March 25, 2018, 11:53:32 AM by Jim Statton
The Slasher's Revenge
by Jolene Wilkerson
At 72, Michael Prince was still producing one successful novel after the other. He had to. His public demanded it. So did his publisher.
It was raining outside as another day faded into evening. Michael sat at his computer. “They’re all the same,” he said to himself discouraged, as he crouched at his desk with his fingers moving just slightly off center on the keyboard. He noticed his next line was all wrong. “Jib borage, pure jib borage, that figures,”
No one was home and the estate was quiet. Dayla, his young bride, left him only days before. “Why, now,” he asked himself, feeling distracted, with the pressure of yet another deadline looming. “Why did she have to pick now, of all times, to leave?”
He reached into his paper files in the drawer of his large oak desk and pulled out the prenuptial agreement she signed when they wed. “She can threaten all she wants, but she’s not going to get past this contract.”
As he looked at the contract, he began to see his name as if it was written in thick red, dripping blood. He took off his bifocals and rubbed his eyes. “Okay, now I’m really seeing things,” he said.
In the quietness of his office, he looked around the room. His novels, which were quickly turned into best sellers, lined his bookshelves. Mementoes and props from his novels, many of which were turned into major motion pictures, sat on his massive oak desk and were mounted on the wall in front of him. Usually, they served as inspiration for further writing projects and trophy’s of his success. But tonight, Michael Prince did not feel inspired.
Michael was grateful to Ian Salem, Chief Publisher of Black Knight Publishing. After all, he had helped to make him the icon that he is today. But now, with the added pressure of the divorce suit, and Salem’s constant pressing for the next great sensation, Michael felt stifled.
It seemed the very monsters and hideous creatures that he had carefully crafted were now seeping into his dreams and creeping into his waking thoughts.
Michael jumped. “What’s that.. Who’s there?” he blurted out loud. Above the hum of the fan, he was sure he heard foot steps. He got up and walked through the empty hallway looking and finding nothing, he felt ridiculous.
He walked back to his office, looking around cautiously, and sat in his black leather chair. He reflected on when he was first contacted by Black Knight Publishing. Before that, he got rejections letters from every short story magazine and publisher in the business. He would have sold his soul to just have any serious publisher give him a second look. So Michael did not think too much about signing the contract in blood back then. After all, there were lots of eccentric people in the entertainment business. Besides, Salem assured him that there was a public out there waiting for him that would inhale his work and want more. That is when Murray Princeton became Michael Prince, and when The Slasher series began.
"The Slasher" was Salem's idea. He was a hooded creature who crept through the night, executing his own warped justice with a long steel blade and black cloak, which became symbols immediately recognized with the successful series. His first novel, “The Slasher “ became a block buster success with six equally successful sequels. Murray's then wife, Leslie, left before the release of the second novel, “The Slasher's Revenge.” She said success had changed him.
But now with his rusty red hair turned gray, he looked up at the Slasher's steel blade, mounted on the wall of his office and with a gasp of horror he thought he saw blood dripping red, like ink from the shiny blade. He rubbed his tired eyes. "I am really loosing it,” Michael thought.
All of a sudden, he heard a sound that caused him to jump up out of his chair. It was the scraping sound of metal against metal. It was the sound synonymous with the Slasher sharpening his blade, as portrayed in the movies. It was a sound which proceeded each murderous rampage that delighted audience with horror and suspense. Again, Michael tried to dismiss it until he heard loud foot steps again, this time accompanied by a loud pounding heartbeat, also portrayed in the movies. “Salem, is that you?” he yelped, as his own heart pounding so fiercely that it began to ache.
Just then, a hooded creature entered the room. It was wearing the dark cloak the Slasher wore when it roamed the night. His piercing eyes looked deep into the writer's soul. "Who are you? What are you trying to pull?" Michael Prince yelled with a frightful, weakened voice.
The creature pulled out a long, sharp blade. It looked identical to the prop that hung on the wall.
“This can’t be,” Prince said. “You are not real, I created you.”
But the creature coldly grabbed him by the neck, grasping tighter and tighter. He lifted him high above the floor, with the writer’s feet dangling and twitching in fear. Michael looked around the room glancing at his trophies, his novels on the shelves; the symbols of his success.
At that moment, all that he could think of was that he would gladly trade them all just to have someone there who cared. But there was no one. He was alone.
“Was someone trying to kill him using images from his own novels? A deranged fan, his self centered wife? Or could this be the work of his long time companion and publisher?” he wondered as he gasped.
No. It was just death.
Entertainment News Special Report. Michael Prince 72, successful horror/suspense writer and cult icon died today in his home apparently of natural causes.
The End
Last edited by
Jim Statton on March 25, 2018, 11:59:30 AM, edited 1 time in total.