"Why the hell did you call so late? Filming starts in five days. This was supposed to be our last bit of peace."
Christian's voice was low and rough, still soaked in sleep.
He'd been jolted awake by a storm of back-to-back calls, his phone vibrating like a dying wasp on the nightstand.
By the time he threw on a jacket and stumbled into Westwood's office, his mood was somewhere between irritated and exhausted, and the cigarette he lit on the way in wasn't doing much to help.
The room was thick with smoke and nerves. Heads of every crew department were present, clustered into tight circles, talking in hushed tones.
Christian, being the one who lived farthest out, was the last to show. The smell of stale coffee and nicotine clung to the walls like bad news.
He rubbed a hand down his face, yawning as he caught sight of familiar figures. He walked over to an older crew member nursing a beer in the corner and gave his shoulder a light pat.
"What is this, some kind of late-night coup?" Christian muttered.
The red-bearded man snorted, then burst into a coughing fit.
"Cough... Jesus, Christian. If it were a power play, we wouldn't all be standing around like extras."
Christian raised an eyebrow. The man had a point.
The atmosphere wasn't charged with ambition—it was the kind of tension you felt when someone opened a door they shouldn't have.
This wasn't a power grab; it was damage control.
"I take it you weren't given any answers either?" Christian asked, sliding into the nearest chair.
"Not a damn clue," the man said, cracking his neck.
"Westwood called me like his house was on fire, but wouldn't give a reason. Looks like no one else knows squat, either."
The room nodded in agreement, their weariness breaking just long enough for a few dry chuckles.
Someone muttered something about "Hollywood emergencies," and a few laughed harder than they probably should have.
Christian lit another cigarette. "Yeah. Real comforting."
Then Westwood stepped forward, waving a hand to get their attention.
"Alright, listen up. Don't panic. It's not what you think."
His voice had that forced calm that immediately made everyone brace for the worst.
"The director... Alan... he's missing. I haven't been able to reach him in two days. I filed a police report this morning."
Silence hit the room like a slap. Then came the chaos.
"What?"
"Are you kidding me?"
"You've gotta be fu—"
Swearing erupted like popcorn in a microwave, each voice louder than the last until the older crewman raised his hands and got everyone to quiet down.
Christian leaned back, arms crossed.
"Come on, Tony," he said, using Westwood's nickname.
"You sure Alan didn't just grab the cash and skip town?"
The question hung in the air like a dare. A few heads nodded grimly.
In this town, vanishing with the budget wasn't a twist ending—it was a Tuesday.
Hollywood had its fair share of dreamers, but even more drifters, grifters, and smoke-blowers.
Christian had danced with enough devils in cheap shoes to know that sometimes the people calling the shots were the ones rigging the game.
Producers who vanished. Directors who lured naive kids with promises of fame and left them with lawsuits.
The whole industry wore a mask, and Christian had spent years watching it crack.
Westwood raised a hand again, trying to calm the sea of doubt.
"No. I thought of that. First thing I did was check the production account. Everything's intact. Not a cent missing."
The collective sigh of relief was almost loud enough to drown out Christian's thoughts.
Almost.
But Christian caught the shift in Westwood's expression—just a flicker, but it was there.
The kind of look a man wore when he was still holding something back.
"Alright," Christian said, voice low.
"So if it's not the money... what is it?"
Westwood hesitated for a breath too long.
"That," he said finally, "is the bigger problem."
"The police traced Alan's last known location to Vinales Valley."
Christian, who had been slouched in his chair with half-lidded eyes, sat up straighter.
"Isn't that where we planned to shoot?"
It was. In Alan's script, the film's world was built around lonely highways, pine-choked forests, and mist-draped mountains.
The kind of place where you didn't need special effects to feel like something was watching you.
Vinales Valley—tucked just beyond the edge of Los Angeles—had been the perfect choice.
Fog rolled in like clockwork, the trees looked like they were hiding secrets, and there wasn't a single power line in sight.
It had the kind of eerie authenticity money couldn't buy.
But now that their director had gone missing, there? The valley no longer felt cinematic. It felt cursed.
"What happened?" Christian asked.
"He get mauled by a bear or something?"
Westwood shook his head slowly.
"I hope not. But it's not that simple."
He took a breath, as if trying to piece it all together again in his head.
"LAPD got in touch first. Then the local sheriffs out there reached out. Alan's car was found on a dirt road just inside the valley—doors locked, keys still in the ignition, no sign of him."
Christian didn't say anything. He just stared at Westwood, waiting for the rest.
"I went out there with them," Westwood added.
"Confirmed it myself. It was his car. But no tracks. No blood. Nothing."
A silence settled like dust in the room. You could feel the shift. Jokes were gone. The coffee tasted colder.
"And then," Westwood continued, "the forest rangers told me this isn't the first time something like this has happened. Over the past couple years, a few hikers, campers... even locals—same pattern. Cars abandoned by the road. No trace of where they went. No bodies, no messages. Just—gone."
A ripple of unease passed through the crew.
Christian leaned forward, arms on his knees, cigarette smoldering between his fingers.
"So what's the problem then?" he asked, voice low.
"Besides the obvious."
The older crew member, the one who'd stayed calm through most of the night, stiffened.
"Let's not turn this into a ghost story, alright? We're not in the goddamn nineteenth century. This isn't Macbeth or Hell's Angels. We don't need bad omens screwing with people's heads."
There were a few knowing glances, some uncomfortable shifting in chairs.
Macbeth—Hollywood's favorite jinx. Say the name during a production and accidents followed like clockwork.
And Hell's Angels? A cinematic legend soaked in money, ego, and enough production disasters to fuel a dozen documentaries.
People in the business might scoff at superstition, but they rarely ignored it.
Christian wasn't superstitious. He just didn't trust patterns that didn't come with explanations.
"We chose that location because it looked perfect," the older man continued.
"Nobody mentioned any disappearances. That's on the scouts, not us. Don't start talking like there's a damn curse hanging over the shoot."
"Easy," Westwood said, holding up a hand.
"I'm not blaming anyone. Nobody could've predicted this."
He looked around the room, trying to ground them again.
"But we have to be realistic. The chances of Alan walking through that door in the next few days? Pretty damn slim. We've got permits, schedules, gear already out there. So now we've got two choices: shut the whole thing down, or move forward without him."
Silence again.
Westwood looked at them, eyes scanning the room.
"And if we move forward," he said, his voice tightening, "we need to decide one thing first."
He paused. The tension creaked like a bent beam.
"Who's going to direct this thing?"