Just like his heart.
Great fodder.
Amazingly great fodder for a real author. Not for phonies like the guy next door.
Want to see real horror, Mr. Shore?
He watched Bob play with his fork apparatus.
I’m looking at it right now.
And I want you to get a glimpse too.
“I’ve got a problem.”
Maureen nodded, but the expression on her face didn’t change. The word Dennis often used to describe his agent was unruffled.
She never seemed bothered, and her mood was always optimistic. Perhaps that’s what it took to be an agent. To not let the
insanity of publishing get you down, to see the possibilities instead of dwelling on failures.
As Dennis took a sip of wine, he realized he had probably had a little too much to drink. His head swirled around the muted
light of the small dining room, the other tables quiet in conversation. They were at a quiet French restaurant, perfect for
intimate conversation. After talking for most of the hour about Audrey and about Maureen’s nephews and nieces, they were finally
getting down to the wonderful world of business.
“I’m not really sure what to do about it.”
“Well, maybe I can help you,” Maureen said, taking another bite of her fish.
Maureen was probably in her late forties, even though she looked more like she was in her late thirties. Dennis always forgot
how tall she was until he greeted her with an awkward hug. She was slender with dark hair kept short. She wasn’t exactly attractive,
at least not in Dennis’s estimation. He preferred a little shorter, a little more round. Maureen had an edge about her, as
though all of her interesting sexy parts had been whittled down to nothing.
He hadn’t exactly planned to tell her what was going on with his writing. Or what wasn’t going on with his writing. But he
hadn’t planned on ordering so much wine either. And if he was going to tell anybody, it might as well be her.
“I’m behind on my novel.”
“Really? That’s a first, isn’t it?”
“No, not exactly.”
“How far behind?”
“All I have is a title.”
Maureen smiled with surprise. “That’s all?”
“Yeah.”
“And it’s due at the end of October, right?”
Dennis nodded, raising his eyebrows, giving her a what now glance.
“You’re a fast writer.”
“Not that fast.”
“Look what you did with Empty Spaces. Remember your anxiety before the benefit? Maybe nerves stimulate your writing.”
He couldn’t help but laugh.
“A lot of artists do their best work under immense pressure,” Maureen said.
“Paying a second mortgage on a Colorado chalet isn’t typical artist pressure.”
“I’m talking about Lucy. I can’t imagine how I’d go on if I lost my husband.”
“Denial’s a great thing. But it eventually catches up with you. Just like unpaid bills.”
“You’ve had a tough couple of years, Dennis. We can always postpone the new book—”
“No.”
“I’m just suggesting—”
“Maureen, things are—they’re really tight. I never expected to be in a bind like this. Lucy’s medical bills—I just wanted
her to get better, you know? I didn’t care about the costs. I hadn’t been concerned about money since
Breathe
took off. And right now—I
need
that advance check. And the only way to get it is to hand in a good manuscript.”
“I can ask James about getting the check to you early.”
“I already asked. They can pay me when the manuscript is in hand, but legally they’re not able to cut a check now. They’re
pretty strict on that, even with one of their top authors.”
“I can talk to him again—”
“I just—you heard James talking up the new book when we saw him. How Random is ramping up its efforts—how they can’t wait
to see the new book. All this pressure—I never thought it would affect me. I never thought I’d let it get to me.”
Maureen started to say something, then paused. “You still have time, Dennis. You can do it.”
But even as he nodded, there was only one thing on his mind. He thought about the upcoming anniversary of Lucy’s death, how
it approached on the horizon like a blazing fire in the night sky. He didn’t want to drive toward it, but he had to. There
was no other direction he could go.
The wine tasted refreshing. He took a large sip and thought of Cillian Reed.
If the kid decided to tell someone and found a way to prove it, this conversation would be meaningless. It wouldn’t matter
whether Dennis handed his next book in. He wouldn’t have that chance. All that would matter was what was left of his writing
legacy.
“Dennis?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Just tired.”
“I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but you look tired. I saw that in New York.”
“You know how you can fake it so well that you can almost convince yourself you’re okay? Sometimes I think—no, I guess I know—that’s
what I’ve been doing. But I’ve had to. For Audrey. For everyone.”
Maureen’s eyes brimmed with sadness and sincerity. “You’re allowed the chance to grieve too.”
“Yeah, I guess so.” He drained his glass as his eyes filled. He wasn’t sure if it was the wine or traces of tears. “I guess
I just don’t do that very well.”
“I don’t think anybody does. And everybody goes about it their own way.”
Dennis nodded. He glanced at Maureen, then at the paintings on the walls around them. He suddenly had déjà vu. He remembered
being here with James and Maureen, with just one big change: Lucy had been here with them.
“I’m just—I’m afraid, Maureen.”
She laughed. She always laughed when someone said that word around Dennis. “You’re never afraid.”
“I know. But I’m afraid now. I’m scared that I haven’t grieved yet, but that I’m about ready to start. And where will it take
me?”
A writer has to be fearless.
His wife’s words came to him on the ride home. Maureen was driving his SUV at his suggestion, the sleeping town of Geneva
passing them by. He couldn’t recall when Lucy had said it to him, but it had been just as his first horror novel was taking
off and he found himself writing another.
He had made an offhanded remark to Lucy, telling her she needed to write a book too. And she had responded that she could
never write.
—You need to be fearless to be a writer.
—No, you don’t. You just make things up. Tell a good story.
—That’s not all you do.
—Then what is it? It’s not like I’m in the Marines risking my life. Or trying to find a cure for cancer.
—You’re putting your heart and soul out there for others to see. For others to criticize and critique.
—Oh come on. Maybe with my first two novels. But we see how well those did.
—I’m not joking, Den. Breathe isn’t just a ghost story, and you and I both know it. You might be able to tell everybody it’s
just a spooky little story, but I know why you wrote it.
—You told me to write it.
—It’s about Abby, about losing her, about a family struggling with grief. But you did it in a remarkable way.
—I don’t know about that.
—Everything you write is a part of you. That’s what makes your writing special. But that’s what also makes it hard. I couldn’t
do it. I couldn’t go to those places.
—Please. I just have an overactive imagination.
—It’s more than that. You’re able to go to the dark places that we all have. Some people pretend they don’t exist. But you
dive into them and create a story out of them.
But as he and Maureen neared his house, Dennis realized it had been some time since he had done that.
The whole night suddenly split open with white specters.
What at first looked like garbage blowing from his driveway onto Route 31 turned into pages drifting across the road.
“What’s all over your lawn?” Maureen asked as she steered through the wall of shrubs and under tall trees toward the house.
They were everywhere. Hundreds, maybe thousands of sheets of paper.
Dennis couldn’t control the expletive that escaped his mouth.
“What is this?” Maureen asked.
Dennis stepped out of the Volvo as it stopped halfway down the driveway toward the garage. Headlights cut through the darkness,
illuminating the path under the trees along the lawn. The breeze blew a few sheets onto his windshield.
These weren’t pages from a printer. These were pages from books.
And they had text on them.
Along with something else.
Dennis knelt down and picked up a piece of paper. He recognized it instantly.
He tried another one that had dark smudges on its edges.
Another had something written over the text.
“Dennis?” Maureen called. “What are they?”
“Keep the lights on,” he said.
As he held up a page, he could make out the word that looked as though it had been finger-painted onto the paper. He quickly
scanned the area and could see other pages had similar markings.
“What is it?”
He crinkled up the page, not wanting Maureen to see it. But as she climbed out of the car and grabbed a sheet from the windshield,
she read for herself. “This is a page from one of your books.”
“Yeah. They all are.”
“What?”
She turned for a moment, then called out his name.
“Dennis—this has something written all over it. I think it says ‘liar.’ ”
He picked up a handful of pages and saw stains, like smudged fingerprints. Others had other things written on them—curses,
variations on thief and liar and hack.
“I’m calling the police,” Maureen said, taking out her cell phone.
Dennis held page 285 from Fearless, his sixth horror novel that came out a few years ago.
FRAUD
marked the top in a smear.
He heard Maureen talking in the background. Dennis stepped into the SUV’s headlights, seeing the driveway covered in pages,
then seeing them stuck in the bushes around his house, in the large pine tree, in the maple tree, all over his lawn and even
all over the front porch.
Thousands of pages.
Many looked ripped, as though they had been individually torn out of the books. Some were larger from his hardcovers, others
looked like they were paperback size.
Dennis saw a cover from his book Sorrow ripped in half.
He saw the shell of a paperback.
Stepping onto the porch, he saw a hardcover edition of Echoes that looked like it had been mauled by a lawn mower. He picked
it up—half of the book was missing, and the other half was shredded.
Half of his own face stared up at him from the mulch, the author shot used for one of his first few books.
“Someone’s coming out,” Maureen said. “I told them your place had been vandalized. I don’t think you should even go inside
until they come.”
He stared at the scene in disbelief, his head still groggy from the wine.
“Who would do something like this?” his agent asked. “It’s not funny. Not in the least. Look at this. I can’t even repeat
what it says.”
Dennis was going to say something about one of his fans pulling a prank on him, or something to that effect, but he couldn’t.
He was speechless.
And it wasn’t just because he knew who had done this and now realized the extent of what he was dealing with.
A cold, white fear smothered him.
All these pages had been written on with someone’s blood.
You can still get out of here if you want.
Streams of rain ran down the car windows. Cillian sat in the back of the car, tinted windows surrounding him, the outside
dark except for passing cars and a few street lights. The big guy had told him to wait. To wait until they got in the car.
He’d just watch tonight. Bob would show him how it’s done.
Cillian’s mouth felt dry. He could feel his heart pulsing. He breathed in and out steadily until it slowed down. He probably
shouldn’t be so excited and nervous and horrified. He was all of those, and he wanted to be all of those.
In a few moments, he would know what it was like. Not just to see someone dead, but to watch him die.
There is no turning back.
He knew that and didn’t care.
He breathed in and out, slowly, deliberately.
Cillian didn’t care. The hacks and the frauds and the phonies of the world, they could care. They could have their nice little
sheltered lives, but he wanted to make it real, to make it deep. He wanted to know what it was like. That way, when he wrote,
he could smell the terror, he could taste the dread.
And when I finally show Dennis my next novel, he’ll be impressed. He’ll finally be impressed and give me what I deserve.
Time.
It had been too long. He wondered if the big guy was having trouble luring someone to the car. If Cillian didn’t know him,
he wouldn’t accompany the big guy to his car.
Then again, Cillian went to the farm with him.
Then again, Cillian hung out with him on a regular basis.
He didn’t know how he was going to do it or when. All he knew was that tonight he would watch.
A set of voices caught his attention. They were close.
It was another man.
There was laughter, then the doors opened.
A man smelling like smoke and whiskey climbed into the front seat, then cursed when he saw Cillian sitting behind him.
“You’ve got a friend here, Bob,” the stranger said with a laugh.
The guy introduced himself with a hard handshake. The stranger looked rough and young, probably midtwenties.
Bob climbed in and started the car.
“Told him about the party,” Bob said to Cillian. “Gonna be a good time.”
Cillian remained silent as the car began to move. The town passed by and soon faded away. He felt nauseous and unable to move
or speak or breathe.
Bob tossed him a pint of alcohol. “Drink up. You’ll need it.”