Unpublished Violence
By: B. James Hancock
Tags: Horror, Bjameshancock, Short Story, Novel

Photo by Camille Orgel on Unsplash

As John sat in the study of his New England townhouse in the middle of a cold November, he was blissfully unaware that the killer was already in his home.

John’s fingers tapped furiously away and the emerald keys as he glanced down at the final pages on his note pad that he had handwritten the day before during lunch. A smile slowly crept its way across his face as the clacking sound of the heavy grey Smith-Corona typewriter filled the small halls of the empty house, stopping only ever so briefly when he pulled the return lever on the machine.

After so many years of trying to commit time to this book, he was finally within a stones throw of completing it. Forty years. John tried in vain for forty years to commit time and effort to his passion project, only for life to get in the way as it so often does.

He had the idea as a teenager, waking from a dream with the urge to put pen to paper. The fire built inside, and the story grew, however parties on the weekend, schoolwork, dating, marriage and children… forty years the idea burned like a fire inside him and he was finally letting it burn on the page.

John told himself every other month that he was going to allow himself time to write, time to get the whole thing in order and publish it.

But since the original dream that had started seeded the idea, his passion for the idea had slowly faded, the fire was dying out and looked like it might be snuffed out completely, just another idea that could have been great that went to the grave with the author.

But a few years ago, after a chance meeting with his favorite author in a coffee shop on a business trip, he was now filled with the motivation to complete the book he had started so many years ago.

The author, Thomas Harrison, one of the great authors of the generation, told him that his idea and first few pages were perfect, some of the best he had ever seen. Thomas told him that he had a gift and that he needed to keep up with it and he was sure the book would be on the best sellers list.

John retired soon after and the words of hope and wisdom from one of his favorite authors willed him into outlining the book start to finish several times, and then writing and rewriting the first few chapters again and again until they were perfect. He dedicated his time to finish the book he had started all those many years ago, and tonight was the night he finished the book, tonight he wrote the ending.

The ending was perfect, it tied everything up in the story. It was eloquent, thoughtful and poetic without slamming you over the face with it. Something that felt like it was crafted over forty years.

As John rolled the final page into the typewriter and started writing the final two paragraphs of his novel, while presently the killer opened his study door and slipped in without being seen or heard.

The killer had entered this room ten times previously, he was good at hiding in plain sight, he knew that John was far too engrossed in his story to notice him. John was more focused on the nearly five hundred pages and forty years of hard work which was in front of him. World War II could have broken out behind his back and John would never have looked up from his desk, this is how dedicated he was to the final few pages of his novel.

The book, that he had been writing for the better part of his entire adult life, dealt with the loss of family, life, love. It was romantic and comedic rolled into one and with every passing keystroke on the typewriter, John knew that this was not only something that he had to do for himself. It was now something that he had to share with the world. The cliché Great American novel, HIS great American novel, the perfect book was now completed.

And now.

On the last line, John suddenly stopped and sat and stared at the typewriter in silence for a minute.

The killer slowed his breathing then slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out a large, sharp kitchen knife and held it with both hands as high as he could.

John typed with one finger and a smile:

“THE EN”

And was dead before the final key was struck.

***

Eight Weeks Later

Thomas Harrison, the popular fiction author sat down to coffee in a small coffee shop on a busy street in Seattle that was not too far from his smal red brick home.

He waited patiently at a small table in the middle of the café knowing that his Noon lunch meeting with his publisher, Robert Gold, was going to be closer to 12:30. It had drizzled slightly, not even properly rained, a little earlier in the day, which meant that Robert, the careful soul he was, would be walking from the office and not driving.

While Thomas waited for Robert, he sat and checked his phone and opened up Twitter to tweet a random thought he had scribbled down weeks earlier that he had saved in his phone’s notes.

A polite tap on the shoulder stopped him from clicking send.

“Hi, excuse me. Are you Thomas Harrison?”

Thomas nodded, “I am” He looked up from his phone to see a beautiful young blonde woman in her late twenties, dressed in jeans and a blue and white polka dot dress, a quirky casual attire he had not seen the combination of in some time.

“My name is Haley, Haley Robertson. I just wanted to come over and tell you that I love all your books, all of them I’ve read everything you’ve written like ten or twelve times. I think you’re just. Well. I think you’re just swell”

“Thank you” he smiled, “That’s very kind of you to say”

Thomas took inventory of Haley and saw the familiar sight that he loved to see, the disorganized pile of notebooks and a MacBook under her arm, something that he in the past used to carry around to quiet coffee shop, and what so many other inspiring authors seem to carry into coffee shops in the Pacific North West.

“I can tell just from the look of you that you too might want to become the next great American storyteller”

She blushed, “How did you know”

“After years of telling stories and people watching, I can tell just by the look someone just what their motivations are” he paused for a moment then smiled a charming toothy smile, “By those stacks of papers there under your arm I can tell that you are a young up incoming author, who has found all the time in the world to draft a fairly good outline and has a few great chapters written. But you can’t pull the trigger and get the rest of the damn book written. Right?”

She slowly nodded, “You described me perfectly. To a T”

“Don’t worry, that’s a lot of people. Myself included. I spent years writing my first book, Young and Free”

Haley seemed confused, “Sorry, I haven’t read that one”

“No one has” he chuckled, “and there’s a reason for it. Because the second book I wrote was better. I made a lot of mistakes writing that first book. I couldn’t write to save my life”

“What changed? I mean you’ve written like five best sellers in the last ten years”

“I stopped doing things that didn’t work, things that I was bad at, things that I couldn’t do. Then I focused on things I could do and before I knew it I was published and had my face on the back of a dust jacket”

Thomas could see she was fighting the urge to ask if he would look at some of her writing, her hands were fighting back and forth from the papers. Thomas pointed to the papers under her arm and asked “If you’d like, could I take a look at a few of the things you have written down? I’d love to give you a few tips. If you want me to that is?”

Without another word she had handed over the papers and Thomas was reading an outline and a few pages of a first chapter that he thought was one of the best things that he had ever read.

After about twenty minutes of him reading in silence he spoke, “This is amazing. I’d have to say probably some of the best work I’ve seen from someone who isn’t published. Have you been published? These first few pages are, nearly flawless”

She blushed, “Thank you so much that means so much. No, not published. I haven’t shown anyone my stories, not since I was in seventh grade”

“The first few pages are great; your outline, however, is a little all over the place I’d redraft it a few more times, refine it a bit. The second chapter as well is a little rough but shows a lot of promise and if you worked on it… Well I do not doubt that it could be a number one bestseller, just from what I’ve read”

Thomas handed the papers back and said, “The key to writing a book is getting everyone’s opinion at every chance you get. Every other paragraph shows it to someone get their input. But” he lent in, “This is a best-seller, and the best way to write a best seller is to keep it to yourself. This idea is a boat, the more people you show it to the more holes the hull gets. When I turn a manuscript in that I know is going to be a best seller, only me and the ghosts in the room know what I’ve written. To keep it a best seller, I’ll happily forget everything I’ve read here today, and I’d love to read this in full when you finish”

Thomas Handed Haley her papers back and she scurried away enthusiastically to the front of the coffee shop where she spread out across one of the booths and immediately started working on the book. The best seller she was now sure she had in her.

Presently Robert Gold arrived in the café and made his presence known by carelessly running into several patrons of the coffee shop before sitting down to talk with Thomas.

“Sorry I’m late, I’m not risking my life on those roads today”

“That’s OK, I had a feeling that might be the case”

“Thomas, before we even start lunch and small chat of how my kids are doing and how your husband and cats are. I can’t do that before I tell you. This book is just…” he paused a moment to collect his thoughts and touched the manuscript he had brought with him lightly with the tips of his right hand “Well I’m not sure I even have the words to accurately describe just how amazing this book is”

Thomas smiled, “Yes well, I’ve been working on this one for quite a while. There were times that I almost thought it would never be done. But I got on a roll last month and the story just flowed out like the Mississippi into the Gulf”

“It’s just amazing, not to say your other books weren’t. But this book is a cut above the rest of them. It’s got everything the story is solid, characters developed so well through the chapters, I sent it to the editor, and they said that aside from one or two commas the book is fit to print. It’s like it’s been written a thousand times”

“It nearly was” he joked

“Thomas, without a doubt I can see this sitting at number one for. God a year, possibly more. I think everyone is going to want to read this, its going to be a phenomenon.”

“Do you think so?”

“The book you released a few summers back, Dreading Winters Cold Touch. Moved a million units in a little over a year” Thomas nodded, “I can see this moving a million units in a month. I’ve already told the advertising department that this book is going to be the major release for the year”

Thomas sat back in his seat, he wasn’t sure if all the years of listening to Robert had finally gone to his head, “Are you saying this is a hit”

“I’m saying if Mark Twain came back from the dead tomorrow with a new book then his would be a distant second to your book” Thomas smiled and closed his eyes “you have to tell me how you come up with these ideas. Hit after hit I mean how do you do it?”

“You see I would tell you. But then I’d have to kill you” he laughed as he sipped his cup of coffee.

Robert laughed along with him, he thought he was joking of course. But Thomas was as serious as he had ever been.

“So, Thomas. Tell me. Have you got anything else in the pipeline that I can tell the partners?” Robert asked

“I’ve always got something cooking” Thomas turned his head and looked over at Haley, who was now eagerly typing at her laptop with a big beaming smile, looking like she had a new lease on life, “In fact, I think I have something in mind for next year. It’s a little rough right now but shows promise. I do not doubt that with a little work it could also be a number one bestseller”

“Don’t keep me in suspense I’d love to see some pages”

“You know me, I won’t send anything until it’s done. But trust me, Robert, I think people are just going to die to get their hands on it”

THE END