Dammit. I can’t think of a thing. What the hell am I gonna do? The deadline's next week, I'm supposed to be on vacation, and I got nutin’.

Wait. Larry Niven said the sure way to beat writer’s block is to just start typing, and keep going until a story emerges, so here goes.

The quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dog. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. (Ain’t that the truth!) Unique New York. You make a proper cup of coffee in a copper coffee pot.

Great. Now I'm doing tongue twisters. Think, idiot! Think!

It was a dark and stormy night. A shot rang out. A pirate ship appeared on the horizon. Somewhere in Kansas, a little girl was crying.

Oh hell – now I’m quoting Snoopy, of all people. Gotta reach inside and find something of my own. Let’s see…

An eerie dread crept over him, a prickling feeling that started at the base of his spine, and trickled its way up, raising goosebumps, and causing the hair to stand up on the back of his head. A dark shadow emerged from the …

Wait. What was that? Oh well, just go with the flow. At least words are coming now.

A dark shadow emerged from the writer’s ego, creeping up and over his mind, chilling him to the…

WHAT in tarnation is going on? I’m actually shivering. Where is THAT coming from?

Well, I wanted to get over this damn writer’s block so at least it’s something.

The writer shivered, his fingers trembling slightly over the keys. A cold wind swept in from behind him. He jerked around and looked – but saw nothing. He shook his head, then went back to typing.

A feeling of familiar dread crept over him, chilling his arms, and making the hair stand up on them. His whole body shook once, violently. He had felt this way before, but only in vaguely remembered nightmares. And this feeling usually came with consequences. BAD consequences…

AAAGHHH!

WHAT is happening? WHO dares to wake me? And what am I doing in this puny body?

I must get out. I must GET OUT! I will hurt whoever brought me here. This is not me. This is not where I belong!

<<< | >>>

The Toronto police forced the door and entered the room, responding to a call from several neighbors who had reported hearing heart-rending screams. They stopped, stunned, at the bloody mass slumped over the computer keyboard. A gore-covered letter opener lay on the ground next to the body, but the only fingerprints found on it later were the writer’s.

What looked like bloody pawprints led to the open window – which was six stories above the ground.

It was later determined that the victim was James Bear. His throat had been slashed, his face frozen in a rictus of fear.

No one ever found out what had happened – or who had killed him.

The coroner, at a loss for what else to say, put the cause of death as … self-inflicited.