myself professionally to notice how our marriage changed. When Barbara started going out more with her friends from work, it wasn’t even on my radar screen but I sure as fuck noticed the first time she stayed out all night. I accepted her explanation—not really even an apology—that she had stayed at her friends after drinking too much. I pouted for a few days but then shrugged it off and I got back to work.
His named turned out to be Chad, a perfect name for a materialistic shithead, who I later found out, had been banging my wife for the better part of that year. She cried a little, blamed me a lot. Apparently all I cared about was my work…I guess I was supposed to care more about money and clothes like her Porsche-driving asshole. Without ever saying she was sorry, she promised to be true. Yeah—right. Six months later I signed the divorce papers which arrived by certified mail while she and Chad laughed and fucked at his big house on Harbour Island in Tampa.
Holy shit I was bitter. I think I knew then and definitely know now, I wasn’t really in love with her but nobody likes to look like an idiot. What really burned my ass was the smug look on Chad’s face when she came in a rented truck to get her stuff. Her stuff included most of the furniture from our house. I really hated him, with a passionate hate those of you who have been there know and those of you who haven’t, can’t really imagine. Writing the kind of stuff I do, I let my imagination run wild, drank heavily at home and pictured a lot of horrible deaths for that guy. All were graphic and painful. Then I wrote the story that started it all.
Or something wrote it.
Not having worked in any real way, in almost a month, I wanted to knock out a quick story centered on a terrible death for my friend Chad, so I would feel better. Maybe at the same time get my creative juices flowing again. Sitting at my computer at about 1:30 in the morning, a cool buzz from too much Sapphire gin, I just let it pour out of me. My stories write themselves, but not like this . This was different. Hard to describe but it’s almost as if the story controlled me. It most definitely possessed me.
I wrote like a mad man and finished exhausted. Not tired like you would expect because it was four o’clock in the morning and I had sucked down more than a third of a bottle of gin. Exhausted , like a marathon runner feels after the high is gone and he is left with just a body-wide achy pain.
I collapsed in my bed, almost unable to move. My dry throat burned and I panted uncontrollably. The strangest part is I couldn’t remember what I had just written—not a word. I knew Chad had died in the story (that was not the name I had used but it was most definitely him in every way) but I couldn’t remember a thing about how my story had done him in. Frustrated, but more than that—scared—for reasons I couldn’t get a grip on, I had no memory of any of it. I briefly entertained that in my drunken stupor nothing had been written. I was sober enough to know that wasn’t true. I had the sense I was more like a tool for some other force or power. It sounds crazy but that was how I felt.
I’d passed out rather than slept and…dreamed—horrible things. No real plot, just fragmented terrible images of Chad’s screams as something—some unseen creature—literally tore him apart in the dark corner of my mind. I suspect that many people assume horror writers like me have nightmares all the time. Not me, not once that I remember. My stories are just that—just stories. They don’t get inside me and they sure as hell don’t haunt me.
That night, Chad’s screams woke me up and those screams definitely haunted me the next morning. Chilling, visceral screams of terror and horrible pain. Waking in my bed the screams were still there, off in the distance, fading slowly but real. I swear to God. And there was something else—a presence in my room. I know how that sounds too,
His named turned out to be Chad, a perfect name for a materialistic shithead, who I later found out, had been banging my wife for the better part of that year. She cried a little, blamed me a lot. Apparently all I cared about was my work…I guess I was supposed to care more about money and clothes like her Porsche-driving asshole. Without ever saying she was sorry, she promised to be true. Yeah—right. Six months later I signed the divorce papers which arrived by certified mail while she and Chad laughed and fucked at his big house on Harbour Island in Tampa.
Holy shit I was bitter. I think I knew then and definitely know now, I wasn’t really in love with her but nobody likes to look like an idiot. What really burned my ass was the smug look on Chad’s face when she came in a rented truck to get her stuff. Her stuff included most of the furniture from our house. I really hated him, with a passionate hate those of you who have been there know and those of you who haven’t, can’t really imagine. Writing the kind of stuff I do, I let my imagination run wild, drank heavily at home and pictured a lot of horrible deaths for that guy. All were graphic and painful. Then I wrote the story that started it all.
Or something wrote it.
Not having worked in any real way, in almost a month, I wanted to knock out a quick story centered on a terrible death for my friend Chad, so I would feel better. Maybe at the same time get my creative juices flowing again. Sitting at my computer at about 1:30 in the morning, a cool buzz from too much Sapphire gin, I just let it pour out of me. My stories write themselves, but not like this . This was different. Hard to describe but it’s almost as if the story controlled me. It most definitely possessed me.
I wrote like a mad man and finished exhausted. Not tired like you would expect because it was four o’clock in the morning and I had sucked down more than a third of a bottle of gin. Exhausted , like a marathon runner feels after the high is gone and he is left with just a body-wide achy pain.
I collapsed in my bed, almost unable to move. My dry throat burned and I panted uncontrollably. The strangest part is I couldn’t remember what I had just written—not a word. I knew Chad had died in the story (that was not the name I had used but it was most definitely him in every way) but I couldn’t remember a thing about how my story had done him in. Frustrated, but more than that—scared—for reasons I couldn’t get a grip on, I had no memory of any of it. I briefly entertained that in my drunken stupor nothing had been written. I was sober enough to know that wasn’t true. I had the sense I was more like a tool for some other force or power. It sounds crazy but that was how I felt.
I’d passed out rather than slept and…dreamed—horrible things. No real plot, just fragmented terrible images of Chad’s screams as something—some unseen creature—literally tore him apart in the dark corner of my mind. I suspect that many people assume horror writers like me have nightmares all the time. Not me, not once that I remember. My stories are just that—just stories. They don’t get inside me and they sure as hell don’t haunt me.
That night, Chad’s screams woke me up and those screams definitely haunted me the next morning. Chilling, visceral screams of terror and horrible pain. Waking in my bed the screams were still there, off in the distance, fading slowly but real. I swear to God. And there was something else—a presence in my room. I know how that sounds too,
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