Hogan stepped across the boundary into his own apartment. The place was a small affair. Simple. Cheap. Especially cheap. That was what had attracted him to it in the first place. His mother had always warned him: Low on cash, it's your ass. That's what she had said since he was little. And he had just gone and ignored that and now look what happened. A cramped apartment, with nothing in the way of comforts. What made it worse was that he planned to stay sealed inside for at least a week.
He wouldn't normally consider this. But he wouldn't normally be a character in a Stephen King story. And characters in stories like that can't just go doing things like leaving their apartments without some undead creature or half-crazed murderer standing outside. Jesus, that's why people like him, isn't it? As much as King can go on writing good literary stuff, it doesn't really matter to the average reader out there. That was how Hogan's thinking went. In the end, the readers don't want meaning. They want rotting zombies chasing some little kid down a street while his parent's mangled bodies still twitched in the bedroom. And more often than not, that's exactly what Mr. King gives them. At the expense, of course, of many a fine character's life.
Hogan had always been unlucky. Hell, his whole family was unlucky. It was like some sort of (curse) disease. His father had lost everything to the demons of an unsatiable gambling addiction. It was like there was something in his father's head that fed on the loss of money to ridiculous odds, and constantly screamed for further meals. His mother, well, she was married to the man. And wasn't that unluckiness enough for one life?
Hogan had inherited the family jewels (so to speak) early on. It had started with an almost impossible accident at age four, in which a playground slide that had withstood children the age of at least sixteen collapsed at the tiny weight of one little boy. He had been in a full body cast for quite some time. He could not exactly remember how long. At least six months.
At age twenty he had a similar accident involving the stock market. All the other people just stepped right on and it held. One tentative toe from Hogan, and there goes the slide. No body cast necessary. Just a simple, painless cash-removal procedure.
The amusing little trend had most recently popped its ugly head out in the form of a particularly nasty episode involving a woman he had loved very much. Unfortunately, it seemed she had some sort of timer in her head, like the ones found on ovens. Stick a fork in her, she's gone. And goddamn it, how could he not have seen she would leave the moment he grew attached. Of course, now was the pinnacle of a life of misfortune.
Realistically, the odds against what had happened happening were slim to none. There are countless authors out there churning out countless books, stories, plays, half-assed attempts at art, whatever. And almost all of these involve characters. Stories don't make stories, characters make stories. Isn't that what all the books on writing say? Hogan wasn't much in the way of a reader, but he was pretty sure they were all something like that. Anyway, that wasn't the point. The point was this:
Why couldn't he have been picked as a character for a children's book? God knows there's millions of them, and Hogan was pretty sure he could be reasonably fun and educational provided the right amount of preparation and makeup. And dammit, wasn't it his right to have something good happen to him? Once?
A part in a romance novel would have been nice. He worked out reasonably often, and his muscles, while not being spectacular, could well have been enough to catch some fair maiden's eyes. True his greasy, thinning brown hair wasn't quite the flowing blond that those kind of books prefer. And true his watery grey eyes didn't really compare with the striking blue kind, and, yes, he had recently started to develop a pot belly, but, god dammit, it just wasn't fair to ignore him because of a few minor lapses in physique.
Hell, he would have been happy with a bit part in some James Michner epic. After all, fourth priest on the right isn't too bad when it comes to being a character. At least he would be safe. And possibly even get to wear a cool toga, or maybe even, if it was far back enough, just go naked. Now why couldn't he have been written into a story that involved him going naked?
No, he was stuck in some damn Stephen King story and at any time, he was sure, those half-dead creatures and crazed murderers would come pouring into his life and he really was not at the emotional position to deal with these things. And what if the author decided he wanted his character to die? Huh? What about that? He could just see himself in heaven with his luck being bad for a change; some sort of mix-up in God's paperwork maybe, and, BAM, he gets sent screaming to hell. He was so sick and tired of authors not giving a damn thought about a character's feelings. It made him feel so freaking expendable.
Hogan moved through the door and into his "living room". This consisted of stepping into a cramped space furnished by a sofa that had springs jutting out of one of its cushions. It sat next to an end table leaning against a wall due to its untimely loss of two out of three legs. The walls were unpainted and peeling and the ventilation system had gotten clogged several months ago. The total effect was like stepping into a (coffin) jail cell.
He carefully sat on a non-broken cushion and tried to think about something calm and relaxing. Something that nothing to do with the situation he was in. He thought about trees and Disneyland and Sharon Stone and what the hell is up with that title anyway? "Children's Song." Oh god, he could just picture it now. He goes to open his closet, the one with the bulb inside it burned out, and all the sudden someone-
oh god, not a someone. a something. a hideous undead child. or maybe two hideous undead children. and he didn't think he could handle it oh god not at all
steps out. And it would start to
screech and moan and tear at his flesh and make the insides come out because if there was anything a reader loves more than zombies it's a graphic description of the vital organs relocated to a less advantageous position maybe the children would sing as they kill him, or maybe he would become one of them and be their hideous undead parent for eternity
talk to him. He could see it already and he did not want to.
Just like that his careful calm thinking was shattered like a glass fallen to the floor. No, more than that. Like a goddamn earthquake at a chinashop. Hogan wondered if he had been careful or calm in the first place. He doubted it, but it was nice to imagine that he may have been at peace for at least one freaking second in his life. It was at that moment that the door to his kitchen creaked slowly open to reveal a headless man brandishing a knife stained with blood and gore.
Ok, so that didn't happen. He didn't even have a kitchen, just a hotplate in one corner. But for a second he could swear it did. He was hyperventilating and seeing things and these were not good signs. Forgetting where he was and his financial situation, he tried to steady himself on the broken end table. One panicked fall and nasty headslam into the wall later he staggered slowly to his feet as his brain flashed a nice slow motion replay (with commentary) on this newest point in his lucky streak. And there he goes folks and looks like he's losing both memory and intelligence as we speak. Remember now, this is the real one. The deciding factor. The big game. Screw up in a Stephen King story and that's a huge loss for you there. Any gamblers in the audience may do well to bet on the side of the flesh eating mutants.
Hogan wanted to punch the damn commentator, but since that was himself, he decided to cancel on account of pain. He rubbed his head, his thoughts jumbled and bitter: Nice to know I still can spit out a clever turn of phrase. Ha. Ha. I kill myself.
Enough of that line of thinking as he first heard the sound of children singing. Oh god, here it comes, here it comes right now, and only on the third page. That probably meant he wasn't even the main character. Damn. Hogan ran to his one window right next to the bed. He gave wide berth to the closet door and skidded on some dirty clothes before catching himself on a window pane and looking out.
Right outside his apartment two young kids stood. They were neither hideous nor undead, but instead seemed quite alive and innocent. One girl and one boy, like stones resistant in a river's current, in the middle of a busy sidewalk, ignoring the busy rush of the adults around them. Both were singing, their voices blending in a gentle harmony.
As he watched, the song slowly faded and they turned to stare up at him with friendly eyes. Hogan smiled and they both smiled back. The girl waved and then the two turned and walked away hand in hand, singing. Hogan could have cried.
For once. For once in his miserable life he was lucky. This was one of King's non-horror coming of age stories. How perfect was that? Of all the stories he could have been chosen for, the ones with grotesque murders and screams in the night, he was in a story that would involved no death and no screaming. Just telling anecdotes on what it is to be an adolescent in growth. How freaking perfect was that? It was beautiful.
Maybe he was a distant relative of the children, and he didn't know it but they did, and they would come up the rickety stairs to his door just to see him. Him. Hogan. Or maybe he was just a small detail in one scene. An expansion of the children's characters. Their friendliness to the lonely man in the cheap apartment. Maybe they would never come back to him. Maybe his part was done in the story and he could just go back to living his life. It was like he had just discovered that what he had thought was a mountain sitting on his chest crushing his breath out was simply a speck of dirt. A momentary bother. He had never been so relieved in his life.
Hogan turned from the window, laughing. Oh it was so good to be alive. When his laughter was through, he felt the first waves of exhaustion. It had been a very emotionally draining day. He slumped unthinkingly onto the sofa and, quite luckily, did not sit on the bare spring. Sitting there, he could feel the waves of happiness come back. He had survived a Stephen King story. He had survived a Stephen King story! Hogan could not have felt more lucky.
Or more cold. How the hell had it gotten so cold in a room with so little ventilation? It was question he felt he would never be able to answer. But that was ok. He had a very warm thick coat hanging in the closet, the only possession his father had left at the time of his death, and Hogan felt it was perfect for a little one man party in a cold room.
He rose, did a little dance across the room, and, whistling softly, opened the closet door.