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One stormy afternoon in Berkshire, in the year 1348, the townspeople gathered to witness the end of Vivian Noose—a pregnant woman accused by the church of holding Lucifer’s child within her.

Kitty Dossle, age four, looked on from a distance as she hung from the arm of her young mother, Maze Dossle. Kitty clutched a tattered, hay-stuffed cloth doll in her hand, a gift from one of her mother’s male suitors.

Maze Dossle, a wretched-looking prostitute, offered men the kind of oral satisfaction they might not get at home. Suitors in want of a getaway from their everyday marital lives called on her by the dozens. She’d been beautiful once, with a sort of natural beauty that shone through her stringy hair and ragged clothing. She’d been tomboyish and innocent, capable of kicking ass and breaking hearts at the same time.

Maze had reacted to her hard-working parents’ inability to focus on raising her by venturing out with her peers into a world that gave her a sense of self and attention. First-love bloomed with sixteen-year-old Cagin Vince, two years older than Maze. A month after their courtship, reality slapped them both in the face: she was pregnant.

Despising the idea of societal embarrassment, her young male counterpart attempted to murder her by beating her unconscious, leaving her with welts and scars.

Maze managed to survive the ordeal with baby intact, after which her parents tossed her out onto the streets in the dead of winter to fend for herself and her unborn child. Although embarrassment and shame had been a part of her parents’ motivation, financially, they couldn’t bear another hungry mouth.

“She’s pregnant, isn’t she?” Kitty pointed to Vivian Noose, the day’s entertainment.

The townspeople spit at her and cursed her name. They threw stones as the blaze licked around her feet.

On and on the crowd taunted, while the flesh of Vivian Noose’s body began to peel, forming bubbly reddish blisters under her skin. As tears rolled down her face, evaporating in the intense heat, she looked upon the crowd. Everything seemed to slow as her skin melted from her body to reveal the painful sight of her meaty flesh.

An ominous sensation swept in, aggressively grabbing hold of each member of the gathered townspeople.

Within seconds of Vivian Noose’s passing, her charred eyelids snapped open, and she lifted her head to look upon the crowd. Her eyes, burning coals, glittered white. A voice spoke through her, using her as its vessel. It sounded ferocious—direct and full of fury.

“I thank you, for your hatred fuels me so. Damnation befalls this land and upon you. No matter the distance you travel, I will be your end. So say it, the shepherd.”

In a flash, the town’s population—presiding pastors, children, elders, and common folk—began to shake and contort in the seizure that swept through them.

The mob looked upon this hideous image with sudden empathy. “So say it, the flock,” the crowd shouted in unison.

As one, they snapped out of this wicked trance, seeming to know nothing of what had happened, looking upon the still-smoldering body of Vivian Noose in the ominous silence.

Frightened, Kitty dropped Christie to the ground, wrapped her arms tightly around her mother’s neck, and cried.

Vivian Noose’s stomach ripped open and a baby jackal fell forth, its eyes glowing red and its fangs razor-sharp.

The jackal threw its head to the sky and let out a blood-curdling shriek that sent the fear of God through the mob. When the howling stopped, the jackal gazed through the flames at the doll lying on the ground.

Unobserved by the other onlookers, who were focused on the sudden appearance of the jackal, the stitched-cloth eyes of the doll began glowing red. Kitty thought its features grew more beautiful, cleaner, refined, and far more advanced than any creation of the time. Upon the end of the doll’s morbid metamorphosis, its eyes slowly faded back to normal.

Maze screamed for her to come back, fearing the church would believe her daughter to be in league with the beast.

Kitty snatched the doll off the ground just before her mother caught her and pulled her away, kicking and screaming. Kitty glanced over her shoulder at the doll dragged along behind her, and shivered at its newly formed, wicked smile.

Author Gregory Stillingsworth, immersed in his latest novel, tapped away at his typewriter in the domain of his home office, which sat on the second floor of his glamorous house in rural Michigan. Here, in his private home-away-from-home, he found the personal comfort that encouraged his drive to push every over-stressed cell in his brain to endure hour after hour of creative work.

Drops of sweat rolled down his forehead and poised at the tip of his nose. In the heat of his creation, he ignored the sweat. Here, in his most private moments, he needed to be alone, a solitary artist pushing his fingers to strike words onto his canvas, creating a world that, right now, existed only within his storytelling mind. Later, he would worry about the fan letters received through his agent. For now, the world belonged solely to him, and he remained, as always, jealously possessive of his creation.

In this world of computer files and electronic transmissions, Gregory used Buford—a typewriter. This magical machine upon which he worked so diligently allowed him to do as he pleased. In this setting, at this task, he felt no less than a god.

In his element, Gregory allowed himself to be driven by what his heart commanded: the love and affection toward his work, the passion for his characters, the admiration of places to which he might journey through his stories, and the honesty and truth that so effectively spoke through fiction. His love for his work occasionally revealed the jealous heart of a dragon, both loving and fiercely protective.

He leaned forward and rushed toward the conclusion of another masterpiece. Words flew onto the page, and when he looked them over later, every letter would be crisp and stark against the whiteness of the paper. That was important to him. He valued paper—paper upon which no ink would smear, no matter how many times he shuffled through to admire a phrase here, a sentence there, or a character as he or she evolved through the pages. Quality was of the essence, and Gregory would work with no less.

He pulled the sheet out of the typewriter and checked it carefully, praying there were no errors, however minor. No pages would leave his hands until he’d corrected all errors. Only then would he place his John Hancock upon the delivery form. This paper, so insignificant without the words that currently raced across the page, represented Gregory’s livelihood in an astronomical manner. He obsessively checked and rechecked the type to be sure not a single flaw marred the snowy perfection of the stock and the crisp blackness of his words.

Finished with the page, he sat back a moment and wiped the sweat from his nose. He patted Buford—beaten and scarred by years of use—fondly. People sometimes asked him why he still cranked out his words on a typewriter after becoming a grossly successful author of seventy-three books. Certainly, he had money to spare, but give up Buford? Unthinkable.

He took a short break, and noticed the stack of dusty old journals sitting on a lower shelf. He walked through the maze of the odds-and-ends, objects he had collected over the years to trigger ideas and stories, to the shelf, and picked up the last hand-written journal. He sat down on a creaky antique chair and leafed through the pages.

Diary Entry #465

As I write, my whispery gabble leads the pencil in my hand as the motoring muscles that rope around my carpals, metacarpals, and phalanges, which draw their strength from the brachioradialis, forearm flexors, and the brachialis, struggle to keep up with my thoughts. This race is forever humorous. I feel a burning sensation as my fingers grip the pencil with zeal.

I drown myself in my thoughts regularly, for my thoughts hum through me like the soothing sounds of the bulbul.

The smell of crushed lead bleeds from the number-two pencil as my hand grasps it, guided by my angelic, developing literary mind. Its remnants glide upon the unorthodox—medieval by comparison—recycled paper within my diary, affectionately known as my “morbid book.” Writing seems to come easily for me. I’m what some would call a “thinker”—a heavy one at that—as labeled by my parents. But let’s not talk of my relations and their forever harsh opinions of me. Thoughts and story ideas seem to bounce through my mind like cotton balls, dancing around within a windy tunnel. Fascinating, these thoughts—fascinating, and utterly marvelous!

Writing is my destiny. I’m going to become a great writer. I’m going to shock the world with a story that will capture the true essence of fear and horror. I will bend the fabric of time and force another dimension of reality to rear its ugly head, to the utter amazement and heavily concentrated fascinations of civilized minds. I will fascinate with my approach. I will build a following to rival that of great leaders and fearless generals from a time when one who lived by the sword fell also by that sharp edge, cast by an opposing warrior. My thoughts will prove themselves worthy with every letter, phrase, sentence, and paragraph. My thoughts will prove themselves worthy.

Worthy, I say. Worthy, indeed.

From what fathoms do these thoughts come? That question I cannot answer, yet I can’t help but speculate. I was but three years of age when these thoughts began to dance through my head and, with great clarity, I comprehended every facet.

Strangely, as far back as my birth, the darkness never frightened me. There were times throughout the night I could have sworn that my room, as well as the outskirts of our home, was consumed by shadowy figures whispering my name. As they looked over me with seeming vengeance, I felt a calming comfort in the darkness around these shadowy things.

Oddly, I found it soothing and enriching. I found it compelling, with a pull that opened my mind to a world in the form of a large lock, with me the only key.

Writing is my destiny!

Diary Entry #466

Literature of the Twentieth Century had its share of ups and downs. Twenty-three publishers rejected “Dr. Seuss”; Richard Hooker’s “Mash” was rejected by twenty-one; “Kon-Tiki” by Thor Heyerdahl, twenty; “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” by Richard Bach, eighteen; and Patrick Dennis’s “Auntie Mame,” seventeen.

I feel that what these storytellers experienced, I never will, for I was born an artist of the written word, not a developing pawn in literature. I was conceived as this Messiah of the literary tapestry. With my painstaking, unerring study in this field, I will surpass all in my path, and topple my would-be peers.

Writing is my destiny!

Gregory grinned as the sudden memory of his fourteenth birthday slipped into his mind. He had been writing in this very journal when his bedroom doors had swung open.

His parents stood in the doorway. “Can’t you put that pencil down for a minute, boy? Your mother and I got you something we know you’ll like.”

Gregory protested. “You guys, I’m not a kid anymore. I don’t need anything but your love and affection.”

The masculine voice rumbled again from the doorway. “You smartass. Take this before I break my foot off in your tail. You might be fourteen now, but you’re still under our roof.”

Gregory sighed. “Okay, okay, enough with the lectures. What is it?” He accepted the large, bulky box, and ripped the gift-wrap paper away to reveal the typewriter. The moment became an eternity.

“Breathe, boy, breathe,” his mother said, then turned to his father. “Baby, I think he likes it.”

Gregory managed to stammer, “I just... I can’t.... I can’t believe this, you guys. It’s just what I wanted. I love you guys.”

His mom beamed. “We love you too, sweetheart. We’ll let you two be alone to get acquainted. Happy birthday, baby.”

Gregory’s jaw hung nearly to the ground and tears pooled in his eyes. Without looking away from the amazing thing, he ripped a sheet of paper from his diary, ran it into the machine, and began to type.

Diary entry #467

Hot damn, a typewriter! Happy birthday, indeed, Mom and Dad. Happy birthday, indeed.

You’re beautiful—a little tattered and beaten, but a thing of sheer pulchritude. Hypnotizing, you are. You’re the key to my self-chosen future. You’re my friend. Now, what shall I call you? What would be your name? Later. First, I must care for you with hands like a feather. Alluring, you are. Stimulating! Unquestionable pulchritude! What thought-yanking motivation.

I now shall use my bleeding number-two pencils as a guide for organizing my thoughts, and not as a necessity. I’m now heavily armed to a T. I’m ready to venture deep into my chosen shtick. I’m armed with an arsenal in comparison to none.

Writing is my destiny!

Fourteen-year-old Gregory jumped. His head snapped up and he looked around the room. The voice had broken his focus like a whip-crack. He’d been fully immersed with his new typewriter.

“What?” he blurted out, his heart pounding with fear from the voice. There was no one in the room.

“Who’s saying that?” Gregory snapped, his heart beating so quickly that his Flash Gordon T-shirt vibrated on his chest.

The voice came directly from in front of him. “You and I forever; you and I together....”

Gregory looked at his typewriter in fear and curiosity. “My God, is that you?”

Diary Entry #468

A sudden change of events has just wickedly set the surface cortexes of my mind afire. I thought it nothing at first, perhaps just more of my continuously morbid thoughts, but....

This gift of mine has spoken to me.

Oh, yes, I will be a great writer. The words spoken from my gift confirm it. This can only be the beginning of an unstoppable relationship.

Writing is my destiny!

Gregory tossed the dusty old journal back onto the shelf, chiding himself for the pause from his work. He fed another sheet of paper to Buford and began typing away, feverishly filled with new inspiration.

On the other side of Gregory’s office door, Jamie Stillingsworth knocked lightly to get his attention. Growing frustrated, she took a deep breath and knocked again. She’d been attempting to coerce her husband out of his lair for fifteen minutes now, because he had a book signing to attend, but as usual, Gregory remained immersed in the completion of his new novel.

Under normal circumstances, Jamie knew not to disturb Gregory. She prided herself on her accommodation of his work habits. While most authors’ wives longed to see their husbands look upon them with the same passion they bestowed upon each new manuscript, Jamie had adapted to the detachment and frequent eccentricities of this relationship. If she hadn’t been able to do so, she suspected there would be no relationship.

She figured all writers had certain traditions and superstitions that made up the Chi, or energy force, of their work, as did anyone in any career. The curse on the family of Bruce Lee, she recalled, had created havoc within the lives of himself, his father, and possibly his son. In the Lees’ world, one followed ritualistic traditions passed down through the generations. These traditions stayed one’s existence. Actors tended to live psychologically-split lives in order to do their jobs, another example of queer tradition through craft, yet however mentally disturbing this may have been, they usually lived their lives without a hitch.

Jamie knew Gregory’s traditions, the decades-driven superstitions he indulged in every time he closed his office door. In fact, she knew his traditions almost too well, for she breathed his work in the same manner he did, albeit to a lesser degree. She was more than simply his wife, which she knew all too well. She was the last piece of a highly complex puzzle, and the guiding force that kept him together.

It certainly hadn’t been easy. Often lonely, she’d started to consider bringing up the “kid question,” but something always told her to wait. The words remained buried behind the lips that always held a smile for her husband.

An exemplary and dedicated wife, Jamie had become something of a secondhand author herself, understanding all the peculiar writer’s quirks and boundaries. Thus, as she raised her fist to knock on the door once more, she frowned at the taboo.

Lost in his thoughts, Gregory ignored the knocking and tapped away at the typewriter.

The blood drips slowly from the fingertips of the carcass, flooding the canvas with red....

The knocking persisted, but hardly aware of the sound, Gregory stayed immersed in his story.

Dr. Nuserus stands there in a state of shock, overlooking the dangling body. The blame could not be his own! He holds a blood-streaked axe in his hands, with bits and pieces of rotting flesh hanging from the sharp blade. Suddenly—

The pounding outside his door finally distracted Gregory enough to elicit a response. “Honey,” he called, “give me a minute, please. I have to finish this.”

Jamie responded in a frustrated tone. “But we’re going to be late for the signing.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Gregory muttered to himself, still lost in his emerging novel.

Detectives Young and Fox bust through the door with the SWAT team at their heels, pointing their weapons straight at Dr. Nuserus’s back.

“Drop the axe and get the fuck down on your knees,” Fox shouts.

Dr. Nuserus turns around—

—slowly, looking as though he’s lost his mind, draped in blood and still bearing the axe.

“Put the axe down, you crazy son-of-a-bitch,” Young warns.

Dr. Nuserus begins to scream at the top of his lungs. He lifts the axe and charges the detectives.

At once, the whole SWAT team, along with Young and Fox, unload a series of shots into him. The gunfire that rang out was so deafening that it drowned out the sound of the bullets violently penetrating his flesh.

Little Cary Times, Dr. Nuserus’s most recent captive, kneels frightened in the corner.

Detective Young picks her up with gentle ease and carries her out the door. “It’s going to be okay,” he says as Cary, still shaking with fear, grasps his shirt collar and lays her head on his shoulder. “The monster’s dead.”

“Thank you,” Cary’s sweet voice whispers in his ear.

Detective Young manages a grin, relieved that the monster is off the streets. The case that has taken them eight years to close is at its final hour.

He who writes is the martyr, seen through the eyes of the unassuming doll.

“That’s another one for the record books,” Gregory told himself with a sigh of great satisfaction. He rose from his chair, shuffled across the room, and opened his office door to a beauty far more magnificent than the famed Mona Lisa.

Jamie, his wife of fifteen wonderful, love-bent years, stood at the door adorned in a shimmering evening gown, and a black gloss of hair lay gently upon her creamy skin.

Gregory allowed himself a moment to admire the fantastic beauty before him: eyes of subtle strength, legs and physique reminiscent of an angelic swan, the energizer of Gregory’s world, his power pack, his Wonder Woman, his Sada, with the soothing voice of a songbird. She was his reason, his life, and his world.

The glow in his heart for this woman hadn’t faded a bit throughout their marriage; gazing on her now, it was just as radiant as ever. Impulsively, he enfolded her in his arms and showered her with kisses, then danced her around the hallway in a foolish display of affection. Her delighted laughter was a joy to his ears and a chime in his heart.

In Gregory’s world, Jamie fit completely: full-time proofreader, personal attorney, and business-affairs liaison. These roles she served totally of her own volition, primarily because she trusted no one else to handle his fiscal properties without projecting personal agendas that could prove dangerous. In addition, she seemed to hold an ecstatic love for reading his work, and an even deeper love for Gregory himself.

Not so very long ago, she’d been a kick-ass defense attorney with a master’s degree from Mississippi State University. During her stint as a law major, she minored in technical literature. Upon completion of her master’s, she went on to obtain her law degree at Harvard.

She and Gregory had been an on-again, off-again couple since a mutual friend had initiated their meeting in college. After Jamie had finished school, the two decided to take their relationship to the next level. Following Jamie’s graduation, they got engaged, but she had insisted they not jump the broom until she’d taken and passed the bar exam.

Gregory fretted not, knowing her passion for law was as intense as his own love of writing. He fully understood the meaning of personal goals, and he had marveled at the commitment in her eyes.

She brought him back to the moment with an adoring grin. “Rack one up for the record books, huh, honey?”

“Okay, okay.” Gregory sighed, gently allowing her body to slide from his embrace.

He paused to lovingly brush a strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind her right ear. The moment seemed to stand still, and the universe balanced itself within this one frame. Their eyes locked and their hearts seemed to beat in unison.

The moment ended, and with a sorry attempt at humor, Gregory drew his right foot up, paused dramatically, and then skipped off to the bedroom like Tom in the infamous Tom and Jerry cartoons.

Jamie smiled, feeling a glow in her heart as she watched him. Her love for this marvel of a novelist was as permanent as a diamond, with all the beauty contained in its meaning and purpose. Every movement, touch, smile, and gesture was enough to make her day, her love for this man like a fairy-tale romance.

While she waited for him to dress, she wandered into his office and started to read the end of his newly finished project. She stood flabbergasted as she turned page after page, smiling from ear to ear.

Moments later, from the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of a figure leaning with one shoulder against the office door, and jumped.

“Gregory,” she scolded, holding a hand over her thumping heart. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

All suited up, her husband looked as if he’d stepped right out of a current edition of GQ. He stood before her in his double-breasted, pearl-black tailored Armani suit.

Looking at him, Jamie wondered if she’d be able to make it through the night at the side of this “sexual beast,” as she would affectionately refer to him.

“I’m sorry.” Gregory smiled but did not appear apologetic. “I just didn’t want to disturb you.” He pulled back his perfectly smooth printed sleeve to reveal gold custom-printed cuff links, a gift from Jamie upon his last publication, and looked at his wristwatch. “You ready?”

“You know,” he told her gently, “I was just thinking the same thing, sweetheart.”

They intertwined their fingers and shared a brief, sweet kiss before heading downstairs and out of the house.