The Author

The room was severe, wooden and old, much like the man of the hour. Douglas Drinkwater – the author who famously refused interviews – sat in his wing chair, fingering his scotch tumbler.

Charlotte Urlich, a sharp contrast in her tailored blazer and smart-watch, arranged herself on the sofa opposite. The leather creaked under her, a loud sound in the quiet room. There was a hint of unease between them, a generational friction that hummed in the air like a dying fluorescent light.

‘You’ve been dominating the horror charts for decades, Mr. Drinkwater. But the genre has evolved. What...’ she paused, clicking her pen, ‘...keeps the ink flowing after all this time?’

Douglas drank Charlotte in before draining his glass. The ice clattered against his teeth. ‘What keeps me going, you mean?’ The woman nodded without looking up from her pad.

Douglas flared his nostrils as he brought the tumbler up to his eyeline, staring through the distorted amber glass. ‘Writing, my dear, is not like filling and refilling one’s waterglass. It’s more like turning on a bloody fire hose. Fighting the great serpentine thing as it twists this way and that, violently spraying the walls! All that one can do afterward is… mop up.’

Charlotte stopped writing. She offered a tight, polite smile, though it didn't reach her eyes. ‘A rather violent, perhaps slightly phallic metaphor for sitting at a typewriter, wouldn't you say?’

Douglas didn't smile. He stood up.

Charlotte flinched, just an inch, but Douglas saw it. He walked over to the decanter on the sideboard, moving behind the sofa where Charlotte sat. She stiffened, resisting the urge to turn around.

‘Phallic,’ Douglas muttered from behind her. ‘You think my work is about power?’
‘I think your work relies heavily on the victimization of women to drive the plot,’ Charlotte said, her voice steady, professional. She stared straight ahead at the empty wing chair, talking to the air. ‘Some critics would call it... torture porn. A relic of a different time.’

The sound of liquid pouring. The heavy clink of the stopper replacing the crystal.
‘And what is the fashion now?’ Douglas asked. His voice was closer. He was standing directly behind the sofa. Charlotte could smell the peat of the scotch and the dust of his jacket.

‘Elevated horror,’ Charlotte said, gripping her pen tighter. ‘Trauma. Grief. The monster is a metaphor for internal struggle. It’s less about... spraying the walls, as you put it, and more about the psychological toll.’

Douglas chuckled. It was a dry, rasping sound. ‘Internal struggle. You mean whining. You mean nothing happens for three hundred pages until someone cries.’
He walked around the side of the sofa, looming over her. ‘You think I’m a dinosaur, don’t you, Miss Urlich?’

Charlotte finally looked up. He was too close. The interview was over; she just hadn't admitted it yet.

‘I think you’re a legacy author, Douglas. But I have a deadline.’ She checked her watch, standing up to reclaim her space. ‘I have enough for the profile. We can frame it as a retrospective.’

Douglas didn't move out of her way. ‘A retrospective. Like an obituary.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

‘So offended by everything, you younger folks.’ He took a step toward her.

Charlotte took a step back, her calves hitting the sofa. She was trapped. ‘You don’t even want to know why I let you in and not others?’

She folded her arms, shielding her chest. ‘Why, then?’

Douglas stopped moving. His eyes looked glazed, watery, but his hand on the glass was steady. ‘That magazine you write for. It’s a haven for all I despise about the New World. Entitlement. Self promotion. The perpetual mewling of the bleeding hearts!’

‘So you invited me here to critique my employer?’ Charlotte asked, her voice wavering, the professional veneer finally cracking. ‘If you’re going to be abusive, I’m leaving.’

‘That’s the wrong question. What inspires me? That’s what you wanted to know,’ said Douglas.

He set his glass down on the side table. The condensation left a ring on the wood.
‘It gets harder with age,’ he whispered, leaning in as if to share a secret.

Charlotte held her breath, her heart hammering against her ribs. She watched his hand reach behind the wing chair.

‘But...’

He produced a jagged edged knife. The steel caught the dim light of the room.
Charlotte’s breath hitched. She scrambled back, stumbling over the corner of the rug, her eyes locked on the blade. The realization hit her late and hard—this wasn't a debate. It was a demonstration.

‘...I can still get it up on occasion.’

Douglas lunged.

He struggled as Charlotte twisted this way and that, violently spraying the walls. And at the end, all he could do was mop up.