Hail to the King

Jonathan’s heart thumped as he hung up the phone. He scanned through the email again. The cat was rubbing around his feet purring, hoping for a feed no doubt. The birds had awoken in full song as dawn threatened to illuminate the stillness outside. But bugger the hour, it didn’t matter. He scraped the wooden chair across the tiled floor. He didn’t take his eyes of the email. He sat, and scanned every word again, blinking in disbelief.

“Hun,” he called back down the hallway to the darkened bedroom where his wife slept, “Hun, you need to see this,”

Murmurs of discontent flowed through the open door. “Coffee,” they said, followed by, “what time is it?”

In one swift motion, he pulled the magnetic power cable from his MacBook, rushed down the hallway and entered the still darkened bedroom.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, wiping sleep from her eyes, her face now washed with concern.

“You remember that story I wrote ages ago? The one with the monster in it?”

“Really babe? You woke me at this time of the morn–”

“No, wait, you remember it yeah. You said it was great,”

She nodded and yawned.

“Well, I sent it to Stephen King, through his facebook page and–”

“Make me a coffee, hun.” She rubbed her neck with one hand and stretched her other arm out.

“He got back to me.” She looked at him, her sleepiness dashed.

Jonathan grinned and turned the laptop to show her the email.

—————

Dear John, I got your manuscript. Nice work man. I can see you are developing a distinct style. I’m running a workshop for horror writers over here in Maine. It’s select and I only have one spot left. I’d love to have you as part of it. Bring the wife too. She sounds lovely. I’ve taken the liberty of reserving two tickets, Qantas, business class. I hope that is satisfactory for you. See you in two weeks.

——————

“I just got off the phone with Qantas, and this is legit, hun. The tickets have been booked under our names and fully paid for. Mary, we’re going to Maine. We’re going to meet Stephen King.”

They hugged each other, giggling and bouncing on the bed. Mary stopped for a moment and between girlish excited giggles asked, “Do you think he has Vegemite? Or you recon we should bring some?”

—————

The flight from Sydney to Maine was long and boring. He passed the time poring over his iDevices, which were filled with every King story he could get. He highlighted passages and made notations, asking questions as to why this? And How that? They watched movies and played Candy Crush together. Sleep, however, evaded them, and when they landed, they both felt tired and irritable.

They bustled their way through the airport gates and fidgeted while awaiting their baggage. Minute after torturous minute they waited as the baggage carousel paraded its zippered and overstuffed bag-shaped fairground ponies around and around. Finally, they saw their battered and faded suitcase. The large “JM” taped across it with threadbare gaffa tape stood out among the new and fancy travel bags the other business class passengers used.

They spied a young man wearing a dark suit. He held a sign in his hand with their names printed across it. John, in a fit of over-enthusiasm bashed Mary in the arm with the back of his hand.

“That's us babe. That’s our driver dude,”

She rubbed her arm and fell in behind him, her little legs working overtime trying to keep up with his long and eager strides.

“John and Mary, I presume. Your limo awaits. Mr. King is looking forward to meeting you.” The suit-wearing man picked up the case, turned, and headed towards the large stretch limo parked outside the double electric doors.

——

The city blurred past and soon turned to country. The country turned to farmland and the limo turned down a gravel lane shrouded by trees.

“Mr. King’s Place is just the around the corner,” the chauffeur said, his voice husky, and deep. He grinned as he looked at the pair through his mirror.

As they crunched down the gravel driveway, the trees opened up to reveal a modest house. Not the grandeur either of them had expected. Standing at the front door stood a man. His unmistakable square jaw, his small and impish mouth, curled at the ends to form a smile. The sun glinted off his round glasses and hid his eyes, but there was no mistaking that iconic face.

They jumped out of the car. Mr. Stephen King, the horror Master himself, greeted them with a warm smile and a firm handshake.

“Jonathan, Mary, pleased to meet you. Welcome.” He opened his arms and beckoned them to follow

“I’m sorry,” she said, blushing and stammering, “I’m a little star-struck. Gosh, I never thought I’d ever get to meet you, Mr. King.”

“You guys must be hungry, Come in, come in. Igor will get your bags.”

The pair stopped mid-stride and glanced at each other in way that only a husband and wife can. A silent message that said, “Igor? Are you kidding me? Really?”

Mr. King grinned his impish grin again. “Don’t worry, the irony isn't lost on me.” He stepped up the stairs and entered the house. John couldn’t help but notice the odd gate to his walk.

“Must have been from that accident,” Mary leaned in, her voice barely a whisper.

The entrance hall was decorated with photographs. They stopped to look at one in particular. It was Stephen, Tom Hanks and ‘John Coffey, Yessir Boss. Like the drink, only not spelled the same’ standing behind, dwarfing the pair.

“I loved that movie,” Mary gushed.

“Here, guys, your room’s on the left. Make yourselves at home and join us in the sitting room when you’re ready.”

He opened the door, revealing a large and splendid bedroom. A portrait of ‘The Overlook Hotel’ hung above the bed. The pair entered, wide-eyed and awestruck.

——

The double doors to the sitting room squeaked as they opened. Mr. King stood in front of a crackling log fire with a glass in hand. He turned to greet them as Igor entered from a side door with a fresh bottle of red and white.

“Would you care for a drink?” Stephen asked. He picked up the bottle and examined the label

“Only if it needed me,” John grinned, his weak joke flying straight over the head and through to the keeper. A short and awkward silence followed. Stephen King studied John in silence. He looked at him as though he were a spelling mistake, on an already edited manuscript: perplexed.

“So ah, red or white?”

“Red please.” John flushed, “and I’ll keep my crap jokes to myself eh,”

Mary rolled her eyes, “Well,” she gushed “at least it’s not me making a fool out of myself, Hah!”

Once again the awkward silence pressed down on them. Igor poured and handed them each a glass. He motioned them to sit. They followed his direction; both sipped, and then drained their drinks. Igor refilled without needing a prompt.

“So, Mr. King, You liked my first draft?”

“That’s why you're here. I can see I’m in for some real competition if I want to retain my throne.” He chuckled and sat on a large padded leather chair. “And we can’t have that now can we?”

“Oh, I can't see my stuff commmpeeeting with yoooooo.” As he spoke the room elongated sideways. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. John glanced over to his wife for some kind of reassurance. Her head stretched and twisted in on itself. Her pretty blue eyes that he’d fallen in love with all those years ago melted, sucking into her head like paint gurgling down a drain.

“Sh’good shtuff dis vine innit.” His head hit the floor with a resounding thunk and he huffed. A slow-motion, dust particle transformed in front of his eyes into a microscopic spacecraft. He heard a beep and a voice that sounded like it came from a vintage radio crackle into life.

“This is ground control, proceed with the landing,” It said, directing the tiny lunar lander home on the polished wooden floorboards.

“Heheh” was all John could manage, then the blackness took him.

——

A slice of consciousness bled through the Inky darkness.

“My head, oh my god, my head,” he croaked, then flinched as his own voice boomed through his skull.

Who planted a megaphone in me?

Even his thoughts thundered and clobbered his brain into submission. He opened an eye. Much to his relief, he found that it was dark.

Thank God for small mercies.

He immediately regretted that thought as his head hammered once again. The internal roadworker, complete with fluro-yellow safety jacket and hard hat, whomperstompered though his mind, compacting the thought back down to a flat, even surface.

The other eye opened. He blinked. His eyes adjusted to the gloom.

It smelt damp. A dank mustiness hung in the air, and it reminded him of their bedroom after a winter downpour. A few other savoury scents competed for attention. Sweat? Piss? What was that other smell? He couldn’t see anything other than vague shapes.

“You dat new boy air ya?” A voice boomed out, beaten by a thick Scouse accent. “Gotchoo too did eh?”

Behind the voice came a snort. It sounded like a laugh, but without the humour.

“Where the bloody hell am I?” Jonathan asked, His stomach turned as he sat up. “Oh god, I’m gonna–“

“Donchoo frikin’ puke man, The place’ll stink like Herbert’s arse crack if you puke.”

“Screw you Barker you little wanker,” came a second voice.

Jonathan looked around. He was in a small iron cell, hanging from a stone ceiling. Several other cages swung back and forth. Some contained other men, some women. One contained a rotten corpse. Its limbs dandled through the cage floor, which itself was littered with bones and flesh.

“Where the hell am I?”

“You, me lad, are in ‘is lordship dungeon.” The same Scouse accent came back. Metallic clanging of chains rattled along with some grunting. A face loomed into view from the gloom peering out from behind its own iron bars. The man behind the face reached with an outstretched arm. He grabbed hold of the cage John resided in. A second hand shot out through the bars.

“Me names Barker, Clive Barker.”

“Leave him alone,” the second voice said “Let him die in peace like the rest of us.”

“I told you to fuck off Herbert,” Clive leaned in. His face was skin and bone. His eyes caught what little light there was. John was trapped in his gaze; a wild and crazed stare. “Miserable bastard ‘e is”

“Never more NEVER MORE!” A third voice cried out in the dark.

“Oh great, now you’ve woken bloody Poe up. Shut up Poe ya crazy Bastad!”

John leant forward to get a better look at the man in the cage next to him. “You’re telling me that you’re the Clive Barker? And that’s Edgar Allen Poe?”

The mad man clinging onto the bars started giggling and nodding.

“And I’m not a miserable bastard, I’m just tired and I want to die in peace.” Said the other voice from the darkness.

“That’s James,” Clive said in-between giggles, “James Fooking Herbert. OI JIMMY,” he yelled, “Dem rats will save ya HAH! . Cos I knows you like em soo much.”

“Never more …” the voice of Poe drifted back to silence.

There was a loud clang. Light flooded in from a doorway above a long and curved stairwell. A silhouetted figure stepped through. The shadowed man took slow and deliberate steps, showing traces of a slight limp. He held a lantern before him, which swayed back and forth. John watched the light dance, and his stomach churned once more. He noticed that written on the walls and across the steps were words. He peered through the dancing light. The words said things like ‘Softly’ ’Harshly’ ‘Suddenly’. Each step echoed off the stone revealing more adverbs. The sound reverberated around John's throbbing head.

“Shut up Barker, you annoying little scroat,” Mr. King’s voice boomed out.

“Yes m’lud.” Barker let go of the bars and his cage swung back into place, clanging the chains.

King walked around each cage inspecting the residents within. He stepped up to the one with the rotten corpse and picked up its decaying hand.

“Never did like you, Koontz.” He huffed. “Extra dinner for you guys this month. And you’ll all have to pick up the slack now that dear ol’ Dean has abandoned you.”

With that, he turned and headed back up the stairs towards the light?

“OI," Called John "What the bloody hell are you trying to pull here man!”

Herbert gasped and Barker giggled. It started out as a little titter, followed by a full-blown laugh.

“Oooooh shit mate. You shouldn’t said that, you’ll be in for’a floggin’ if’n ya keep it up, Ya-“

“Mr. Barker,” King seemed to grow as he spoke. His voice rose to a bellow. “Will you keep that god-damn mouth of yours shut and keep writing. Otherwise, it’ll be you that gets the flogging.”

Barker cowered back into the far side of his cage.

“Where’s Mary?” John pleaded, “I don’t care what you do to me, but don’t hurt my Mary.”

King’s face loomed from behind the bars to face the sick and broken man inside the cage. His white skin flushed red as he grinned at the man behind the bars. John couldn't be sure, but he could have sworn he saw horns poking through the forehead of his captor.

“She is a pretty little thing isn’t she.” King’s voice was just above a whisper. John struggled to hear what he was saying.

“Just write your stories, Johnny boy.” King grinned. Evil seeped between his perfect white teeth. Death reflected in his little round glasses. The horrormeister continued. “Write like you’ve never written before. Johnny boy, Write for your life, and I'll keep you alive, for as long as you write you shall live.”

"Never More ..." came the voice of Poe from the darkness.

King turned and headed back towards the adverb encased stairs. His shadow stretched, grew and flexed wings. The man limped away. His shadow bounded two at a time up the steps. King stopped at the top, hovering in the doorway.

“I’ve taken good care of Mary, Johnny boy, don’t worry.”

He paused, then turned and shouted. “Long live the King.”

“Long live the King,” came the chorus of bedraggled voices from around the darkened room. John tried to pinpoint how many. At least ten that he could make out.

Then the tapping started. Slight at first. A thunk from an old fashioned style typewriter. The stroke of computer keys being pressed. The darkened room which smelt of sweat and piss and puke was filled with the sounds of tapping keys and swishing typewriter mechanisms.

“Welcome t’da engine room of the horrormeister, John,” Barker said, “Better get a writing mate, or ‘e won’t feed you no dinner tonight.”

“I’m waiting for you ALL to address me.” Came the voice of Mr. King, booming back down through the stairwell.

John felt rather than saw the gazes of his cellmate turn towards him.

“Hail to the …” whispered Barker.

John rubbed his eyes, still unable to process what was happening.

“Oi Johnny, you’ll get us all beaten… now ya stupid bastard, hail the man for Christ sake.” The whispered toned spat poisonous intent through the darkness.

“H .. Hail to the King.” John said. He dropped his head back into his hands.

“Better, Johnny boy... Much better. Now, I want to see your first manuscript by the morning."

The horrormeister turned. The door slammed shut with a boom. John sobbed. He reached forward to find a cold hard metallic object.

Was this a dash of hope? Could it be? His MacBook pro? The light was too bright for him to see as he opened it. He squinted and reduced the brightness so that he could look at the screen without it hurting his still delicate eyes. He immediately went to the internet to call for help, but all the icons were gone. They had all been replaced by the same symbol. A big Blue “W’ with the text “Microsoft Word” displayed above it.

Barker tittered and giggled as he tapped out on his own keyboard. “Oi, Jonny Boy,” He said between giggles “Better start a writin’”.