Chapter1: In the beginning

My name is Gene Gingerline, and l always believed there were two kinds of fear.

The first was ordinary fear—the kind that came when your rent was due, when your boss called after hours, or when your phone buzzed at three in the morning.

The second was the kind I made my living from.

That fear was sharper.

That fear contained something much more primal. 

The fear of noticing footsteps while inside an empty house.

The fear of seeing faces in the dark where no face could be…

The fear of realizing that something was walking toward you, and it would never stop persevering.

The fear that it would eventually make it to you to unleash all of its hate on your defenseless corpse.

That, or was it the fear that you were just as annoying as a fly on an elephant.

I understood that fear better than most.

As I sit alone in Yonkers, New York, I can’t really help but smile. 

My face was illuminated in the pale glow of three separate computer monitors. 

One screen displayed a half-finished manuscript titled “The Butcher”.

Another computer, held a dozen tabs open simultaneously.

These tabs opened to obscure horror story forums and different movie databases. 

Each page signed in under different alias’s I have come up with over the years.

I enjoyed the thrill of bantering about whether or not one creature was stronger than someone else’s. 

Creepypasta monsters versus Fan-made amalgamations made by their respective fan bases, were a regular occurrence.

I enjoyed picking fights within the various forums. 

Poking the trolls and letting them loose on each other always brought me such glee.

At the current, I had taken to twisting old childhood characters into new grotesque versions of themselves.

I enjoyed showing people how their “childhood memories” would actually contain nightmares. 

Innocent thoughts tended to make horrible realities, at least if you look at things literally. 

In the real world, ‘monsters’ and ‘heroes’ depend on the side of the story you are watching from.

People tend to forget dictators have hardcore fandoms, while saints sometimes have enough skeletons to fill a landfill.

Evil…

Good…

I sometimes wonder if the gray area in between was all but an illusion.

I reveal in taking the ‘heroic side’ that horror icons have.

My third monitor however, showed a spreadsheet of monthly expenses that looked a lot more terrifying than any monster I have ever written about.

Note to self: Bills are always evil!!

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Rain battered against my windows.

An old horror movie themed soundtrack played softly through my speakers.

I was currently deciding whether my new story’s killer should use either a knife, or an axe.

“Knife is more intimate,” i muttered  rubbing at my tired eyes. “But an axe has better visual impact.”

My cursor blinked impatiently.

I took a deep breath and typed:

Butcher tilted his head as if listening to a voice only he could hear.

Blood and rain ran down into his hollow eyes, staining his eyes a brilliant ruby red.

His latest victim, a young college student from a nearby campus, laid dying at his feet. 

The victim’s girlfriend crouched hidden in the nearby bushes. 

Sweat and rain dripped into her eyes as she desperately tried not to make a sound.

She quickly rubbed at her eyes and turned back to the scene in front of her.

The killer… had vanished.

I paused and smiled menacingly.

“Yeah, that’s creepy.”

My phone buzzed again.

I glanced at the screen and sighed.

Brother

I let it go to voicemail.

My bother wanted to know whether I had applied for “a real job” yet.

I really wasn’t in the mood to explain that i was, working. 

Iy was just that work happened to involve inventing immortal slashers and trying to sell them to publishers.

The rejection emails , however, were constantly piling up.

-Your work is imaginative, but not commercially viable-

-Promising concept, but difficult to market.-and of course: 

-Unfortunately, this project does not fit our current needs.-

I had enough rejection slips to wallpaper my whole apartment.

Still, I  continued to write.

Because to me stories mattered.

Stories were a sort of power to me.

They could inspire us, scare us, and they endure long after their creators were dead and gone.

I just wanted to leave my mark on the world something people could- 

A loud thud came from the hallway outside of my apartment.

Maybe it was just my neighbor dropping her groceries again.

She was eighty years old and usually took ten minutes to walk down the small hallway. 

I would go out to help her but she loved to talk your ear off.

I shrugged my tensed neck as I returned to my latest manuscript…

There was the sound again.

Another thud.

This time there was also the sound of scraping.

Then silence.

I looked toward my front door.

The deadbolt was locked.

I shook my head and started to type.

My phone buzzed again.

This time it was a news alert.

PATIENT ESCAPES FROM WESTCHESTER PSYCHIATRIC FACILITY

I snorted.

“Great! Just another thing to bring out copycat stories.”

I almost dismissed it, but my curiosity got the better of me.

I tapped the article.

Authorities were searching for Elias Crowe, who had been committed after murdering two people and claiming that he was “the chosen herald of the Pale Watcher,” a fictional killer from one of my self-published novels.

The blood drained from my face.

“No.”

Elias Crowe.

The username hit me a second later.

PaleDisciple87.

One of my most obsessive online fans.

PaleDisciple87 had sent over a hundred messages over the past few years.

At first, they were harmless.

Things like “Your stories changed my life.”

“The Pale Watcher is real.”

“You are the only one that truly understands the truth of this world.”

“He speaks to me.”

That was the first of the messages that unsettled me. 

“You are his prophet.”

“Soon we will open the door to his realm.”

“We must awaken the true god!”

I had blocked him months ago.

My apartment suddenly felt much colder.

I rose out of my  chair and walked to the door.

I double checked the lock.

Deadbolt secure.

The flimsy chain was also fastened.

I exhaled slowly.

“You’re being paranoid.”

A knock sounded from the other side.

Three deliberate taps.

A man said in a calm, a song song voice. “I know you’re in there.”

I silently backed away from the door.

The voice continued from the other side.

“I just wanted to say thank you.”

My heart pounded as I grabbed my phone and dialed 911.

No signal.

I checked the screen.

Impossible.

The Wi-Fi was gone.

Then doorknob rattled.

A voice whispered. “The Pale Watcher sent me.”

The chain on the door snapped as the door slammed inward.

Elias Crowe stood in the doorway.

He was tall and gaunt, dressed in a stained psychological hospital uniform , beneath a black raincoat. His hair hung in wet strands across his forehead. In one hand, he carried a large kitchen knife.

His smile was ecstatic.

I stumbled backward as Elias stepped inside, quickly kicking the door shut behind him.

“You wrote him so perfectly,” Elias said. “The way he walks. The way he kills. Especially the way he can’t be stopped.”

His eyes shone with a feverish devotion.

“I wanted to meet the man who brought him into the world.”

I quickly reached for the heavy brass lamp on my desk.

“Listen, you need help.”

Elias laughed.

“I already found it.”

He took another step.

“Don’t you understand? Fiction is only the veil. You gave shape to something ancient.”

I tightened my grip on the lamp.

“This is insane.”

“Yes,” Elias said happily. “That’s why it’s true.”

He suddenly lunged.

I instinctively swung the lamp.

It connected with Elias’s shoulder, sending him crashing into the floor.

The knife clattered and slid into the kitchen.

I ran for the nearby drawer.

I heard Elias laughing behind him.

I yanked open a drawer and grabbed the largest knife I owned.

Elias leaned against in the doorway, clutching his injured shoulder.

“You made know you made him immortal,” Elias said. “Wouldn’t it be fitting if his creator died to bring him into this world?”

I slashed with the knife.

Elias jerked back, blood appearing on his forearm.

Instead of retreating, he smiled wider.

“As expected.”

The apartment lights flickered.

My mind raced.

This couldn’t be happening.

Elias feinted left, then plowed forward.

I blocked the strike, but the force knocked the knife from my hand.

Elias punched me in the stomach.

I collapsed to one knee.

Elias raised his recovered knife.

“Thank you for your sacrifice.”

I seized a cast-iron skillet that fell off the stove and smashed it into Elias’s face.

Bone crunched as his nose turned to pulp.

Elias staggered backward, nose shattered.

I struggled to my feet and sprinted towards the front door.

I made it three steps away when Elias tackled me from behind.

We crashed to the floor.

The knife skidded across the hardwood again.

I clawed out for it.

Elias grabbed me by the hair and slammed my head into the floor.

Twice.

Three times.

Warm blood trickled down my temple.

Elias pinned me.

“Don’t fight it,” he whispered. “Death is just the next chapter.”

I drove my fist  into Elias’s injured nose.

Elias screamed.

I rolled free and crawled for the knife.

My fingers brushed the handle.

A heavy weight crashed onto my back.

The blade slid just out my reach.

Elias wrapped one arm around my throat.

The other hand pressed another knife against my chest.

I thought of my mother.

My unfinished stories.

All the stories i had created.

This was such a stupid way to die.

Elias leaned close to my ear.

“The Pale Watcher is waiting.”

The knife plunged into my chest.

Pain erupted like fire.

Elias pulled the blade free and stabbed me again.

And again.

And again.

The world dimmed.

Sound became distant.

Elias’s face blurred in front of me.

I  collapsed staring up at the ceiling.

Blood spread beneath me.

My racing heartbeat started to slow.

Elias knelt beside me, trembling with religious awe.

“You’ll finally see,” he whispered.

I wanted to curse him.

Wanted to say something clever.

Instead, i coughed up the blood now filling my lungs.

The lights suddenly began flickering violently.

A low hum filled the room.

Elias looked around in confusion.

The computer monitors flashed white.

Words appeared across every screen.

NARRATIVE COMPATIBILITY DETECTED

Elias stumbled backward.

“What?”

The humming grew louder.

The walls of the apartment seemed to peel away, revealing an endless dark abyss beyond.

Pages of my latest paper lifted into the air, circling me like a storm.

 My mind struggled to comprehend what i was seeing.

“Is this a dream?”

A voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere.

“Creator identified.”

Elias screamed.

“No! He belongs to the Pale Watcher!”

“Designation accepted: Horror Dreamer.”

A beam of light engulfed me.

The pain in my body slowly vanished.

For the first time in years I was completely pain free.

I felt completely weightless.

Elias lunged towards me, reaching out with bloodstained hands.

“You can’t leave! You have to finish the story here!”

I managed a smile.

“Looks like… I received a better offer.”

The light had  wrapped around my body.

It felt weird to feel my body fade away as the light consumed me.

The last thing Gene saw was Elias Crowe shrinking as his face twisted with rage and disbelief.

With a flash there was nothing left. 

Police smashed through the door to see a manic blood covered Elias stabbing his knife at the floor. 

“I was so close! Damn it!!! I was almost …”

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