u/AzothDagger

"You're sick!” Malcolm declared from his position, injured and tied to a bed, in a cell in the defunct mental hospital on the outskirts of the city.

"Thanks, I do try, it's an absolute joy when someone notices!" Myra The Mauler replied, a slight blush adding a magenta hue to her pale off color cheeks.

"You say this is supposed to improve my writing somehow? Did those snobs at No End Publishing House send you?" Malcolm demanded.

"Now why would you think that?" Myra asked snydely. "I'm just a fan, I Sought you out on my own."

"A fan! So, breaking my legs is an expression of admiration now?" Malcolm asked sarcastically. "Is this an Annie Wilkes impersonation thing?"

"Well, I did like how Kathy Bates and Lizzie Caplan portrayed her, but I could never get into Stephen King's books too slow and stuffy, pages and pages of subscription... it's like, we get it, the environment is dark and dreary, leave something to our imaginations, not like you, you always get right to the point. Subject gets bullied, subject becomes a crazed killer. Relatable, if I do say so myself." Myra let loose a hyper excited tyrade.

"You were bullied?" Malcolm asked.

"I might have been..." Myra said defensively. "It's all a matter of perspective, isn't it?"

"No I don't think so, I think it's a matter of were you or weren't you..." Malcom said, but instead of pressing it he asked, "What about Danica Dreyer?"

"Who?" Myra raised her head, propping herself up with the sledgehammer, and scrunched up her face in confusion.

"She played Annie Wilkes in The Monkey." Malcolm elucidated.

"Oh... I haven't seen it yet." Myra admitted, "Is it good?"

"The short story was better." Malcolm conceded, "King's pacing was better in short stories than novels."

"Maybe I'll give it a read..." Myra mused. "Speaking of reading. I like your new manuscript, but..." She left it hanging.

"But, what?" Malcolm demanded, despite being in no position to make demands, 'cause that's just how he was.

"Well I think the whole thing would work better in second person present, like the reader is the killer, y'know‽" Myra proclaimed enthusiastically.

"I don't know how I feel about second person..." Malcolm muttered. "And how does that make it more realistic?

"Just think about it! I'm a killer, and you're talking to me, so you're already getting to know what it's like talking to a killer!" Myra pronounced excitedly, standing up and striking a pose with one hand resting on her hammer.

"You're a killer?" Malcolm asked, as if genuinely unsure the person who assaulted and kidnapped him was capable of murder.

"Oh for sure!" Myra immediately replied.

"How many people have you killed." Malcolm asked quizzically, not showing fear and suppressing his pain like only a horror writer can, which is to say poorly.

"I'll never tell!" Myra intoned in a cliché infantile singsong.

In fact Myra had killed several people, and she honestly had lost track by this point. First those girls at boarding school. We're there three of them or four? She hadn't even discovered her name or her passion for the sledge yet, she used a clawhammer, or what some call a goat horn hammer. It was while she was on the run after that that she acquired a copy of Marc The Murderer and began her obsession with Mal Pheasant's writing, she thought, "Now here's someone who gets me." Of course he didn't get her, not really, he was a writer of fiction... What could he know about real killers‽ Deep down she knew that, and yet every time she read his writing she couldn't help feeling that he had a glampse into how someone like her thought that the average person didn't, she thought, he'd understand why she felt the need to follow the bookstore clerk home and murder him after she bought the book, even if he'd call it sick and illogical were he to really know about it on paper, he'd understand why. She used a knife from the man's kitchen, it's what Marc The Murderer would have done...

How many more people had she killed since then? Five or six with fire axes, One with a tent steak and a rubber mallet. One with a gun, maybe too, though she wasn't sure if the second one bled out, or found help, but she was reasonably sure they didn't see her face. Since taking up the sledgehammer along with her nom du marteau, that being Myra The Mauler, she had killed more than ten people for sure, but it was really hard to keep count, and she had cheated a little, not all of them were killed with a sledgehammer, but sometimes one must improvise. She'd gone through a few hammers too, which is to be expected, when you're use a tool in ways other than what the manufacturer intended, and when you're on the run all the time.

Which more or less brings us up to the present, when she has her literary idol Malcolm Pheasant tied to a bed at a deprecated psychiatric facility. Her first real kidnapping, if you could call it that since he was a grown man, and she was 19 years old. (It would definitely still be called kidnapping regardless of the age gap and who was on which end of it.)

Is this actually a good place to end this chapter‽ Does she really plan to make him rewrite his manuscript in second person? SERIOUSLY IS THIS JUST A BAD MISERY RIP-OFF‽ Find out in No Need For Icons Part Four!

As Malcolm exited his publicist's office through the parking garage a Shadowy hooded figure with an opalescent gleaming grin watched his from across the lot, holding a nine pound sledgehammer casually in both hands.

Malcolm didn't drive a car, but he didn't want his publicist, June Larson to know he didn't drive a car. Malcolm made it across the lot to the stairs, nervously looking around, he had a suspicion that someone was watching him, but he didn't notice anyone. Malcolm descended the stairs, a strange and atypical unease settling over him.

Malcolm had been stalked before by a crazed fan, who thought the world of his stories was real. Malcom had a restraining order issued, as you might imagine, but he wasn't so naive as to think a piece of paper was going to keep a crazy person away.

In fact, Malcolm was being followed, and not by anyone he'd met before.

The shadowy hooded figure rushed across the second level of the parking garage, bare feet hardly making a sound on the cold concrete, gleaming grin never leaving their face.

Malcolm didn't hear the footsteps coming down the stairs behind him until the hooded figure was nearly upon him. When he looked over his shoulder the sledgehammer was raised and in less than a quarter second it swung down diagonally. The nine pound maul struck his left calf cracking the fibula. A jolt of energy was sent to his right leg, launching him off the stairs. He landed hard on his right foot and fell forward cracking two bones in his right foot and spraining his ankle, then his knee hit the floor causing a bone bruise to his right knee cap, lastly his head hit the cold concrete causing a concussion, and rendering him unconscious.

An indeterminate amount of Tim late Malcolm awoke, he was strapped to a mildewy bed in a small dark cell his left leg was in a splint and his right foot was in a bandage and boot. There was a pounding pain in his head, as well as discomfort in his neck and right shoulder, fighting the pain he craned his neck to look around the stark surroundings he saw the hooded figure sitting on a backwards chair leaning their chin on their knuckles, hands clasped over the base of the sledgehammer handle, as the heavy maul rested on the floor, that grin gleaming with malevolent intent.

"Good, you're finally awake." A gravely female voice edited from the figure.

A choked, "What the hell‽" Was all Malcolm could manage.

"I was afraid you'd never wake up." The hooded figure croaked. "My medical skills are admittedly quite poor, and you landed a little bit harder than I planned on. If you were already dead that would spoil the whole plan."

"Plan?" Malcolm repeated incredulously. "Who the hell are you?"

The hooded figure's grin widened slightly, she lifted her head and raised one hand to pull back the hood, revealing the youthful visage of a woman with large dark eyes, and short straight black hair with square cropped bangs and karambit shaped sidelocks that curved against her cheeks, highlighted with magenta streaks randomly throughout. "I go by Myra The Mauler, pleased to meet you, Mister Mal Pheasant. Longtime reader, first time caller." She grinned wider, displaying more of her pearly white teeth and a bit of her healthy pink gums.

Malcolm closed his eyes tightly and grimaced painfully. "What are you going on about?" He demanded weakly. "What are you, another crazed fan?"

"No, not a fan," She corrected, "Not really." She bobbed her head from side to side like a metronome.

"Then what-" Malcolm started, before she cut him off.

"Let's call me your new manager, together we're going to make your stories darker and more realistic..." She purred. "Isn't that great‽"

"You're insane!" Malcolm barked.

"Guilty as charged." She beamed. "Or should I go with, 'not guilty by reason of insanity'?"

"Damnit! I need to get to a hospital." Malcolm groaned.

"We're in a hospital." Myra intoned proudly.

They were in fact in a hospital, the defunct mental hospital on the outskirts of the city. Why did Myra bring Malcolm to the abandoned asylum? What does she intend to make him write? IS THIS JUST A BAD RIP-OFF OF MISERY? Find out in No Need For Icons Part Three!

"You have to face it," June said, "People don't want icons anymore. They want something raw, gritty, unfiltered..."

"Unfiltered‽" Malcolm scoffed, "My work is unfiltered, it goes directly from my brain to the page. And when did you become the expert on what people want?"

"I'm your publicist, Mal, remember? I read the reader responses... A lot of people are saying you're glamorizing the killers in your stories too much." June said pointedly.

Malcom continued his habit of latching onto a single word from her diatribe and repeating it in the form of an interrogatory exclamation, "Glamorizing‽ You've gotta be kidding me, Knifey McStabberz lives under a bridge, and Marc The Murderer roams from town to town with no permanent home base! That's not gritty enough‽ Besides I read reader responses too, in my own way. Whenever someone makes an erotic of one of my grimy psychopathic characters I figure I've done something right."

"That's just ridiculous!" June exclaimed, before taking another pained sip of her black coffee. "By checking fanfiction sites you're basically only seeing the positive responses. Also... Gross."

"No more than watching you grimace every time you rawdog that bean juice." Malcolm shot back.

"I'm on a diet!" June justified, before taking another uncomfortable swig of the high-octane espresso.

"Anyway," Malcolm continued, "Did it ever occur to you that by reading the letters you're only seeing negative responses? My target audience are barely aware snail-mail still exists." He picked up his stack of manuscripts and started tapping ghee on the edges to straighten them out, something he often did to indicate the meeting was nearing an end.

"Mal, listen, just think about it, for the next draft, just try making your new killer a little less... austentatious, just a little bit more believable, more... human." June offered as a parting remark.

"That's a whole rewrite." Malcolm shook his head. "You're lucky I check my stuff for spelling, plus, nobody expects the killer in my stories to be down to earth, who do you even know that's that normal in real life?"

"You're lucky you check it for spelling." June corrected. "Half the time the editor still has to fix the grammar."

Malcolm shook his head again. "Half the time I'm not happy about it. They never think to ask whether I made the grammar that way on purpose, which I usually did."

June shook her head. "All that bad grammar makes it harder to read."

"It also makes it more memorable." Malcolm insisted, "The corrected versions go in one ear and out the other. "Do you know how many comments I get on my patreon saying the unedited versions are better?" Malcolm put his stack of manuscripts into his leather bagnand stood up heading for the exit.

"That's another thing..." June said, catching him by the shoulder. "Mal, the publisher doesn't like that you put those out, they say it cuts into their bottom line..."

"No way!" Malcolm said with a scowl. "I wait until months after publication before posting. Most of my patrons have already bought the paperback by then. Besides, these people donate to me monthly, they ought to get something in return."

"The publisher doesn't like it, Mal." June cautioned.

"Well..." Malcolm started, looking around nervously. "If it means that much to them, they can always take me to court." With that he slit out from under June's hand and headed out the door.

This wasn't unusual Malcolm and June rarely exchanged pleasantries such as hello and goodbye. Something about the look in her eye during the end of that meeting was different. Something that seemed to suggest that the publisher was capable of worse than taking him to court...

As Malcolm exited the office of his publicist through the parking garage a shadowy figure holding a sledge hammer watched him leave, a sinister grin glinting from beneath a dark hood. Who could be so interested in the activities of a mediocre horror author?

Will things heat up in the next episode? IS THIS STORY ACTUALLY GOING ANYWHERE‽ Will there even be a part two? Find out in No Need For Icons Part Two!