Breaking into Goodman’s home was easy, no security, nothing but a tiny dog. His family was gone, luckily; on some sort of vacation, and he was alone watching television. My hand is still sore from the punch I delivered to Goodman. I have to hand it to the man, he has a hell of a jaw. A single punch was not enough however, so I was forced to smash his head with a nearby lamp which did the trick. When we arrived back at my home, I was surely convinced I had killed him. His pulse was weak and his breathing was awkward. He's been asleep for hours now and I hope he’ll be ready for the show. 

“Where am I? SHAW! Shaw, you crazy bastard!” he says, jerking his head to get the cloth off his eyes, feeling the restraints around his hands and legs. The chair he attempts to rock back and forth on is bolted to the ground and doesn’t budge to the violent jolting. Even his most aggressive attempts to move are only met with pain as the chains around him begin to cut his swollen skin. His body begins to fatigue, running off of precious adrenaline that burns through his already low energy. He feels his lungs rasp as he screams and warm blood starts to collect around his binds.

“SHAW!” he yells as he recoils to a foul odor, smelling something rotting. Goodman represses the urge to vomit, feeling it climb to his throat as he battles to keep it down. The sound of footsteps echoes through the room, boots stepping on hardwood flooring that creaks and aches with each step. Goodman struggles harder, feeling the chains digging into his flesh as he whimpers, panicking to break free of the restraints. The footsteps grow louder, approaching Goodman as he can hear what sounds like a wheeler. He pulls hard with his right arm, using his full strength to break free, not able to see his wrists turning blue as a pool of blood collects beneath his seat. The chains budge but don’t give, tightened so strongly that even a bodybuilder would struggle to remove the binds. 

“Adrian, you know, we could have been partners. You could have helped bring the best horror novel to shock readers for generations! A modern Frankenstein or Dracula. A horror icon that could compete with Hollywood greats. You do know that right? I mean, did you even read it!?” John says, his voice breaking as he struggles to hold his anger. He grabs Goodman’s face hard, John’s thumb digging into his skin. 

“I told you. I read your little story, predictable at best. What do you expect when your story looks like you ripped half of any Jason and Myers movie and replaced the slasher with just someone like yourself. Every death, every move; predictable. Working for a publishing company, can you possibly comprehend how many works I get and how many more are better than yours?!” Adrian yells, his anger and malice like venom running through his voice with every word. 

For moments, silence fills the air. Shaw, frozen still, has yet to move as Adrian eagerly waits, listening for some sort of reaction. 

The sounds of soft crying break the nothingness. Gradually the crying turns to a wail then into a deep sobbing. It sounds not only genuine but frightening, comparable to hearing a parent lose a child. The sobbing continues as John’s breathing turns to gasps, desperately reaching for air between bursts of tears. 

Adrian begins to panic at the crying which grows more and more intense, rocking his chair and dislocating his shoulder as he jerks hard. His body pushes and pulls the whining metal chains as John continues. The more Adrian fights, the more John wails, coughing up a lung and then continuing his horrible cry as Adrian pushes too hard, feeling a shot of pain run through his arm and fearing its condition. Adrian screams, which quiets John as Adrian breathes heavily, fighting the pain.  John smiles, going from a sob to a hysterical laugh in an instant as he grabs his pocket knife and stabs Adrian in the shoulder. 

The pain shocks Adrian as he recoils back screaming, “HELP! HELP!”

Adrian cries as his yelling echoes throughout the room.  Adrian feels the knife exit his body, feeling the gush of blood from the opening drip down his already battered arm as his captor’s hand grips his face and strips the blindfold from his eyes. 

Adrian’s eyes adjust to the light. The room is worse than he imagined, a bedroom with green rotting wood and water damage seeping from the walls. The paint on the walls is chipping and drooping as piles of trash litter the floor. A single Macintosh computer sits in the corner of the room. The only noticeable feature of the room is a single drawing that sits on the far wall, a poorly done drawing of a window that leads to a garden. The bed beside the computer is crawling with roaches that scurry across the filthy tan sheets that were once white. Mold seems to have worked its way across the entire bedroom and parts of the walls are bare with holes revealing the dying wood underneath. In front of Adrian is what resembles a poorly done carnival booth, one that would be used for puppet shows, only this one looks to have been taped together and horribly refurbished. Lights flicker from the string bulbs that struggle to hold power. 

“What is this?” Adrian asks as John goes behind the booth, clattering with things behind the curtain. 

“If you’re not going to read my book, and enjoy it for the masterpiece that it is, I’ll go ahead and show you. Show you its potential, Adrian.”

“This is what you brought me here for!? You brought me here to show me your shit!” Adrian yells as his ears are deafened by an explosion of smoke, a ringing that has an overwhelming smell of gunpowder. John’s mouth moves as Adrian guesses the words over the ringing as he looks down to notice a chunk of his lower leg missing with his blood dripping off the booth. 

John pulls the rusted shotgun from behind the booth and reloads it, placing two dirty shells in the weapon and snapping it back into form. The ringing dissipates as John’s voice breaks through the ringing. 

“So, next time you interrupt Adrian, I’ll aim higher,” John says as Adrian notices the barrel staged and prepped behind the curtain. 

Shock flows through Adrian’s body, keeping him frozen. Adrian’s eyes fixate on the bleeding as he keeps to the thoughts in his mind, unable to process the injury. Shaw begins his show, using puppets to reenact a segment of the novel that was submitted to Adrian. For twenty minutes the act runs on before reaching a point where Shaw notices Adrian’s condition. His blood is pumping slower, and his eyes watch the lights above lifelessly, his body numb to the pain. 

“Let me die,” Adrian says, his breathing raspy.

John grabs his chair and places it in front of Adrian, shotgun in hand as he watches the poor dying man in front of him. 

“That’s the plan. You know, it’s funny. While we were here and I was performing, I thought of something. You said my book wasn’t good, and as much as I disagree, I always acknowledge there is room for improvement. I’m sure you agree. The reason I brought you here is that I needed to see it. I need the real thing, I need to see the real thing, Adrian.” he says as tears fall from his eyes with a grin, dried blood splatter on his face. 

“What thing?” 

“I need to see what it’s really like to kill a man. I get what you meant, it wasn’t real enough. I needed to know the real thing and now, I can complete my work. You’re going to be my final project Adrian, my perfect chapter.” 

Adrian sinks in his chair, growing weaker as blood slowly exits his body and pools on the floor, dripping through the floorboards.

Adrian raises his head, using the full strength of his body to muster a single sentence: “Go to hell.”

John smiles and raises the weapon to Adrian’s chest. 

Three months later.

“Ms. Crawford?”

“Yes?” 

“Ma’am, I need to speak with you.”

Dawn Crawford motions for her assistant to enter her room and take a seat, Crawford’s eyes never leave her screen. 

“How can I help you, Diana?” Dawn asks.

“Well, um, I don’t know how to put this. Do you remember Adrian Goodman?” 

Dawn is suddenly taken aback by the question, the previous director has been missing for three months and has become something of a ghost tale spoken of amongst lower-level employees as they gossip on the man’s whereabouts. 

“The previous director, yes, he and I were friends.” 

The assistant gags, jolting up with tears swelling up in her eyes as she looks away reaching for a trash can and vomiting into it. 

“Jesus, Diana, are you okay!?” Dawn asks as she rises to her feet. 

With a single motion, the assistant hands Dawn a book. The book is thick and titleless with smelly pages wrapped by a black leather cover. Pinned to the front of the book is a red velvet bag with something small inside.

Dawn puts on her reading glasses and skims through the pages, recoiling from the paragraphs she skims through.  

Dawn snaps Diana a look as her assistant cries and reaches for the book, turning to the final chapter of the story, motioning for Dawn to read. 

The director looks down at the book, reading the contents and feeling her stomach turn. Her brain struggles to comprehend what she reads as the conclusion describes the death of her friend. She closes it quickly, taking a breath and trying to keep her composure as her eyes fix on the bag. Attached to the bag is a small note.

Dawn pulls it towards her and reads.

Am I still a bad writer?

She flicks the note on the table and opens the bag, dropping the contents of it on her desk as she gasps, reaching for the phone to contact the authorities. 

The assistant looks up, curious as to what the bag contained. Teeth and buckshot scattered across the desk, Diana returns to vomiting.