A story a la King
Reading Stephen King’s excellent book on writing. Then, shock horor, half way through he challenges the reader to write a short story in his style. i.e a bit scary. So, after taking a deep breath, here is my first effort.
There is always a feeling of relief when I have the house to myself. I love my Janie dearly, but her incessant bubble and chatter does wear me down at the end of a hard working day. It is a hell of a lot harder for a man to be a lone parent. No that’s stupid, of course it isn’t. I can manage fine. Haven’t I been saying that all along to fend off the overbearing cluckings and comments from the Grandparents? Still, it is a lovely feeling to have left her with them for a while. The relief of a quiet house and the knowledge that she is safe with them. They won’t let her out of their sight for a second, I know that.
But the door clicks shut behind me and then I know that I am not alone in this house. I feel the hairs on my wrists and the back of my hands prickle. There is someone else here. And why is there a smell in the house, a cleaning smell, but it’s not Mrs Ferrier’s day to clean. As I go through the kitchen door the smell hits me and I know that she is here. Bleach. Every day of my married life the house smelled of bleach. There wasn’t to be a single germ alive in the house, not a single grain of disease carrying dirt. iIt all had to be zapped with bleach, and immediately, which meant most of the day, all day. Compulsion, an obsession to be clean which finally went too far and sent her over the edge. The kitchen is empty though, no sign of anybody there.
The kitchen door swings closed behind me and again I know I am not alone. But as I turn to look around the room, something hits me hard in the midrif, and I crumple forward, instinctively covering my hands to shield my face from fingernails scratching me, and collapse onto a chair. She doesn’t say a word, just mutters incoherently to herself. I have no breath in me to struggle, as she secures me to the chair with a leather belt and secures my wrists and ankles with sticky tape. My mouth still half open in question is also sealed, painfully, with sticky tape and the taste of glue. Then she can speak.
She takes my shoes off of course, and holding them at arms length throws them out of the kitchen door into the garden. I notice that she doesn’t lock the kitchen door, but she knows she has no need. I am immobile and silent and the back garden is completely enclosed. She knows the place.
Gradually she begins to speak, talks about the hell she has been through in therapy, is quite coherent in her hatred of her father and his abuse of her. I can say nothing of course, and now she has a syringe in her hand. She starts to rave about sex and dirt, and tells me that the syringe is full of bleach and she is going to help me to get clean at last, she is going to inject me with it. I can’t struggle, it’s just a waste of energy, I just wait my chance hoping that I can get an opportunity – to do what – I don’t know.
This seems to go on for ever; the strain of being held prisoner like this, I am wildly wondering what it does to somebody to be injected with bleach. I imagine it’s a lot of pain, if not death. Maybe death that takes a long time.
Then I see a vague shape outside the kitchen door, somebody big and dark, and as the kitchen door edges open I can see the darkness is navy blue, and a policeman. Desperately I summon up all my energy and strength to rock my body forward, and overbalance the chair, but I don’t fall, and she is not even thrown off balance. That split second of attention is enough though, enough for him to get across the room and grab her from behind and send the syringe clattering across the tiled floor. And then the room seems to be full of navy blue and noise, and relief, and more pain as they strip the tape off my mouth. They have her restrained and by now she is raving incoherent abuse. Not making any sense, but as she is taken from the room she shoots me a glance, such a glance, not just hatred, a look almost of triumph.
When I can speak and a policeman has made me the obligatory cup of tea, they answer my questions gently. It appears they came here because her parents’ neighbour had seen her leaving their house and reported it. And, thank God, been able to give them my name and address. I had to prepare myself for a shock, they had found her parents, bound as I had been and in a very bad way. The bleach? Well, yes, we didn’t know that then, but presumeably the bleach. Will they live? Nobody knows. Then the real fear begins to grip and I have to ask the question I can barely summon the voice to ask,
“And my little girl?”
“Sorry sir? Little girl? We searched the house, there was no child.”
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Now, having put me through the stress of writing this story Mr. King then utterly terrifies me by saying .
“Now email it to me”. Of course I didn’t have the nerve. What a whimp!
Stephen King’s Book “On Writing : A Memoir of the Craft” is published by Hodder Paperbacks, and is also available on Kindle, and as an audiobook.