his face morph into donkey-like features. Horns began to stretch out of his head. His barefoot feet began to take the shape of hooves. Lisa suddenly felt her feet leave the ground and began to levitate in the middle of the runway. The candle flames burned brighter, and the shadows and silhouettes stood still.
“What is your contract? What do you desire? Fame? The material?” Harry said in a grotesque, raspy, and deep voice.
“To go with God,” Lisa replied, her voice trembling, but she still clung to her courage.
Harry burst out laughing in a mix of hee-haws and human laughter. The carousel toy’s song began to play backward and out of sync. He stood up and towered over Lisa. His body stretched further until his clothes unfastened, exposing his tattooed, marked animal body.
“You liar! You came here searching for your riches, not your friend! You runway whore! I can see your shadow!” Harry screamed in disgust.
Lisa’s arms stretched out wide, and her body formed the shape of a crucifix. Her feet pressed tightly together. The pepper spray bottle slipped from her fingers and tumbled to the floor below.
“I want to go back home to find Him,” Lisa said firmly.
The candles in the back of the room burst, and candle wax splattered across the room. Harry turned his face to avoid the tiny shards of glass that hit him. At the base of Lisa’s feet, he noticed droplets of blood falling to the ground. The carousel toy stopped playing music and began to crumble. As the toy broke into pieces, the shadows and silhouettes around the room vanished.
“My shadows. Why would you take that from me?” Harry said in agony.
A white light emanated from Lisa’s chest. As the light grew stronger, the men in front of her began to evaporate. Harry and the men beside him clutched the sides of their stomachs in pain. Their skin began to boil as acid ate away at it, exposing their veins and other guts. The smell of their rotting flesh blanketed the candlelight smell.
The white light slowly dissipated. Lisa opened her eyes when she felt her feet touch the floor again. She saw a nude woman sitting atop the cloaks, a pink bow at her neck. She was frail and thin, barely clinging to life. The remaining candles all slowly flickered out.
A loud thud sounded outside, and the door burst open. A gray-haired man in a black suit jolted into the room. He wore a horse mask and held a pistol with an extended silencer barrel. Behind him, a cloaked figure lay on the ground in a pool of his own blood.
The masked figure stared at the empty cloaks, the naked woman, and symbols painted all around the room. He slowly removed his mask, revealing the worry lines across his forehead. His eyes were soft and welcoming, with hints of inner delicacy from the horrors he'd seen in his field.
“Lisa, we’ve got to get out of here. It’s only a matter of time before the others make their way over here,” the man told Lisa.
Distraught, Lisa and the armed man helped the naked woman get up, and they walked out of the room. They stepped into the hallway, and an overwhelming presence of evil lurked over them. Somehow, the destroyed carousel toy began to play its music again in the room they had just left.
They hurried past the dog cages, but now, to their horror, the cages were filled with naked women. In the dim light, Lisa recognized Lorie in one of them. They freed all the women from the cages, and the group walked out of the home together. The women struggled to regain their footing and composure; their bodies were weak, but they supported one another as they made their way outside.
Lisa held tightly to Lorie and looked back at the home. Through one of its windows, a donkey-faced creature peeked out and smirked at her. A shadowy figure near the front door slipped back inside, and the door closed quietly behind it. Across the street, neighbors stood on their front lawns, watching in silence. Their cold stares followed the group as they fled the house.
A black unmarked van with its sliding doors open was parked outside, and the women hopped inside. The older man climbed in and sat on the floor as the women filled the seats around him. He closed the van’s doors and knocked on the walls twice before it sped off.
“No more runway dreams for any of you. It’s all gone. You go back home and become good choir girls, you hear? We’re going to help you get straightened out, but you leave this godforsaken city as fast as you can. Don’t ever come back here. Understood?” the silver-haired man said.
“Who are you?” Lisa asked the stranger.
“Any unpaid bills, debts, or favors you owe to anyone in this city, let me know, and we’ll take care of it. Don’t tell any cop what happened here. I’ll visit you to get your side of the story when the coast is clear. Write down your name, home address, phone number—anything I can use to find you or your loved ones in or outside of this city.”
He reached into his coat pocket and handed Lisa a business card. Next, he passed around a clipboard with a page on it and a pen attached. Each girl took it and wrote down their information, one by one.
“In due time, you’ll receive a call from an unknown number. When you ask who it is, Billie Jean will answer. Who’s going to answer the phone?” the man asked.
“Billie Jean,” all the girls answered in unison.
Lisa looked at the card, which read: “Theodore L. Gunderson, Senior Special Agent, Los Angeles FBI Field Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
As Lisa got lost in the weight of the card, Lorie lunged at her and hugged her with all her might. The two burst into tears. Lorie pressed against Lisa’s chest but pulled back when she felt something between them. Lisa unfastened her crucifix necklace and placed it around Lorie’s neck as they held onto each other.
Copyright © 2026 The Writer's Cavern by Ramsés Dávila-Luna at The Writer’s Cavern LLC. All rights reserved.