The Fear Monger

Prologue – Chester’s Mother

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you my mother, that nasty old hag? Wesson, please bring her in.” Chester Harris got up from his seat at the head of the table. Nothing he had experienced before paralleled that moment in comparison. The immense joy of anticipation swelled up in him, tingling through his body as he imagined how he would finally repay her for his own agonies.

Wesson emerged from the kitchen into the dining hall, pushing a wheelchair with an ominously squeaking right wheel. Chester had intentionally refrained from fixing the minor detail to irritate his overzealous mother. She was not even worth a drop of oil to him. Wesson rolled the screechy wheelchair to the opposite side of the table, across from where Chester was sitting.

His guests all looked back and forth, back and forth between Chester and his mother. An sumptuous dinner was served. Afterwards, the guests assumed the evening's program would take its course; nobody could have foreseen what Chester had in store for them. Not a word was said, nobody asked one of the presumably countless questions churning and bubbling hot within them. Even his mother remained silent. Then again, how could she have said anything without a tongue? Chester’s mother did not move a muscle. And it was not the chains that shackled her. She sat erect in her wheelchair, exuding as much dignity as she could muster from what was left of her.

“Our guest of honor has finally arrived! The person I am pained to have to call ‘Mother.’ I swear to you, Mother, after this night, I will never use that word again.” Chester reached for his wine glass. His hand remained steady, neither trembling nor timorous, as he lifted the glass to his lips. Long and arduously, he had worked towards that evening, then enjoying it with immense pride. “As you can see, my mother is missing an arm and a leg. What you cannot see, my dear guests is that she has also lost her tongue. Mother, would you please open your mouth for us?” Chester tilted his head with contrived curiosity. “No? Cat got your tongue? I thought as much. We shall return to this issue later, my dears.”

Chester’s mother’s ashen face turned yet another shade paler. Her skin was so devoid of color; it looked almost stark white. He liked his mother that color. In fact, she most deliciously resembled a corpse. With that thought, a tickle ran through Chester’s stomach. It was not just that the blood had drained out of her; it was also that it made her turn that pale in addition to the fear she had for her own son. Although she would never have admitted it, he saw it in her eyes.

“Are you not feeling well?” Ben Haberman asked, leaning forward to take a closer look at the old lady. His question was not a reflection of journalistic interest, but rather, of genuine human concern, which came as a surprise to Chester.

Mrs. Harris did not react. Instead, her son answered in her place: “That isn’t important.”

“You should offer your mother something to drink,” Raymond Varela said.

“And I urgently recommend all of you to carry on listening to me. You should not be concerned about her well-being, and also, do not offer her anything to drink, but thank her instead. What for, you ask? You all have emptied your glasses during the cocktail hour. Needless to say, the Bloody Marys—oh, what a sweet cliché—were laced with human blood,” he blurted, “The blood of this old hag! We thank you for your sacrifice, you grisly old-monster. Also, thank you, Mother, for offering up your flesh for us to gorge upon. Are you all aware of her missing limbs? Yesterday, she still had them all attached, as you may now imagine.”

“You can’t be...” a cry rang out … “sssserious!”

“I can’t believe this; it’s all staged.”

Swearing chastely, Chester endeavored to assure his guests that nothing about that evening was staged, but quite the opposite.

“How can you do such a thing? It's repulsive.”

“My friend, you’re going to get sued for all you’ve got.”

Amber Tarley simply pressed her hand against her mouth, gagging audibly.

Chester smiled at his guests. Why had he done that? He made no effort to explain. His guards moved closer, encircling their protectorate. “Have all of you sufficiently vented your spleen? Well, folks, you have no idea of what still lies in store for you tonight. Just to make sure you take me for my word in the hours to come, I’d like to demonstrate to you in the next minutes, on my extant Mother, how damn serious I am. My men will immediately shoot anyone who interferes. And being shot might not necessarily be the worst way to go. Indeed, I have several other options at my disposal. And believe me, you’d better not try me. That bitch ain’t worth it either.”

With satisfaction, Chester appreciated that his guests not only afforded him their undivided attention but also sensed the foreboding dread with which they began to anticipate the evening before them.

Chester turned his full attention to his mother. Without averting his gaze away from her, he asked, “Colt, is that branding iron hot? Well, then bring it to me, please.” Chester strolled alongside the table, approaching his mother without hurry or haste. The quiet way she sat in her wheelchair enhanced the growing disdain within the glances she threw at him.

“Let me tell you a secret from my childhood, one I have never revealed to anyone before. Whenever I behaved like a “naughty, nasty child,” my mother would not hesitate to punish me by locking me in the cellar. What a hackneyed scenario, you might say, but down in that cellar, rats were crawling all around—you could hear them squeaking at night. Hungry rats, as my mother constantly assured me. Hungry rats, to whom she would one day feed the tender flesh of her little boy if he didn't start behaving. It was cold and dark down there in that rat-infested cellar. With my child’s eyes, I peered into the dank darkness. I was scared to death. The shadows swallowed me up, and I was sure that at any moment the monsters would sneak up on me and tear me limb from limb with their claws. There were times, one of them would nip at me. The black nothingness turned the rats into these monsters, gnawing their teeth on my sanity. Mother, you too shall learn about absolute darkness. A darkness that envelopes everything and sucks in your soul. You made me into a different person while in that cellar. So enjoy,” he said with a wave of his hand.

It was not his mother, who cried for mercy. “Mr. Harris, please …”

“Amber, shut up NOW!”

Colt came out, holding a branding iron that glowed orange and red. He handed it to Chester as if it were a sword and he a knight.

“Hold still, Mother. This is your medicine that you will take like a good child.” Chester nodded to Colt whereupon the latter locked her head in a vice-like grip.

“Is that a hold used by the police?” asked Chester, fascinated.

“No, Sir. Quite the opposite. An illegal trick.”

The old woman did not attempt to struggle. She sat still, her wheelchair appearing more like a throne than a trap. Chester brandished the hot iron and thrust it deep into her left eye. The hard eyeball and the surrounding soft tissue hissed and gurgled; Chester’s mother rolled her other eye around in its socket while uttering silent mechanical shrieks. The eye socket seemed to suck in the branding iron, but Chester pulled it out then rammed it into his mother's right eye. The smoke singed his throat. Yet, nothing had ever smelled so wonderfully liberating to him as the scent of that burned human flesh.

He pulled the branding iron out of the right eye socket and presented it to one of his minions. Colt let go of the mother’s head, and it sank limply onto her chest. Chester bent down to her, almost as if he wanted to kiss her on the cheek softly. Instead, he beheld the vacuous eye sockets, her burnt flesh, and her twitching mouth.

“How do you like the darkness, Mother?”

Ever so slowly, she lifted her head—trapped somewhere between chaste unconsciousness comingled with merciless awakening. She swallowed awkwardly. She abstained from reacting to his question. Considering what he was envisioning next, that did not bother him in the least. Chester turned around to face the table.

Revulsion, disgust, disbelief, anger, and fear were written implacably over his guests’ faces. Chester felt intoxicated by that cocktail, whose main ingredient was his guests’ fear. His intonation was like that of a priest delivering a sermon from his high pulpit onto his flock: “Back then, so many years ago, when the darkness had swallowed me, I lived in constant fear—more than any of you can imagine. Yet, throughout the evening, you might be able to imagine what it was like. The small boy in that cellar was desperately searching for a way out. He had to escape, no matter the cost. The stupid child wanted to flee into the arms of his mother, a guardian, who in his entire life had not once offered him protection or warmth. Mother, the bare fingers you bandaged while scolding and chiding me were scratched bloody and raw because you had locked me down there, from trying to claw and dig my way through the concrete of the cellar walls. The horrible pain I suffered paled in comparison with the devastation of being locked down there.” Chester looked at his fingertips, which showed no evidence that that had happened in his childhood. “Imagine what would have happened if I had scratched my fingertips down to the bone and I wouldn’t be able to write stories with them today. Then you truly would have deprived me of what defines me most. Remington, the pliers!”

“Mr. Harris, we understand your anger. Nothing can repay you for what you have suffered.” Nervously, June Payne pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear. “But please end this. We’ll all go home so you can get your mother to a hospital.”

Raymond Varela murmured for everyone to hear: “This maniac needs to be reported.”

“Please, Ray, I’d like to go home,” his wife Rachel pleaded with him.

“And that is, darling, exactly what we’ll now do: Go home. Chester, I should have known that this evening would be monstrous. We’re leaving now.” Raymond stood up, pulled his wife sitting beside him to her feet, and pushed back his chair.

“You aren’t going anywhere. Luger, hand me that revolver and three bullets. Have you not realized what I am doing here? I am executing my mother. What should stop me from shooting you? Sit down.”

Luger was holding a silver plate in his hands, on it lay a revolver along with three bullets. With a casual motion of his hand, Chester flicked open the cylinder and spun it.

“Empty. Room for six bullets. Let’s gamble over whether you survive your revolt. I will now insert a bullet into every second chamber. See, and now I’ll turn the wheel of fortune.” The cylinder turned, rattling before it clicked into place underneath the revolver’s barrel. Raymond Varela was staring at Chester with that crushing gaze his employees feared. Chester smiled back at him, kindly. Chester pointed the gun at Raymond’s reddened face. Disgustingly thick pearls of sweat adorned the publisher’s forehead.

Chester pulled the trigger. It clicked.

He pulled the trigger once more. The lamp he had meanwhile switched his aim at burst with a loud ban into a thousand pieces and went dark.

Instantly, Rachel sat down and pulled at her husband’s elbow, urging him to do the same. It was either that, or his defiance had disappeared, but he voluntarily sat back down in his chair as his legs could not hold him up any longer. Either way, Chester did not care because he had succinctly proven his point.

That should suffice, for now, he thought.

“I won’t play Russian roulette twice. Ok, now that we’ve settled that, Mother, I’d like to pull your fingernails out. Please interpret this as a symbol for all the fingernails my fear in your cellar cost me. Oh, unfortunately, there are only five left anyways. That makes me wonder whether the chef stirred the other five fingernails into the food or threw them away.” With a glint in his eye, he took the pliers offered to him by Remington.

Chester’s mother stirred not an inch. Her chained hand, spotted by age, did not attempt to free itself. It was only her thumb that could be seen twitching nervously.

“Careful, Mother, I hope this will hurt terribly.” Chester started to grip the pliers, diligently scrutinizing whether he had achieved the correct position. Then, with a yank, he pulled the nail of her index finger out from its bed in a single sweeping motion. A short, shrill scream left his mother’s throat. and Chester finally caught a glimpse into her tongueless mouth. The stump twitched and twined like a leech. When he noticed the beads of sweat on her forehead, he had to laugh. He laughed and laughed as if he had heard the best joke of his life. Finally, he held his belly, breathing deeply.

“Excuse me. May we carry on?”

Heady with euphoria, he positioned the pliers four more times and, one-by-one pulled from each of the remaining nails from the fingers of his groaning mother. Each time he pulled slower, enjoying the very particular instance when the nail was separated from the nail bed. After he had pulled out the final nail, this time, he did not let it drop to the floor like the other ones but held it up triumphantly in the pliers, waving it in front of his guests and asking, “Anyone for dessert?”

Nobody answered. None of his guests moved in the slightest. They looked at him with widened eyes and ashen faces. What a monster they must think him to be for what he was doing to his own mother. That acknowledgment encouraged him on to try and raise their revulsion, their dread of him to yet the next higher level. Their fear tasted sweeter than never before.

“The only thing left for me to relate to you is the one final element of this terrible cellar of my childhood. The walls of this narrow, dark space suffocated me like a grave—a coffin for my damned, innocent child's soul. Mother, you broke me. Not just with the cellar. Every single goddamn day, over and over with the revolting food I had to eat. With your sloth-like purposefulness. I know today that it was all intentional. That is why I shall feed you with that of which a cellar is made. Eat gravel, Mother. Eat it and die. Wesson, bring me the funnel and the gravel. We’re going to fatten you up now, Mother.”

Wesson left the dining hall to return a few seconds later with a serving trolley, pushing it in front of him as if it were laden with desserts. On the trolley, were several tureens of freshly mixed slurry, a funnel, and a hose. The easily overlooked smirk on the face of his one assistant gave Chester a grim sense of joy.

Chester laughed again as he attached the hose to the lower end of the funnel. “Mother, it would seem you brought me up to be a bad host. I haven’t given you anything to eat yet! No guests, not even you, should go hungry.” Chester pressed his fingers around his mother’s nose to hold it shut. It took a while, but at some point, she opened her mouth to gasp for air. Seizing the opportunity, he rammed the hose down her throat as deep as he could. Then slide a chunk of wood between her teeth. He raised the funnel above her head and started using a silver soup ladle to pour the slurry into the funnel. It slid down the hose with his mother gagging incessantly. Muffled screams were pounding in her throat.

“You haven’t finished your meal, Mother. What a naughty child you are.”

Chester scooped more slurry into the funnel. Again and again, but it was not going fast enough for him. “Wesson, empty that tureen into the funnel. I’ll hold it. Oh yes, swallow nicely, Mother dearest.” He let his assistant pour the moist gravely contents of the tureens down the funnel. Chester’s mother began twitching and convulsing in her wheelchair until she became entirely still.

When Wesson glanced at him quizzically, he said, “Carry on. I want to be absolutely sure.” When the slurry stopped flowing down the funnel, he took an appropriately sized plunger resembling a large syringe to press it in further and further down his mother’s throat.

At some point, Chester once again, became aware of his guests. “Enough of that. Colt, take her away.” Chester wiped his fingers clean on the tablecloth. He strolled gracefully to his seat and sat down.

After he had taken a lusty sip of wine, he announced, “And now, to you.”

Chapter 1 – Several Months Prior

The floodlight was burning into his skin like hellfire.

Considering the few lamps that were directed at him, one could hardly speak of floodlights. Chester Harris was a writer of horror novels. In recent years, he had achieved an abundance of success with his frightful stories, even garnering some fame outside of his immediate circles. Not once during his previous readings did Chester as much as break a sweat, not even at his very first event. His skin was glowing like an ember. The delicate trickle running down his back was to blame for him getting muddled while reciting an excerpt from his novel—a mishap of unforeseen importance for him. He would usually read the words aloud with unrelentingly sharpness to further intensify the horror his stories instilled. Sheer fright was what he longed to see on the faces in the audience.

Chester looked up, let the sentence linger and beheld his audience. Twenty-eight people were sitting on their chairs in front of him without wide-opened eyes, tightly pursed lips, or hoisted shoulders. He felt himself turn to ice on the inside.

The letters of the final paragraph became blurred before his eyes. Chester inhaled deeply, fighting to maintain his composure. He knew the final sentences by heart and recited them without looking up from his book. His mouth became drier and drier. If the end was not so soon, he would have needed to break away and grab an untouched glass of water. Even that would have been unacceptable according to his standards. How could he be an authority when he needed water like any other normal human being? The illusion would be destroyed. He, who knew how to relate dark secrets and gruesome incidents, were not supposed to appear like an average nice neighbor from next door.

Chester had reached the end of the section. Normally, he would inconspicuously rub his hands together because he left his audience in the claws of the worst type of a cliffhanger—reason enough for everyone who had not already bought his book. On that evening, he was merely happy to be over and done with his reading.

In the two seconds it took for the applause to begin, he recognized three things: A man was scribbling something onto a sheet of paper on his lap; maybe he was cheeky enough to add some treats to a shopping list. Two women hastened discretely toward the exit, while another man stared at his watch, yawning. Not long before, the audiences had hung onto every syllable that ran from his lips. They had inhaled every one of his words as if they were a breath of fresh air. And then it all changed! Chester Harris tried to act confident and thanked his audience by nodding. He swallowed bile churning its way up his throat just the way he had learned to over the years throughout his childhood.

He got up gracefully from the chair on which he had been forced to sit through his reading to answer questions. The audience wanted to know the same thing as after every one of his reading events: How had he become a writer? Where did he get such gruesome ideas? Whether he could ever or would ever act the same way as his characters? They sought a sprinkling of anecdotes that provided a glimpse into the life of a writer and explained to them how a novel is created. Chester rattled off his litany of standard answers until no hand was raised for further questions.

At the end, he walked over to the table where he would be signing his audiences’ books and dropped down into the waiting chair. He felt slightly dizzy; the questions he had just answered kept swirling through his head. As usual, a reasonably long line had formed. Almost everyone wanted him to write something into one or another of his books and sign it with his signature.

A young woman came up to the table. “Excuse me; I have four books for you to sign. I've been wanting to listen to you read something for a long time. Would you mind writing a short dedication into all four of them? These are my absolute favorites by you.”

“Yes,” that flattered him, and he complied with her wish by writing some pithy phrases in her books. The same sentences he had written into countless books,

‘In memory of a reading’—then added the venue.

Here's to a gruesome read. Yours, Chester Harris.

Fear, dread, and horror. Best wishes, Chester Harris.

Wishing you endless nightmares, Chester Harris.

The woman picked the stack of books up and pressed them to her chest. “Thank you so much, Mr. Harris.” Red in the cheeks, she went away.

“You know,” the next man in line lectured him, “your novels are good. But in the book with that hotel, you should have chosen a different ending. Please write that you dedicate this book to George. Thank you.”

He did the man a favor. But did not reply to his advice. It was astonishing for him to see how many readers knew better than he how his novels should be written.

The next man in line was the shopping list scribbler. Restlessly, he shifted from one leg to another and stared holes through Chester with curious glances. “I read your books, voraciously. The way you write … I can’t even describe how much I love it. By the way, my name is Ethan Josephson. For the signing, I mean.”

Chester signed his name underneath the dedication and put the pen aside to loosen his hand. “Thanks, Ethan, I write to inspire my readers. How nice that I succeeded to inspire you.”

But that was only half the truth.

Fear. He wrote because he wanted to instill fear in his readers.

The man pointed to several of Chester’s novels stacked behind him, aligned to inspire people to buy. “That one: ‘Death follows on silent steps,’ is my favorite of your novels. I read it at least four times.” Waving, the man lifted his hand and made room for the next event attendee behind him. It didn't escape Chester's notice how the man went up to a woman and proudly showed off the dedication to her. Of course, that reaction made him happy, but it was not the reason he wrote.

Chester shook out his hand again before signing the next book. He otherwise never had cramps, but that evening, he was not himself, so nothing surprised him anymore. His pen must have rolled off the table because when he went to pick it back up, it was gone. He briefly searched for the pen underneath the table and next to his chair but, since he could not find it, had to make do with an old spare one. Also, the last seven reading attendees’ soon had their books filled with dedications. Chester had made it through the evening.

He was looking for the lost pen halfway stooped under the tabletop when the owner of the bookstore approached him. “Nice reading, like last time.”

Fortunately, this idiot has neither eyes nor ears, thought Chester.

“I’ll gladly come back for the next novel, provided the publisher wants to organize another reading.”

“I presume he will. Maybe, we’ll get all the seats occupied again next time. On one of the first warm days of spring, you can’t knock the people for wanting to spend their late evenings out in cafés. I’ll send you Miranda. She’ll help you pack up. I’ll be in the office in case you need anything. Thank you very much, and see you next time!”

“Thanks, but I don’t need any help. I’ll be off right away,” Chester hurried to say.

“Suit yourself. Goodbye.”

His car was parked just a few meters away from the bookstore. Once in, he enclosed the steering wheel with his hands gripping until they had lost all feeling. What had happened in there had made him almost unable to breathe. He had failed or had been such a close shave from failure that his insides were twisting in shame. Was he no longer able to captivate his readers? Instill fear in people? That sublime pride when his audience clung to his every word, spellbound by the story, locked between the desire to know what will happen next and the fear that it could be too much for them to stomach. Other people’s fear scintillated Chester, and it diverted his attention from the dread and fright he had felt throughout his own life. It angered him to believe that he could no longer survive if he were to lose his lust and taste for it.

He started the engine, dealt the steering wheel one final blow and proceeded to weave his way into London’s left-hand traffic. On the drive home to his flat, he would have plenty of time to think about what he had become.

At home, Chester threw his car key into the glass jar he kept on the dresser for that purpose and tossed his jacket onto the coat rack. Immediately, his eyes focused on the bookshelf in the living room even if he could not see it yet. It stood behind the wall and drew him towards it like a magnet. Proudly, as his fingers caressed the spines of the novels he had published, his racing heart slowed. These were his works! All their words and stories had snaked their way out from inside of him into the outside world to meet with his readers. And what a readership he had found! His career had started rapidly and catapulted him ever further up the ladder than he would ever have imagined. Whenever anyone in Britain bought horror fiction, it was likely that Chester’s name was written on the front cover. He was the one who made the entire island tremble while wading through oceans of imaginary blood. He offered to anyone bold enough to read him the nightmares one desired.

Chester went up to his office, the place where he felt most at peace. There on the wall hung his pinboard cover in filing cards with ideas he had jotted down for upcoming stories, diligently arranged into the initial stages of storylines.

The telephone rang so loud it made him flinch.

Who would want something from him at this hour?

With an inkling as to who it was, he moved sloth-like to the portable telephone. “No Caller ID” showed on the display, as with all previous calls.

“Hello.” It was unnecessary for Chester to state his name. The caller knew whose number he had dialed.

“Chess. How was it? I had called earlier, but you probably hadn’t returned yet.” It was Lucille Sheldrake, the first person he had ever let read one of his stories. Back then, toward the end of his years at school, she had been the most promising student in his literature class. He had confided in her, and they had become close friends. Apart from a briefly torrid intermezzo, their relationship remained purely platonic. Lucille was the only person from his school days with whom he still kept in touch. Notwithstanding his mother, of course, but he was not at liberty to keep that contact voluntary.

“Lucy, to think you’re not asleep at this time of night. Don’t you have to be at the library early tomorrow morning?”

“So, your evening hasn’t gone quite so well. Thing’s aren’t working out at the moment. Do you know what’s causing it?”

Chester sighed laboriously. An expression of human emotion he usually denied himself. “I believe I have lost my bite to horrify. The audience seemed weary. Imagine! But I don’t want to talk about that tonight. I’d rather forget such a disaster.”

“You know that isn’t true, Chess. You’re getting better with each book. But then, I’ll do you the favor of telling you the latest gossip I’ve learned from my colleague.”

About a half an hour later, Chester put the phone down. Lucy had indeed managed to fill his head with all sorts of trivial matters about the book market and mutual friends. Just when he felt like his old self again and after a cup of Earl Grey having decided to go to bed, there suddenly came a violent knock at the front door downstairs.

Again, he looked at the clock and found it imprudent to be harassed at that time of night. He shook his head. He dreaded unannounced visitors, pretending not to be there most of the time. Yet, Chester was also curious to find out who should have come to knock on his door at that time of night and what all the clamor was. If his mother had finally died, he would have received a call. And none of his neighbors would ever disturb him so late at night. A visit they would not even have dared during the daytime.

Downstairs, facing the entrance, he thought briefly about putting on his shoes but surceased. After all, the visitor had come unannounced. So, to hell with chaste appearances. The impulse of quickly combing his fingers through his graying hair was one could not abstain. The urgent knocking had meanwhile ceased. He turned the key, unlocked the door, and opened it.

No one stood outside.

He briefly considered what might occur in one of his novels, if that was some trick of distraction.

In the beam of a streetlamp behind the wrought-iron fence separating his front garden from the pavement, he spotted three adolescents on bikes. Each one of them held something in his hand. He had hardly espied the boys when three eggs came flying in his direction. Two shattered against the wall, one on the front door, splashing their disgusting slime over him and his property.

“You old horror freak!” shouted out one of the three youths before they pedaled off on their bikes, he hurling curses in their wake.

The lack of respect for his age and his profession left him speechless. Had he sunk to such depths that he was forced to tolerate it all? Ice fingers gripped his heart. Only ten years ago, he had been engulfed in things rapaciously different.

Without another word, without tending to the stains on his house, Chester Harris pulled the front door shut. His carotid was pounding as he wiped his face with a towel.

One notion, an idea he had recently begun to dream about manifested itself anew in his head. It was not something that he meant to write about. It was a thing he wanted to experience.

Sleepless, he spent the night in his bed, rolling back and forth. Frenzied thoughts kept him awake. He felt bold, liberated, and mighty. If he wanted his to put plans into practice, there was much diligent work ahead. And yet, the chance he would have to take, would be even greater. Only but briefly, he hesitated. Did he actually have anything to lose? That was perhaps his last chance to regain his true self. He was empowered to teach those living in a society of numbness, indifference, and disrespect the feeling of fear.

Chapter 2 – Ethan Josephson

His hand moved across the stubble of his three-day beard. Ethan Josephson was waiting at the bus stop. It was raining. Tired from a hard day at the office, he stood impatiently, on an empty stomach. The incessancy of having to solve the same little problems his colleagues brought to him over and over in the human resources department of the company where he worked irritated him. At home, he would eat something and then immediately go to bed. Maybe just briefly he would call June, his girlfriend, so as to not hear the accusations of how much he was neglecting her. How about if he sent her a message? Then he might not have to make the call after all.

Thrilled about being able to fill the time waiting until that stinking bus turned up in that way, he took his smartphone from his pocket, knowing full well that he was not doing his relationship any favor. He had hardly entered the unlock code when it happened: The phone slipped through his moist fingers and fell onto the ground under the bus stop. Cursing, Ethan stooped down to pick it up and to inspect the hopefully non-existent damage. His sight was compromised by a splash of water from a car speeding past him through a puddle. He got soaked, and so did the phone, which suddenly exhibited a dent.

“Ah crap,” Ethan cursed while wiping his face dry with the sleeve of his jacket. He ignored the glances of the others patiently waiting and doubted that any one of them had gone through such a “shit day” as himself. In fact, “shit” might have been too harmless an expression. Even though he lived downtown, just a few kilometers from the company where he worked, it was his habit to grouse about the route he had to travel home, but it was also the reason he had decided against buying a car.

Finally, the bus came rolling on. Ethan’s empty stomach cramped as he walked into the stuffy haze, dropping himself onto one of the last free seats. With the little power the day had left him, he forced his eyes open so that he would not fall asleep and miss his stop again.

Seated, his body jolted in tandem with the movements of the bus. Ethan let his mind wander. Sadly, in his mind, he returned to one of the most beautiful moments of his day: He thought of the story he wanted to write. He had typed the first pages on his computer. Yet, of late, fear that he might spoil it had kept him from carrying on with writing the story. The virtue of developing the plot of a novel in his head always gave Ethan a wonderful feeling. He could not describe to anyone what it was like when a story came together in his head or when he would watch the characters, living vicariously through what they experienced. It was like a potion—a kind of magic in his head that he wanted put to paper for the whole world to see.

The bus pulled up at the stop in front of Ethan’s home. Regretful, he let go of his story, slipped back into a reality that at least on that day he did not take much of a liking to. In fact, when he found the strength to be honest with himself, he would admit that, for far too long, he actually had not liked his reality, including his entire living situation. Ethan clenched his fist and pressed it tightly onto his right thigh.

Damn it; I have to change something, he thought. It’s on me to do something with my fucking life. I’ve been waiting to vain far too long for the good fairy to wave her wand. I, myself, finally have to take matters into my own hands!

Once home, he quietly unlocked the door and put down his briefcase while he pushed off his shoes. In the second he wanted to reach to put them aside, he stopped in midair. He needed to gain sanguinity. Motivate himself to accomplish his dreams. He had to change in order to become somebody. As the first step in that direction, he grabbed his shoes and threw them into the corner.

“You’re acting right stupid,” Ethan said to himself out loud. “Speaking to yourself, aye? Isn’t that a good new quirk for a future author? Somehow not my cup of tea,” he ascertained and went silent again to indulge in his daydreams.

Without paying much attention, Ethan took something halfway eatable from the freezer. He put it into the microwave, watched his food take its first turn then took out his phone, feeling a guilty conscience. He typed June an affectionate message, keeping it as short as possible, but refrained from complaining. June had already reminded him several times that she was not an emotional dumpsite, but his girlfriend and demanded to be treated as such. He sent the text message just before the microwave made its “plink.”

The message had to suffice for the current day; maybe the following day, he would invite June over to his place for homemade pizza. Ethan thought it would be a shame if she dumped him, even though he often felt begrudged by her with the effort he had to invest in working on their relationship. But June was a special person. Rarely was he fully aware what losing her would mean. Saving his relationship was one of the most important challenges to address. He would urgently attend to that matter—the next day.

Warmed by the food and with the satiation of a full stomach, he finally sat down in front of his PC. The text file was open on the screen, and his fingers hovered over the keyboard. Not a single word emerged from the convolutions of his brain. He looked over at the bookshelf, wrinkling his brow. How had all the other authors managed it? How could Chester Harris write novels that managed to thrill, surprise, and even frighten him a little? He turned his head in the opposite direction. There stood his TV. The sofa seemed to entice him. It would be so much easier to put up his feet and relax until it was time for bed.

Ethan stroked the slightly protruding buttons of his keyboard. The hope that he would make his breakthrough at some point stirred a soft tingling in his chest. These 26 letters before opened up unlimited possibilities. But not tonight.

The television was likewise abandoned. Instead, he went to bed with a new book by Chester Harris, but before he became engrossed as usual in the novel’s plot, the words kept becoming a fuzzy blur before his eyes. What wouldn’t he change, if he knew he only had a year to live? If the grim reaper came to his bedside, serving him notice, what he would do with the little time he had left? Ethan visualized the bare bones of the outstretched index finger jarringly pointing at him from underneath that thick, black cape. Ethan put the book down to survey the room. He was alone. But with time, the dark shadows would come closer and closer and envelop him. Of course, he assumed that many long years would pass until then. Still, his life was finite.

Every single day counts, he decided.

After a while, he fell asleep. The lamp on his desk still burned bright, shining like a light tower, seeking to point him the way.

Chapter 3 – Writer’s Block

Cold sweat was running down Chester’s neck. He had long since kicked the blanket off his body. Nightmares, emergent from self-doubt, plagued him, were cutting painfully into his soul. His dreams were of darkness devouring him. He dreamed of his mother and his brother, who had a boyish face despite his age. In his last dream—in the slumber before he awoke, a group of people were listening to him during one of his book readings. But they were not satisfied. They came near and near, reaching out at him, digging their fingernails into his skin, biting into his flesh and eating him alive. He screamed and pleaded, but chunk-by-chunk, he disappeared down their greedy mouths.

When Chester awoke in his bed, he sat bolt upright tightly clasping the sheets with both hands. Gradually, he unrolled his clenched fingers and loosened up his hands, which were without feeling.

Chester donned his slippers and his dressing gown. His mind refused to forget about his failure at the reading a few hours ago. Without switching on the lights, he paced his flat. A little beam of light from the streetlamps penetrated through the curtains, protecting him from utter darkness. It sufficed. He would have found the way to his desk blindly, but in the dark, he would always feel smothered, as if death was waiting on all sides, for him, to crush him.

Chester had no intention of writing, yet he started his computer. The bright light emanating from the screen flashed pleasantly into his eyes. He knew it was strange, but he loved the light, although as a horror fiction writer he should have preferred the darkness. That weakness had begun in his childhood—a time he was straining not to remember.

Especially tonight, Chester could bear to think of it and hastily opened some online files containing his finished novels. What he read satisfied him.

I’ve written so many good horror novels, he thought. What is happening to me now? Or am I merely imagining it? Is this a midlife crisis? Or genuine writer’s block? Do I have to change genres? From blood and fear to unicorn wonderland glitter dust? He laughed wearily. How cute! He would never write anything other than gruesomely scary stories. He thrived on the fear he instilled in people and hungered for it.

“But this is mere cowardice. You are simply distracting yourself from your own fear,” Chester heard his mother argue. In the past, she had probably blamed him for that more often than she had called him “son.” His heart contracted briefly. It was at the keyboard that he found a pillar that existed nowhere else in his life. When he grew tired of reading his old stories, he began to write.

Confused Chester stopped about half an hour later. The creaking he described in his manuscript, he believed, he had sensed in his flat as well. He sat listening, stirred not, did not look up from his screen for a second. His willingness to believe that he had merely imagined a sound that it had somehow made its way from the world of his novel into reality just grown when he heard the sound again. It came from the kitchen, situated at the other end of the house, one story below. His head kept spinning scenarios as to what might happen next.

He knew exactly what he would have burdened onto the characters in one of his novels. The protagonist would, for instance, sneak downstairs to catch the thieves. His presence would not be revealed to the thieves by a creaky step in his story. Chester might let the thieves smell the scent of the protagonist’s aftershave or shampoo and sneak up on him. Afterwards, would the thieves chop up the man and feed him to his dog. In a novel by Chester Harris, no raccoon was plundering the kitchen, nor were there unusually loud buzzing freezers.

Emulating enumerable of characters from his novels, Chester sneaked through the corridor to the stairs, protected by the dark. Once he paused to listen. Nothing. Step by step, he descended the stairs, skipping the creaking fourth one, and reached the ground floor without noticing anything unusual. The front door had not been broken open. He expected he might meet those rude teenagers from a few hours ago as they broke into his house in order to play further pranks on the “old horror freak.” Maybe they had entered through the terrace door or the back door leading from the kitchen into the garden.

Chester was looking for a weapon with which he could vanquish them. Naturally, he did not intend to hurt them seriously or even fatally, but did not like the idea of facing those cocky youngsters empty-handed. All the storage shelves were full of books. It was the first time in his life that books let him down. Useless blocks of wood fiber that would not suffice as weapons. He would only look like a laughingstock armed with the table lamp on the dresser. He decided against taking a detour down into the cellar to get an ax from there. The replica of a medieval spiked mace he had in the living room would impress them. Yes, he was a freak, even when arming himself. When he reached the living room, he heard another sound from the kitchen. The uneasy feeling inside of him turned into massive heartburn. It was as if the gastric acids were about to eat its way through his gullet. Before taking the mace from its wall mount, Chester pulled the knot of the belt of his dressing gown tighter. He was ready.

Carefully, so that the chain between the handle and the spiked ball would not rattle, he took the morning star from its mount. The iron felt heavy in his hand. Strange as he may have looked with it, the medieval weapon offered Chester a centuries-old style of protection that gave him a surreal feeling of reassurance.

Armed, he entered the kitchen. He heard neither voices nor steps. Nothing suggested that there was a thief was in his house. Weapon raised, he entered the kitchen, only to find it empty.

The windows and the door had been shuttered up for the night and were unchanged. No adolescents, no raccoon, no humming freezer.

“Damn it!” Chester called out as his relief was followed by disappointment. He put the mace on the kitchen table. Apparently, he was in desperate need of sleep.

The handprint on the pane of his kitchen door that led out to the garden had evaded his notice.

Chapter 4 – June Payne

Ethan and his friends had managed to grab one of the few remaining tables at their favorite pub. On that, as on every other evening, the city was vibrant with life, and Ethan enjoyed getting caught up in the throngs. Nobody seemed to stay home where one miss all the fun.

June, sitting next to him, was already sipping her second cocktail and her cheeks were red. Whenever he saw her like that, his heart began thumping wildly. Ethan felt ashamed that he neglected her so badly and could not understand why he so infrequently found the strength to spend more time with her. She was a damn cute and clever woman, and he was happy in their relationship. That she stuck with him was at all had to be a medium-sized miracle.

“And, is it as good as the one before?” he asked her.

June nodded, leaning her head onto his shoulder.

Ethan felt that he had to steer a different course. She had been unusually quiet the entire evening. He was almost under the impression that was she was going to break up with him—a possibility he had to avert.

“How ‘bout that: When you finish, we go to my place. You’ll take a hot bath; I’ll fix you a drink and afterwards, I’ll treat you to a massage until you’re as soft as Jell-O.”

“You don’t have to do that,” June demurred with sad eyes.

Ethan’s heart was beating faster. “Do you really want to pass up the opportunity of getting a massage?”

“Hey, Ethan, when will you finally read us something from your novel?” one of his friends interrupted their faintly heard conversation.

“Probably not that soon.”

“Ah, come on, you may well show us what you’re working on,” his best friend Jake said encouragingly. He was the only one of his friends who was aware of the short stories Ethan had written many years ago.

“Yes, but I am not making much progress much at the moment. I’m stuck somehow.”

Another one of his friends slid a bottle of beer over to him. “Then you have to go about it like a real writer. Get drunk, take drugs, and screw a lot of girls—sorry, June. Then your novel will be finished in no time.” He snapped his fingers to illustrate his point.

“Thank you, guys, what would I ever do without you?” Ethan said, putting as much sarcasm into his voice as he could. He took June’s hand and wouldn’t let go.

“Ethan, how hard can it be to think up a story? Hurry up, if you’re serious about it. “I also have an idea. Maybe I’ll write a book soon and be finished before you.”

Ethan was speechless. That felt like the proverbial salt in the wound. “I … I …”

June cleared her throat. “At the moment there is much to do at work, isn’t there, my love? You shall certainly find time to write more often soon.”

His friends moved on to another topic, and Ethan slumped down a little bit. If not even his friends took him seriously or even supported him, what was the point in writing? He kissed June on the temple and whispered words of thanks to her. “So, are you coming along to my place?”

Again, June nodded without smiling, although she otherwise smiled often.

The next morning, June was to leave for work. She had put on her first shoe when she halted. “Now, I almost forgot!” June stretched her arm out for her handbag, but could not reach it. After sniffing impatiently, she decided to put on the second shoe first before going after the handbag.

“What’s the matter?” Ethan could not bear secrets. When he was a child, it had been torture for him to know that he would receive presents but could not find out what they were right away. At Christmastime, after he found out that it was not Santa Claus who brought him gifts and that his parents knew full well what he would receive, he got on everybody’s nerves. Once he had begged so intensely for hints and clues that his mother had threatened to return every item, he would guess. He could not even count anymore how often he had been threatened with cancellation of his birthday unless he stopped asking his persistent questions. The groundlessness of his curiosity was one of his greatest weaknesses; Ethan had known that for a long time.

“Just a moment … There we go. I’ve brought you something!” Ethan was not sure if June had intentionally kept him waiting. Although after that phenomenal night, he could hardly have imagined it. “Here. A flyer. That Chester Harris you so like to read so much is giving a reading soon here in London. At this bookstore, where the saleswoman was once so cheeky to me, you know. Maybe that’ll inspire you a little bit.”

“That looks interesting. Thank you, June, I’ll definitely go there! Will you come along? Should I buy two tickets?”

“No. Since I anticipated your reaction,” June was again rummaging in her handbag, “I already bought them. Here you go.”

“You’re incredible. Thank you very much. I don’t deserve you!” If anyone on this planet had the best girlfriend, that would have had to be him. Of that, Ethan was certain.

With a long kiss that was in no way inferior to last night’s, Ethan said goodbye to June and vowed to himself that he would treat her like a princess in the future.

Chapter 5 – Lucille Sheldrake

Chester set a cup of coffee down on the table in front of him, motionlessly observing a drop soak into his dark-blue jeans. A waitress hurried to his table, took his empty cake plate, and asked him whether he wished to order something else. Chester shook his head, and the pretty young woman bustled on. Once more, he looked at the clock. That time she was taking her time. Lucille was the only person in the world he did not resent having to wait for.

Until Lucy breathlessly fell into the chair opposite his, Chester had had enough time to jot down an idea and to finish his cup of coffee. “Chess, I’m so sorry. I’m terrible. I saw this pair of shoes in the shop window, but once I was in the store itself, they had a much more elegant pair. Sorry. Would you like to see what I bought?” Happy with her purchase, she arranged the shopping bag, which undoubtedly contained a shoebox, on a free chair between them. She didn’t wait for Chester to refuse to look at her pair of new shoes.

“You made it.”

Before they could begin the conversation, Chester had been looking forward to since they arranged to meet, the pretty blond waitress returned to their table. “Hello, what can I get for you?” she asked, facing Lucille, eagerly writing down her order.

“One more coffee for me please,” Chester added.

“Thank you. I’ll bring it right away.” With a nod and a smile, then she turned her back on the table.

“So, Chess, what weren’t you able to tell me on the phone?”

“Lucy, what I’m going to tell you, you’re not allowed to tell anyone. No one!”

“Oh well now, as if I were shouting everything people tell me from the rooftops!”

“No, no, I well know that you can be secretive. It’s just that what concerns me at the moment is different than usual.”

“A new genre? Do you want to write a story in another genre?”

“No. I’d tell you if you’d let me.”

They smiled at each other conspiratorially while Lucille pressed her lips together and placed her index finger over them vertically to signal that she would him not interrupt. Chester’s smile turned to instantly stone. A sharp wrinkle emerged between his eyebrows.

“The other day on the telephone you, yourself, mentioned that somehow things aren’t running too smoothly for me at the moment. I had an idea on how to restore my image as the horror fiction writer that I want to be. But I don’t know whether the idea is workable. Whether I should really do it the way I imagine.” Chester turned silent as the waitress served their order. To stall for time, he sipped on his coffee and in doing so, burned his lips. “Ah, damn. Anyways, what I need is your opinion on the following: I want to host an evening of horror—no ordinary reading. I won’t read a single word or have anyone read anything. This will not be about any of my works. For this horror evening, I want to gather a few people together and make it the scariest, most gruesome evening of their lives. I don’t quite know yet exactly how I’ll make it work, but do have some starting points. I want to invite people, and then show them gruesome things, make them overcome their fear: real things, or at least seemingly real things. Maybe I’ll give them some tasks to solve. It is supposed to be a game like in a horror novel. A game in reality though, as though it was about everything or nothing, life or death. Maybe it’ll be exactly about that!” At first, Chester was hesitant to tell Lucy about his idea, but he was getting himself more and more worked up into such a fervor that he no longer shied away from telling Lucy about the original details he had thought up.

Lucy listened to his elaborations without interrupting him or asking him anything. Even her facial expression remained still and without mimicry. She did not nod but kept a straight face as he animatedly described the nasty aspects of his evening of horror to her. After he finished and leaned back, he noticed her brooding deep inside. She began drumming her fingers on the table. Again and again, she threw critical glances at him. Chester could barely wait to hear what she would say and began counting to ten in his head. He could not possibly have endured the silence of a reaction much longer.

He had counted to seven by the time Lucy leaned forward and started speaking in a surreptitiously lowered voice, “Absolutely, Chester, why not! That thing you’re planning, however, couldn’t be entirely legal, or? That’s why I’m asking you: Why not go all the way if you have to? The people should be scared and the next morning, as if reborn, begin their new and, most of all, a better life.”

“You mean, I should …?”

He did not need to finish his sentence before she nodded. “Your plan sounds good—an evening unfolding like a show, but it will all be a charade. Nice one! But if you want to cause a proper stir, you have to go one step further. Everyone has to believe that it is genuine until the end.”

Chester hung onto Lucy’s every word. That kind, petite librarian, who loved horror novels, surprised him. He never would have expected such profound enthusiasm from her. To be sure, he had anticipated that she would support him but not that she would even top off his plans. With difficulty, he held back from correcting her as to the truly genuine nature of what he was planning. That the evening would be nothing of a charade, even though his guests would prefer it that way in the end.

He would require her help to get everything sorted out. However, one thing was for certain: She might have been late for their coffee appointment because of a stupid pair of shoes, but when push came to shove, he could rely on Lucille Sheldrake. She was loyal, clever, and obviously more unscrupulous than he could ever have imagined. His heart was jumping with joy. Not just due to excitement over his plan but also because of new feelings stirring within him. He had suppressed the emotions that were buried deep within himself, but they were beginning to surface, acknowledging that Lucille was perfect for him. She was the only one to belong by his side. He had to win her over after all those years.

First, the evening of horror and then her heart, Chester swore to himself. And yet, he would not divulge to her the true, insidious nature of his plan.

Chapter 6 – The Bookstore

Ethan’s right hand rested on June’s thigh; the left one was on his own leg. They sat next to each other in a darkened room, and their glances fixed on the man sitting in the spotlight in front of them. Ethan felt the attraction. Chester Harris’ voice sounded different from what he had expected. Somewhat softer and warmer, despite his talk of spilling blood and gruesome things. The bookstore was as quiet as a graveyard. That was not the first reading Ethan ever attended, but become the best the minute Chester Harris had entered the room and taken his seat at the front. He had never heard him read before. Being in the same room as his role model inspired Ethan, motivated him, and filled him with pride as well. One day he would be a writer himself. At that moment, he believed that more firmly than ever before.

The minutes flew by, and Ethan feared that half of the presentation had already passed. He wanted to take home more than just the memory of a fantastic evening. He took his hand off June’s leg, after which she averted her attention from Mr. Harris to glance quizzically at Ethan. He shook his head to signal to her that everything was alright. Readily, June re-immersed herself in Chester’s presentation.

Ethan had noticed the captivating effect the author had on his audience. So, he took a paper sheet from his pocket to take some notes. He had to make use of that chance to learn as much as possible from his role model. He wrote down what struck him about the evening, what he liked, trying to observe and establish how Chester Harris managed to make everyone listen to him riveted. Blindly, Ethan jotted his bullet points down on a crumpled shopping list, as he could not clearly see what he was writing in the darkened audience area. He wanted to forget nothing—not a single detail.

After the lecture, the author answered questions from the audience. That was enlightening for Ethan. Overflowing with excitement, he could not imagine ever wasting a free minute again. His fingers were itching, and words were scratching at the inside of his skull, wanting to come out. After he had plucked up enough courage, he dared to raise his hand.

When Harris pointed to him—and it flattered him enormously that the famous author had noticed him—he asked, “Mr. Harris, what is the greatest problem that you encounter when writing and how do you solve it?”

Chester Harris nodded thereupon thoughtfully, tapping his chin. “As you’re probably aware, everybody is talking about “writer's block.” However, I’ve got more ideas for novels than I could possibly write in my lifetime. Unfortunately, I must decide when to write, which of the projects, and which of the ideas will best fit where. Yet, the greatest obstacle each individual text challenges me with is determining how quickly the reader understands what I’m him trying to tell him. I want my novels to be concise and vividly narrated. Despite the brevity, the reader has to be able to understand what I want to convey to him.”

Ethan would have had at least another hundred questions for Chester—so thoroughly did he enjoy listening to and absorbing all and any information from his role model. When he got the chance, he joined the line to have a dedication written in his book. June waited in the background, looking around in the bookstore. She seemed to sense that he would like to spend that moment alone with the writer.

When he finally stood before Chester Harris, Ethan put the book in front of Harris and could not help gushing about how much he liked Chester’s novels. When the author thanked him, Ethan felt like a kiss-ass.

All of a sudden, Ethan was inspired by a thought. He saw the pen. Chester Harris’ pen lay before him on the table. He pointed at a book behind the author, diverting his attention and, with a single, fluent motion, slid the pen into his pocket. His heart was racing so much that he saw white dots before his eyes. Actually, he was not a thief. But the chance of taking home something that belonged to his role model had been too tempting. Ethan’ ears were buzzing, and he feared that any minute someone might speak out and indict him for theft. But nothing of the sort happened.

Casually. Ethan lifted his hand to say goodbye and ran up to June, who was already waiting for him. He left the bookstore, the scene of his very first crime, in a state of exhilaration, with one hand in his pocket, proudly gripping his new treasure.

Chapter 7 – The Homestead

Everything within Chester made him resist pushing the bell. But he had to; otherwise, it would only be worse next time.

The impending monthly visit to his mother: She lived less than 20 driving minutes from him, another reason why he could not justify visiting her even less frequently, especially since she had begun to visibly age, becoming frail and weak. The silent agreement that had grown between them over the years was to meet once a month. However, he did not want to violate that because he preferred to conceal from her the power that his childhood memories still exerted over him.

The walk through the front garden took at least three times as long as it would have taken a motivated mail carrier to slip his letters through the slot. A glance about the flowerbeds, a look here, and an inspection there. Chester could no longer draw out time before finally reaching the doorbell.

Eventually, he pressed the bell. After all, it would have been far more uncomfortable for his mother to catch him in front of the door without having made her aware of his presence. “What are you hanging around out here for?” she would have asked. Or, “Idling away your time again, aren’t you? Boy, boy, boy!” The shrill, penetrating ring of the bell was as disgusting to him as the woman living inside that house.

“Chester,” she greeted him taciturnly. The sound of that one word made it seem like she needed to remind him of his name.

Before stirring, he uttered a neutral “Mother.”

“Come on in. There is a draft when the door’s open.”