Chapter 6
This Book May Kill You
Evan made it home without remembering the drive. One moment he was standing on the sidewalk outside Dana’s office, staring at his phone. The next he was sitting in his apartment, laptop open, the manuscript file staring at him.
He didn’t remember getting in his car. Didn’t remember the route. Didn’t remember unlocking his door. Just blank space where the memory should be.
He checked his phone. Forty-seven minutes unaccounted for.
“Okay,” he said to the empty room. “Okay. This is fine. This is normal. People dissociate sometimes when they’re stressed.”
The laptop screen glowed in the dim apartment. NOVEL_v1.docx sat open, cursor blinking at the end of Chapter 5. A chapter he definitely hadn’t written. A chapter that shouldn’t exist.
He started to close the laptop, then stopped. Because there, in his calendar, was a notification he didn’t remember setting: ZOOM CALL WITH DANNY - 2:00 PM
He checked the time. 1:47 pm. “Shit.”
Danny Torray. His editor. The call he’d scheduled three days ago to discuss the cat mystery that didn’t exist because he’d apparently been writing this instead.
Evan looked at the manuscript. Looked at the calendar notification. He felt that familiar, sharp tensing in his chest.
He could cancel.
Should cancel.
Tell Danny he was sick, that he needed more time, that the project wasn’t ready. But that would mean admitting he hadn’t written anything. That would mean confessing he’d wasted three months on nothing. That would mean proving, once again, that he was a fraud who couldn’t deliver.
Or.
Or he could show Danny this. Pretend he meant to write it. Pretend the horror novel about a trapped character was the plan all along. Perform confidence until it became real.
Evan’s hands were shaking as he opened Zoom. The call connected at exactly 2:00 pm. Danny’s face filled the screen. Warm smile, expensive glasses, the kind of professionally encouraging expression editors wore when they were about to tell you something needed work.
“Evan! Good to see you. How’ve you been?”
“Good,” Evan lied. “Busy. Writing.”
“That’s what I like to hear.” Danny leaned back in his chair. “So. The cat mystery. How’s it coming?”
This was it. The moment to confess or commit. Evan chose commitment.
“Actually,” he said, keeping his voice steady, “I pivoted. New project. Something different. I sent you the first few chapters this morning.”
Danny’s eyebrows rose. “Did you?”
A sudden nausea hit Evan. He hadn’t sent anything. Why had he said that? But Danny was already nodding, pulling up something on another screen. “Let me check my email. Sometimes things go to spam.”
Evan watched Danny’s face as he scrolled. Watched for the confusion, the moment when Danny would say there’s nothing here, what are you talking about?
“Ah!” Danny’s face lit up. “There it is. ‘This Book May Kill You.’ That’s quite a title.”
Evan’s mouth went dry. “You...you got it?”
“Just came through. Let me skim this real quick.” Danny’s eyes moved across his screen. Reading. “Okay. Wow. Okay.”
Evan waited. Watched Danny’s expression shift from curious to intrigued to something like delight.
“Evan,” Danny said slowly, “what the hell is this?”
“It’s...it’s a meta horror novel. About a character who’s aware he’s trapped in a manuscript. And the author who’s losing control of the narrative.”
“It’s brilliant.”
Evan blinked. “What?”
“This is exactly what the market needs right now. Self-aware, genre-bending, that whole postmodern horror thing is huge right now.” Danny scrolled further. “The voice is incredible. Darryl feels so real. So desperate. And the way you’re building this parallel between him and the author character? The impostor syndrome as literal horror? It’s genius.”
“I don’t...” Evan stopped himself. “Thank you.”
“How much do you have?”
“Five chapters.”
“Can I see them? All of them?”
Evan’s hands hovered over the keyboard. “They’re...they’re rough. First draft. I haven’t revised anything.”
“Even better. I want to see it raw.” Danny leaned forward. “Look, I’m going to be honest. The cat mystery? I was worried. It felt safe. Predictable. But this? This is the Evan Hartley I’ve been waiting for. This is you taking risks.”
Evan’s stomach clenched.
“When can I see the next few chapters?”
“I’m...I’m working on them.”
“How fast can you work? Because if this maintains this energy, if you can sustain this voice for a full manuscript, I want to start shopping it immediately. I’m talking pre-empts. Auctions. This could be big, Evan.”
“Big,” Evan repeated numbly.
“The way David switches between chapters? The escalating paranoia? The reader being implicated in the whole thing?” Danny shook his head. “It’s exactly what I wanted from you. That raw, honest horror.”
Evan’s brain snagged on something. “What did you call him?”
“Who?”
“The character. You said David.”
Danny’s smile didn’t falter. “Did I?”
“His name is Darryl. Darryl Ackerman.”
“Right, of course. Darryl.” Danny made a note on his screen. “Sorry, I’m juggling three manuscripts today. Names start to blur.”
“You just read it thirty seconds ago.”
“I skim fast.” Danny’s laugh was easy, practiced. “Anyway, the point is, this is strong work. Really strong. How soon can you send me chapters 6 through 10?”
“I don’t have them yet.”
“Ballpark. Days? Weeks?”
Evan’s mouth felt dry. “I don’t know. Maybe a week?”
“Perfect. Send them as you finish them. I want to stay close to this one.” Danny glanced at something off-screen. “And Evan? Whatever you’re doing, whatever headspace you’re in right now? Stay there. This is the best writing you’ve ever done.”
The words should have felt good. Should have felt like validation, like proof he wasn’t a fraud. Instead they felt like a trap closing.
“I have to go,” Evan said. “Another call.”
“Of course. Talk soon.” Danny’s smile widened. “Seriously, Evan. This is special. Don’t second-guess it.”
The screen went black. Evan sat in the silence of his apartment, staring at his own reflection in the dark monitor.
David.
Danny had called him David.
The character’s name was on the first page of Chapter 1. Impossible to miss if you’d actually read it.
Unless Danny hadn’t read it at all. Unless Danny was doing what Debra did. What Doug did. Improvising around gaps. Filling in blanks with placeholder responses that sounded right but weren’t.
Evan opened his email. Searched for the message he’d supposedly sent Danny this morning. There it was.
Sent at 9:47 am.
Subject: New Project - First Five Chapters. Attached: NOVEL_v1_CH1-5.docx
He didn’t remember sending it. He didn’t remember writing Chapters 4 and 5. He didn’t remember anything between sitting down with chamomile tea last night and waking up this morning with twelve printed pages.
Evan opened the attached document. Five chapters. Twenty-seven pages. Darryl’s voice screaming from every line. Evan’s chapters interspersed, showing a man slowly realizing his reality was compromised. All of it in his style. His syntax. His rhythm. All of it written by someone he didn’t remember being.
His phone buzzed. New email.
From Danny. Subject: One more thing
Evan opened it with shaking hands.
Forgot to mention - the Dana therapy scene in Chapter 4? Absolute perfection. The way she glitches? Chef’s kiss. More of that. Readers will eat it up.
Below that, one more line:
P.S. - Don’t worry about the blackouts. All the best writers have them.
Evan stared at the screen. Don’t worry about the blackouts. How did Danny know about the blackouts? Evan hadn’t mentioned them. Hadn’t told anyone. They weren’t in the manuscript. Were they?
He scrolled back through the document. Chapter 2. Evan’s chapter. The one he supposedly wrote during a fugue state. There, in the text: “He’d been asleep at 4:15 a.m. Hadn’t he? He rubbed his face with both hands, trying to remember. There was a gap. Hours of gap.”
He’d written about the blackout. In the chapter about not remembering writing the chapter.
Evan closed the laptop. Stood up. Sat back down.
His hands found the keyboard before his brain could stop them. He opened the manuscript file. Watched the cursor blink at the end of Chapter 5. He should stop. Should call someone real, someone he knew for certain existed. His mother. His college roommate. Someone with memories he could verify. But what if they got the details wrong too? What if everyone was like Dana and Danny? Confident and wrong and glitching at the edges?
The cursor blinked. Evan started typing. He didn’t mean to. Didn’t decide to. His fingers just moved. Words appeared on the screen. A new chapter. Chapter 6.
Except he was IN Chapter 6. He was living it right now.
Which meant…
Evan stopped typing. Read what he’d written. “Evan made it home without remembering the drive. One moment he was standing on the sidewalk outside Dana’s office, staring at his phone. The next he was sitting in his apartment, laptop open, the manuscript file staring at him.”
He didn’t remember getting in his car. Didn’t remember the route. Didn’t remember unlocking his door. Just blank space where the memory should be.
That was this. This was that. He was writing the chapter he was currently inside.
Evan’s hands trembled over the keyboard. He highlighted the text. Hovered over Delete. Didn’t press it. Because what if deleting it meant deleting himself? What if he was only real because someone was writing him and if the writing stopped, he stopped?
He kept typing.
>“And Evan? Whatever you’re doing, whatever headspace you’re in right now? Stay there. This is the best writing you’ve ever done.”
Is this a comment on the agent as the torturer of the tortured artist? Heh