He sat on the couch with a half-full mug of coffee resting on the floor beside him, legs stretched out, head tilted back against the wall. The heater buzzed softly in the corner. Outside, someone was mowing a lawn two houses down. It was the first morning in weeks without paperwork waiting, no lawyer expecting a callback, no forms to file or leases to read.
The company existed. On paper, at least.Fantasy Pictures. PO Box. Lease. Binder. Bank account.It was all real.
Now came the question he hadn't let himself ask until now:What do I actually make?
He stood up and walked slowly through the apartment. A loop. From couch to kitchen to window to desk and back again. He wasn't stalling. He was sorting.
First thought was a drama quiet, character-focused, maybe one or two actors in a small house. Cheap to shoot. But a good drama needed good actors, and casting talent was a risk with money he couldn't afford to waste. He didn't know any names, didn't have a reputation, and couldn't offer much beyond sandwiches and deferred payment.
Sci-fi? He'd love to, but it was immediately off the table. Even simple concepts needed costumes, sets, props that cost a lot, and the audience for smart science fiction was still small. The mainstream stuff wouldn't blow up until the '80s. Everything else would just look cheap. And cheap sci-fi was hard to take seriously.
Comedy? Maybe. But comedy was unpredictable, and his confidence as a director didn't stretch that far yet. It also depended too much on timing in post-production, and he didn't even have an editor.
He stood in the kitchen, staring at the empty stovetop, and felt the idea click into place.
Horror.
Of course.
He didn't need name actors. He didn't need massive locations or expensive props. Horror could be made with plywood walls, squibs, fake blood, and fog machines. If the pacing worked, if the characters were believable for five minutes at a time, people would watch. People would pay.
He walked back to the desk and leaned against it.
Halloween, he thought.That movie worked. It was exactly the model. Cheap, tight, one location, one week of shooting. Just tension and release, over and over.But… Halloween probably already existed now. Or was in production. Or at the very least written. There was no point trying to copy it directly.
He needed something similar something that hadn't been taken yet.
That's when it came to him. Not all at once but like a title floating up from water.
Friday the 13th.
No faces. No specific villain yet. Just a date.
He said it aloud.
"Friday the 13th."
It felt right.
He sat down and pulled a blank sheet of paper from the desk drawer. No typewriter yet. Just pencil and legal pad. He printed the title at the top.
FRIDAY THE 13TH
No underline. No decoration.
Just the beginning.
He started writing the next morning, sitting at the kitchen table with a yellow legal pad and a mechanical pencil he'd taken from Reiner's office by accident. The same one he'd been using to sketch logos. It still had just enough lead left to get going.
No music. No TV. Just a window cracked open to let in the street sounds and the faint smell of someone cooking bacon a few buildings down.
He didn't warm up. Didn't write an outline. He just started.
The first scene came easy. Dark woods, moonlight, two teenagers sneaking off, soft footsteps, a noise they shouldn't ignore. The pacing wasn't something he had to think about. It just arrived. He didn't know the lines word-for-word, not in a perfect transcript, but he knew what each scene was meant to do. The rhythm of it. When to cut. Where to place the silence. He knew where the camera should sit without even planning for it.
He kept writing. Dialogue, blocking, camera notes in the margins. Interior. Exterior. Who speaks, who screams, who doesn't get back up. He barely looked up for two hours.
At one point, he paused and flipped back through what he'd already done. Five full pages. The transitions felt right. The rhythm was there. He remembered more than he thought. Not just the story but the feeling of the scenes. Not pictures, exactly. Not images. But the shape of things. The tone. As if his memory hadn't just kept the movie, but the whole cut.
He leaned back, just for a second, and tapped the pencil against the pad. Not proud. Not amazed. Just... surprised.
It was strange. Useful. He hadn't expected it to be this easy to recall.
After a short break for a sandwich and another pot of coffee, he kept going. The structure came out in sections, not in a perfect line, he'd get stuck on a moment, then skip ahead to the next one he knew well. The scene with the arrows. The head in the fridge. The final girl in the boat.
He remembered who lived and who didn't. Not always names. But moments. Blood on floorboards. A scream cut short. A slow pan across an empty hallway.
By the time the sun started to dip behind the buildings outside his window, he had twenty-one pages done. Some neat. Some with scribbled rewrites and crossed-out dialogue. But it was there. Tangible.
He closed the pad and let it sit there on the table without touching it.
The room was quiet. Not thoughtful-quiet. Just still.
He didn't feel satisfied. He wasn't trying to. It was just work. A good day's work.
He cleaned up his cup, stacked the pages flat, and put the pencil in the drawer.
Tomorrow, he'd keep going.
He woke up earlier than usual, maybe because the room felt colder or because the street was quiet in that odd way where even the birds seemed to be taking their time.
The script pages were still sitting where he'd left them stacked neatly at the edge of the kitchen table, a glass turned upside down to keep them from curling. He made toast, poured black coffee, sat down, and flipped through them again. The pacing still felt right. A few awkward lines, but he knew they'd get fixed later. It was enough to keep going.
He picked up the pencil.
But then he stopped.
He stared at the pad for a full minute, pencil in hand, before setting it back down.
The scenes weren't the problem. He could write more. He knew how it ended. He even remembered the fake-out ending and the twist. But his head wasn't there anymore.
He was thinking about cameras.
Not shots. Cameras. As in: who owned one? Who rented them? What kind? How much would it cost to rent for a week? Did it come with someone who knew how to operate it? Who handled sound? Where would they sleep if they shot at a lake? What kind of permit did they need? Was it legal to shoot in the woods?
He scratched his temple with the end of the pencil. His hair was getting too long again.
Then he stood up, walked to the window, and looked out at the alley. A guy was dragging cardboard boxes into a bin behind the bakery next door. Nothing about the world looked like it was waiting for a film to happen.
He sat back down and wrote a list on a blank sheet of paper.
1. Camera – find rental house? Check film types.2. Sound equipment – no clue.3. Cast – locals? Flyers? Union?4. Crew – impossible alone.
The word "crew" stayed with him longer than the others. Not just lights and grips. He didn't even have anyone to answer phones, make schedules, or take notes.
That's what started to feel heavy. He had the company. He had a script halfway finished. But it wasn't a movie yet. It was a file folder, a logo, a bunch of ideas in pencil, and a seventeen-hundred-dollar hole forming in his bank account just from the office, legal fees, and lunch money.
He didn't need a team yet. He needed one person who could help him stay above water.
A secretary.
Or an assistant. Something like that. Someone who could pick up phones, type letters, make appointments, handle logistics while he focused on writing and planning. Someone who was Just competent and organized.
He grabbed the yellow legal pad from the counter and wrote on the top line:
Secretary – need help. Sooner the better.
He circled it once, then folded the page and stuck it in his jacket pocket.
That afternoon, he took the bus to Magnolia Boulevard and walked past buildings with front desks, nameplates, and phones ringing behind glass doors. No one looked up. No one cared who he was.
But someone would.He just had to find them.