To Kill a King

2

And then came the eve of Hallow's Eve. The flight was smooth. You loved flying and didn't travel anywhere near enough. The car which picked you up at the airport was nice but not extravagant. Still, you felt like a celebrity being driven to the premier of a movie where there'd be a red carpet and flashing cameras. You were to stay in a hotel for the night, with the plan to meet Stephen King the next day. Hotels were for others. For people with money. You once had a long weekend in a caravan on a holiday camp. It wasn't the same, you could tell as soon as you entered the room. Knowing you'd have a sleepless, excited night, you laid on the much-bigger-than-yours bed. You didn't close your eyes, they closed on their own. You woke the next morning.

Frantically, you showered and changed. You'd planned to set an alarm, but hadn't. You'd intended to go through the notes and questions you'd written, hoping to drop them into conversations. You hadn't.

And now, the car would be there in ten minutes.

You grabbed everything and ran down to the front desk. A quick coffee would wake you up properly and calm your nerves. When you entered the lobby of the hotel, you barely missed knocking a man off his feet. You turned without stopping to offer an apology, then you saw the man's face and your feet lost track of the direction you'd intended them to go. You tripped and fell.

The man smiled and leaned forward, his hand out to help you up. For a long moment, you sat there, staring at it. You couldn't quite bring yourself to touch it.

"Are you planning on staying there all day?" he asked. "I hope not as we've got a lot of work to do."

You reached up slowly. You expected sparks or a shock from the touch as you took his hand. There were none. He wasn't a giant though, at over six feet, he was definitely tall. He looked... normal.

"Thank you, Mr. King," you managed to say.

"Call me Stephen," he said.

The journey to his home in Bangor, Maine, with Stephen driving, was a whirlwind of chat and questions where your mouth spoke faster than your mind could process your situation. You were sure you spoke a steady stream of gibberish but he smiled or laughed at the right places and seemed genuinely interested in you. There was much more talk about you than him, in fact. It was as if you actually were the celebrity you'd felt like and he was visiting you! You needed to turn it around, however. You were meant to be learning from and about him. Your stay was only short and you were desperate to take as much from it as you could. If you spent the time talking about yourself, your boring, mundane life, you'd walk away unchanged. That couldn't happen. You had to take this opportunity to burn away your previous life - your previous you - and rise again, the King's knight on a steed of words.

You diverted the conversation away from yourself, causing the dual rivers of dialogue to change course and converge on him. He didn't seem to mind and spoke at length about both his stories and his feelings about them. He told you intimate details about the characters, speaking as if they were living people who might pass by for a game of cards and a few beers. It was a long time before you both realised you'd arrived at his house and had been sitting in the car for at least half an hour.

He invited you in. You crossed the threshold with trepidation. The air tasted different inside. Richer. Fuller. You could feel the inspiration.

"I want to retire," he told you over dinner. "I want to hang up my pen. It's almost out of ink and I don't know that I'll be able to refill it anymore. I have my wife and family and music. That's a lot."

You didn't say anything at first. You knew he wanted to retire. You'd shed tears at the announcement. You let him continue, though, restraining the impromptu accusation of breaking your heart which bubbled in your throat. Now was not the time to point the finger. Now was the time to hold the hand and walk along with him. You nodded, instead.

"So, that's why you're here," he said.

"I am?" It was a waste of a phrase. He was Stephen King. Your idol. You could have said so much more in the pause. He was offering you that space to speak and you dropped the ball to utter two words which simply showed how nervous and probably undeserving of this honour you were.

"You are." He smiled, apparently ignorant of your uselessness. "I want to teach you. I want to pass on my crown."

You both laughed. Crown. King. It was hilarious.

"Thank you," you said. Again the ball drop. This wasn't a kids game of piggy-in-the-middle. This was life. This was your future. Pick the ball up and run with it! Score!

"I'd say you're welcome, but you may not like what I'm going to offer. You might decide you don't want to take part."

"I doubt that," you said, your eyes wide. "It's my dream!"

"Dreams can swiftly turn to nightmares. I've made a career out of such things. You could well choose to leave."

"What would happen then?" you asked. Maybe someone else would get the chance you gave up. You couldn't accept that.

"I'd have to kill you," he said.