The Year's Best Horror Stories XXII

PORTRAIT OF A PULP WRITER by F. A. McMahan

Roger Diggs sighed. He had been sitting in front of his TV that doubled as a computer monitor for three hours. Nothing came to him. He had received not one inspiration in the past month. They called it writer’s block. Diggs called it procrastination and laziness, but identifying the problem was little help in solving it.

He stared at the keyboard and felt a faint longing for his old typewriter. He had gotten the computer, disk drive, and printer used and fairly cheap from a friend. The friend had moved up to an IBM clone and offered his old Commodore system to Diggs. It had turned out to be cheaper than a good electric typewriter, so Diggs had bought it.

But he had to use his TV as a monitor, and that only served to enhance his slothfulness. Whenever he was at a loss for an idea, he would switch over to TV mode and flip through the channels.

Later he would realize that he had wasted an hour wondering whether or not Rex would discover that Julie had killed Ted with the carving knife that she had received as a present from her mother who was having an affair with Ted’s twin brother, Bobby. Or if the soaps were boring that day, he would count to twenty in Spanish with an orange puppet whose controlling strings were clearly visible. Or maybe try to come closest to the actual retail value without going over.

“The milky gray slime oozed through the earthquake fissure and bubbled deliriously, displaying a terrifying indication of sentience.”

Diggs stared at the line of white words. They contrasted nicely with the blue background color.

“As it flowed toward a nearby cactus, the pulpy mass glistened in the sunlight and left behind an unctuous spoor. A sunning iguana turned its brown head, watching idly, oblivious to the possible danger, and was snatched by a heretofore unseen tentacle and stuffed into the jelly-thing’s indistinguishable mouth.”

Diggs leaned his elbow on the computer, resting his chin on his hand. He counted the words, a habit he had when uninspired. His finger made little crackling noises when it touched the TV screen.

Seventy-five words. He did a bit of mental figuring. Forty times that would be three thousand words. Not too bad. The only problem was that the story so far was pretty much trash.

He saved his idea to disk just in case he decided later that it was good, then pressed control-delete on the keyboard.

“Are you sure? Y/N,” flashed on the screen.

He typed “Y” and his words vanished.

Diggs stared at the empty blue screen. He would work again tomorrow. Then he turned off the computer and checked his watch to see if it was too late to catch Julie’s trial on channel seven.

The phone rang. Only twice but enough to wake Diggs up.

The clock radio’s green display glared that it was only seven-fifteen. Unfortunately, once awake, Diggs found it impossible to go back to sleep. So he climbed out of his nice, warm bed and took a shower that turned cold halfway through. This was definitely not going to be a Saturday to remember.

He made the coffee too strong. The milk had soured. And the thin sliced white sandwich bread was moldy. He also had a headache.

The pupilless gray eye of the TV set stared from across the room, beckoning him to another session of aimless key punching.

He flipped on the system. “ENTER TEXT,” materialized in crisp, white letters.

Biting his left thumbnail, Diggs sat for a good while wondering why the most frequently used letters were scattered about the keyboard and not on home row. There was a small piece of fuzz between “O” and “P,” and he picked it out, blew it from his fingertips, and watched it drift to the floor.

“Serth circled the peak of the hill twice, then glided to a landing among the huts of the tribe. His majestic, white wings folded snugly against his back as he strode toward the chief who looked greatly displeased.”

Diggs had noticed an interesting combination of letters on the keyboard. And “S-E-R-T-H” became a winged man.

“Ignoring his leader, Serth walked past him into a nearby hut and began the ritual that would bring rain to the tribe’s thirsty crops. He meticulously ground the herbs he had gathered, making a pulp that he spread on his face and arms. Then he began the ceremonial chant. Sacred syllables flowed from his lips, words that only he could understand. His hands made circular, twisting motions. Sweat dripped into his open, staring eyes and burned with salty fire. Serth was growing old. The ancient rituals were becoming increasingly difficult for him to perform. It was time he chose a successor.”

Diggs read over his creation. He liked it. It needed work, but he liked it all the same. Counting words again, he found one hundred and fifty. Better than yesterday. Double the amount, in fact, in the same amount of time.

Leaning back in his chair, he looked into the kitchen. It was nine o’clock, and he was getting sleepy. Saving the fledgling paragraphs onto disk, he got up and wandered into the bedroom. He could take a quick nap and finish the story in the afternoon.

Diggs drifted off to slumberland with the happy thought that he was finally pushing that pesky writer’s block out of the way.

He woke with a start.

A racket was coming from the living room.

Grabbing a granite bookend off the shelf, he crept around the corner, then stopped dead in his tracks.

His disk drive hummed softly. Out of the computer, from every crevice and port, came a multitude of creatures.

Diggs recognized all of them. The gray slime he had created yesterday. An old man, three boys, and an undead rat from last Tuesday. Winged Serth from this morning. Fluid mercury aliens. A miner from an unnamed planet. A three-headed, talking toad… he had been out of it that day. Various mutant beings, some fragmentary and incomplete, all from the past month of unfinished stories.

“What a terrific dream,” Diggs muttered.

This was going to make a great story when he woke up.

He was delighted as the rabble slowly began to push forward.

The horde of creatures forced him against the dining room wall.

Then they lashed out with talons, teeth, clubs, pickaxes, and all manner of nasty-looking weapons.

The pain was proof that Diggs was not dreaming. But by then it was too late for him to escape.

His only scream was muffled and gurgling as a milky gray tentacle reached out to crash his larynx.

Having left no remains of He Who Had Summoned Them, the creatures returned to the computer and, through it, to the swirling macrocosm of all that exists: matter, energy, thought. None of which is ever created or destroyed, but merely transmuted into another form.

They returned to rest and wait. Wait for another who would send out a call and grant them life through words. Or be consumed by them.