Flash Horror Fiction: The Hostess
Old friend Seamus Cooper dropped by with a haunted look in his eyes and a flash drive in his hand. “Just…publish it,” he said, pressing the flash drive into my hand. So here it is, just in time for Halloween!
The Hostess
By Seamus Cooper
ScaryCon 2024 was in the books. Colleen wheeled her suitcase full of unsold DVDs, posters, stickers, and bobbleheads toward her Kia Forte. She’d nearly sold enough to break even, which made this her best con this year.
If she had her way, she’d stop doing cons altogether. Posing for photos as horror hostess The Blood Countess was fine, but then there were the conversations she had to have as Colleen. Prove your horror bonafides by answering this dumb trivia question I’m framing as a conversational salvo. I have a raft of suggestions for the show. Would you ever do nude scenes/you should do OnlyFans. What are you doing after the con. It was exhausting.
But everyone said this was the kind of thing you needed to do to maintain and grow a character. Smile, have the conversations so the fans would feel a connection with the show and hit those like and subscribe buttons. So several times a year, she did it.
She was tired. Her feet hurt from standing in ridiculous heels for eight hours, and she couldn’t wait to get home and ease into a nice warm bath. But she had a solid two-hour drive ahead of her.
She hit the button on the key fob, and her trunk slowly slid open. She hefted the suitcase into the trunk and slammed it closed, only to find a guy in a Ghostface mask and robe standing right there.
She had seen countless horror movies and introduced over 100 indie horror shorts on her YouTube channel, and she prided herself on being hard to scare. But it’s always startling when someone pops out at you unexpectedly, which explained her gasp of surprise.
“What’s your favorite scary movie?” Ghostface said. She knew she had to maintain the character and grow the channel, but there was a limit as to what she was willing to put up with. She looked around the parking lot, assessing her options. She saw no one. Not even the reassuring blink of a night vision camera on the light poles. Just her and a weirdo cosplaying a slasher, alone at night. She decided on a strategy.
“Well,” Colleen said with a little nervous chuckle, “I’ve seen so many and I love them all for different reasons. I can see you like the Scream franchise. I think Wes Craven’s New Nightmare doesn’t get enough credit for starting the meta-horror trend, though. Scream was just Kevin Williamson being inspired by Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, and then getting Wes Craven himself to direct! Don’t you think?”
There. Horror bonafides established. Hopefully he’ll tire of this momentarily.
“Would you ever do OnlyFans?”
“Oh, I don’t think Ghostface asked Drew Barrymore that. Well, in any case, no, it’s not in my plans. No disrespect to anyone who goes that route—it’s just not what I do. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s late and I’ve been on my feet all day and—”
“Which are you really? Colleen or The Blood Countess?”
“Oh, well, just because I play a character certainly doesn’t mean that’s who I am.”
Ghostface drew a step closer. He smelled of b.o. and energy drinks. “Did you know Elizabeth Bathory, the real Blood Countess, bathed in the blood of virgins to stay eternally young?”
“Yep. Familiar with the story of Báthori Erzsébet. Anyway, thanks again, but I have to get going. I’ve got a long drive ahead of me. Remember to like and subscribe. My new season drops in two weeks!”
She moved toward the driver’s door, not turning her back on Ghostface, who matched her step for step. “Am I..scaring you?” Ghostface said.
And that was finally what broke her. Not the fact that he asked invasive questions in a lonely parking lot, not that he was keeping her from her car and therefore her bath and her bed, but the fact that he had the audacity, the temerity to think he could frighten her.
The blades were in her hands before she even realized it. Hello, old friends. With lightning speed, she sliced through Ghostface’s black robe and several layers of fat and muscle in a single, bloody stroke. Blood began to pour from the wound. She thought she saw a little bit of intestine peeking out of the black robe. Ghostface clutched at it frantically, staggering away from her.
“No, darling, you were not scaring me. Annoying me? Yes. Boring me? Oh, most certainly. But scaring me? With a Spirit Halloween costume and a bad impersonation of a second-rate movie villain? Yes, I said it. Second rate. Now. Kneel before The Blood Countess.” This last bit was superfluous, since Ghostface had dropped to his knees and was keening in pain and surprise.
“I thought...you said this was just a character,” Ghostface burbled through a mouthful of what she assumed was blood but might have been vomit.
“No no, fool. I said ‘just because I play a character doesn’t mean that’s who I am.’ Which of course doesn’t mean what you assumed it did. A pity no one ever taught you to listen to women. And now it’s too late.” The Blood Countess’s blades flashed again, sliding under the ghostface mask and severing both the carotid artery and the jugular vein, judging by the amount of blood now pulsing out from under the mask.
“Shame to waste all this virgin blood,” The Blood Countess said. She reached her finger down into the puddle on the pavement and dipped it in Ghostface’s blood. She licked her finger, then spat. “Ugh, it tastes of self-loathing and Mountain Dew. You’d be useless for a rejuvenating bath anyway.”
The Blood Countess pulled out her phone and made a call. “Yes, it’s me, fool,” she said. “Look at the fucking caller ID!” She took a deep breath. “There there. I’m sorry. Your Countess isn’t angry with you. That’s right. Now listen. I’m in the parking lot at the Midstate Convention Center. Call the ghouls. Tell them dinner’s on me.”