The Con Season

by Cesare, Adam

  It was probably for the best, anyway. Her apartment back in L.A. wasn’t large, but still Clarissa owned two full-length mirrors. One in her bedroom and another propped beside her desk in the living room, and that was without counting the small vanity in the bathroom.

  When she was in a certain kind of mood, she barely got any work done. Instead she would stare at herself, pick her skin, and pinch at the corners of her mouth and belly.

  Clarissa was a natural blonde and outside of the occasional grey hair, she’d kept her pigment for fifty-four years, but it seemed these days the luster was fading. Aging was a slow-motion train wreck, one that it took a couple of cheap over-the-door mirrors from IKEA for her to truly appreciate.

  The cabin’s bathroom was cramped, but its fixtures had been recently replaced. Clarissa could smell the tang of fresh paint and grout.

  Kimberly had told them that Blood Camp Con would be holding its inaugural year in a functioning summer camp. Well, functioning when it wasn’t the off-season. Schools started in September, at least Clarissa thought they did, so there hadn’t been anyone using these grounds for a couple of months, at least.

  Looking around, Clarissa guessed that her cabin had either belonged to some administrator, the head councilor or scout master or whatever, or was utilized off-season as a posh rental by whoever ran the camp.

  The cabin featured a plush reclining chair, a large work desk, and even a stone fireplace. There was a pile of black and white soot in the hearth that indicated the fireplace was more than decorative. To complete the woodsy aesthetic there was even a hunting rifle hanging over the mantle. If she were looking for clichés, she would have remembered what Chekov said about guns and fireplaces, but she was busy. As it was the gun made her feel uneasy, not because she was afraid it would go off but because something about it seemed familiar.

  Why the cabin existed and how it was furnished didn’t matter and Clarissa turned her attention back to her face and then let her eyes move down her neckline. She’d spent all day without a proper mirror and now she was going to take her time looking for problem areas.

  The mirror was immobile, but if she stepped back and tilted her head to the light she could…

  Clarissa dropped one strap of her night gown, revealing smooth white skin. Tenderly, she ran a hand up her side, the nail of her pointer finger measuring the crease between her armpit and breast.

  55 years old, she began to think.

  And then her quiet time was destroyed.

  “You still need this light on?” Toby shouted from the other side of the bathroom door.

  Clarissa was startled, then annoyed. “Yes! Don’t touch it,” she said.

  She wanted to groan or scream in frustration, but instead sucked in her cheeks until her teeth began to throb and her face in the mirror went red.

  It turned out that, since the fact that he’d been accompanying her hadn’t been mentioned in her emails, Toby had been an unexpected plus-one for the con organizers. Organizers who had nowhere to put him.

  Kimberly had offered him one of the bunks that the con’s “campers” would be staying in, but had then revealed that he would need to share his space once the attendees started to arrive tomorrow morning.

  Toby had said that would be fine, but Clarissa could read the concern on his face, could almost see inside of his nervous mind: the fact that he’d be alone tonight in a building meant to house a dozen or more teenagers and then packed in with fans tomorrow. Fans and their odors.

  Or maybe that was her projecting onto Toby, her own feelings boomeranging back to her. Maybe she was the one who didn’t want to be alone in the woods of Kentucky, no matter how nice the cabin or new the grout in the bathroom.

  Whatever the explanation, Clarissa’s desire to have a room of her own buckled and she said it would be fine for them to split the guest cabin, provided Toby was fine with sleeping in the armchair.

  But now he had the audacity to try and dictate when she was going to bed? Looking to turn out the lights in the bedroom before she was ready?

  She pulled the strap of her nightgown back over her shoulder. It wasn’t the same to be inspecting her crow’s feet and measuring moles in this tiny, unfamiliar mirror. Clarissa splashed some water in her face and began the process of removing her makeup. The water pressure was good. In fact it was too strong, when she turned both knobs there was no middle ground between “off” and “a loud, raging torrent of lukewarm water.”

  Ten minutes later, when she came back out of the bathroom, Toby was gone but she wasn’t worried.

  He did that sometimes, ghosting when he needed to take a call.

  Clarissa laid her head down and listened to the crickets.

  Hopefully he wouldn’t wake her up when he came back in.

  *

  It was funny. As Kimberly Yost looked into the one-way mirror, she didn’t see Clarissa Lee as she was, the eighth of an inch of foundation stopping abruptly at her neckline, the skin of her breasts impossibly pale and too thin.

  Instead Kimberly saw her as she appeared for most of the eighties: beautiful, young, and covered in blood.

  When Clarissa Lee jumped, startled by her annoying little manager yelling from the other room, Kimberly jumped too. Her elbow knocked against the camera beside her and the feet of the tripod skittered across the concrete before she reached out to steady the equipment.

  The room in which Kimberly stood had been recent construction. By halving the bathroom and taking a divot out of the living room they had installed an observation area. Standing here behind the mirror, someone was able to keep an eye on their guest of honor at all times.

  Yeah, the camera alone would have worked just as well, but where was the fun in that?

  Kimberly was glad she was getting to take the first shift, from what Daddy Teeks had told her about Rory: the place would probably be covered in gooey Kleenex by this time on Saturday. Wet tissues or worse...

  Behind the glass, Ms. Lee had begun to run the tap. She bent to splash her face and her nightgown dipped. Kimberly could have stepped in front of the camera to block its view. She could have afforded the older woman some modesty, but this was good stuff, premium footage.

  Kimberly felt her skin go flush. She thought about how in all her more recent films, Clarissa Lee had remained covered up. Had the lack of nudity been her decision? Had she gone Mormon or Scientologist? Or was it her manager’s decision, to try to appear more like The Mom? Or did the directors and producers not want to see what a real woman looked like, stripped?

  At the thought of him, Kimberly turned her mind to what to do about the manager. She took out her phone to text Daddy Teeks. Sliding through the lock screen, her phone made the distinctive Apple clack! She winced and flipped the switch that turned the phone to silent. Luckily the faucet was going on the other side of the glass.

  She typed.

  Do we need the manager? Lee doesn’t seem to like him.

  Hitting send, she looked back at the glass.

  She’d never seen Clarissa Lee like this before. None of her fans had. This was private time.

  With the corner of a damp washcloth, Ms. Lee pulled at the area under one eye. The white cloth came back cream-colored, with a slash of black at the tip from where it’d rubbed at her eyeliner.

  Kimberly’s phone buzzed. Even silent it was loud in the small, secret room. She would need to put it to complete “do not disturb” mode and make sure that Rory remembered to do the same when he came in here later.

  Daddy Teeks:No, don’t need. Tell Rory. Boy needs to get it out of his system.

  Kimberly smiled. She took one last look at Ms. Lee through the glass. The star’s face was an inelegant monster scowl as she scrubbed her forehead.

  Careful not to linger, Kimberly squeezed out from the hidden door behind the tripod.

  Once outside, she dialed Rory’s number.

  “Mr. Teeks said you get to start early. This is a dry run, though. No costume. None of the gags we’ve discussed
. Meet us under camera twelve.”

  *

  Keith Lumbra watched the monitors switch as Rory yelled out numbers behind him.

  “Two!”

  Keith hit a button and the middle monitor, the largest of the five, stacked on top of the other four, switched to a night-vision view of the lake. There was a tower of canoes in the bottom left corner of the frame, each covered with a tarp and a speckling of fallen leaves.

  “Fourteen!”

  Keith held down the shift key and typed in the one and four keys. The monitor switched to their ultimate establishing shot: the camera rigged to the top of the sign spanning the driveway. The sign welcomed campers to Camp Rockwogh. Yesterday, Rory and Teeks needed to throw the vinyl “Blood Camp Con” signage up there, so while they had the ladder up, they’d sent Keith up to install one of the leftover security cameras atop the sign.

  Using his trackball mouse, Keith was able to control the zoom. He rolled the ball down as far as it could go to widen up the shot. The equipment was clumsy and outdated. Keith hadn’t used a trackball since high school when he’d taken Television Production. Back then he hadn’t been your typical A/V club nerd: but he had needed access to the equipment if he was going to start dipping his toes in filmmaking.

  Camera fourteen’s vantage was a good twenty-five feet above the road in and out of camp. From there they could see almost the entirety of the camp. There was the main stage, the three cabins flanking it, the roof of a fourth cabin separate from the rest, and the corner of the administrative building/cafeteria where Keith and Rory were currently sitting.

  Well, Keith was sitting, one of his ankles strapped to his rolling office chair by a bike chain. Rory was standing behind him, sticking his fingers onto the monitors and leaving greasy smudges.

  Keith wanted to tell him to stop touching the equipment, but that was the kind of insubordination that could get him clapped over the ear so hard that he began to bleed.

  It had happened before.

  “Now go to,” Rory began and put a hand on Keith’s shoulder. The hand was so heavy. And it didn’t feel like the big man was leaning into him, that ache in Keith’s muscles was just from the weight of the man’s enormous arm with no additional pressure. The message Keith took from this: Rory didn’t even have to be trying in order to hurt Keith.

  “Tubular Bells” began to play. The song was Rory’s ringtone, and the big man stopped giving directions. Before coming to live with Teeks and Rory, it’d been a long time since Keith had heard a custom ringtone and the experience did nothing to shake the feeling that Rory was an enormous, impressively-stubbled teenager.

  Once the phone was out of his pocket, Rory pushed down and away from Keith, the suspension of the roll chair letting out a hiss as it was compounded. Keith glided to a stop with his stomach hitting up against the table. The monitors rattled against the hit and Rory shushed Keith.

  “Hello,” Rory said into the phone. Keith didn’t turn in his chair and tried his best not to look like he was eavesdropping. Keith had come to the decision that he would brook no further resistance to his captors plans. And if he wasn’t planning on resisting, why would he need to eavesdrop?

  It was no use, though, because this close, in the quiet of the control room, he could hear the female voice on the other end of the line. It was difficult to pick out every word, but he knew it was Kimberly on the other side of the conversation, and he definitely heard “meet me” and “Teeks.”

  “Sure thing, be there soon. But no mask?”

  Rory paused and listened to the response. Not that Keith himself was exactly a quiet breather these days, with his split nose, but he noticed that Rory’s own breath was heavier now. It was the same pattern of respiration Keith’s dog used to assume in the pauses between waiting for the ball to be thrown and the fetching.

  Rory was beside himself with excitement. The big man could hardly hold it in. Keith could tell.

  “So a mask but not the mask? Cool. I like it. See you soon,” Rory said, then rushed to add: “But wait. Wait…should the geek switch on the phone thing?”

  The phone thing, Keith thought and instantly caught a touch of nausea. The jammer had worked with the two test phones, but those had both been using the same provider and who knew how long and how far the coverage would span once they switched it on for good. Keith was a far cry from an electrical engineer, but he’d been able to assemble what Teeks had asked for after watching some YouTube tutorials. If the device didn’t work then it would end up being Keith’s fault.

  Rory waited for a response. Keith did too, keeping his eyes on the keyboard in front of him.

  “Makes sense, it shuts us down too. Okay, see you soon,” Rory said and hung up.

  In the reflection of one of the smaller monitors, each one a slightly out-of-date glass CRT TV, Keith could see Rory jump and punch the air. It was the fist-pump of a pro athlete. Rory’s boots slammed back down, causing the floor boards to creak and shake.

  “It’s happening! It’s happening,” Rory said, spinning Keith around in his chair so he could enjoy the action. This was the happiest Keith had ever seen his captor. “I just need a…” Rory started but then trailed off. Rory paced the small room, which must have served as a kind of counselor’s break room, judging from the mini-fridge and worn couch pressed against one end.

  The folding table, hard drives, keyboard, mouse, walkie talkies, and monitors had been a recent addition to the break room, as the camp had lacked any kind of closed circuit equipment.

  Rory crossed to the couch and took up one of the smaller cushions laid across the arm rest.

  He tore at the corner of the pillowcase, straining against the material until he realized that there was a zipper. He undid the zipper, removed the pillow from the thicker, floral pillowcase, and threw the case over his head. Now hooded, Rory dug both hands into his pockets and rooted around for a second before coming out with a pocket knife.

  Clumsily peeling out the blade without lifting the pillowcase from over his eyes, Rory put one hand up to his face and began to carve himself an eyehole.

  Please stab yourself in the face, Keith found himself wishing, only to put a hand to his lips to ensure that he wasn’t saying the words aloud. It had been a long two days on top of an even longer few months. There was no way of telling how fried his brain is, how loopy he’d gone. Even as recent as last night, Keith had found himself waking up screaming for his mother, a nightmare that had crossed into reality and had earned him a late-night beating from Rory.

  “How do I look?” Rory asked, turning to Keith.

  Keith didn’t say anything just croaked out an extended “Uhhhhhhh.”

  “Spit it out, I’ve got to go,” Rory said, reaching over Keith’s shoulder and pulling down a loop of excess coaxial cabling from the top of one monitor.

  “You look great!” Keith said, his voice shaky. He hadn’t been required to talk a lot recently, just “yes” and “no” mostly.

  The truth was that Rory looked like Rory with a flowery pillowcase over his head, but who was Keith to judge that the look wasn’t fearsome? He was scared as hell of Rory, no matter how many flowers he had on his head.

  “Good, follow me on the screen, but have camera twelve ready to go. Make sure you’re recording. And, Lumbra?”

  “Yes?” Keith asked, weirdly feeling like Rory was going to tell him something positive. Like “keep up the good work” or something similar.

  “Don’t fuck up,” Rory said, testing the strength of the cabling by tugging it taut. He lifted up the edge of his mask with one thumb, to show Keith he was smiling. Then, before Keith could pull away, Rory struck out with the cable like a whip, connecting with the back of Keith’s left hand.

  Rory was out the door before the welt had a chance to turn white and Keith already had his seat turned around, tracking his movement with the cameras.

  The pain in his hand was nothing.

  *

  Toby Givens was short, but he did not seem light.<
br />
  At least, he didn’t look that way to Kimberly. But she wasn’t the one lifting the short man off his feet in front of Cabin Three.

  Cabin Three was that one…Falcon? Eagle? She couldn’t tell what the bird on the sign was supposed to be, couldn’t remember what they’d called it. It was late and her time at Camp Rockwogh was a fuzzy memory. Kimberly had a young-looking face, and played that feature up with the way she dressed and acted, but in reality she was closing in on thirty. It had been many summers since camp.

  She had never returned as a counselor, herself, but that was probably how the older kids had thought about the cabins: One, Two, and Three. Not as Deer, Bear, and whatever bird of prey it was that was carved into the sign above them. She thought the counselors must think of the buildings in a similar way to how waitresses knew the floor plans of their restaurants by table numbers.

  Toby had answered the door quickly, which was good because it was better to get him outside while Ms. Lee was still in the bathroom, cleaning her face.

  Kimberly had anticipated more difficulty getting him to follow her out into the woods, late at night, but the manager had come along with minimal fuss.

  “I hate to be doing this to you, especially this late, but Mr. Teeks needs to see you. I don’t know what it is, but he said that there seems to be an issue with Ms. Lee’s contract,” she said, holding a finger in the belt loop on her shorts. The weather could have gone either way, planning this far into October, but it had stayed unseasonably warm. A good omen, surely, and one that meant she got to rock her shorts in the fall.

  The manager wore a white undershirt and long, old-man boxers that partially covered his knees. He would not have looked out of character wearing ankle garters, but alas, he had none.

  “What kind of contract problem?” he asked. “She’s signed.”

  “Like I said, I don’t know. All this stuff is new to me. He just called and told me that he wanted to talk to you. It sounded technical and well,” she held her hands out, playing the “I’m just a P.A.” card again and setting it down with conviction.