by Peter Swift
Peter Swift’s Fright Files
Beware the Author #1
The Broken Thing
By Peter Swift
Copyright © 2011 by Peter Swift
All rights reserved. Though this book is copyrighted, the author, grants permission to distribute it free of charge and complete. In other words, give it, email it, send it, share it, but please don’t change it! You may do so only for entertainment and noncommercial use. The file must be unchanged and include copyright and cover/title pages.
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
All associated art and logos are trademarks of Peter Swift.
Peter Swift claims moral ownership of this work.
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Go haunt the official Fright Files website at:
www.frightfiles.comwww.peterswiftbooks.com
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ISBN-13: 978-1-4657-6579-6
Release 1.0
October 2011
Peter Swift’s
The Broken Thing
Cover by Craig Pirrall
www.craigpirrall.com
Interior art by Christopher Tupa
www.ctupa.com
Contents
Dedication
About This Book
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Visit Peter
To my mother, for a lifetime of love and support.
...and...
To my wife. Everything is for you, hon.
ABOUT THIS BOOK
Lend me your ear, friend. You don't really need two. This is the first book in the Fright Files: Beware the Author series. It is almost completely free. I don't want any money or donations. I only ask, in return, a favor.
'Tis a small favor. No signature in blood required. Nor magic words to chant, or secret deals in dark places. My request is simple: If you like this book, share the terror with a friend. Or better yet, lots of friends. Email them the book, or a link to my webpage where they can download it for themselves. Give it freely and happily with a gleam in your eye because you know you'll also be giving them a nightmare tonight. Add Peter Swift on Facebook or Twitter, and twit about Fright Files to your friends. Get the word out. You, dear reader, are the magic that will breathe life into these pages!
And, as icing on the cake, if you'd like to email me and tell me how much it terrified you, please do so at:
www.frightfiles.com
www.peterswiftbooks.com
Prologue: The Author Arrives
From the shadows, as always, The Author watched the world drift past. His chauffeur guided the ancient black Cadillac down the winding country road that cut through Newhope—a disgusting little Vermont town that would be but a single stop on their way to a much farther destination. A destination at the end of a journey they had started long before Newhope, Vermont, or even America had ever existed.
On the outskirts of the town, they passed a school. A group of worthless junior high-school girls were crossing the quaint tree-lined street. One of them swung a red purse, and The Author couldn't help but notice how it resembled a bull’s-eye on a target. He grinned and struck his silver corbra-headed cane against the back of the chauffeur's seat.
"Speed up, Arzkelik!" he hissed excitedly through sharp, yellowed teeth. The driver did as commanded, and The Author roared with raspy laughter as the front of the car approached the line of giggling girls.
There was no impact. The young girls looked around nervously—confused by the sudden cold wind and sense of dread that choked their laughter to silence—but they saw nothing. The Author's laughing subsided, and he tensed with a twinge of disappointment at the lack of a satisfying thud, or the strangled screams he had long ago forced from the throats of strangers.
"Always from the shadows," he said, his voice wistful. "For now."
He leaned heavily against the door, sulking as he gazed through the window. The blood red leather seat oozed a stale scent of past eons when he pressed into it. Beside him rested a tall black top-hat with a long embroidered black silk ribbon that matched his ancient silk suit.
"The boy!" he told the driver, and the car slowed, drifting unseen in the street. The Author pointed one of his long, gnarled claws at a boy running on the sidewalk. His smile returned, his eyes narrowed.
"Ah, now this child has promise, Arzkelik," he said, his eyes riveted to the boy. "Don't you agree?"
"Indeed, sir," the driver replied, his voice like dust from a forgotten tomb.
The Author wiped the back of a hand across wet, cracked, quivering lips. He hungrily watched the running boy. "Run, Steven. Oh yes, do run. Run as if your soul depended upon it. Perhaps it does."
1.
"Don't be such a killjoy, Stevie," Angie Lewis said as they walked home together after school. Since the third grade, Stevie and Angie had been best friends. "A quick stop at the library won't kill you. I want to see if they have the October issue of Tuneage Magazine. There's a new interview with ZombieRox!"
They both agreed that ZombieRox was the awesomest band in history.
"Tempting." Stevie hesitated, torn between what he'd promised his father, and some quality time in the fiction section at the library. Then he shook his head. "But if I don't rake the leaves before Dad gets home, he's gonna ground me for the weekend."
Angie fowned. "Yeah. And that means you'd miss trick-or-treating with me this Halloween and I'd hate your guts forever." She pulled up the sleeve of her black coat and checked her watch. It was pink with a black cartoon skull and crossbones on the face. She held it up to Stevie. "But look, it's only 3:20. Come to the library, hang for half an hour or so, and you'll still have plenty of time to buy me an ice cream and rake the yard before your dad gets home."
"Yeah, I guess," Stevie said. He really did want to go to the library. "Hey, what do you mean buy you an ice cream?"
Angie grinned and then turned her head, letting her shoulder length straight black hair hide her face. "Caught that, huh?"
They walked along Main Street toward the Newhope Public Library, talking about their classes and their day at school—which teachers were cool, and which ones were completely dorkish. Who Todd Carver's mystery girlfriend was. And why was Sarah Jennings so annoying, anyway?
Angie had a couple of inches on Stevie even though he turned twelve in July and her birthday was in September. A good looking boy, Stevie had short light brown hair and was athletic, but always a little bit on the small side.
Angie, meanwhile, was thin and a little taller than most of the other girls. She had a small face and an easy smile. Known to be a bit of a tomboy, and outspoken, too. She almost always got her way, and when she didn't, everyone knew it.
Stevie watched the ground while they walked, so he didn't see the lumbering bulk of Victor Plotts walking toward them.
"Uh, oh. Ogre alert," Angie said, and quickly pulled Stevie into Earl's Hardware Store. The place smelled like metal and lumber. "Plotts."
"Man, that guy hates me," Stevie said. "What's his deal? I never did anything to him except try to stay out of his way."
"Two reasons," Angie said. Victor's slouching mass meandered into view along the sidewalk. "One, you're smart, and he's not. Two, he's big, and you're not. Both of those factors make you an easy bully-magnet."
"He's so much bigger than me because he was held back for two years. A shame he isn't two years smarter, too!"
Angie laughed, but choked on it when Victor and his two flunkies stopped and turned toward the hardware store's glass door.
Stevie didn't breathe. Earl wouldn't let there be any trouble in his store, but Victor was just vicious enough to wait outside, knowing they'd have to leave sooner or later.
Victor looked at his reflection in the glass, pulled a black plastic comb from his back pocket, ran it through his greasy hair, and walked on.
"Comb all you want Victor. You're still ugly," Stevie said, and Angie nodded in agreement.
2.
The town library was ancient and creepy. The perfect place to read the scary stories Stevie liked so much. Long ago it had been a church, and then a schoolhouse, but when the town outgrew it, they converted the place into the Newhope Public Library. Additions were added, but the main reading area stayed the same old stone building, with its tall arched windows and vaulted ceiling. The windows were never opened and the place smelled faintly of stale vomit, wet fur, and old paper. Stevie didn't like to consider the cause of the first two odors.
Stevie stopped in front of the New Release shelf. He couldn't believe his eyes. He excitedly grabbed the book and sat down next to Angie at one of the long tables. She was already reading the ZombieRox interview.
"They have the new Swift book already!" Stevie whispered. "These things are so unbelievably scary."
"Love 'em. Don't tell me spoilers," Angie said. "I'll read it when you're finished. You gonna check it out?"
"Can't." Stevie looked disappointed. "My card is full-up. Can I put it on yours?"
Angie shook her head and said in rhythm, "I owe, I owe, the books they won't let go." Then she added in her normal voice, "I lost a CD I borrowed and have to pay for it."
"Harsh," Stevie said, then shrugged. "I'll come back after dinner, return some books, and get this. You can borrow it from me. Unless you plan on losing it."
Angie nodded with a grin that foreshadowed a zingy comeback, but just then her cell phone vibrated in her backpack. "Mom," she said, looking down at the screen. "I'll take it outside. Watch my bag. That's where I keep all the treasure."
Stevie smirked a whatever at her and then cracked open the book, the spine still fresh and new. He turned to chapter one and started reading. The story began with a bang—terror and mystery from the first page. He was so excited by the new story that he'd almost finished the first chapter by the time Angie returned.
"Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to take a rain check on that ice cream," Angie said. "Mom wants to go to the mall and buy me new clothes. Who am I to argue?"
"Uh-huh," Stevie mumbled, not taking his eyes from the book.
"Don't stay too long," Angie said. "If you get grounded, I'll have to make you dead."
"Uh-huh," Stevie said again. He was lost in the story, and not really paying attention.
Angie grabbed his chin and twisted it up so Stevie was forced to look directly into her eyes, which she narrowed at him dangerously. She spoke very precisely, enunciating each word clearly. "You. Watch. Clock. Don't. Get. Grounded. Me. Kill. You."
"Okay already!" Stevie said. He smiled and turned back to the book. "Geesh, Mom."
Angie picked up her backpack. It accidentally slammed into the back of Stevie's head when she turned to leave.
Stevie hardly noticed.
3.
Two hours later, at the end of chapter eighteen, Stevie glanced up through the library's dusty windows. He saw the absence of sunshine and the blue-gray of twilight.
"Oh no! I'm late!" he said too loudly. A few annoyed patrons glared at him.
Stevie ran down the library steps and turned onto the sidewalk. He shot past Earl's Hardware, Kathy's Café, and the Good as New Secondhand Shop. The storefronts were all a blur, though, and he didn't notice them any more than he noticed the black Cadillac limousine keeping pace silently beside him. At one point, he felt a sensation that something was watching him, something terrible and wicked, but when he looked nothing was there. Just a figment of his imagination left over from his visit to the fiction section of the library, he guessed.
He checked his watch. Five-thirty! The yard should have been raked by now. He had promised his father he'd do it yesterday, but instead spent the afternoon playing video games.
"If it isn't done when I get home tomorrow," his father had told him, "you'll be grounded for the weekend."
"But Dad," Stevie had objected. "Saturday is Halloween!"
"Then you'd better make sure I come home to a clean yard tomorrow."
Hard to argue with that logic.
Halloween was Angie's favorite day of the year, and they planned to go together dressed as the two lead singers of ZombieRox. Angie would be Sissy Zombie, and Stevie was going to be her dead brother, Tox. If Stevie was grounded, how could Angie go by herself? Sissy and Tox were inseparable! Would anyone even know who she was?
She'll never forgive me, Stevie thought. And he was right. Not after all the work Angie had done on their costumes.
The row of small shops along Main Street gave way to homes of different colors—some with picket fences, some without. He zigzagged down a number of side streets and eventually came to the entrance of a small mountainside forest the townsfolk nicknamed The Grove, though the official name was Machooksis Woods, from the Mohican word for owl.
Stevie usually avoided The Grove when alone. Its tall trees and strange sounds gave him the creeps, but it shaved five minutes off of his trip home, and right now every second counted.
"Besides," he told himself as he ran. "It's not like I'm scared! I've been in The Grove a hundred times. With my friends. In the daytime."
He swallowed hard. It hadn't seemed like such a scary place when the shadows were softened by sunshine, and kids' laughter drowned out the creepy sounds. Today though, he was alone. But he was in a hurry and would be through the forest quickly, so he didn't hesitate to enter the dark trail.
Had he known what the shadows hid, he never would have gone.
The moment he entered it was like being swallowed up into a different world. The large pine, cedar, and spruce trees closed in around him, darkening the already dim light and blocking out any sounds from the street. Yet, it wasn't quiet. Unseen animals scurried, wind rustled the dry October leaves, and the trees creaked and popped, their thick trunks swaying gently. In the distance, he heard the hooting of an owl.
Anxious in the fading light and darkening shadows of the forest, Stevie ran even harder. The soft floor of The Grove was covered with loose dirt, dead leaves, and pine needles. Occasionally he stumbled over a rock or root from one of the many trees that lined the well-worn footpath, but generally it was smooth going. The worst part was the hilliness of it, and as he ran over the crest of the steepest of the hills, his lungs felt like they would burst.
Stevie slowed to a walk, his hands gripping his sides, his chest straining to take in as much of the sweet pine-scented air as possible with every breath.
He was walking slowly, thinking about his father and how he didn't try to make the man angry on purpose, when he saw the toy sitting on a cut stump a few feet below the path. He squinted to make sure he saw it right.
Why is that here? he wonder
ed. Weird.
Stevie hesitated. He didn't really have time to mess around. Still, it looked old and out of place. Creepy.
"Angie would love it!" he said, and instantly made a decision. Carefully taking hold of a root that twisted over the edge of the trail, he slid down the steep drop-off and picked up the toy. Painted tin covered with old cloth, it was surprisingly cool to the touch. Almost cold.
"Oh, you are freaky!" he said to the incredibly disturbing thing. The toy looked like an old man with a cane, wearing a straw hat and red and white striped suit. Under his chin was a blue bowtie. The suit was cotton, but the rest of the toy was painted metal. The tin head was very flat and angular in shape, with the mouth and eyes painted on. The gaping, grinning mouth was outlined in red lips, almost like a clown. Some of the paint on one side of the face had been scraped or worn away, exposing a jagged metal scar. Only the triangular nose broke the plane of the face.
"You've gotta be an antique," Stevie said to the thing. "But in great shape. You couldn't have been sitting there long. Who do you belong to?" Even the suit, which should've been weathered badly if it had been in the forest for long, was clean and dry.
Stevie put it to his nose, took a whiff, and instantly wished he hadn't. "Whoa!" he said. "Did something crawl up inside you and die?"
That's exactly what it smelled like. Dead and rotting flesh.
Carefully, Stevie pulled himself back up the steep slope. He dropped the toy into the leg pocket of his cargo pants with his cell phone, and screamed.
The toy started to move!