I stepped out onto Maryland Street into a January wind whipping around the downtown buildings. An intermittent flow of attendees passed me, all of us properly dressed for “convention weather”, but not for this overcast winter day. By 10am, the convention center would feel like a 100-degree day on the Ohio River in June. At the last crosswalk before the entrance, a slender man with close cropped hair and an orange prison jumpsuit ran past, the back of the jumpsuit reading “FCI TERRE HAUTE”. I followed him into Hoosier Hall where he met up with other jump-suited friends. The hall was populated by people in yellow “event staff” polos and special badges that hung from special lanyards designating them as special individuals who could make someone jump a certain height if necessary. A few con-goers wandered, much like I did the night before, checking out rooms for breakout sessions, featured speakers and cosplay judging. Others formed a premature line at either the main hall entrance or the will call/ticketing entrance, neither of which were open. At cosplay registration, a man and woman in black polos taped lines in the floor with blue painters' tape, creating imaginary queues. I read through the itinerary on the door.
ALL COSTUMES MUST BE PG-13 AND APPROVED BY EVENT STAFF PRIOR TO PARTICIPATION. NO NUDITY. THIS IS A FAMILY FRIENDLY EVENT...
...3:00PM: Professional Division (Open to All Ages)…
...Judging Criteria: (Craftsmanship, Creativity, & Presentation...
….GENRE: Original NoxCo Property, Film/Television, Literature/Folklore, Serial/Spree Killers (Pre-1950), Serial/Spree Killers (Post-1950), Cult Leaders, Domestic Terrorists...
“Who would dress as a pre-1950s spree killer? Or a domestic terrorist?” I mumbled.
A colorful sign on an easel drew my attention to one of the larger meeting rooms in Speedway Hall. The room was pitch black and raised the hair on my neck the longer I peered into its chasm. The sign looked like a prom advertisement if the school had its own print shop. “2nd Annual Blackout Dance. Singles Only. 11:00PM until ???.”
I retraced my steps back to the Hoosier Hallway and stumbled into a mix of hundreds of people pressing forward toward the magic, one-way entrance of the exhibit hall. It wasn’t the first time I’d found myself in a situation like this, but there was uneasiness about being here with these people. People who’d dress as real murderers for fun can’t be stable human beings. I’d experienced this moment at other conventions, being stuck in a confined space with strangers and it never felt like this. The feeling is supposed to be communal, all of us united around a common love of tabletop gaming, science fiction or comic books. I felt adrift in a sea of strangers who could easily pour through that magic door onto a room full of unsuspecting victims, not special edition toys and collectibles. I looked around the floating mass to find something that could anchor me to the reality I’d previously known and there he was. Deadpool. Well, at least someone in a Deadpool mask. Dressed in Victorian era clothing complete with top hat, smeared with fake blood, holding an 8-inch curved blade.
“Close enough,” I whispered. Then the magic door opened like someone pulled the plug on the seafloor.
Huge banners hung from the ceiling indicating where you were on the show floor. On the left end of the exhibit hall was “Autographs/Photo-ops”, the left corner was designated “VIP Experience”, and straight ahead was “Artists Alley”. A large black curtain ran around the exterior of the hall, serving as a staging area so special guests could travel undisturbed. A wave of bodies brushed passed, pulling me further into an unfamiliar sea. Pop culture conventions were happy, family-friendly affairs, but the lights were dimmer here. The signage darker. The vendors and their booths looked like those from the county fair of my childhood. Rows of men from questionable backgrounds, stained clothes and wiry hair, illuminated by flickering light in the darkness of rural Indiana. Peddling prizes that should be cute, but instead were clowns and stuffed bears that came alive when you closed your eyes and knick-knacks that felt like cursed totems in your hand. I shook off the feeling and swam to the nearest vendor with space at their booth. The back wall was shelving featuring six-inch black, cardboard boxes each with the “NoxMods” logo in bright red as the banner and a name and series number as the footer. The middle of the small box was clear plastic with a resin figure of Boris Karloff’s Mummy or the Creature from the Black Lagoon staring back. Someone at the far end of the table purchased the Invisible Man which looked like an empty case with dark sunglasses suspended behind the plastic.
“The Universal series. Great choice, ma’am,” said the vendor.
“And you sir?”
“Do you have the Green River Killer. The special edition?” The next customer asked.
“I do not. I only have historical and film/television killers in stock.”
With the announcement, the crowd around his booth receded like the tide with sounds of frustration crashing down on another booth in another area of the convention.
The vendor turned to me with a dejected “what can I getcha?”
I scanned the shelves, settling on the only female figure, someone named “Elizabeth Bathory” for ten dollars. I rejoined the line that snaked its way under the “Vendors 300-350" banner and viewed the box containing a woman wearing an opulent red and white dress. The back of the box had a short bio that read: “The Blood Countess of Hungary, Elizabeth Bathory, suspected of killing and drinking the blood of servants to retain her youth.”
Below this were pictures of other figures in this series including “Vlad the Impaler”, “Bjorn Petursson”, and “Gilles Garnier”. I opened the box and studied the figure in the Elizabethan dress, red paint dripping from her mouth. People in the line moving opposite mine stared at my box and figure, but not in awe. I could hear “idiot”, “half the value”, “Near Mint to Good”. I hopped from the “Vendors 300-350" row to a column that funneled guests to “Vendors 351-400", putting the box and figure into my complimentary convention bag.
On a corner piece of show floor real estate sat the official NoxCo booth. It stood twelve feet high, towering over all others like a black, draped obelisk. The bright, red logo hung across the entrance of a booth that could accommodate 15 people uncomfortably. The entrance was flanked by two busty employees, both holding tablets, clad in black polo shirts with deep V-cuts, one serving as customer service and the other as check-out.
“How progressive,” I mumbled as I entered the queue.
The flow of fans pushed me into the obelisk where the structure felt supported by six-inch black boxes and plastic models from floor to ceiling. The base of it featured characters from slasher films and survival horror, classic movie monsters and even some literary references such as Pennywise and Mr. Hyde, but as in retail shops, the lower levels were reserved for overstock. The equivalent of bargain bins filled with items no longer of interest to the masses. At eye level and above sat in-demand NoxMods, their shelves picked apart like a carcass on the roadside. Nearly gone were Roger Kibbe “The I-5 Strangler”, Gary Ridgway “The Greenriver Killer”, Robert Joseph Silveria Jr. “The Boxcar Killer”. Yet still higher rested the rare, the special editions and the boxed sets, too costly for the casual fan, as only true collectors ventured that high. Multiple versions of Ted Bundy in a different suit for each trial and even one in a prison jumpsuit, seated in the electric chair or John Wayne Gacy, with and without clown makeup, carried price tags over $75. The Jeffrey Dahmer NoxMod broke $100 and if you wanted the entire Manson Family box set it would set you back $499. I grabbed a $49 “Bloody Benders” boxed set from the shelf, complete with three family members holding knives and hammers and one victim seated at a kitchen table. I placed the morbid playset back on the shelf and pushed through the crowd, out into the river flowing under the “Vendors 351-400" banner.
Toward the end of the row, the crowd thinned along with the desirable real estate. These low traffic areas were reserved for information booths, first aid stations and vendors not willing to pay a premium to be in the middle of the madness. I stopped off at a table, as it really couldn’t be called a booth without decoration or a sign. The man behind it was middle-aged with reading glasses hung from his nose and thinning hair, approachable enough compared to some of the others.
“So...no NoxMods?” I looked around at his table of 8x10 photographs and boxes stacked behind him.
“Something better,” he replied.
I looked closer at the photographs, proudly displayed in front of me.
“Are these crime scene photos?”
A slow smile spread across his face.
“Autographed crime scene photos,” he said. “If you prefer something bland, I have these.”
He pulled the top from what looked like a short box for comic books, then fanned a handful of 8x10 glossy pictures out like playing cards.
“Autographed mugshots.” he said with the same smile. “I’ll sell you one for $5.00 or three for $10.00. You name the killer, chances are I have him.”
I smiled my slow smile. Comic con vendors do the same thing. They’ll sell you a print or comic or a toy or a used napkin claiming it was signed by some famous artist. The artists themselves often just sell prints of original artwork because the originals are far too “valuable”.
“Where’s your certificate of authenticity?” I asked.
His smile grew wider as he heard the bear trap slam shut on my ankle. He reached into a briefcase and pulled out a stack of Polaroids, then slowly dealt them out like we were playing poker.
“BTK, The Dating Game Killer, The Golden State Killer, Son of Sam, The Happy Face Killer,” he said, pausing after every name to flip a card down. Each depicted a shackled man, flanked by two uniformed guards, signing a stack of 8x10 photographs.
“How are these real?” I asked.
“You’d be surprised what donating to a lifer’s commissary and supplementing a C.O.’s paycheck buys you.”
I stared down at the table, afraid that touching the wares would make me complicit.
“Isn’t this too far?” I asked.
The man chuckled.
“I’ve been traveling to conventions since the 1970s. Toy conventions, comic conventions, gaming conventions, and doing the same thing I’m doing now. Instead of waiting for the fans to announce the zeitgeist like the rest of these schmucks, I show them the future of their fandom.”
“So, you’re speculating?”
“Speculators strike out. I was selling sheets of Griffey Jr. Rookie cards and chromium edition comics before the market collapsed. I was stockpiling bronze-age comics years before every studio and streaming service started churning out box office hits. Hell, I was buying action figures off Toys R’ Us delivery trucks before you were born. Then I’d turn around and dump them on people just like this,” he gestured behind me.
“Those things are fake, though. Nobody wants to see the real trail left behind by psychopaths.”
The crowd behind me stopped with an audible gasp. Whispers rolled down Row 351-400. I followed their eyes toward the backstage area, able to make out three figures through gaps in the curtain. One of the figures was tall enough that his head would bob above the curtain as he shuffled. I looked back at the smiling vendor who began replacing the assortment of pictures with mugshots of a large, mustachioed man in wire-framed glasses.