After that McQueen's cruel words-and there were a lot of them-were nothing more than white noise. The logical part of Duncan's mind knew that McQueen could be wrong. After all, others had said he had talent. But McQueen was the only professional writer he knew. Yes, he was an insufferable little prick with a Napoleon complex so grand that it had driven away everyone save the two cats who shared his lonely Maine mansion. But if he said someone had no talent, well, maybe they didn't.
When McQueen eventually grew tired of the nasal drone of his own voice, he ushered a shell-shocked Duncan Allen to the front door. So dazed was Duncan that he had forgotten even to blink. His eyes were wide and dry as McQueen coaxed him out onto the broad front porch.
"If writing's what you want to do with your life, you've got to start taking it more seriously," McQueen instructed. With a superior smirk he slammed the door on the mute and defeated young writer.
Alone in his foyer, Stewart McQueen quickly snapped out the light and drew back the curtains an inch. He put a delighted eye up to the grimy windowpane.
He had shut off the porch light. In the long shadows of late afternoon, Duncan Allen just stood there for an agonizingly long time. Shoulders hunched, back to the door. Eventually, he found his feet, trudging down the creaky front steps. The winding walk led him to the high wrought-iron gate. The last McQueen saw of him, the young man was walking like a zombie down the dusty sidewalk.
As he watched the hunching figure he had done his best to destroy disappear from sight, Stewart McQueen laughed out loud. He was still laughing when he dropped the curtain.
This was one of the few joys in his miserable life: finding someone young, talented and struggling. And then beating the hell out of their self-esteem. Usually he hit so hard they never, ever recovered.
Sniffling, laughing, his big eyes watering, Stewart turned back for his living room.
His weight was wrong. He knew it the instant his knee seized up.
The sudden stiffness in his leg caused the laughter to die in his throat.
Sucking in a lungful of air, McQueen braced himself against the foyer wall, clasping a hand to his knee.
When the pain washed over him, it came in splendid starbursts. He gasped as the sharp ache clutched every bone in his leg like a squeezing fist.
And, as quickly as it came, it fled.
Quickly, before it could return, he limped beyond the living room and into his shadowy study, dropping roughly into an overstuffed easy chair.
Dust rose into the musty air.
He had hoped his meeting with Duncan Allen would be the balm he was looking for. The ego boost he got from making others feel like talentless bugs used to sustain him for hours. Days if he was really on his game, as he had been this day. But thanks to the leg, he was no longer feeling it.
"Dammit," he grunted.
This should have been perfect. After he'd bought the young man's last two books, McQueen had made a load of promises to the struggling writer. During the previous two and a half hours he had broken every single one of them.
For a creature of pure malice like Stewart McQueen, it should have been a thing of lasting beauty. As the icing on the cake, there actually was a publisher out there who might be interested in Duncan Allen's work. But McQueen had quit working for them eight months before and, in spite of yet another promise, had never bothered to mention it to Allen until this day. He had left his young ghostwriter dangling in the wind for almost a year without so much as a phone call.
There was no doubt that this was Stewart McQueen's best work so far. Yet, thanks to the intermittent, blinding pain in his knee, he couldn't even enjoy it.
It was coming again.
Hauling his leg onto an ottoman, McQueen clasped both hands tightly around it, encircling the entire knee.
He rode the wave of pain like a rodeo rider. When it was done a minute later, McQueen was covered with sweat. Exhausted from the pain, he collapsed back into his chair.
Though it was old by now, he feared he would never get used to the pain. It had been like this for the past two years. Ever since that fateful summer afternoon.
The accident had made national headlines. America's most famous horror novelist struck by a hit-and-run driver.
McQueen was out for a walk on a lonely country road. He never dreamed that a simple stroll to the mailbox would almost prove fatal.
The car had come out of nowhere. Instead of paying attention to where he was going, the careless driver had been yelling on his cell phone while simultaneously swatting his three rottweilers in the back seat with a rolled-up newspaper. When car met novelist, the writer lost.
McQueen was thrown thirty feet in the air, slamming to the pavement with bone-crushing force. The next year was a nightmare of painful surgeries and grueling therapy.
At first, revenge had kept him going. But after the driver was apprehended, McQueen was advised by his agent and manager to do his best to preserve his public image as a nice guy. So rather than watch gleefully as a hired hit man chopped the careless motorist to bits with a hatchet, McQueen was forced to settle for a revoked driver's license.
It was a hollow victory.
Gripping his knee, McQueen struggled to his feet. Breathing deeply a few times, he tested the leg.
It felt solid.
He put his whole weight on it. The knee didn't buckle.
Exhaling, McQueen limped into the kitchen. A collection of stone gargoyles clustered around the cold fireplace watched in silence as he hobbled from sight. He reappeared a moment later, a can of Fresca clutched in his hand. Walking with more confidence, he returned to his favorite chair.
He spent most of his time here these days. Sitting. There was a time when Stewart McQueen didn't have an idle moment. It was well-known that he wrote every day of the year with the exception of Christmas and his birthday. He was so prolific that he sometimes worried that he was watering down the market by competing with his own books.
But the most productive toboggan ride in the history of popular fiction had ended at the bumper of a speeding Chevy Blazer. Press releases had him working on a book from his hospital bed. They were false.
His computer sat in the corner of his study, silent and dark. He didn't even bother turning it on anymore. What was the point?
He would have thought it impossible.
McQueen slugged at his drink, his thoughts on Duncan Allen.
The kid was talented. Better than him in many ways.
McQueen periodically hired ghostwriters like Allen to do work for him here and there. While prolific, he occasionally found himself with a backlog of work. Usually it was when he was struggling to adapt one of his novels to screenplay form. Kids like Duncan Allen would do the bulk of the work for a flat fee. Afterward McQueen would go over their work, remaking it in the unmistakable Stewart McQueen style. Other successful writers enjoyed the thrill of helping out an up-and-comer. Usually because it helped them to remember what it was like when they were starting out. McQueen liked to keep them around as personal punching bags.
Through the years there had been several others like Allen. After he recovered from this devastating meeting-if he recovered-Duncan Allen would eventually want what they all wanted. To become a big enough success to rub it in McQueen's ferret face. But that wasn't possible for one simple reason: there was no one bigger than Stewart McQueen.
Until lately McQueen had always reveled in the fact that none of his proteges would ever surpass him. But thanks to a creative knot in his brain, he was no longer sure.
"Block, Bernie!" he had recently snapped at his New York agent. "I've got writer's block! I used to be able to pull an eight-hundred-page book out of my ass every two weeks. Now I'm lucky if I can write my return address on the gas bill."
"You can't be blocked," his agent had insisted. "You're Stewart McQueen. You've got whole sections of bookstores devoted to your work. You even used to have to write under pseudonyms so you wouldn't water down the market on your own stuff."
"I know that," McQueen had snarled. "Don't you think I know that? But that doesn't change the fact that I haven't been able to write a goddamn thing since the accident."
His agent considered for a long moment, studying the dusty corners of the living room in McQueen's creepy Maine mansion. "How about the devil?" he asked abruptly. "You could do something with the devil. You know, spooky."
"Like what?" McQueen asked sarcastically.
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe-maybe he could come to this small New England town, see? Like yours. Only the people there don't know he's the devil at first, even though they should because of all the dead dolphins on the shore."
"Dolphins?"
"Yeah. They've all been beaching themselves, see? And they have this mark on them. It's 666. Only no one knows that it's the mark of the devil, see, because it's in a different kind of numbering system like from a long time ago. Like ancient Egyptian or something. Only the sheriff in the town figures it out, because his daughter's back from college and she's studying ancient Egyptian numbers in school and she leaves her book open on the table. Oh, and his wife is dead, but she might not be because she disappeared under mysterious circumstances that still haunt the sheriff to this day, and before she vanished she had an affair with the devil and his daughter might be the devil's own actual kid. Or maybe his son is, and that's why he's hanging around with these weird kids who dress all in black." His agent seemed pleased with the strength of his own story. "That's good," he said. "Why don't you do something like that?"
McQueen gave him a withering glare. "A couple of reasons. First off, it's crap."
"Oh," his agent said, disappointed. "Really?"
"Second," McQueen continued, "it's been done a million times before. Mostly by me."
"Yes, but with dolphins?" his agent questioned. McQueen didn't even bother to reply. He merely got up and limped from the room.
He was slouched for ten minutes in his favorite chair in his study when his agent stuck his head around the door.
"I'll call you," Bernie promised. "In the meantime do me a favor. Think devil dolphins."
McQueen said nothing.
True to his word, Bernie tried to call. On a number of occasions and for many weeks. McQueen let the machine answer. Eventually, Bernie stopped trying.
Deadlines came and went. Stewart McQueen no longer cared. He simply sat in his study, staring at the bookshelves that lined all four walls.
The broad shelves rose from floor to ceiling. All were packed with novels he had written in his thirty-year career. And, if his current streak continued; they would never be joined by another Stewart McQueen novel.
McQueen sat his Fresca can on an end table. With a heavy sigh he picked up the TV remote control. When he flicked it on, eerie shadows from the television twirled in the dark corners of the big room. Since it was the Halloween season, he wasn't surprised to find three movies based on his books playing on various cable stations. Scowling in the bristles of his tidy little beard, he switched over to the news.
An anchorman who looked as if he'd graduated journalism school with a major in TelePrompter and a minor in mousse was grinning at his plastic-haired coanchor. The woman looked as if she'd come to the anchor desk straight from the top of a cheerleader pyramid.
"...and here's a spooky item out of Florida," the male anchor was saying. "Maura?"
"That's right, Brad," the woman said. "It seems Halloween has come a week early this year, at least for some residents of Florida. But this is no trick-or-treating matter. The goblin who's showing up on certain doorsteps in the Sunshine State is looking for more than just candy."
McQueen was ready to change the channel back to one of his movies when the program shifted to a reporter on the scene in Florida. The somber-voiced man was holding out a piece of paper on which was sketched a spider.
"This is not a young child in a Pokemon costume, Maura and Brad," the field reporter said seriously "This is a drawing made from eyewitnesses of the creature that has struck fear into the hearts of many, and has caused Halloween festivities to be canceled in more than a dozen central Florida communities." McQueen eased up more straightly in his chair.
As the story unfolded, he couldn't believe his ears.
Apparently, people were saying that a monster was running around loose in Florida, and no one had bothered to tell Stewart McQueen about it.
With a sudden burst of energy, McQueen pushed himself out of his chair. He quickly hobbled over to a long table near his desk.
For the past few weeks he had piled the newspapers there as they arrived. He just didn't have the energy to go through them. Sitting, he quickly thumbed through the stack of papers. He found a dozen small stories about the strange events in Florida.
It was true. There was something down there. Stewart McQueen was beginning to get an old tingle in his gut. It was a feeling he hadn't experienced since before the accident.
He pushed himself cautiously to his feet. Head upturned like a rubbernecking tourist, he scanned the bookshelves all around. He went from high up in the right-hand corner behind his desk, where his earliest books were shelved, all the way down to the baseboard near the door, where his most-recent novels sat like patient little soldiers.
All his books. All the words contained between their covers had been squeezed from his brain. Stewart McQueen smiled at his old friends. "Make room, boys," he announced. "You're about to get some company."
Turning carefully so as not to tweak his injured leg, the most famous horror novelist ever to put pen to paper hobbled rapidly out of his study.
Chapter 11
"There is no such thing as the bogeyman," Martin Riley insisted.
"But Sherry says there is," Janey Riley argued. Martin's five-year-old daughter nodded with certainty as she scooped up a heaping spoonful of Cap' n Crunch.
"Sherry's wrong, hon," Martin said. He was late leaving and didn't need this as he wolfed down his oatmeal.
Janey wasn't convinced by her father's words. "I don't know. I'll have to check with Sherry." She didn't even look at Martin as she spoke. Her little mind was already made up.
He knew what would happen now. Thanks to that know-it-all in his daughter's play group, Martin would have to spend another evening crawling around on Janey's bedroom floor, checking under bed and behind bureau. The nightly bedtime ritual was only getting worse as Halloween approached.
"Listen, honey," he said, getting up from the breakfast table, "I swear to you, no matter what Sherry says, there is no such thing as the bogeyman."
"You shouldn't swear, Daddy," Janey said as he kissed her on the top of the head.
Dumping his bowl in the sink, he gave his wife a quick peck on the cheek. She was busy emptying the dishwasher.
"You can look under her bed tonight," he said as he turned for the door.
"She won't let me do it," Sue Riley replied as she stacked dinner plates into the cupboard.
"Great," Martin muttered. "Like my knees aren't bad enough as it is. I'm late. See you tonight."
If he had known it would be the last time he would ever see them, he might have taken one last look on his way out the kitchen door.
For once traffic was with him as he sped to work. Martin arrived with five minutes to spare. He had barely driven onto the lot before he was driving back out, this time sitting behind the wheel of a SecureCo armored car.
His partner today was Chuck Kaufman. The other man sat in the passenger seat, a worn paperback clutched in his bouncing hands.
The book was four inches thick. It looked more like a dictionary than a novel. Martin noted the name Stewart McQueen printed in large silver letters across the back cover. The author's name was bigger than the title. A pair of glowing demonic eyes stared out from the black background.
"Why do you read that junk?" Riley asked as he drove.
Chuck Kaufman didn't look up. "It's not junk," he insisted as he read. "Besides, you've never read McQueen."
"He wrote Caterpillar,"
Martin said. "A book about a haunted bulldozer that's always driving over everybody. It's people like McQueen who make people like me crawl around on the floor every night looking for the damn bogeyman."
Chuck was no longer listening. Engrossed in his book, he continued reading as Martin drove.
Their first stop was the Orlando Greater Credit Union. Climbing down from the cab, Martin and Chuck rounded to the back of the armored car.
Following standard security procedures, the two men outside and the third man inside the truck used keys and codes to open the back. The bolt clicked and the door opened.
Some of the bags piled in the back were white. Most had taken on tinges of gray. The thousands of dollars they hauled daily quickly discolored the heavy money sacks.
Two dirty gray bags were brought into the bank. They retrieved ten more. In all, it took barely eight minutes before they were back out on the street and on to the next bank.
The rest of the morning went by just as quickly. It was a little past noon, and Martin had begun thinking about the twenty-minute nightly ritual of crawling around Janey's closet and checking under her mattress when something caught his eye.
As he sped down the highway, Martin saw a van in his side mirror.
It looked ordinary enough. Gleaming black paint shone bright in the white Florida sunlight. As it sped up, Martin realized he couldn't see the driver. The windshield was darkly tinted.
The van was driving up in the third lane. Fast. Martin flicked his attention back to the road ahead. When he looked into the mirror a few seconds later, the van had skipped over, pulling into the lane adjacent to Martin's. It continued to accelerate steadily. Some low instinct clicked in the chest of Martin Riley.
"Something's happening," he said cautiously.
"Huh?" Chuck asked. His nose was still buried deep in his book.
The black van pulled abreast the SecureCo truck. Though the side windows were tinted, too, the angled sunlight shone bright enough for Martin to make out the gloomy interior of the speeding vehicle. There was no one at the wheel.
Stunned, Martin opened his mouth to speak. The instant he did, the words froze in his throat.
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