How to Survive a Horror Con
by Justine Norton-Kertson
***
DAY 3
Jo crouched behind a toppled merch table like a final girl two scenes too early. Her breath rasped in her ears louder than the screams echoing through the convention center’s atrium. Blood—definitely not stage blood—spattered their shirt, a vintage April Fool’s Day tee she’d worn ironically. The irony was starting to taste like copper in the back of her throat.
The overhead lights flickered again, casting strobes across the floor where the guy in Art the Clown cosplay was being dragged across the tile by a figure in a patchwork slasher costume. He wore a Freddy glove, a Jason mask, and Leatherface’s apron. She’d heard people calling the killer “Slicer,” though no one had seen his face, only what he left behind.
Screams burst from the hallway leading to Creature Corner. Real screams. No canned sound effects. No vibey background haunted house ambiance. Just panic. Bone-deep panic.
Jo closed her eyes and counted backwards from ten like she had at yesterday’s “Survive the Slasher.”
Ten: The scent of burned popcorn and latex masks.
Nine: The buzz of someone’s phone dying.
Eight: A laugh—wet and too close.
Seven—
“Jo?” someone whispered from behind the table. She turned to see Casey—still in their Nancy-from-Elm-Street cosplay, hair mussed, mascara running. They looked like a scream queen stuck in mid-act. “What the fuck is happening?”
Jo didn’t answer. She barely even heard the question because her brain was rewinding, fast-tracking back to twelve hours ago when this was all just a game.
***
48 HOURS EARLIER
BLOODFESTCON DAY 1
The con reeked of sweat, rubber, and big dreams. Large banners stretched across the ceiling in several spots throughout the abandoned mall:
WELCOME TO BLOODFESTCON 2025 —
3 DAYS OF TERROR, TRIBUTE, & TROPES.
Jo spun around, grinning like a goofball. “This is gonna be the sickest thing ever.”
Dez hit record on her phone. “Three days. No sleep. All blood. If I’m not puking by tomorrow, I’m doing it wrong.”
Wes adjusted his Suspiria shirt and grumbled, “Try not to embarrass us.”
Behind them, someone screamed and everyone laughed and clapped. A masked actor dragged a fake corpse through the entryway, kicking off the opening ceremonies.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” boomed a voice through the speakers, “monsters and ghouls… Prepare to be hunted!”
Jo laughed. At the time, she didn’t realize—
The voice wasn’t part of the show.
Earlier that morning, everything still had that pre-kill buzz. BloodFestCon was in full swing, and the energy was delicious.
Jo stood in line for badge pickup, adjusting the pins on her denim vest: The Babadook Is My Co-Parent, Practical Effects or Die, and the enamel one that read simply Ask Me About Trauma Horror.
Dez bounced beside her, practically vibrating out of her fishnet sleeves. She had two phones—one for livestreaming, one for selfies—and her face was already painted in Art the Clown’s signature monochrome grin.
“I swear to god, Jo, if I don’t get fake-dismembered by tomorrow morning, I’m leaving a zero-star review.” She angled her camera to get the full banner above the con entrance.
Jo smirked. “You say that now, but if someone throws a pig heart at you, I guarantee you’ll scream like a mall goth seeing sunlight.”
Wes joined them, sipping overpriced coffee like it offended him. He wore his Film Bro armor: black jeans, black boots, and a black shirt that read "Dario > Everyone."
“You’re both exhausting,” he muttered. “But the Carpenter retrospective better not suck.”
“Oh my god, Wes, you’re literally the guy who calls The Thing ‘overrated’ just to see who cries,” Jo said.
He sipped again. “And it works every time.”
They collected their badges from a too-cheerful volunteer in a Shaun of the Dead apron, then funneled toward the event entrance where a sign read:
SLASHER SHOWDOWN BEGINS AT 6 PM —
SIGN UP AT BOOTH 13
Dez shrieked. “YESSSS. Jo. JO. We have to do this.”
Jo raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that the LARP thing? Like escape room meets Friday the 13th?”
“That’s exactly what it is,” Dez said. “And it’s blood-optional. Come on. This is peak horror nerd. It’s literally the kinda shit you write about in your blog.”
Jo couldn’t argue with that. Besides, the crowd around Booth 13 looked promising: chainsaw cosplayers, full-on giallo looks, and someone dressed as a gender-bent Angela from Sleepaway Camp. It felt like the dream crowd.
Wes trailed behind them, muttering, “God forbid we just go to the John Carpenter panel like normal people.”
The booth’s grimy, blood-splattered aesthetic felt almost too authentic. A fake body bag twitched behind the table. The staff wore coveralls with red name patches that read SLICER STAFF in bold letters.
A laminated sign on the table read:
WELCOME TO SLASHER SHOWDOWN
Do you have what it takes to survive the night?
The rules are simple:
Don’t break character.
Don’t share spoilers.
Don’t run unless you’re really scared.
If you get tagged, you’re dead.
Follow staff instructions.
Below the sign was a thick stack of waivers.
Jo picked one up and scanned it. “Um, this is really long.”
“Standard immersion clause,” one of the staff said, voice flat, eyes a little too still. “Non-disclosure for the surprise ending. Trust us—it’s worth it.”
“Do people really die?” Dez asked with a grin.
“Only dramatically,” the staffer said. “It’s all part of the game.”
Wes read the form, frowning. “There’s a whole paragraph about psychological manipulation and personal data. ‘Participation implies consent to customized narrative intrusion.’”
“Sounds kinda sus,” Dez said.
Jo shrugged. “I mean, we are here for horror. What’s more immersive than paranoia and legally sketchy contracts?”
She grabbed a pen and signed.
As they all walked away, Jo spotted something weird—a security guard standing just outside the Slashertown exhibit holding a clipboard. He had dead eyes and a real gun holstered at his hip.
Jo nudged Dez. “Is that guy part of the con?”
Dez squinted. “Looks like real security.”
“Feels a bit much. Like, actual guns at a horror con?”
“Probably to discourage people from peeing on the Texas Chainsaw couch again. It was a whole thing last year.” Jo kept glancing back at the security guard. He watched the crowd as if he expected someone to bolt.
***
DAY 2
By noon on the second day, Dez had already uploaded twelve TikToks, gotten her face licked by two different Leatherfaces, and gotten fairly smashed on the con’s signature Brain Matter Bloody Mary. “I want to live here,” she said, arms outstretched in front of a chainsaw sculpture built entirely out of rubber limbs.
The crowd around them cheered. Jo chuckled, but she didn’t disagree. The con was hitting that perfect stride between chaos and community—packed panels, next-level costumes, and energy that buzzed like a haunted beehive.
Casey joined them near the Possession Pavilion, waving with one hand while adjusting their wig with the other. Their Nancy-from-Elm Street look had gone from cute to “genuinely sleep-deprived,” and Jo loved them more for it.
“Dudes,” Casey said. “Have you been to the VHS Crypt yet? They’ve got a bootleg of Death Toilet 3: Flush of the Damned. And it’s signed!”
Wes groaned. “This entire con is a shrine to garbage cinema. I love it, but I hate that I love it.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Wes. If you—” Jo was about to fire back with something sharp and petty when the scream hit.
Not a con scream.
It sounded like a real scream.
Like a school of fish, the crowd near the main stage turned on a dime. At first, it looked like part of a performance—someone in a puffy eyeball costume staggering down the hallway, holding their neck, goopy red juice spilling down their shirt.
Classic.
Until they collapsed.
And kept bleeding.
And bleeding.
Jo’s smile froze. Dez stopped filming. The eyeball guy (maybe he was from The Gate?) twitched and gurgled, clearly not acting. One of the staffers in a “Slicer” uniform stepped up and dragged the body behind a black curtain with brisk efficiency. The crowd applauded nervously, a little too loudly.
A voice on the intercom boomed, “How’s that for realism, folks? Round one begins, now!”
Jo stared at the floor. The blood didn’t look fake. It was pooling, thick and real and metallic-smelling.
“Did anyone else think that was—” Jo began.
“Yeah,” Dez said quietly.
“No way,” Wes interrupted. “You two are buying into it? It’s the con. Extreme immersion. You signed the waiver, right?”
“I didn’t sign up for snuff theater,” Jo muttered.
He chuckled and scoffed, “You probably would’ve believed The Blair Witch Project was real, too.”
No one called security. No one screamed again. The music came back on. The schedule resumed.
But Jo kept noticing gaps.
An influencer dressed as Sam from Trick ‘r Treat—gone from the floor.
The girl in the Christine-themed dress? No longer live-posting.
The staff booth for the Cannibal Carnival haunt—shuttered.
They all gathered on the second floor near the old food court to compare notes. They found an empty table. Dez grabbed an extra chair and pulled it over as the others sat.
“Shara still hasn’t come back from her ‘death,’” Casey’s voice trembled, “She texted me once after she got tagged at the Showdown last night. Just a ghost emoji. Now nothing. Her phone goes straight to voicemail.”
Wes actually looked uneasy for the first time. “It’s just part of the act. They probably have NDAs and are hanging out in a penthouse somewhere. That’s how they keep the illusion alive.”
Casey’s voice cracked. “She didn’t even want to play. She only signed up ‘cause I practically begged her.”
Dez scrolled furiously through the con’s Discord. “Holy shit,” she whispered. “A lot of people are disappearing. There’s a whole thread in the #whereismyfriend channel. Like, people aren’t just getting tagged. They’re fucking gone.”
“Gone like—”
“Like Shara.” Dez interrupted Jo. “Off the grid. One guy said he found his boyfriend’s prop machete broken in half with blood on it. They were doing a couple's cosplay from Sleepaway Camp.”
“Like I said, they’re at a hotel somewhere getting free room service.”
“Dozens of people?” Jo said skeptically.
“Seriously, Wes. No con can afford that, except maybe San Diego.” Dez said.
Jo stood slowly. “Alright. We need answers.”
A few minutes later, they found Room 404 (by accident, in that they weren’t looking for it) tucked around a corner near the boiler room. A handwritten sign on the door read:
THE CON SURVIVAL GUIDE – LIVE PANEL
Know the Rules. Beat the Game.
Dez looked at the others. “Maybe they should have done this panel on day one.”
“I don’t see it on the schedule,” Jo looked at them, “but we should probably check it out. Don’t you think?”
Inside, folding chairs sat in rows and a janky projector shone light on a dirty screen. A couple dozen attendees milled about, unsure of what was happening. Jo, Dez, Casey, and Wes found seats near the front.
The lights dimmed. A staffer in an old, cracked Phantom of the Opera mask stepped to the front with a flourish. The whole room went silent.
“Welcome to this unofficial panel,” the Phantom said. “If you’re here, then you’ve probably figured it out. This year’s Slasher Showdown is different.”
They clicked the remote. A blood-splattered PowerPoint blinked on-screen.
GENRE LOGIC PROTOCOL: SLASHER EDITION
Gorehounds die first.
Cosplayers get one free pass unless out of costume.
Film bros survive longer only if they shut the fuck up.
Found footage freaks must die on camera.
Final Girls can only live if they deny being one.
Breaking the fourth wall = auto death.
Livestreaming = sacrifice.
Jo stared, jaw tightening.
Wes sneered. “This is some Cabin in the Woods LARPing bullshit.”
But Casey raised a hand. “If this is a joke, it’s a sick one. Our friend’s missing.” Others around the room nodded in agreement. They had missing friends, too.
The masked presenter tilted their head. “It’s not a joke. It’s an offering.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Jo shouted.
“To the genre,” Casey said. “We signed up for the most immersive horror con ever. And what’s more immersive than death?”
The room fell into stunned silence.
Then Dez’s phone buzzed. She held it up. A new notification from the con app:
ROUND TWO BEGINS NOW.
HEAD TO SLASHERTOWN.
She laughed. “They geo-targeted us. Jesus. This is a whole-ass ARG.”
Jo grabbed her wrist. “Dez. You’re being watched.”
Another buzz. Dez’s camera light turned on and off. “Okay,” she said slowly. “That wasn’t me.” The light blinked three more times. Then, off.
Wes backed toward the door. “This has to be part of the game. A trick. Like when those escape rooms use hidden actors.”
Jo pointed at the PowerPoint. “It says livestreaming equals sacrifice. Dez, how much have you streamed?”
“Uh… a lot.”
“Then you’re next,” Jo whispered.
“WHAT?” Dez snapped.
A speaker in the corner crackled. A low voice growled, “Eleven down. Seventeen to go.”
The projector suddenly died, and the overhead lights blinked.
Wes rolled his eyes. “Let’s go. I’m hungry.”
***
DAY 3
By the time the sun rose on Day Three, BloodFestCon had gone full 28 Days Later. The parking lot was empty except for a few blood-smeared cars and a food truck that had crashed into the inflatable Samara photo booth. No one was coming in. No one was going out.
Jo stood at the glass doors of the east entrance, watching cosplayers throw their weight against the emergency exits, pounding, screaming, swearing that the doors should open—until someone finally checked the hinges. They’d been welded shut.
“Who the fuck welds a convention center closed?” Dez asked, somewhere between horror and awe.
Jo didn’t answer. She was still processing what they saw last night—Casey sobbing in the dark, the projector hissing with blood-red static, Slicer’s voice whispering over the con’s loudspeakers like he’d found a direct line into their brains.
Eleven down. Seventeen to go.
Seventeen. Not attendees. Players.
Which meant... Jo, Dez, Wes, Casey, and thirteen others. Some of them may already be “dead.”
“Okay,” Casey said, tying up their ruined Nancy wig into a ponytail, “we need a plan. We have genre rules. So we reverse-engineer them. Flip the script.”
Dez was already filming again. Jo had tried to convince her to stop. The rules were clear about the consequences. But Dez insisted that if she was already a sacrifice one way or the other, then she might as well document as much as possible.
She pointed the camera at herself, puffy-eyed and shaking but defiant. “Day Three. Shit’s real, folks. If you’re seeing this, I’m probably dead. Or famous. Honestly, either’s fine. I always wanted to go viral postmortem.”
Jo lunged for the phone and missed. “Dez. Stop. We talked about this.”
Dez shrugged. “If I die, I want a record. Don’t make me go out like a redshirt. At least let me monologue.”
Wes rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “You two are playing along way too hard. This is a bit. It has to be. Someone’s gonna pull off the Slicer mask and it’ll be Eli Roth or something.”
Casey shot him a look. “You still think this is marketing?”
“Pretty shitty marketing,” Jo said, “scaring all your attendees away.”
Wes spread his hands. “Actually, I think some ultra-rich creep saw Squid Game and decided to make a horror-themed version for the web. All of this is content. We’re already uploaded.”
The speaker above the west atrium crackled again.
Round three begins in five minutes. Slashertown is open. Run.
The screams came from the escalators.
A Freddy cosplayer—shredded. Ribbons of flesh trailing down the rubber steps.
A girl dressed like Gogo Yubari from Kill Bill ran by, heels clicking, sobbing.
Another girl in full Hereditary “Paimon Queen” drag screamed, “The exits are gone! They sealed the con!”
And just like that, the floor erupted in pandemonium. Vendors flipped their tables. The prop weapon check-in booth was on fire. A guy in a Mandy costume tackled a chainsaw performer, screaming about real blades.
Jo grabbed Dez and Casey, yanking them behind the House of Wax diorama. “Okay. We need to go full Scream logic, now. Who lives?”
“Where’s my phone?” Dez said, chest heaving. “I dropped it.”
Casey blinked. “Stop with the fucking phone, Dez.” They looked at Jo. “You really think we can still beat this?”
“Genre logic says yes. But only if we stop playing it straight.”
Wes popped around the corner, panting. “I found something. There’s a passage behind the Hellraiser installation. It leads down to maintenance. I saw a ladder.”
Jo narrowed her eyes. “That’s... convenient.”
Wes didn’t meet their gaze. “Look. I don’t care if you trust it or not. I’m going.”
Dez looked between them. “No. No splitting up. That’s literally the first fucking rule of slasher survival.”
“Yeah, right before ‘don’t go down the dark stairway’ and ‘don’t have sex in a cornfield.’”
Wes shook his head. “Fuck you guys. I’m not dying for your Scooby gang bullshit. I made a deal.”
“Wait. What the fuck are you talking about, Wes? What deal?” Casey looked pissed.
Wes backed away slowly. “Nothing. Nothing, I swear.”
Jo’s glare cut like a razor blade. “Answer them, Wes? What fucking deal?”
“Really, it’s nothing. I swear to god, I only gave them names. Profiles. You were all already on their radar. They said I could opt out if I played narrator.”
Jo surged forward. “You sold us out? You little asshole.” She hit him in the chest with the bottom of her fist. “For what? Genre immunity?”
“They said I was an unreliable narrator. Those survive. Ask Funny Games,” Wes snapped.
Then came the whirring—the sound of something heavy dragging metal.
Dez whispered, “He’s coming.”
Out of the gloom, Slicer stepped into view—his costume shifting, somehow, from frame to frame. Jo couldn’t pin down what he was wearing. One second, it looked like a Michael Myers jumpsuit, and the next, like a Victorian butler’s coat soaked in viscera. He held Dez’s broken phone. It glowed faintly in his hand.
“She streamed too long,” he said. It was the first time they’d heard his voice. It was wrong. Layered. Filtered. Like fifty slasher villains whispering just outside of unison. “She offered herself to the eyes.”
Dez turned to Jo. “I’m sorry.”
“What? No—”
Slicer moved impossibly fast.
Jo screamed, and Dez hit the ground before she could blink.
Wes ran like a fucking coward.
Jo held Casey back as Slicer vanished into the shadows with Dez’s lifeless body dripping blood onto the convention carpet.
Casey’s voice cracked. “She didn’t even get a death scene. Just a cut.”
“That was the scene,” Jo said quietly. “Found footage rules. She recorded herself into a corner.”
They stumbled into the VHS Crypt to hide. It was quiet, the flicker of a CRT TV playing Sleepaway Camp the only sound.
Casey sat, shaking.
Jo dropped beside her. “You okay?”
“No.”
“I think... I think you’re the Final Girl, not me.”
Casey laughed bitterly. “What? Why me?”
“Sweet. Scrappy. Emotional depth. Always underestimated. You’re even cosplaying Nancy for Christ's sake. They’re following the structure.”
Casey looked at Jo with fierce eyes. “Then I’m gonna rewrite the fucking ending.”
They found Wes’s body ten minutes later, crumpled up in a corridor, marinating in his own blood. Someone had wrapped his Suspiria shirt around his head like a blindfold and stabbed him through the mouth and out the back of his neck. The hilt of the knife still protruded from his colorless lips.
Casey grabbed the piece of paper pinned to his chest. “It says, ‘No one likes the monologue guy.’”
Casey stared down. “We need to end this. Burn the stage. Kill the trope.”
Jo nodded. “Then let’s go off-script.”
They found the main stage unguarded, blood-soaked floor lit by a single overhead spotlight like a guillotine waiting for a cue. Everything was too quiet now. The screams had stopped. The chaos had drained into stillness, as if the con itself was holding its breath.
Jo stepped into the center of the stage. The floor creaked beneath her boots. Her blood-smeared April Fool’s Day shirt clung to her like a second skin.
Casey circled the perimeter, their head panning the room, eyes scanning the shadows. They clutched the broken remains of Dez’s camera rig like a weapon, ready to strike. “There,” they whispered. “Behind the curtain.”
Jo took a deep breath and raised her voice. “Okay, Slicer. You want a finale? You want a Final Girl?”
Silence.
Then a slow clap as Slicer emerged from the wings. He limped now, and his costume had fresh blood and loose threads all over it. It seemed like the con had worn him down, too.
Casey tensed.
Jo held up a hand. “I figured it out,” she said. “Your rules. Your logic. You're not just killing us. You’re testing us. You’re following the structure.”
Slicer tilted his head.
“Shara was a gorehound, so she went first, on night one. You could have killed Casey, but they haven’t taken off that Nancy wig since they got here, so they got their free pass. You killed Dez because she broke the livestreaming rule,” Jo continued. “You killed Wes because he monologued. You hunted us based on what we represented—not who we actually are.”
Jo took a step forward. “But here’s the twist. I'm not the Final Girl. Never was.”
They yanked off the bloodstained tee and threw it to the ground, revealing a plain black tank top underneath. No ironic messaging. No identity armor. Just skin, sweat, and survival.
“I don’t drink. I didn’t hook up. I didn’t even choose a fandom. I fucking hate labels. I’m genre-fluid,” she said, half-laughing. “You can’t kill what doesn’t fit your fucking narrative.”
The Slicer paused, almost as if he was uncertain.
Jo glanced at Casey. “Now!”
Casey lunged and swung the broken camera rig like a mace. It connected with Slicer’s face—his mask cracking down the middle with a sharp snap. Blood sprayed through the crack like a water balloon had burst. Then the lights exploded overhead, plunging the stage into red emergency glow.
Slicer stumbled. Jo tackled him. She wasn’t strong, but she was pissed—and she knew one thing every slasher ignored—
Final Girls win because they get back up. Every fucking time.
Jo tore Slicer’s mask free. Beneath was a nondescript man. Youngish. Pale. Forgettable. The kind of guy who blended into every panel crowd, sat in the back, and asked questions like “Actually, did you know the original ending of The Shining, blah, blah, blah—”
His eyes were wide with confusion. “You weren’t supposed to—”
Jo shoved the broken mask into his mouth and punched him square in the face, knocking him unconscious. “Subversion, bitch.”
He hit the stage with a final thud. Jo panted and staggered back, her adrenaline crashing. Casey stood over them both, breathing hard.
Then—
Applause.
Slow. Measured. Too clean to be real. A spotlight clicked on above the balcony, and a woman in a pristine white suit stood beside a neon sign that flickered to life:
BLOODFESTCON: CLOSING CEREMONY
She smiled into the mic. “Please welcome our winners—Jo and Casey! Survivors of the 2025 Slasher Showdown. Audience retention peaked at 94%. Well done, both of you.”
Jo blinked. “What the fuck is this?”
The woman beamed. “This is the next evolution of immersive horror. Real blood. Real choices. We analyzed ten years of horror consumption data and learned one undeniable truth: the fans want stakes. Real ones.”
The Slicer’s body vanished through a trapdoor in the stage, as if it never existed.
“Your footage, your interactions, your emotional arcs—they’ve already been edited. You’ll see yourselves on screen soon. Probably a limited series. Streaming rights have already been sold.”
Casey stared, stunned. “You let people die.”
The woman tilted her head. “And the con sold out faster than ever. Would you believe we had a waitlist? They wanted this.”
Jo stepped forward with her fists clenched. “You think we’re just content?”
“You’re survivors,” she said gently. “Heroes. You’ll get the full Final Girl package. Panels. Sponsorships. Maybe even a Funko Pop.”
Jo looked out over the empty seats. “No one stopped this?”
“Why would they?” The woman smiled wider. “The livestream had comments. Thousands. They begged us to keep going.”
Jo felt the bile rise in her throat.
Somewhere behind them, a screen flickered to life, playing Dez’s final moments. Then Wes’s. Then Shara’s. Liked. Shared. Looping.
Casey whispered, “We didn’t win. We just got packaged.”
Jo looked at the camera hanging from the rafters, now slowly zooming in. She looked directly into the lens, into your voyeuristic eyes. Her voice was low. Tired.
“But the real horror is that you’re still watching.”
