The Ending

“Do you plan it?”

            I stared at the question for several seconds. What do you mean? Is he asking about plotlines? Or…?  He needed to elaborate.

            “Plan what exactly?” I typed, then leaned back in my leather seat, waiting for an answer.

            A few seconds passed then Skype’s familiar “Pop!” notification rang out with the reply.

    “The Ending.” It read.

    “Oohhh.” I closed my eyes then raised them towards the ceiling. I opened them to see the fan above spinning in a graceful loop – reminding me way too much of my life’s current direction.

    I looked back to the screen and thought for a few seconds on how to answer the question. Questions – those were something I received a lot of now a-days, ever since I started writing, ever since my first short story series. They always seemed to come in the same order: “Why did you write it?” “Where did you get the idea?” “Why don’t you ever describe the villain’s face? Could you write something for me…?” The list never ended.

    This question though, amongst all the others, kept getting repeated – the one that bothered me the most: do you plan it?

    After a few seconds of mulling over a good way to reply, I decided to answer it in the simplest way.

    “No.” I wrote back. “I almost never plan it.” I certainly hadn’t planned it for my last story “They Just Come.”

    “Seriously?” he wrote back. He didn’t believe me, which was no surprise. No one ever did.

    “Yes, seriously.” I typed back, a small frown starting to curl at the corner of my mouth.

    “You didn’t do that for Seven Days?”

    I snorted. “Hell, no.” I wrote back, punching the keys just a little too hard. “That one – I had no idea how it would end.”  

    There was a brief pause in his typing that reeked of doubt before he replied, “Then… you’re okay with what happened to him?”

    My fingers lifted from the keyboard then slowly curled into themselves, forming fists. The last thing I wanted, a reminder of him.

    Him was both the main character and the speaker of my first horror series. Him now made me always question whether I knew anything about what the hell I was doing when writing a story, particularly a horror one. And it was all due thanks to him that I no longer trusted any of my characters. They’d take on lives of their own and then deviate from the script I laid before them and before I knew what had happened, I would back away from my computer, stare at the monitor, and ask aloud, “Who are you? Did I ever even know you?”

    I thought long and hard on how to answer, but not on the answer itself because I already knew what it was, and God only knew why I couldn’t comprehend it.

     I bit my lips then typed. “No,” I wrote, “I’m not. Here’s why: when I sat down to write this story for the first time, I wanted to break the popular trend of horror stories – the overly used clichés, the same basic plot formulas, the same stupid characters that always make the same irrational mistakes in a horror story, and the same bloody ending – the character dies or worse…”

    I paused, taking in a deep breath. This part always frustrated me.

    “Your asking about the story, and asking about him proves I got three of those things right. But the ending, that one, no.”

    It took my fan – (No, not my fan. I refuse to use that term. Reader, I shall call him reader) almost ten minutes to reply:

    “Why not?” he asked.

            My hands fell into my lap. I snorted so loud that I heard my brother’s dog jump in surprise, and he was two doors down from my room.

    “I don’t know!” I yelled hysterically to the screen. “Because I’m just as clueless as you guys are? I don’t know what’s going to happen next! I mean… I’m just- just, I’m not even sure if I’m the one writing!”

            Of course I didn’t bother typing any of that. I had tried to several times before. I had tried explaining it to my friends. I had tried explaining it to my parents. I had tried explaining it to myself, and it always ended with everyone giving the same reaction: Doubt.

            So I decided to type something else.

            “Because our main character lacked one thing: Control.” I wrote. “He even told us at the ending why his fate ended like that, warned us even.” Warned me, perhaps.

            I hit send, and waited to see what my reader had to reply.

            “No-no-no.” He wrote back. “I understand why it ended like that, I just want to know why you chose to end it like that.”

            I stared at the message a few seconds then wrote, “I didn’t.”

I logged off.

***

            Months passed, and with each month, the ink of my subconscious spilt onto the pages as prose. Story after story, thriller after thriller, essay after essay, humor after humor. My pool of ideas never dried. Yet, my readers always demanded one thing from that pool – horror. They craved it. My mind also craved it and reminded me of this need.

    No matter where I went, no matter where I’d be – driving, sleeping, eating, showering, conversing – I wouldn’t be there for long. If I so much as closed my eyes once, my mind would spirit me away to the corner of my subconscious where a shaded, dark, silhouette of an artist sat painting. On the canvas it would paint the faces of protagonists thrown into ink black webs of horror that could take on many forms: a dark labyrinth of stone brick, single bulb hanging lights that barely illuminated the lifeless halls, cool condensation that would make even the warmest person shiver, the slow solemn dripping of water, and the low grinding of metal against stone that grew louder and louder with every drop – closer and closer with every strand of hair that stood on end.

    Or sometimes the web would be a peaceful, calm, ordinary, unnamed university campus that would make any person feel by the smell of its crisp autumn air, the sound of the small sudden gusts of wind, the laughter and chatter of students in the foreground, and distant beeps and honks of far off traffic, a sense of peace. But then as the night would fall and the students would depart, the young face of one of its late night-ers would step out of his last class and approach his awaiting car that sat alone in the parking lot surrounded by the planted oaks and lit by the dim orange glare of street lamps. He’d reached his destination and pull open its door to discover someone he once knew, now someone else – something else – he did not know, waiting for him.

    The artist within my mind never stopped producing its paintings nor in which order they came, but it always kept to itself the finishing touches – the ending. That part was left up to me to earn, to write. That’s what I did. It’s what I’ve always done.

    But the endings, when they came, were always like the very first I had written – the traditional sorrowful ending for the protagonist: Death or a fate much worse.

            I could hear the cries, the tearful sighs, and the moans of the so many lives my imagination took from its ill-fated characters: The young boy who lost his friend down in the depths of the lake that would forever call out to him to return; the unnamed reader trapped in the attic, reminiscing over their choice to visit the strange abandoned house that would soon become their grave; the young intern whose dreams were plagued every night by shadows teasing him, torturing him, both asleep and awake until finally taking him as their prize – these were the characters that haunted me as I transcribed the final words of an ending.

            Now here I was staring at Microsoft Word’s blank document while both the blinking cursor and the creepy artist within my mind demanded me to get on with it.

            “Oh, damn it.” I murmured rubbing my forehead. “How am I going to do this?”

            Easily, said the artist within my head, put both hands over the keyboard, press the keys, and let it take off from there.

            “Yeah, and then what?” I asked aloud. “Write another little piece about so-and-so getting trapped in a scary place, then getting killed and turned into a trench coat that some creep wears while roaming lots at night? Ppffff!” I shook my head, crossing my arms. “Hell no. I’ve already said once before that I believe horror stories can have good endings – which as of now, I have not created a single one where that’s case. I ain’t doing another one like that. So you can go –” I snapped my trap shut and blinked. Was I seriously arguing with myself?

    Jeez, I must be losing it. I buried my face into my hands, rubbing my eyes. I knew if I didn’t get this new story written, my subconscious would just keep pounding on my mental door like an annoying little sister who wouldn’t go away until you went out and helped clean up her room.

I didn’t want that.

    “Okay,” I murmured, positioning myself to type, “Let’s get this over with.”

            I began to write:

    You’re cornered. You’re out of options. You’re out of time. The beast is only minutes behind you, and there’s nothing you can do. The barred window that separates you from freedom just mocks you in your final moments, laughing at you with its stern silence, “It’s over.” You can’t believe it’d come to this.

            I paused then read over what I had so far.

    “Huh…” I murmured. I hadn’t planned to write in second person. I shrugged, “Oh, well. Let’s see where this takes us.”

    I continued to write:

    “Just a quick look around!” were the words of your friend when you both passed the old rundown house – the old ‘haunted’ mansion is more like it.

    Look where that got you.

    The snarls coming from around the corner of the hall you just rounded are loud, mocking, and hungry. Why does it have to end like this, you wonder. Why couldn’t something go right in your life for once? Your life at school already sucks. The constant drama with your parents and sister is also of no help. Why can’t you just get a break?

    I paused again, frowning as my eyes ran over the words.

    “Again, like I said before, character is stuck in a creepy place and is about to get killed.” I let out a loud sigh. This was going to end badly. I could just tell, and it really ticked me off.

    But again that small voice pushed me forward.

    Keep going, it urged, you’re almost done.

    “You’ve said that before.” I grumbled, then resumed hammering the keys.

    Is there someone out there who’s writing your life? Dictating how it’s going to go? How it’s going to suck? Why!? Why is this jerk doing this to you!? Why can’t he-she-whoever stop!? JUST PLEASE STOP!!!

    My fingers froze. I slowly scooted back from my desk, gaping. “Wuuuhh?” I gasped.

    That was… abrupt.

    What the heck, man? I rubbed my head, trying to understand what I’d written. I knew my mind was already on the fritz with the bad ending-dilemma, but I didn’t think it would spill into the story.

    After a moment of bewilderment, I asked aloud, “Was… that the plan?”

    I waited for the artist in my head to answer, but for the first time ever, it stayed silent.

    “Okay then…um…well…jeez. I can’t just leave it like this. I mean this isn’t an ending or a…conclusion or… anything at all for that matter.”

    What could I do? Delete it? That would’ve probably been the simplest solution – get rid of it, start from scratch – but then I’d have to spend another unknown length of time debating on what to write again.

    “I could post it,” I mused, reading it over. “Still, it wouldn’t make any sense.” My eyes widened, “Unless…”

    I knew what to do. I grinned and pulled my chair up. I began typing furiously on the keyboard, adding word after word, sentence after sentence and then the ending. I took my hands away from the keys and gazed over what I’d written. My grin broadened when I reached the last sentence.

    Yes, this will work.

    ***

    The next day I posted the story I titled, “When You Stop” onto my Deviant Art account and with it, its ending:

    I put down the pen and stare at what I’ve written so far. I admit, I’m a bit…surprised. I never know where I’ll end up when I’m in the writing trance and I’ve already had my fair share of surprises come from it. So, I guess I should have seen this one coming – the actual protagonist wanting me – no, begging me to stop. To spare them. Well, maybe…just…maybe, I’ll do that. Yeah, just this once.

    I won’t finish this one.

    I’ll leave it open ended.

    So whether our hero lives or whether our hero dies, I can’t say. But hey?

    I’m just fulfilling a request.