“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.
2006
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.”
The Tastes and Smells of Death
1.
It was midmorning by the time he cleaned up his lawn (as well as surrounding lawns) from the littering of book pages. The thing that surprised Dennis—surprise being a mild way of describing what he really felt—was the variety of book pages he kept finding. It wasn’t just that there were so many, and there were thousands, but they came from all of his books. Not just hardcover and paperback, but he found Italian and German editions as well as a couple languages he didn’t even recognize. And after double-checking his closet and other storage areas, Dennis knew the books hadn’t come from his stash.
In fact it didn’t look like anybody had been inside his house.
That didn’t prevent the police from sticking around for at least an hour, asking questions, checking in and around the house, making sure everything was secure. Ryan had been there with them, acting more official than usual, an earnest look on his face. The deputy told Dennis he would drive by the house a few times that night just to be on the safe side.
When Maureen left, Dennis gave her a hug and apologized for the drama.
“Whoever did this certainly put a lot of time and effort into it,” Maureen said. “Be careful, okay?”
He nodded and played it off, but he knew he needed to be careful.
The question now was whether to file an official complaint against Cillian. And what he would actually say. The guy whose novel I stole is harassing me.
Joseph Heller coined a term with his novel that summed up this situation: Catch-22.
As Dennis sat watching television that night, he couldn’t help thinking this was what he deserved. And it’s just the start, a voice kept telling him. It’s only going to get worse.
Of course he assumed the pages scattered everywhere had been the work of Cillian Reed. But he had checked his answering machine, his cell phone, and his e-mail and had found no messages. No notes saying, “This is just a taste of things to come.” Nothing to take credit for the mess.
It might have been a prank, but it was a vicious prank. Whoever had done it had taken the time to rip out individual pages of many of his books. It had taken time, and ripping a book—there was something not right about that. Not just one of his own books, but any book. A book always held value to someone. Whoever had planned and executed this stunt had something extremely personal against him.
Now, the morning after, finished with cleaning up this literary mess, Dennis decided to ask the neighbors if they’d seen anything.
The Thompsons were an affable family of five who had been living in the one-bedroom ranch south of Dennis’s house for years. Dennis wished he shared a driveway with them instead of with the eccentric, elderly couple on
the north side. Their property was worth a fortune, but they were unwilling to let someone buy it and tear down their house to build a gargantuan one. They often had family visiting and often traveled out of town. Dennis frequently saw the parents walking, but didn’t know them besides the customary hellos. He went over to talk with them and spoke briefly with Ronald, who amicably told him he hadn’t seen anything but thanked him for picking up the garbage so quickly.
Dennis debated going to the other neighbors, the messy, older couple on his north side, but decided to go anyway. It gave him a chance to be cordial and neighborly and to see if they had any idea who did this.
He stepped across the uncut lawn full of dry, dead patches. A big, rotting tire sat in the middle of the lawn, weeds growing over it. Leaves probably two or three years old lay in clumps everywhere. Several misshaped bushes stuck out near the entrance, blocking the modest door. He and Lucy had always wondered what the inside of the house looked like. Dennis stepped onto the cement entryway and rang the doorbell.
He waited for a couple minutes, then rang the doorbell again. He had seen their car parked in the driveway; it was never parked in the garage. Who knew what sorts of things were stored in that garage? He continued to wait, then knocked.
Finally he heard the door unlocking. It sounded like ten locks were unlocked and unbolted and slid open before the door cracked. At first he didn’t see anybody, then he looked down to see the frizzy hair of the short, elderly woman.
He didn’t know their names, so he couldn’t even address her properly. “Hi there. How are you doing today?” Dennis said in an oddly formal fashion.
A stench leaked out of the slit in the doorway—a vile smell, like onions and garlic basting a dead animal. Dennis couldn’t help scratching his nose.
The woman with big, buggy eyes just stared at him.
“I’m Dennis, your neighbor,” he told her, feeling like an idiot. Of course she knew this, right? But the look in her eyes was blank, almost dead.
“I just wondered if you or your husband saw anything strange last night—anybody in your yard or in mine? Someone scattered a bunch of papers all over. I picked them all up but wondered if you saw anything.”
“No.”
Her answer came without a second to even think.
“Are you sure? Maybe you could ask your husband.”
“He didn’t see anything.” Half of her face was still hidden behind the narrow opening in the door.
“Well, if you do think of anything, can you let me know? I’d appreciate it.”
The door shut abruptly, and Dennis was left standing there, looking at the entryway in confusion.
Maybe they were the ones who did it, he thought. He imagined the older couple collecting hundreds of copies of his books amidst the other garbage in their house. He thought of the smell and couldn’t believe it. It was putrid.
Dennis walked back toward his house. As he did, he nearly stepped in a large heap of feces. Something about it caught his attention. It wasn’t the fact that the pile grossed him out. But this looked like it came from something huge—not a cat or a dog but a horse, or something bigger.
And it looked fresh.
He shook his head, wondering what the new day would bring.
Perhaps he would take Audrey’s advice and get away. From the empty house and the strange neighbors and the crazed fan (if he could actually be called a fan) and the writer’s block.
Maybe he’d do just that—get away.
But could he really get away from all this?
And if he did, what would he come back home to?
2.
I dreamed about Mom last night.
The first line in the e-mail from Audrey took his breath away. Dennis continued to read.
You know how I always say, “I wonder what Mom would say about that”? How I always wonder what she’s thinking, what she might be wanting to tell me, to tell us?
Last night I dreamed I was in a flower garden, except instead of flowers all around me, they were cards. A thousand greeting cards, each filled with a message from Mom. They were hanging off the trees and in the bushes and everywhere. And each card said something important, the right words for the right occasion. I read a bunch of them, and I don’t remember anything specific except this:
Mom loves us. And she wants me to look out for you.
I know it was just a dream, but still—it was kinda cool to think there were all these thoughts and feelings, and they were all written down in a special place to access whenever I needed to.
Wouldn’t that be cool?
Just wanted to share that with you. Hope you’re doing well.
Talk soon.
Love ya.
Audrey
Dennis reread the e-mail, then read it again.
The cards hanging on the trees and in the bushes—that was a lot like his missing-pages episode last night, an episode he wasn’t about to mention to his daughter. Not now, with her a thousand miles away.
It’s just a coincidence, that’s all.
But this was more than a coincidence, and he knew it.
Dennis shot Audrey a quick e-mail and forced himself not to think any more about it.
It was just a dream. Just imagined. Just like he imagined the girl jumping off the bridge. It was just grief and fatigue and change affecting Audrey, just like it was affecting him.
Nothing more than that.
After sending the e-mail, he looked outside. It was afternoon and one of those nagging, misty rains had been going on and off since morning. He wanted to take an afternoon walk to get away from his computer, but he couldn’t. He was stuck here.
Stuck is an apt word.
He was about to get up when an e-mail arrived. He couldn’t believe Audrey was getting back to him so quickly.
It was from [email protected].
Dear Mister Laughing-Himself-All-the-Way-to-the-Bank Writer:
I thought you needed some inspiration. In fact, I thought you needed some words. Writers need words, right? So I provided you with them. Hundreds of thousands of them. And those are your own words, not someone else’s. They’re yours. You can plagiarize all you want. Why steal from me when you can keep stealing from yourself? Your brain-dead readers won’t even notice you’re borrowing from your previous works. Writers do that all the time anyway. I mean— come on—when was the last time you read something original from any of those other laughing-it-all-the-way-to-the-bank writers?
I never told you this, but your last novel—the last one you actually wrote—entitled The Thin Ice was thin indeed. Thin plot, emaciated characters, and the only original thing was original when you did it first in Breathe.
Oh the mighty have fallen and the proud have been humbled and it will take a miracle to work your way back, Dennis Shore.
Do I have your attention?
Do I finally have your undivided attention?
CR
Dennis didn’t think, didn’t reread the e-mail, just ran his fingers over the keyboard.
You want words, I’ll give you words.
He filled the screen with profanities and insults and threats. Finally he read the e-mail, knowing it would look pretty incriminating if it ever got out.
He deleted it and thought for a moment.
Cillian—
We need to sit down.
I’m willing to listen if you are.
Dennis
The instant-messaging box popped up in the corner of his computer. The reply came quickly. Almost too quickly for the number of words it contained.
Dear Random House Sweetheart:
Yes, we need to sit down, but you’ve done far too much sitting on that tail of yours and not enough living to know what real life is about. WHAT do you know about terror, Dennis? What do you know about horror? So many could really write about it. So many could actually describe the tastes and the smells of death, could actually detail what it’s like to kill, to hurt, to destroy, to haunt. You—what do you know? Wh
at could you possibly know in that seemingly perfect little existence of yours, typing away for years, the inspiration and the passion slowly fading like the dew on the grass. Yes, we need to sit but when I say so.
I’ve listened for far too long and waited for even longer and now is my time and now YOU will listen and you will wait and you will sit and you will finally and forever KNOW.
There are things I want to show you, Dennis.
All I used to want—all I ever wanted from you was your time. Your input.
Now those are meaningless.
Something else burns inside. My ambitions and goals are far higher now.
CR
It was almost as though the instant message had already been written.
Dennis quickly replied, irritated and annoyed that he was being toyed with and jerked around.
You need serious help, buddy. I couldn’t care less what “burns” inside of you. How about delusions of grandeur? And trust me—you need to leave me alone. Or this game you’re playing is going to turn really dark. And really serious.
A minute later Cillian replied.
You don’t frighten me, Dennis. But for the first time in your career, and maybe your life, you’ll be scared. You’ll be very scared, Dennis. You’ll experience a fear that is missing from your books, no matter how terrifying a story you’ve ever concocted.
Nothing you’ve ever done or felt will touch the depths of fear and despair you’re about to go through.
Nothing.
Part Two
The Lunatic Is in the Hall
Scarecrow
1.
He was close enough to smell her. Lucy always smelled good. Most of the time she claimed it was nothing, just some lotion she had put on, the shampoo she had used. But even while the scents were different, they were really the same. They were Lucy. Intoxicating, light, alive.
The last word lingered in his mind, even as he looked across the table at her.
He knew where he was. The coffee shop on Third Street. She got her usual. He tried something different every time. They sat by a fireplace, amidst a crowd of people and loud music.
Ghostwriter Page 10
