There are so many of them.
So many faces. Pale skinned. Larval-complexioned. They haven’t seen the sun in days. Maybe months. Hiding in the shadows. Lurking in whatever subterranean space they call home.
Their mother’s basements.
Their sex dungeons.
Their tombs.
They’ve seen me now. Oh God, their eyes. All those hollow eyes…Looking right at me. Staring. Not even blinking. Any of them. Gray eyes. So wide. Glassed over. Gummed up in something phlegmy, like oysters. Nothing but pearls of gray snot floating in each socket.
Now that they know I’m here—She’s here! She’s here!—they’ve all grown giddier. More agitated. I’ve stirred them up. Just my mere presence is enough to rouse them. The scent of me gets them excited. A charge of dead electricity ignites their dull eyes as they shuffle up closer.
Closer…
Closer…
There’s no escaping them now. It’s too late to run. To hide.
I’m trapped.
Just go away go away just please make them all go away—
They keep coming. Lumbering up to me, one right after another.
Closer…
Closer.
A horde. A mindless, shambling horde. Mostly men. Always men.
Where do they all come from?
Why are they here?
What do they want from me? Ogling me with those dead stares. Those mucosal, oyster eyes. Please I can’t do this I can’t do this don’t make me do this I can’t I can’t I just can’t—
There have to be a hundred of them. Maybe more. I’ve lost count. I can’t see the end of the line. Just when I think they’re gone, that it’s finally, finally over, I look up and see more.
And more.
More.
All of them reaching out for me. Trying to touch me. Grab me. Those hands. Their fingernails gnawed through. Raw pink cuticles.
Always bring antibacterial hand sanitizer, I’ve learned. Stock up. Never leave home without it. I always have a little bottle in my fanny pack, ready to pull out before I embark upon shaking these hands by the hundreds. Strangers’ hands. Greasy little sausage fingers. All of them reaching out for me. Taking hold. Squeezing. Warm cold cuts slipping and sliding across my skin. Never take a whiff of your fingers after a con because it’ll smell worse than a deli counter after the power’s gone out during a heat wave. I’d swear one of these fans slipped me a bologna sandwich when I wasn’t looking.
“It’s, uh…It’s an honor, Miss Pendleton.”
I smile. Have to smile. But inside I’m screaming. One long, drawn out, internal yet eternal shriek.
“Could you make it out to John, please?”
I smile. Nod. Yes, of course.
To John. My #1 fan.
I can’t keep my hand from shaking.
Don’t fall apart on me. Not now. You can do this. It’s almost over.
Only one more hour to go.
My contract said I’d only have to sign from noon until three, but that doesn’t stop the line from stretching on and on and on. If you cut them off, if you send your fans home without signing their VHS box covers or their posters or their T-shirts or their own flesh, if you don’t give them exactly what they want…they will haunt you. Come back to you. Accost you. Word gets out that you’re difficult. That you’re a genre prima donna. And then you have nothing. Nothing. And I’m already dangerously close to rock bottom. Most actresses bring their boyfriends to help set up their booths. Me, I had to park my Volvo thirty blocks away from the convention center just so I wouldn’t have to pay eighty bucks in a lot, schlepping my headshots the whole way here. I’m thirty-three years old—fine, thirty-four—and nobody’s carrying my swag for me. No significant other on hand to help arrange the booth, deal with the bank, keep the line moving smoothly. Nobody makes sure the fans don’t slow things down with too much small talk. Just get their autograph and go. Next. It’s just me, setting up and signing, signing, signing until the line finally goes away.
Until they all go away.
Sign and smile.
Smile…
The pen trembles. I can hardly read my own handwriting anymore. It doesn’t even look like my name, so abstract to me now. Every letter has a serrated edge to it, like the jagged line on a heart-rate monitor from someone in the midst of a coronary, spiking and plummeting.
There, I say to myself. You did it. You got through it. One more autograph down. Only…
Fifty-seven more minutes to go.
Fifty-six.
Fifty-five.
Fifty-four.
Klonopin is a godsend. Those tranqs get me straight through the day. To all you up-and-coming scream queenies out there, a little word of advice: Get a prescription for that, ASAP, if you know what’s good for yourself. My medications have evolved over the years, going back to you-know-when, thanks to Mom and her own half-assed stabs at salvaging my childhood. What little was left of it. Wasn’t until I began foraging through the pharmaceutical sphere on my own, somewhere around, oh, say, twelve, that I came upon klonnies. Pop a couple K-pins and the line of fans loses its edge. I try to make sure I’m finished with my photo-opping for the day before taking one. No panels or any speaking engagements, because those benzies will knock you out. K-ooh. Makes your mouth all mushy. Your tongue’s suddenly a hundred pounds heavier. At first, I figured I was speaking coherently. I could even hear the words coming in loud and clear in my own ear…But to the fans, the convention organizers, my fellow panelists, I was nothing but a mealymouthed mess. Just a faux-Gucci-clad cow chewing her tongue in front of everyone.
Now I only take half a Klonopin before beginning my signings. Otherwise I might not remember what I said and to whom I said it. Too many black holes to fall through. The second half I save, as a treat for myself, at the end of the day. When it’s all over. Finally over. When I want to forget.
Not to mention the doxepin for depression. The diazepam for dozing off during all the sleepless nights. The Ritalin for cutting through the fog. And the ergotamine for migraines.
I’d be remiss if my travel nips were left off the list, along with a half gallon of coffee and Lord knows how many cigarettes to get me through the rest of the day. To keep me balanced.
Keep me sane.
Next in line is a family of three. They shuffle up, beaming, prodding their daughter up to my table. She’s just a girl.
Just a child.
“Hi, Miss Pendleton,” her father says. “It’s such an honor to meet you…”
“Huge honor,” her mother adds. Both parents have stuffed themselves into a T-shirt screen-printed with a different horror movie. Movies I’ve never heard of. That I’ll never, ever subject myself to. Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things and Don’t Torture a Duckling.
But their daughter. Good God, they’ve dressed their daughter up to look like me.
Just like Jessica.
Scorched skin. Burnt cheeks. Hair in calcinated clumps, a sea urchin of cinders. Her dress has been spray-painted with black spots, masquerading as ash. It’s a pale comparison to the actual costume I wore. The makeup is nowhere near as authentic. One close look and I can see where the prosthetics are glued onto her cheeks. The fake burn on her forehead is peeling off, revealing her real skin. That tender pink. She silently stares back at me, unsure what to say.
The girl can’t be any older than nine, for Christ’s sake.
She’s just a child.
Just a child.
She didn’t ask for this. Nobody that age ever asks for this type of abuse. It’s obvious she doesn’t want to be here, doesn’t want to be dressed up in this crappy costume—but her parents, Christ, her own flesh and blood, thought it would be a gas to subject their kid to this fanatical act of public humiliation. To mortify her in front of everyone for their own perverted pleasure.
I can’t stop staring at her.
Like looking in a mirror. A mirror of me as a—
girl
I’m losing the soft focus of my surroundings. That cozy cushion in my cranium. The Klonopin is ebbing. The edges of everything are starting to sharpen again. Knives in my temples.
I’m looking into a mirror, at my reflection, but I have to remind myself that the image of me staring back isn’t me…
It’s Jessica.
Her dad clears his throat. “We’ve watched Don’t Tread on Jessica’s Grave together, uh…I don’t know how many times.” He chuckles as he says it, too. He’s so nervous, he can’t help but bray. Nobody mistakes Jessica for a classic. It’s niche at best. Niche within niche. On a scale of one to ten—one being Shriek of the Mutilated and ten being The Exorcist—the scrappy obscurity I have found myself imprisoned within lands somewhere in the three to four range.
But it has its followers. And they are legion. Devoted to the very end. Whenever I ask why, and believe me, I’m always asking why—Why this movie? Why me?—the answer from the fans is always some variation of the same refrain: It just spoke to me, you know? It felt real.
What I can’t help but hear, in my head, whether these fans say it or not, is:
There’s a ghost in there. Somewhere in the movie…You can just feel it.
Can’t you feel it? Feel her? Inside the movie?
Inside you?
This father is still talking to me. I have to snap back. Pay attention. Smile. “I’ve watched it probably, like a hundred times,” he says, “by myself, but now we all watch it. The whole fam.”
“Oh.” What else can I say? I smile, feigning gratitude, but I’m already calculating the years in my head. These parents had to be in their early twenties. Maybe younger. They must have had their daughter when they were still in their teens. Seventeen? Sixteen? Jesus, fifteen?
Kids having kids.
“I first watched it when I was five,” the mom adds. “So we figured it was about time to watch it with her.”
Her.
This poor girl is trapped between her mom and dad, gripping her mother’s hand. She won’t let go. I’m stuck sitting behind my table, so I’m eye-to-eye with her, staring at this poor rendition of Jessica. She’s in a costume she doesn’t want to wear, pretending to be someone she doesn’t want to be.
I know what that feels like.
I lean in until I’m only a few inches away from her. I want this just to be between her and me. “I hope you didn’t get any nightmares watching it…”
The girl only shakes her head, no, no. Then, thinking twice about it, she slowly nods. Yes.
Yes, there were nightmares.
Of course there were nightmares.
So many nightmares.
I know those nightmares. Had plenty of them, myself.
Too many.
I glance around the convention center, pretending to check that no one else is listening. This is just between the two of us. Just between us girls.
Just us Jessicas.
When I deem the coast is clear, I ask her, “What’s your name, honey?”
“Jessica.”
“No, honey,” I say. “I mean, what’s your real name?”
She only stares blankly back at me, repeating herself, “Jessica.”
Holy shit.
I want to call social services, right then and there. I have to struggle to suppress the rising tide of bile filling my throat. “Can I let you in on a little secret, Jessica?”
She nods. Slower. Unsure what else she should do. If this is okay. Is this okay? Can she keep a secret? With me? This older woman? This…stranger? The source of all her nightmares.
“I was your age when we made that movie,” I said. “It was pretty scary to me, too. I had some bad dreams back then. Really bad dreams.”
The girl takes this in, absorbs it.
“But it was all pretend,” I lie. “Make believe, you know? It was—it’s just a movie.”
Just a movie.
Just a movie.
I don’t know how any times I repeated that to myself. All through my childhood.
Well into adulthood.
A secret mantra to keep the ghosts at bay.
It’s only a movie…
Only a movie…
Only a movie…
Only…
We take our photo. I can feel the lie eating away at me. My throat is still burning, the words wrapped in stomach acid. I can still taste them in my mouth.
Only a movie only a movie only a movie only a…
I wish I could protect her. Save her from this awful movie. From her own awful goddamn parents. I should’ve stood up and grabbed her and taken her away or called the police or just run out of here or—or something.
Anything.
She’s just a child, for Christ’s sake.
Just a girl.
No one that young should ever watch that movie. Jesus, no one that young should have been in that movie.
Why hadn’t somebody tried to save me?
She turns her head back to look at me one last time before she’s completely eclipsed by the next fan in line, beelining his way up to the card table, impatiently waiting his turn.
And Jessica is gone. Just like that.
Nothing but a ghost.
My attention drifts over the card table to my setup. All the headshots. The production stills. It’s been a while since I’ve subjected myself to a horror convention. I thought I could get through it. I thought I was strong enough again. I was keeping the panic attacks at bay. The benzies helped, yes. But glancing over all the pictures of myself in costume, as a child, nothing but a little girl, I feel that familiar tug, that gravitational pull back into the dark place.
Back to Pilot’s Creek.
To the woods.
These last twenty-four years have felt like a dream. Like I never left that hole in the ground.
I’m stuck here.
In the ground.
I never left…
I never left…
I never left…
I never—
“It is such a pleasure to finally meet you, ma’am,” this next fan says. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this. When I heard you were coming to TerrorCon, I took off from work. I had to switch shifts with Chet, but that’s okay. I drove three hours just to get here. I made sure that there wasn’t anything…”
I give him a faint smile, but I’m distracted.
I’m searching for the girl.
That poor girl.
For Jessica.
Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe there’s still time. Maybe I can still save her—
“…thought you’d never do another convention. I read your last interview in Rue Morgue and it sounded like you had sworn them off for good. So thanks, thank you, for coming back.”
Back from the dead.
He plops down a glossy headshot of me onto the table. Of course he’s brought his own. I start signing it without looking at the picture. The motions of my wrist are so automatic now.
But when I glance down, my hand juts out, sending my Sharpie flying. The P in Pendleton stretches across the whole image. Over my face.
It’s one of my childhood headshots. From my commercial days. Before Don’t Tread on Jessica’s Grave. I haven’t seen one of these photographs in…Jesus, I don’t even know how long. The edges of the image have yellowed. How did this guy get his hands on it?
“I found it on eBay,” he says, as if he were listening to my thoughts, proud of his rare acquisition. “Only cost me five bucks…Totally worth it. You are worth it, Miss Pendleton.”
I finish signing my name before sliding the picture toward him.
And smile.
“Oh, ah, actually, I was wondering…” he begins, only to stop himself.
Christ, this one wants to ask for something special. I can sense it. It’s in his body language. He’s being sheepish. Bashful. But he won’t go away.
That’s how these conventions work. They all want something. Need something. That’s why they come here. They’ve all come because they want something from me. Anything. Everything. An autograph. A picture. A hug. An ear to whisper into. A shoulder to cry on. A wisp of my hair. A drop of my blood. A piece of my soul. They want to tell me how much my movie meant to them. How it changed their life. How I was their first. Their only. Their everything.
But this movie nearly killed me.
It took everything from me.
Everything.
Can’t they see that?
Don’t they know?
I have nothing left. There’s nothing left of me to give. My bank account is nearly overdrawn. I’ve become well versed in the off-brand macaroni and cheese at my local deli. I have to put on a face that doesn’t feel like my own. It’s not mine…I have to relive this one moment from my life, over twenty years ago, over and over again, a broken record that keeps on skipping, just to get by. Just to survive. To live. But I don’t even know what I’m living for anymore.
Even if I tried, the fans, all these fans, they won’t let me forget. Won’t let me move on. Run away. I have to reexperience it for them. Reenact it for them. The trauma of it. Like I’m trapped in an endless loop. Reliving that night over and over and over and over and over and—
“Could you, uh…” He takes a deep breath. “Do you mind signing it as Jessica?”
“Of course,” I manage to say.
And smile.
His cheeks flush red, his skin splotching over in a patch of pulpy, mushy strawberries. “Thank you, Miss Pendleton…Thank you. I, uh…I’m such a big fan of yours. Don’t Tread on Jessica’s Grave is one of my all-time faves. Top five, easy.”
“Don’t let the other four films know that,” I kid.
“Have you heard they’re remaking it?”
Everything in my head goes quiet. A hush rushes through the entire convention hall. Every conversation diminishes. Every costumed fan continues to chat with the costumed fan beside them, but their voices are gone for me.
The din is gone.
All I hear is her breath. Raspy. Wet burlap ripping in her chest.
Ella Louise.
“I’m sorry,” I say in a slow, measured tone. “Remaking…?”
He can tell I don’t understand. “Don’t Tread on Jessica’s Grave,” he beams. “They’ve been talking about it for years. Now that the film is about to celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary, the producers nailed down the rights. Ketchum finally let them go, I guess. They’re updating it for, like, you know…a modern audience.”
The excitement on his face dissolves as soon as he realizes I’m hearing this news for the very first time. He is the messenger of this revelation.
To my awakening.
“You, uh…” He licks his lips. “You didn’t know?”
“No,” I manage to say, my voice barely registering. “I didn’t.”
“Pretty cool, huh?” He beams at me. “I wonder who they’ll get to play Jessica?”