THE HELL OUT OF CALIFORNIA

The streetlights were just coming on as she turned the corner without looking and smashed, with impressive force, into the chest of a man she hadn’t seen approaching. Landing hard on her ass amidst the clattering of items they’d both dropped in the collision, she looked up and her groan of pain turned into a gasped “oh fuck! You’re-”

Standing over her, the most famous movie star in the world laughed and extended his hand. “Oh my god, are you alright?”

Jessie stared at him, then his hand, then him again, and let him help her to her feet with wide eyes. “Shit, man, you’re Blake Lamont!”

“Sometimes,” he winked. He had a hat pulled tightly down over his trademark blond curls but it was definitely him, the eyes gave it away.

“Hah! I’m Jessie. Oh wow, this is crazy. I’m so sorry! I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“Don’t worry about it, Jessie, are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she brushed herself off. “My tailbone took the brunt of it, but I’m… wowww, you dropped all your stuff, I’m sorry.” They both bent and began collecting their items. 

“It’s okay, really, I’m just glad you’re not one of them.” He gestured over his shoulder, to where the paparazzi swarmed the exit of the hotel.

“Yeah, I’m just… a klutz. They’re pretty bad, huh? I can’t imagine what that’s like. Here are your sunglasses.” 

“Thanks.” He put them on in a hurry and glanced back to make sure he hadn’t been spotted. “With these and the hat, I’m good. Without them they’d be on me in no time.” He handed her her phone and picked up his own.

“Yeah, they’re pretty ghoulish.”

“Some of them are worse than others.” They stood and he shouldered his satchel. “Hollywood Informer is running a contest right now, trying to get footage of me. It’s been pretty bad lately.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Oh, shit. That’s really invasive. I’m sorry that happens.”

Blake shook his head. “Don’t get famous, kids. Lesson learned. Hey, you have a great day, okay?”

“I will. Sorry again about this, it was really terrific meeting you. You’re as nice as everyone says.” 

He grinned that Blake Lamont grin, and it shone. “Thanks, I appreciate that! Take care.”

He walked off. Jessie watched him go and after he rounded the corner, she hurried to her car. 

She closed the door to her 1997 Chevy Lumina and dug out her phone. The app fired up. “Come onnnn,” she muttered to herself. The feed began and she was watching video of a sidewalk rolling forward at walking speed. “Oh shit. Oh, shit! It’s working. Okay. Okay.” The sound was fuzzy and the video was grainy and everything stuttered in little gasps, but it was working. She was getting a feed of his walk, seeing what he saw. The first known private footage of Blake Lamont. She hit the button marked record feed.

She felt her heart rate quicken. Her breath began uncoiling in long hisses through her bottom teeth as she watched the video. “Fifty thousand dollarssss. Fifty thousand. Fifty thousand.”

“Fifty thousand, that’s right,” the voice on the other end of the phone had said three weeks prior. “We’ll take whatever you’ve got- video, audio, but it has to be verifiably him, in private. Twenty second minimum.” The bored phone operator took took a breath and went on. “Photos are acceptable but they must be clear and pass muster with our photoshop expert.”

“Okay, uh…” she paused to think for a moment. “Where do I send the footage once I’ve got it?”

“Don’t show it to anyone- if we find out the footage or details about it leak elsewhere it voids our offer. Take it in to our office. You have the address?”

“I do. I can’t just email it?”

“Physical delivery only,” the voice said. “Any further questions?”

“No, I think I’m all set.”

“Alright, good luck and thank you for calling The Hollywood Informer.” The line clicked dead.

Jessie had put the phone down on her kitchen counter beside the stack of bills and the box of Ritz crackers she was planning on having for dinner. She walked over to the window, the one that looked out on the view of the brick wall of the building opposite hers. It was the only natural light her place got.

She leaned against the window jamb and looked out at the graffiti-strewn brick. An idea began to form in her head. 

Shortly, she walked over to her phone and began to google Blake Lamont Sunglasses.

Three weeks later, Jessie was sitting in her car and watching the video feed in disbelief. She reached into her pocket and took out Lamont’s sunglasses. They were nice. Buying some knock-offs with a spy camera installed had maxed out two credit cards, and of course then there was practicing the movements and sleight-of-hand until she had the swap just perfect. It had been a massive drain on her between her shifts at Subway but by all indications it had worked.

She tossed the sunglasses on the passenger seat beside some fast food wrappers and tried to manage her breathing. This was happening. “Okay. Ooookay.”

The feed showed Blake walking, walking, getting into a pricey looking car, driving for a while, parking in some garage, walking again. She thanked herself for having the foresight to pay for the network card. Pretty dull stuff, she thought. The sound was very crackly and not all that interesting. He didn’t even listen to music. He coughed once and that was it. 

Absently, she wondered if the battery would die before he said anything at all, or passed a mirror, and her blood froze. It wouldn’t be recognizably him. She wouldn’t get paid, and those glasses had put her $3,760 further in debt. “Fffffuck,” she hissed.

He looked at his phone- the screen was a washed out white rectangle, nothing visible- before walking into an alley. A man guarding a door greeted him with a prim “sir,” and Blake nodded. The man opened the door and Blake walked inside as Jessie cursed him for staying so quiet. How long do these batteries last, anyway? The box said “up to two hours on a full charge,” but these things couldn’t be counted on. She needed him to speak.

Blake was walking into a darkened corridor. Another suited bodyguard type saw him coming and opened another door. “Good evening, sir.” Jessie’s breath caught in her throat as she waited for Blake to respond. He grunted. It sounded like him, but also, it was a grunt. That’d never do it. The man handed him something, a small object of some sort. 

The inside of this room was sparse. It was just bare walls and floor, and a man on the other side. 

The man looked up at the camera and swallowed hard. “Heyyy, Blake! How’s it going, man?” Jessie almost celebrated, then realized having someone call him Blake would never be enough. “What’s all this?” the man gestured nervously around at the room. Blake’s view didn’t waver. He kept his view locked on the man. “I mean, this is a little freaky. Weird place to meet, haha.” 

Blake put his bag down- that was good, it was on camera for a second or two and was clearly his Burberry satchel, but it wasn’t enough- and stepped closer to the man, who was growing more nervous.

“My dude, what is this?”

Blake’s hand rose up into frame, holding what the guard at the door had given him. It was a small USB thumb drive. The man blinked at it, then grinned. “What’s that?”

Blake tossed the thumb drive to the man, and it bounced off his chest. “That’s not mine, haha, come on man. I work for you, I signed the NDA, I can be trusted.” Blake stepped closer. “Hey, I… I saw Julio, you know, the gardener? I saw him putting something in your computer.” Blake stepped closer still. “I didn’t even look at it, man! I don’t know what’s on that. I didn’t see anything.” The man was crying now. In a small voice, a repentant boy’s voice, he said “I didn’t see the pictures.”

Pictures? Jessie gasped. Was Blake Fucking Lamont into some kiddie stuff? This wasn’t just a video insight into how he spent his nights anymore, this was shaping up to have massive potential. She could net two hundred thousand, two fifty, easily. She licked her lips and leaned forward.

The crying man was a foot from the sunglasses now, his chest hitching, his cheeks wet.  Blake spoke softly in the voice that had delivered the monologue from At Fortune’s Door and won him the Oscar. “So you didn’t see all the blood?”

Jessie shrieked. His voice, he spoke in his voice! It was him, the footage wouldn’t be doubted! It— did he say blood? All the blood?

“No,” the man said. 

“All the meat?”

“No!”

“Did you listen to the screams?”

“I didn’t look at anything, man, leave me alone!” The shrieking man punched Blake square in the jaw, but the camera didn’t move. Gasping, he punched Blake three more times. Each time, there wasn’t even the slightest tremble to the camera’s feed.

Blake spoke again. “You looked, Michael. You listened. You broke the covenant of trust, and now, you know why we’re here. Look down.” The sobbing man didn’t, he shivered against the wall, continuing to look at look at the camera. “Look down,” Blake repeated, this time with a full-throated growl behind it. 

Michael looked downward and broke into fresh sobs. The camera looked downward as well, and their feet were standing over what looked like a cement floor with shower drains built into it. The camera raised back up, looking into the weeping face.

“Oh, no, no, come on man, you can’t do this, you’re Blake Lamont!”

“Sometimes.”

A fresh chill ran through Jessie’s skin and blood.

Blake reached out slowly, and Michael, sputtering and gasping, tried to fend off the grasping arms, but they were rigid against his blows. Blake slowly bent forward into the man’s neck and- from the movement and sounds, it sounded to Jessie like he’d begun… chewing.

Jessie screamed and threw her phone to the floorboard, flapping her hands and wailing. It didn’t drown out the horribly-compressed chewing and gulping sounds, so she went back to screaming for a while.

In time she collected herself enough to pick the phone back up. Something in the back of her head was dimly telling her that yes, this was horrible, but it was also her lottery ticket. She could name her price. This soothed her and she looked at the screen again.

Blake had dropped Michael’s body. The entire right trapezius, right to the clavicle, was gnawed open. It looked like a zebra Jessie had seen in a nature video, once, after the hyenas had been at it. She tried to look around the wound, thinking about how glad she was that the video quality was so fuzzy.

Blake’s hands came into frame and wiped themselves off on his chest, then reached up and took the sunglasses off. He began cleaning them against his knit sweater. His blood-slicked face came into view as he judged whether they’d been properly wiped, and he stopped, then looked closer. “Well hello there.”

“Oh shit,” Jessie wheezed. He was looking right into the camera. The spyware hadn’t been a perfect install job, the mods were plain to see if you looked closely enough. It was what she had been able to afford.

Blake raised his eyebrows appreciatively at the camera. He turned the glasses around, examining the work. “That girl from the sidewalk, right? What was your name again?” She began hyperventilating as he raised the camera so that his mouth filled the frame. The teeth showed as he smiled. “…Jessie.” 

She threw the phone down again and cranked the car into gear, peeling out of the plaza lot.

The content manager at The Hollywood Informer finished the video and put the phone down. “Oh. Oh wow. That is…” He spun a quarter turn in his chair and stared at the wall.

“Yeah. Look. I just want my money and I’m going to go, okay? Can we do that?”

“Of course, uh. I’ve… honestly, we never anticipated that. Are you okay, Ms. Gale?” 

“No, I have to get the fuck out of California, like… right now. I’m just here for the check.” She looked him in the eyes. “Also? Tell everyone about him.”

“Right.” He picked up the phone. “Sir? Yeah. It’s real. She’s here, we’re about to take her to accounting for her reward.” An intern came in and grabbed the phone. He turned back to her. “He’ll be right back with that, just need to get the footage to editorial. In the meantime, follow me.”

He walked her through some back hallways. His heels tapped pleasingly on the linoleum. “I’m sorry for the red tape, but this should just take a minute. Wait in here please. Our financier will be right with you. He likes to give the rewards personally.” He opened a door and she stepped through. 

“Rewards? I thought I was the first person to come to you with any footage at all. Have there been others?” 

“A few,” he said. “The contest has been very successful.” The door shut and clicked.

Jessie sighed, looking away, and her eyes widened as they adjusted to the dark. This wasn’t an office. In fact, there was no furniture to speak of at all. She was standing in a sparse concrete room with shower drains in the floor.

He likes to give the rewards personally repeated in her head, and the screams started anew.