Author's Note: In case you missed the posts explaining what this is all about, a few years ago, some friends and I decided to create a list of writing prompts where our original characters "visited" other books. Seeing as the resulting stories were too much fun to let languish on my hard drive, I've dusted them off to share on my blog :)
Enjoy!
Much love,
Saffron Amatti xx
'Possessed by a building?' said Lucas sceptically.
'Apparently so,' I replied 'At least, according to Wikipedia -'
'Wiki-what now?'
'Like the Encyclopaedia Britannica, only better, but also worse.' I explained. 'But that's not the point. And anyway, you're not going to be possessed by the building. Your dad is.'
'My dad is dead,' said Lucas flatly, giving me a cold look.
There was an awkward pause, because we both know how true this is, but I decided to breeze past it.
'Not today he's not,' I said cheerfully. 'And you're five again.'
'What! I don't want to be five again,' wailed Lucas.
'No, but handily you already have some psychic abilities, so that'll save us some time,' I said, as Lucas' cosy living room morphed into the sinister Overlook Hotel.
'Listen, Saff,' he said, looking desperately at me. It was quite pitiful, really, so I paused the morphing thing that was going on. 'Please. I've gone along with this for nearly the whole challenge -'
'Except that time you decided you didn't want to,' I reminded him.
He winced. 'Sorry about that,' he said. 'But look, you hate horror as much as I do -'
'If not more,' I agreed. 'I actually exist enough for the damn stories to get stuck in my head.'
'Exactly,' he said, sounding somewhat cheerful for once. 'And, and if you write me into this story, won't it get stuck in your head?'
'Maybe,' I said reluctantly.
I hate when my imaginary people are right.
'So,' he said, licking his lips anxiously. 'So, isn't it in your best interest to not drop me in the middle of a murder hotel?'
'Perhaps,' I conceded. 'But the thing is, I kind of have to -'
'No you don't,' he said quickly. 'In fact, we've been changing the stories to make them better all month, haven't we? So, so, why don't we change this one too? So no one has to die horribly or be scarred for life?'
'I'm listening,' I said, and as he spoke, a smile formed on my face.
Yes, that would tie things up very nicely, and would mean we could avoid awkward scenes with Jim Rathbone... for now.
Having siphoned off all the petrol from the cars parked in the hotel carpark and drenched the lobby carpet with it, Lucas glanced at me, match hovering over the box, waiting to be struck.
'Ready?' he asked.
'Do it.'
We watched the monstrous building burn to a smouldering heap, the flames licking the snow clouds hanging low in the sky, embers dancing madly upwards between falling snowflakes.
Dark shapes moved in the fire, darting two and fro, but it was too late.
The Overlook Hotel was destroyed, and the evil within would never be able to harm another living soul.
We hoped.
Thank you so much for reading! If you want to see Lucas messing up his own stories (instead of Stephen King's classic novels), check out all my books on Amazon now, where you can buy them in ebook or paperback format, or read on Kindle Unlimited :)