Kill Creek

by Scott Thomas

  “So you do think that horror is a boy’s club?”

  “I think I’m the only one in this room who has ever been asked to give a blow job in exchange for a publishing deal.”

  “And did you?”

  “Fuck you, Wainwright.” Her voice was quavering ever so slightly. She was in danger of losing the cool, steel-trap control she usually had over every moment.

  “All right now,” Sebastian said. “Let’s keep this civilized.”

  Wainwright slid the fireplace poker from his lap and held it like a cane, his palm pressed down on the top of its metal handle, its tip biting into the wood floor. The crackle of the fire was the only sound.

  “Sam, you’ve been awfully quiet,” he said suddenly. “But that’s kind of your thing, isn’t it? Sitting it out. Fading into the background.”

  Here we go, Sam thought. My turn. He picked up his beer bottle and unfortunately found it empty.

  “Just trying to stay out of the crossfire.”

  “Sorry, mate.” Wainwright grinned, perched on his chair, his hand on the poker like a king on his throne. In the harsh light of the fire, his face looked more artificial than ever, like a stranger wearing a Wainwright mask. “You can’t hide forever.”

  Once again, Sam had the unnerving sensation that Wainwright could see straight into his mind.

  “It’s safe to say you fall somewhere between Sebastian Cole and T.C. Moore.”

  “I guess.”

  “You’re mainstream. You write popular horror fiction.”

  “I’ve been lucky enough to find an audience.”

  “Why do you think so many people respond to your style of writing?”

  The red light glowed above the lens of Sam’s camera like a one-eyed rat studying him, trying to ascertain his weakness.

  He told himself, It’s not an interrogation. It’s just like one of your lectures. Stay in your safe place. He only gets as far in as you let him.

  Sam straightened in his chair and imagined himself behind his lectern in Budig Hall, that great Gothic window towering over him like a golden arrow. “I believe that first you have to establish the ordinary before you can invest people in the extraordinary. So I start with the natural world and slowly, methodically, I let the supernatural invade. I don’t know. . . . Maybe that’s why people like my books. Because they see their own lives in my characters and my settings. I understand and appreciate the way others approach horror. Like science fiction and fantasy, it’s a genre that does and should encourage the freedom to experiment, to tell stories in unique and personal ways. My way is to start with something very real, very grounded, and then gradually open some cracks in the façade to let the darkness in. I try to pay homage to those who have inspired me, and there’s no one who has inspired me more than Sebastian Cole.”

  “Thank you, Sam,” Sebastian said.

  If the room hadn’t been so dark, they would have seen Sam blush, more out of shame than embarrassment. He still didn’t know how to acknowledge what Sebastian meant to him without sounding sycophantic.

  “But,” Sam continued, “like Moore, I don’t want to shy away from the real damage that evil can do. Evil corrupts. It infects. And an infection is not pretty. It starts slow, but in the end, if left untreated, there’s a lot of pain and pus and nasty shit that you can’t ignore. That’s horror to me, when something bad is swept—”

  “Under the rug?” Wainwright couldn’t resist referencing the title of Sam’s first novel.

  Sam gave a tight smile. “That’s right. When something bad is swept under the rug, it doesn’t go away. It festers. In horror, there’s no such thing as ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ That thing will be back, and it will take over your life. That’s the root of all fear: the loss of control. Not being able to stop the evil.”

  “Like Joshua Goodman watching his beloved murdered in this very house.”

  “Yes.”

  “Or your own marriage falling apart.”

  Wainwright’s words may as well have been a slap across Sam’s face.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You are currently separated from your wife, yeah?”

  In the fireplace, the wood crackled loudly as the flames flickered higher.

  “I don’t know why that’s relevant—”

  “Is that something you’re trying to channel into your latest novel? I assume you’re working on something new.”

  The image of the lecture hall in Lawrence vanished from Sam’s mind. He wasn’t speaking to his students. He was here, at the house on Kill Creek, and Wainwright was in control.

  “Of course I’m working on something new.”

  “I only ask because—and please don’t take this the wrong way—since your first novel, your books have gotten less . . . personal. You seem to be embracing your status as a best-selling author. You stick to the mainstream, just enough story and character to satisfy discerning readers, just enough splatter to push paperbacks.”

  “What’s your point?” Sam knew he sounded irritated. He didn’t care.

  Wainwright’s black leather jacket creaked as he shrugged, his hands in the air. “You come off as a nice, well-adjusted Midwestern guy. I’m just shooting from the hip here, but it almost feels like that’s how you want people to see you. A nice guy who writes easily digested genre fiction. But there must be a reason you write what you write.”

  Sam tried to swallow and found that he couldn’t. Something was blocking his throat. Something that tasted like smoke.

  “Your mother died in a house fire, didn’t she? When you were a child?”

  Sam felt the smoke spread to his lungs, filling them. The others were staring at him. He refused to look at their faces, to see the pity, the hunger for gossip.

  Keep him out.

  “It’s not something I like to talk about,” he told Wainwright.

  Wainwright’s hand bobbed in the air like a conductor’s baton. “But you’ve known pain. You’ve known tragedy. You said horror is the loss of control. I can’t imagine feeling less in control than being a young boy and watching your house burn down with your mother inside. Is that where your stories come from?”

  Keep him out.

  “No.”

  “No? You don’t try to tap into any of that pain? That suffering?”

  Keep. Him. Out.

  “No.”

  “Then is that why your books have become more and more superficial?”

  Sam shot Wainwright an incredulous look.

  Fuck you! his mind screamed. Fuck you, you little weasel! You rich little shit!

  Instead, in a voice like a clenched fist, he said, “I don’t believe they have.”

  “Critics do.”

  Sam opened his mouth to answer, but he could not speak. He could not breathe. For the briefest of moments, he looked to Moore.

  Without hesitation, she jumped in. “Critics are sad children who were never picked first in gym class,” she said, delivering it like the deliberate sound bite she meant it to be.

  Sam drew air into his lungs, the attention no longer on him. His heart was thudding in his chest, but with each breath, he felt his body relax. He nodded to Moore, and she nodded back.

  “Daniel Slaughter,” Wainwright announced, turning on a dime, “author of, what, almost fifty successful young adult horror novels? At first glance, you and T.C. Moore seem to have zero in common. But the violence in your books, although obviously geared toward a much younger audience, is still pretty graphic.”

  Daniel squirmed in the spotlight as if trying to work his way around a lump in his chair. “Well, yeah, I guess you could say that. . . .”

  “But you’re a devout Christian.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Your books were initially embraced by the faithful, who justified the bloodshed as a means to an end. Anything to bring readers closer to Jesus, yeah? But lately that has changed. Many Christians are becoming uncomfortable with the subject matter.”

  “Well . . .”

>   “But you are a believer, correct?””

  Sam watched Wainwright with a dawning sense of dread. This was his plan all along. He wants to cut us. He wants us to bleed for his audience. Not enough to kill us. Oh no, it would make him look like a royal asshole if he were too aggressive. He’s opening up just enough wounds to give his viewers a taste of blood. He’s slicing each of us right where it hurts the most.

  “Are you a believer?” Wainwright asked again.

  “Of . . . of course,” Daniel said. But there was doubt in his voice. “I mean, look, I’m a Christian who happens to write horror, but there’s a clear message in my books. Do evil, and you will be punished. Only the characters that are pure of heart triumph in the end. Evil never wins in my books. Good does, because it’s from God.”

  “But do you honestly think that the kids who read your books get that message?”

  “I have a teenage daughter, okay? I learned long ago that kids don’t respond to sermons. Even in church, if you can get them to go, they’re daydreaming about the dance that’s coming up or the boy who asked them out or the car they want when they turn sixteen.”

  Daniel wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead.

  “The fact that my books don’t preach is the reason why they’re effective. The message is always there: good wins, evil loses. Whether kids make the connection between morality and a higher power, who knows. But I think they do. I think they get it.”

  “But what about your critics? A growing number of them Christians, who say you’re simply taking advantage of a wildly profitable slice of the literary market?”

  “I’m . . . I write . . .”

  “What about those who say your books aren’t suitable for kids?”

  “They’re for teenagers,” Daniel corrected him. He looked like a very large mouse being playfully batted around by a cruel cat. “These kids know what the world has to offer, the good and the bad. I’m not telling them anything they don’t already know.”

  “So what is horror, Daniel?”

  “I don’t know . . . how to answer that . . .”

  “What is horror?” Wainwright asked again.

  “I guess . . . I’d say . . . losing the things you love.”

  “And that is . . .”

  “Family. Faith. God.” The fire dimmed slightly, as if the house were exhaling a long, slow breath. “We’re all . . . we’re all sinners.” Daniel was stammering again. “We . . . Horror is the fear and the guilt and the sin that we try to keep inside us, down in the dark, and as storytellers, it’s our job to . . . to sort of bring that into the light, you know . . . it’s . . .”

  Poor Daniel, Sam thought. He’s got you.

  So help him, his mind ordered.

  In the darkness, the red lights of cameras glowed.

  Sam was frozen in place.

  I can’t.

  It was Sebastian who came to the rescue.

  “True horror is different for every person, Mr. Wainwright,” the old man interrupted. “Our job as writers is to find a way to connect with some of those people. Not all of them. No one’s that good. Which is why we each have unique approaches to our craft. Different, but valid.”

  The house once again became filled with a perfect silence. Even the fire seemed to make no sound as Sebastian’s commanding words drifted through the open doorway and into other rooms.

  “But here’s something to consider, something that I believe is universal when it comes to horror. If I were to walk you into a dark room, and someone leapt out and yelled ‘Boo!,’ you would be startled, perhaps even frightened. But the moment would immediately pass.”

  His voice floated up the stairs. It echoed down the dark hall, slipping through the cracks beneath doors and into empty bedrooms.

  “Yet, if on the way to the door, I were to tell you that in that room a very cruel old woman met her end, and every night at the stroke of midnight she returned, her arthritic hands twisted into claws, reaching out to touch what her dead, cataract-fogged eyes can’t see. If I were to then lead you into the darkened room and leave you there, locking the door behind me, you would sit there all night, your mind racing, thinking only of what might be out there, waiting in the dark, waiting to grab you with hands as cold as the grave.”

  The sound of his voice made its way into the alcove, past the stained-glass window now blackened by night, and up the steep, narrow staircase to the brick wall. Even there, the words slipped through cracks unseen.

  “This is the key to true horror,” Sebastian said with a confidence none of them could dispute. “If you believe it’s real, then it’s real.”

  Twenty minutes later, Kate tapped the touchpad on her laptop. Sam watched as the red lights on all of the cameras went dark.

  The interview was over.

  “Well, that was amazing, really.” Wainwright beamed, beginning to rise from his chair. “Thank you all so much for being a part of it.”

  Sam’s hand grazed the edge of the photograph in his back pocket.

  “You set us up,” he said, his voice a low growl.

  Wainwright shrugged. “Honestly, I think I showed some restraint, yeah? I could have gone deeper. I mean, there are nastier skeletons in your closets I could have dragged out for the world to—”

  Before anyone knew what was happening, Sam was over the coffee table, the lapel of Wainwright’s jacket twisted tightly in his fist.

  “You son of a bitch!” Sam roared. “You think this is funny?”

  Daniel and Sebastian shrank back in shock, but Moore was on Sam in seconds, pulling him back.

  Wainwright stood and yanked his bunched-up jacket back into place. “Christ, mate, they were questions! You never said anything was off limits!”

  “Why are we really here?” Sam asked.

  Wainwright stared at him, completely confused. “What? For the interview—”

  “But why this house? Why did you bring us here?”

  “Sam, I truly don’t know what you’re getting at.”

  Sam pulled the aging photograph of the Finch sisters from his pocket and thrust it at Wainwright’s shocked face.

  “Why do you look just like them?”

  Wainwright struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. “Did you . . . did you take that from my book?”

  “Answer me!” Sam yelled. “Why do you look just like them?”

  “I don’t! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  Sam swiveled around and held the photo out for the others to see. “Do you see it?” he asked them. “Look at their faces!”

  They all leaned in to examine the photograph. Daniel was the first to respond. “I’m sorry, Sam. I don’t see the resemblance.”

  “But . . .” Sam turned the picture around.

  Daniel is right, Sam realized. The faces of the Finch sisters did not have the same masklike quality that Wainwright’s did.

  Wainwright reached out and snatched the photograph away from Sam. “It’s just a picture. I got it off eBay,” he explained. “You’re out of your goddamn mind.”

  Sam’s chest rose and fell in great, undulating waves.

  “Steady now,” Sebastian whispered in his ear. “Why don’t you go outside for some air? I’m afraid this house is getting to you.”

  Sam did not move.

  “Listen to Sebastian,” Moore said.

  For a moment, no one was sure of Sam’s next move, not even Wainwright, who stood with his chin held high.

  Sebastian gave Sam’s shoulder a pat. “Go on.”

  On his way to the front door, Sam caught Kate’s eye. She was frightened.

  Of you, you crazy son of a bitch.

  The front door opened and slammed shut.

  Sam was gone.

  In the fireplace, the flames surged one last time and then retreated, a glowing orange light waiting patiently within the half-eaten logs.

  FIFTEEN

  8:15 p.m.

  SAM WAS DOWN the front steps in a matter of seconds. He stormed acros
s the gravel drive and past that ridiculous VW bus. Ahead of him, somewhere in the darkness, was the bridge over Kill Creek. There was a moment where Sam was sure he would just keep walking, over that bridge, up the road to the entrance ramp to Highway 10.

  He stopped about fifty yards from the house.

  Calm down. Breathe. Just breathe.

  With the sun down, the temperature had dropped a good twenty degrees. He shivered as the wind picked up, but he refused to give in to the cold. He would stand out there as long as necessary, anything to keep him from going back in and strangling Wainwright with his bare hands.

  But you were wrong, he realized. Wainwright had no dark plan. He has no sinister connection to the house. He just set us up so he could twist the knife into each of us in front of his followers.

  At least Sam had kept his cool until the cameras were off. It would have been a disaster if he had lunged at Wainwright with the entire world watching. The clip would have instantly gone viral, which is exactly what Wainwright wanted.

  Don’t blame him for wanting that. You all want it to go viral. You just want to look good when it does.

  He let out a long, slow breath, his heartbeat steadying. Yes, that was why they were there. They all hoped that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people would watch that interview. They all had their reasons for needing it to be a success.

  For Sam, it meant some fast cash and a way to keep his name relevant, which in turn would buy him the time he needed to finally finish the damn book.

  To start the damn book, you mean.

  He closed his eyes and listened to every breath, each one slower and softer than the last. Soon he felt his anger toward Wainwright evaporate from his skin like rainwater in sunshine.

  But the photograph . . . Sam was positive the faces of the Finch sisters had looked exactly like Wainwright. He hadn’t imagined it, had he?

  Of course you did. You’re losing it. And it’s not because you’re here in this house. You’ve been losing it for a long time. It’s why Erin left. It’s why you refused to give her the life she wanted. To give her a child. Because it would grow up to be just as messed up as you.