ONE

The boy was drinking a Cherry Coke in one of those classic diners that you read about in Archie comic books and Lee Child novels but rarely saw in real life anymore. He’d just finished eating some fries and some salad. The place unfortunately had no veggie burgers on the menu. He’d had quite a trip the last few weeks from the farm where he worked as a farmhand. He wasn’t at first sure where to go next until he found the discarded magazine at a truck stop. He was looking at the magazine while drinking his Coke.

The headline of the article he was looking at read “Art of Nightmares”. The article was about an artist called Beth Simmons. She painted these incredible pictures of nightmarish creatures with so much detail they had made her work very popular. People called her work disturbing, frightful and nightmarish. The boy tried to see what those people saw in the paintings. He understood the praise for the matter of detail in them. The claws of the demons depicted seemed to gleam, the blood of mauled victims practically seeped off the paintings, their eyes staring right into the viewer’s. He didn’t think they were frightful however. Nothing was ever frightful to the boy. That’s why he left his home a year or so ago. He’d never felt anything resembling fear and really felt that was an experience he had to have. So he’d packed a backpack and travelled around the country, looking for things to scare him. Bungee jumping, breaking and entering, driving fast cars, jumping off cliffs, even encountering extradimensional creatures and Native American monsters had failed to scare him.

There was a picture of Beth in the article. She was in her thirties, short reddish hair, freckles and big glasses. She looked somewhat plain and mousy. Not the person to paint these pictures of monsters, demons and carnage. That was fascinating to him. Where did these pictures come from then? How did she know so well what would frighten people? In the article she’d told the interviewer she wasn’t sure where they came from. Still, the boy thought she might be able to help him understand how to fear things. According to the article she’d lost her hearing years ago but could read lips. Hopefully she would have no trouble understanding his questions.

It was only an hour’s walk over to Beth’s place from the diner. That was nothing to the boy, he’d gotten used to walking almost entire day’s when he couldn’t get a lift or spare a bus ticket.

“Hey, that’s Beth,” a female voice said. The boy looked up from the magazine. The waitress, a middle-aged woman with kind eyes and a wild perm was standing next to her table.

“Yeah, you know her?”

“Of course. Everybody in Cheshire Lake knows her. She’s quite the celebrity. Doesn’t go out much though. She used to come here more often, but ever since she lost her hearing she seems to avoid people.”

“Do you know how she lost her hearing? I wasn’t able to find that anywhere.”

The waitress gave him a suspicious glare. “Why are you so interested in Beth?”

“I’m interested in the concept of fear. She seems to know all about it.”

The waitress shrugged. “Don’t know about that. She paints some horrible things, that’s for sure though. Odd, she had such an average childhood and was working as a clerk at the post office. Suddenly she is able to paint these amazing pictures and loses her hearing. She’s been quite a mystery to us ever since, to be honest.”

“I mean her no harm. I just want to talk to her,” the boy told the waitress.

“Then you should ask her how she lost her hearing. Nobody seems to have any clue about that.”

The boy smiled. “Maybe I should. Thanks for the food, it was excellent. I’m really sorry I don’t have enough money to tip you.”

The waitress had a look at the boy’s wrinkled shirt. “You don’t look like you do.”

“I’ve on the road for a long time,” he said.

“You seem like a nice kid. You remind me of my boy before he went to college. If you want, I can get you some of his old clothes. They might fit you.”

“That would be great,” the boy said.

“Be here at ten, we close then. We’ll go over to my place and pick up the clothes.”

“Awesome. I should be back from visiting Beth by then,” the boy said. In his travels he’d encountered many kind people. Looked like Cheshire Lake had them as well. He was wondering if Beth Simmons would be as kind.