The Man From My Book

My name is Seth, and I want to tell you a strange thing that happened to me in November of 1996.

I had just left college and didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, so I started writing.

At first it was little forays into short stories, mostly bad ones that I was afraid of letting others read.

One day I stumbled on a small column in the local newspaper. It was the news about a missing boy named Rock. There was a passport sized photo of the kid in it, and the report said he was 6 at the time.

I studied the face; low hairline, thick eyebrows, large eyelids that hid most of the balls. He had delicate jaws. Young boys with such jaws often took after their moms, thought I. The report said the boy has never been found.

There was another photo.

It was of the man who supposedly abducted the boy. The story said this man was in a cell down at the police station.

I took longer studying the man's face by the way. I thought he would make a proper antagonist for my story. He had such cold eyes your spine froze along with it, he lacked hair everywhere, even lashes. His name was Aaron and he had the aspect of a cadaver.

Even I thought there was something unbiblical about a character such as him. Something unholy that should be locked up forever.

That night I started my short story. The kid, Rock, wasn't in it. But the man Aaron was. I wrote all night and put an end to the last sentence as the first cock crowed early morning.

Then I put the notebook away and snatched a little sleep before my mom got a chance to wake me.

—

I do not remember how long I slept, but when I woke, it felt like I had slept through the remaining of the century. My mouth felt like I ate sand, and my eyes stuck together like I'd had a bath in a bucket of glue. I felt a really awful pain in my back.

I got my eyes to open eventually.

There at my table was a man staring at me with the coldest black eyes that was ever stuck in a face. There was a scowl on the parched lips, and two tiny furrows between his eyes. A vein throbbed in the side of his left eye.

He wore dirty brown khaki shirts, muddy black boots with lose strings. He was fuming, he clutched my notebook in his greasy hand.

My first thought was there had been a break-in, but I saw the door was shut from inside. Darkness lingered outside through the window.

"Who are you?"

He said nothing. I got out of the bed slowly, my eyes never leaving the man's own. Those dead eyes followed my every move.

"I'm going to call someone —who are you?!"

"Why did you write it?"

"Write what?"

He waved my notebook in the air. "Why did you write about me?"

I frowned, understanding hit me. Hard.

"Are you…?"

"Yes."

"And how did you get in here?"

He waved the notebook again. "From here," he said.

"Oh...God."

"Write me back in!"

"But I don't even know how you—"

"Do you want to die too?" he barked.

I shrunk back into the bed. I shook my head fast, and then pissed myself. I remembered the kid, Rock. Rock wasn't Rocky enough for this killer.

I was just 16. I didn't want to die. I want to live and marry my sweetheart Janice and have little Seth's and Janice's.