Serial Vlogger: Part Forty-Seven

A horror novel in tiny slices!

ONE MONTH LATER

Marissa stood in front of a very old row house in not the best part of town. She looked again at the piece of paper in her hand, the map on her phone, and then at the old house once more. The other homes along the street were in the same shape. Down the way, a couple of children were playing road hockey even though she thought it was a school day. But things had been topsy-turvy for the past few years. The pandemic and lockdowns had changed almost every instinct and habit that had existed in The Before Times.

Housing was an ever-growing issue, and keeping homes that were over a hundred years old up to date and in good repair was a seemingly impossible task for regular folk and didn’t even start with the government obligations.

The house was two stories high, with a sagging roof and sagging stairs. The front screen door hung crookedly. The faded paint was peeling off in large strips.

“I guess I’ve been to worse,” she sighed. “And it looks like the others have arrived.”

Over the past few weeks of assignments, Marissa was getting better at recognizing the vehicles used in production. The cars and vans might be parked a few blocks away from the set, but she grew familiar with certain ones that always seemed to be around.

“The little red car, the big white van, a fancy black SUV…” Melissa counted.

At this place, this latest location, it seemed like maybe there was no power inside the building as she saw massive black cables snaking down the side alley and presumably into a back door somewhere. The cables were hooked up to a generator that was whirring and grinding. Not exactly state of the art, but not vintage either. It got the job done.

Melissa’s stomach growled. She was hungry.

All those mukbangs in a row had stretched out her stomach. She had thought that she would be impossibly full for days and unable to perform more than one or two mukbangs a week, but now, she was performing nearly daily and starving in between.

She knew that many mukbangers didn’t actually eat all the food or would spit it out, and then the footage would be edited so that no one knew the food wasn’t consumed.

However, in Melissa’s case, she ate every bit that she could, although there were instances that she couldn’t finish. And it never seemed to matter to the producers whether she finished or not as long as she was eating.

She didn’t even have to be entertaining, although as she grew more comfortable in her new job, she was loosening up a bit more.

Melissa looked at the stairs. How come all the damn houses had stairs?

She followed the cable snake around to the back of the house and entered through there. No porch steps. Just a black snake leading to the basement.

In this house, the place wasn’t retrofitted to be a performance area. It really did seem to be a cold, old, stone basement in a shitty old house.

“And that’s just fine,” Melissa puffed as she carefully made her way down the old stone stairs. The staircase was very narrow, and her large body scraped along the bricks and dirt. She kept stopping to wipe the debris from her clothes.

“Don’t bother,” a voice echoed up at her from the basement. “We have some costumes for you.”

“Oh, great!” Melissa said and continued to make her way down, not worrying anymore about the soiling of her clothes.

When she finally reached the end of the stairs, she followed the dim light into a larger room that was decked out with proper lighting rigs and a couple of cameras. There was a large desk set up with a couple of very large chairs.

“Glad to meet you, Melissa,” a tiny man approached. “I’m Laurence, and I’m your director/producer today.”

“Hello, Laurence. Nice digs.”

They both laughed, looking around the creepy cellar. A couple of tech guys were still laying cable and adjusting lights. Off to the side was a rolling clothes rack with lots of clothes on hangers.

“What’s today’s deal?” Melissa asked. Her stomach groaned loudly. Laurence glanced at it and raised an eyebrow. Then he looked off to a far corner of the basement. His eyes narrowed in worry for a moment; then he turned to look at Melissa. A big toothy grin filled his face, matching his greasy curly hair and striped suit.

Some of these producers are bigger hams than the actors.

“Today, we’ll do a bit of role-playing. I’ve seen some of your other videos and I think it’s time for you to step things up, to take it to the next level.” Laurence waved his hands to the sky as producers do when gaslighting their clients.

“Oh, goody. I’m not sure what that means, but I’m always up for a challenge!”

“You can go check the wardrobe. They’ve been working with you long enough now that I’m sure you won’t need much adjustment.”

Laurence led her to the wardrobe rack where several very large outfits hung. Sequins and glitter, satin and sheen, fishnets and leather. It was all there, any fabric for a fantasy, including a feather boa. Melissa fingered the boa and playfully lifted it from its hanger. She wrapped it around her neck.

“Ah say, kind sir, can you spare a dollah for my ride home?” Melissa purred.

“Ah rightly can, ma’am,” Laurence played back. They both chuckled, and Melissa hung the boa back up.

“Your area is here. The notes, your wardrobe, makeup…all back here. The girls will be in shortly to help you.”

“Sure,” Melissa said as she headed towards the large chair set up before a full-length mirror. She put her purse and coat to the side and settled into the chair with the script.

“Oh, my,” she muttered as she looked at the list of shots and costume changes. “This will be busy. Hope I get paid more!”

She sighed and took her phone from her pocket. She idly looked through the notifications and then hit her bank account app. Sure enough, just as she looked, the advance rang in. Double. Double what she got last week which was double from the week before. An insane amount from when she began not that long ago. What was it? A month?

This was so much better than winning the lottery. What fun it was! The money kept coming. She wasn’t a fool to think that she even got paid ACTRA rates yet, but she was close! And she got to wear crazy costumes. All she had to do was eat and sometimes be playful.

Easiest job in the world.

And the perks weren’t bad. Food. Costumes. Makeup.

There was talk of parties and conferences in a few months to shop what would be a series as the one-offs were going well. That meant all-expense paid travel!

On top of it all, she was a rising star. For realsies.

She was a YouTube star. And the mukbang culture embraced her. So many comments on the videos. So. Many.

Good, bad, didn’t matter. Engagement was the key to the universe.

And even better, she had seen reaction videos about herself. Reaction videos about HER. She who didn’t even exist online a few months ago. Now there were vloggers commenting on her videos and speculating about her life, her weight, her motives, her habits like she was Marilyn Monroe. Just like she’d seen them all do to others for years.

That’s how she knew she had made it!