In this short story by Castle Schlock's Ray Rexer, several characters that Stephen King killed off in his stories come back to life seeking revenge on King for killing them off. (If fictional characters aren't real to begin with, does that mean they must first come to life as living people, then be killed off in the stories, and then come back to life as nonexistent beings who were brought back to life? Just thought I'd ask.)

In the cover letter that accompanied his story, Ray asked if I "could mention [that] the original version of this story [was] written and published before SK's The Dark Half." He felt that "[p]eople are gonna think I ripped King off for the idea (when we both know he stole the idea from me -- right?"). I won't spoil the "shared" moment Ray is referring to, but I will tell you that it involves a Berol Black Beauty pencil.

As with all good parody, to get the full effect of Ray's brilliance it would help if you've already read things like The Stand, The Shinging, Misery, The Dark Half, and "Word Processor of the Gods," but there's plenty here to howl over for even the most casual King reader.

The original (and much shorter) version of "Character Assassination" was first published in the Fall 1989 issue of Horrorfest Press, and Ray kindly consented to do an expanded, revised version especially for readers of The Shape Under the Sheet.

But lemme tellya about Ray.

Ray Rexer is probably certifiable.

But he is also a brilliant satirist, a terrific writer, and a great guy whop went out of this way to help with The Shape Under the Sheet.

And I've also heard from Len Norman that Ray uses Lawn-Gro on his moustache.

Ladies and germs, Ray Rexer and his nifty tale, "Character Assassination." --sjs [by Stephen Spignesi]

Character Assassination
A King Parody by Ray Rexer

Stephen King was in trouble. Bad trouble. There could be no denying that.

Snow drifted down unwatched in light delicate spirals and pushed softly, like ghostly hands, against the locked door of the cheap Dakin Street motel room he occupied. Inside, Stephen stood before a grubby mirror and saw an old man, thin and haggard, wearing his face. He passed a hand slowly over his grizzled chin. I look haunted, he thought. Haunted. And in a very real way, that was just what he was. Haunted. He took off his thick glasses and rubbed his eyes. He was tired, bone tired, very near the end of his endurance. He couldn't remember the last time he had slept through an entire night. Another lifetime ago, perhaps. A truck roared by on Highway 99, shaking the thin walls of the room and rattling the door. Stephen jumped and turned quickly to look at the door. The thin wood vibrated with the truck's passing. "Shit on a shingle," he muttered, and then laughed bitterly at himself for sounding like a character out of one of his own stories. But why not? It was, after all, those very characters who had gotten him into this mess. "Shit on a goddamn shingle," he said again, watching the door.

It had started some four months ago, way back when he had been the Stephen King everybody knew and some even loved. A good ole boy, normal in most ways, unbelievably happy and solidly sane. A lifetime ago. When he had been a writer. Remember that? A writer, for God's-sweet-sakes. He had put words down on paper to the delight of millions. And that was great. But what was even better was that he had done it to the delight of himself. A nearly orgasmic delight at times. It was what he lived for. He was a gleefully possessed man when he was at his word processor (a big Wang he lovingly called the "monster dick"), and back then he had been a writing fool, a one-man story factory. Back then he had been at his word processor nearly every waking moment. Writing was his life; it was what he lived for. It was almost as if he fed off the light from his CRT, like a plant absorbing life's energy from the sun. It meant that much to him.

But he hadn't typed a single word, a single letter, in over four months now. And for him that was the worse thing, much worse than everything that had happened since. But he just couldn't risk it. No way, no how. He just couldn't. He had become much too powerful a writer for his own good. He had become dangerous. His words had almost killed him.

Stephen King was scared. And he was in trouble. Bad trouble.

He set his glasses on the scarred nightstand next to the bed and stretched his long frame out on top of the ratty bedspread. He reached up and turned off the light. The darkness was nearly complete; the only sound his shallow breathing. He felt very much alone. He had a headache, a real bitch-kitty, and he rubbed fiercely at his temples. "Stressaches," his doctor had once told him. "You gotta slow down, Steve, start taking it easy."

Right. Slow down. Take it easy. He snorted at the thought and the sudden intake of air drove a spike of pain through his eyes. Lying fully dressed in a cheap, musty-smelling motel room somewhere in southwestern Pennsylvania, protected from death by thin plywood walls and discount K-Mart locks, "taking it easy" didn't seem very much in his future. No way, no how. Stephen squeezed his eyes shut against the pain and tried to ignore the angry throbbing in his head. Yeah, he thought, I'll slow down. Promise. And that, my friends, is boolsheet of the purest ray serene. He concentrated on his breathing, tried to make it deep and regular, tried to relax, tried not to think of anything, tried to make his mind a blank, a white void...and finally he drifted off

A knock at the door woke him with a start from the cheap beginnings of sleep. His heart flapped and thundered in his chest like aluminum in the wind. He grabbed the hunting knife from the inside pocket of his denim jacket and held it pointed at the door. His hand jitter-bugged the knife above him in the dark. He resisted an urge to scream. The knock came again. Stephen held his breath. Who this time? Which one of them? Why can't they just leave me alone?

The knock came louder, a booming WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP! that echoed through the small room and rattled the door. And then a voice, almost a whisper, spoke. "Steve. Oh, Ste-eve. Open the door. Open the goddamn door."

Stephen back-crawled out of the bed, eyes wide in the darkness, never leaving the shadow-shape of the door. His feet touched down on the matted carpeting and he shuffled backwards to the far side of the motel room until he felt the cool of its wall against his hips. The knife was still held out in front of him, more like a talisman than a weapon. A ward against evil.

Then sharp and loud: "OPEN THE GODDAMN DOOR! OPEN IT!" The door bucked inward from a shoulder crash. "Open the fuckin' door, you little shit! Right now! Open it or I'll...I'll..." Then a pause. "Why, I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll bloooww your door down!" Laughter, deep and maniacal, shot through the door chilling Stephen's spine. "Right the fuck down, Steveo. I shit you not."

"No," Stephen said out loud, shaking his head in denial. No. You're not real. You're not real!"

"I'm real, you little pup. You created me."

"No." But it was too late for denials.

"Oh yeah. And it's time for paybacks. It's time for...correction. Can you say that, you witless bastard? Correction. It's time for CORRECTION, you shitheap! You officious little PRICK."

The final word was counterpointed by a resounding CRASH! as the business end of an axe slammed through the door. Jagged wooden splinters flew. Stephen screamed. A flashback of Annie Wilkes hit his brain and he touched the fresh scar on his wrist. The axe was pulled out and then came down again, harder. A hole the size of a fist appeared in the door. Trapped, he thought, I'm trapped. He pushed away from the wall in a panic and struck the nightstand hard with his thigh. Gonna bruise, he thought crazily as the nightstand fell over and he went down with it. The knife flew out of his hand and he watched it somersault through the air in comic slow motion. It landed and skittered across the floor. Stephen scampered on hands and knees over the contents of the upset nightstand and groped around for the knife. The axe came down again and now its whole head crashed through the door. Stephen screamed again and looked up. The axe was pulled free. Puffs of snow swirled through the hole, spears of gray light stabbed their way angrily into the small room. He could see movement outside, shadowy and indistinct. Then an eye appeared at the opening and part of an evil, crooked smile.

"Redrum, Stevie. It's time for redrum."

It was Jack. Jack Torrance. He was alive.

His characters had been coming back from the dead for four months now and he had been running, not really sure why but not knowing what else to do. Most of his friends knew something was wrong. It didn't take a Rhodes Scholar to figure that one out. The easygoing man they had known and loved had disappeared, the man with that strange but infectious laugh and genuine smile. The man who would kick back and crack a few with them at the Bangor Lanes every once in a while, slapping backs and cracking wise. Their friend. Gone. And in his place came a restless stranger, complete with a maddening array of nervous tics and quick head movements.

But what could he tell them? That his characters were coming back to life and that they were pissed off? That the fictional people he had created out of paper and ink had suddenly turned into flesh and blood? No way, no how. That would never wash. Made up characters just didn't come to life, for chrissakes. They were simple figments of imagination, not real. Sure, he was good at characterization, even his hardest critics gave him that. But he wasn't that good. No one was. Characters just didn't come alive. That was fucking absurd. That was like something out of a...well, like something out of a Stephen King novel, as ironic as it seemed. He couldn't tell them that. Even if it was the truth.

And what about Tabitha? She certainly was nobody's fool. She had been married to him for too long not to have known almost from the onset that something was wrong. He realized that and had come close on several occasions to telling her everything, the whole truth -- at least the truth as he knew and believed it. But, in the end, he had simply asked her for her trust. And she had given it to him. Just like that.

No, made-up characters just didn't come alive. No way, no how. That was absurd. That was impossible.

But it was happening.

The first one had been Andrew "Poke" Freeman, a relatively minor character out of the pages of The Stand. Stephen had been finishing the final draft of a short story for a Charles Grant anthology called Oh, Loathsome Me when Poke appeared at the door to his study.

"Wha-," Stephen said, looking up at Poke, shocked by his sudden appearance and then dumbfounded when he really looked at him. "Wha-"

Poke stood in a blood-soaked shirt. He was smiling, but the left side of his face was mostly gone and the smile was less than friendly. "Whoop! Whoop!" he said. Steve could see his jaw work through the rough open flesh on his face. Most of Poke's teeth were gone on that side. "You blew me up, you stupid fuck. Blew me up in your stupid book. Got me shot. Now I'm gonna Pokerize you, ole buddy."

Poke brought a gun up from his side. Stephen wasn't the least bit surprised to see that it was a .357 Magnum. He had, after all, given the gun to Poke -- in a literary manner of speaking.

Stephen didn't give a thought to the utter impossibility of the situation, he just dove for the floor. The shot exploded above him and took out his word processor. Glass rained down on him. He hugged his head with both arms. His mind cartwheeled in his head. A second shot rang out and slammed into the word processor again with enough force to slide it sideways on the desk. "You'll never watch Lawrence Welk again!" Poke yelled, and whooped crazily.

Stephen tried to melt into the floor. Glass chips bit into the palms of his hands and poked through the knees of his jeans. He held his breath and waited, shaking in uncontrollable spasms, trying to think but being unable to form any rational thought at all. A final shard of glass worked its way out of the ruined Wang and dropped to his side. Fifteen minutes passed and then another fifteen...and nothing more happened. Just silence. Finally, Stephen had cautiously inched his way out from under the desk and peeked around its corner. The room had been empty.

Three weeks later, while walking out of the downtown Bangor Public Library, he had been chased by Mrs. Carmody and a small band of her followers right down Main Street in the middle of the afternoon. "Blood sacrifice!" they had screamed at him, fists raised in anger. "Expiation!" they had called as they ran. "Expiation!"

Over the next four months, fourteen more of the characters he had killed off in his books and short stories had come back for him. Had come for revenge. Some seemed mostly benign, their intentions unstated. Like Ray Brower. Ray had appeared shoeless one day in Stephen's backyard, his ashen face a blank and staring mask, a dented blueberry pan held out in front of him like he was catching raindrops -- or maybe hailstones.

But others were evil, pure and simple. There was no ambiguity to their intentions. They were out for blood.

One morning in late October, with the air as cool and crisp and fine as a sip from a New England stream, Stephen had opened his front door and stepped out onto the porch to get his morning paper...and Kurt Barlow had been there, fangs dripping morning dew and shining bright white in the clear October sun. Barlow had the paper in his hand and he held it out to Stephen saying, "Local author suffers fate worse than death. Read all about it."

Stephen stumbled backwards. "No," he said. "No...you can't...the sun...you can't..."

"I can, Mr. King, and I will. I can do as I please now. You have lost control."

"Oh, Jesus!"

"No, Mr. King, I'm afraid not. Not Jesus. Quite the opposite, actually. Quite the opposite, indeed."

He had escaped Barlow. At first all of his characters had been easy to elude. They moved like toddlers -- or maybe more like zombies: all stiff in limb and motion. But each new arrival seemed to be stronger, seemed to have more substance. And each new arrival was definitely more dangerous than the last. When Annie Wilkes came back four weeks ago she had nearly killed him. He would carry the scar she had hacked into him for the rest of his life. Annie had convinced him, in her own mad way, that it was time for him to get out, to move on, if for no other reason than to protect his family.

Annie Wilkes. When she came for him he was sick in bed with a real down-home version of the Shanghai
flu. Visions of Captain Trips danced in his head. His guts were in a real uproar, quivering inside him like a sick bird. What wasn't tied down eventually found its way out one end or the other; what didn't ache, just wasn't there. His temp was high, his spirits low, and all in all he felt like dirt. All he wanted to do was sleep and be done with it. All he wanted was to feel good again. He didn't think that was too much to ask. He thought he had suffered enough misery for a while.

Apparently not. Tabitha had just left for the store when Stephen was wracked with a violent case of the chills. He groaned and pulled the thick quilt up to his chin, closed his eyes. He shivered and coughed weakly. We're having some fun now, his mind mused. He shivered again and wondered idly what time it was. There was a digital clock on the stand not two feet from his pillow but to look at it would mean he would have to turn his head to the side and open his eyes again. He thought either one of those fancy maneuvers might just kill him. He was just too tired. Didn't matter anyway, although it could've been time for another dose of astin. Aspirin, his mind corrected. Astin was just something one of his characters had called it. His characters. The thought caused a brief surge of unease to well up in him, but before he could focus on it the feeling flittered away. Soon he slept.

And dreamt. He was sick in bed and there was a vase of yellow flowers on the nightstand. Goldenrods. Such pretty little flowers. He knew it was a dream because in real life he was allergic to goldenrods and Tabby would never have allowed them in the room. As he watched, a fat, swollen bee flew out of the flowers, buzzed around his head and then landed on his arm. He stared in amazement as the bee produced an impossibly long stinger, silver in color like a hypodermic needle, and slowly injected it into his arm. He felt dizzy. His arm burned. Gotta swat that bee, he thought, that's a Do-Bee and they're the most dangerous kind. Gotta wake up and swat that damn bee. But his eyelids felt like heavy wads of thick dough and, try as he might, he just couldn't get them open. But Tabby would be home soon, anyway. She'd swat the bee and everything would be all right.

When he awoke he felt different. The flu was still with him but no longer up front; its symptoms seemed dulled, muted somehow. He felt groggy and off kilter. He opened his eyes slowly and his first thought was, Oh, that silly wife of mine's gone and got me a nurse. A woman was standing by his bed. She was a large woman and she seemed to be smiling. The light in the room was clouded by heavy shades on the windows and it took a few moments for his eyes to adapt. The woman was wearing a gray cardigan sweater and a frumpy wool skirt, and at first he couldn't understand why he had thought she was a nurse. Nurses dressed in white. But then he recognized her.

"Wake up, sleepyhead!" Annie trilled. "Wake up!"

She moved fast for her size. Before Stephen could even scream she had clamped one flabby hand over his mouth with enough force to push him down into his mattress. He could smell a dreadful mixed stench of peanut butter, vanilla cookies and chicken gravy on her hand, and for one awful moment he thought he was going to vomit.

"Not a word, you dirty bird," Annie said and then barked a laugh at her own little rhyme. Stephen shook his head under the weight of her hand, his eyes wide. "Not a peep-peep-peep." Annie's nostrils flared as she looked down on him. He shook his head again.

She released her hold on Stephen and he immediately lifted up on his elbows in an effort to bolt out of bed. He was a big man and even with his illness he was sure he could overpower her. But his head spun crazily as he rose and before he could gain any ground at all, Annie had shoved him back down with an effortless, almost offhanded push to his chest that took the wind right out of him and made him bounce twice on the bed.

Christ, she's strong, he thought in panic. What have I done?

"Don't try that again, Mister Smart Guy," she said, "or I'll have to give you another pre-op shot. I'm in a poopie-doopie mood today."

Pre-op??? Dear God, is that what she said? He rubbed at his arm. Bits and pieces of his dream passed by him in a blur. Flowers. A bee.

"A real poopie-doopie mood." Annie bent down suddenly next to the bed and came up holding a hatchet in her strong right hand. It was the Craftsman he and Tabby and the kids used every December to chop down their Christmas tree. She must've taken it from the garage. Stephen could see small streaks of rust on the blade, and he had time to wish he'd taken better care of the damn thing. Annie held the hatchet high. The tendons stood out in her wrist like mighty little cables. He could see the wink of an amethyst ring on her pinkie finger. "Remember how I hobbled Paul in the book? Remember?" She poised the hatchet over him and smiled. "Now it's your turn, Mister Man."

"No Annie, don't," he said. "I'll..."

"Geeeee-yahhh!" she screamed, and swung the hatchet.

He rolled toward her with as much strength as he could muster. He felt like he was moving in slow motion, drugged. He knew with sudden, utter certainty that he'd never get away from her, never see Tabitha again, never see the kids. He knew that he was going to die. The hatchet caught him a glancing blow on his left wrist as he rolled. He felt a brief jolt of searing pain and then he was falling off the bed and onto the floor. Annie's feet dug into his side as her forward momentum carried her into him. She tripped and fell hard on top of the bed. Stephen started to crawl away but found he could barely move. The wound in his wrist gaped like a small red mouth. Blood streaked the floor. Stephen looked back over his shoulder and saw Annie pushing herself off the bed.

"Cockadoodie!" she yelled. She was pissed. She turned for him, hatchet held high, a vicious snarl on her thick face. "Cocka-"

A car door slammed. Annie paused. It was Tabby. She had come home to swat the bee.

And then, like the remnants of a very bad dream, he saw Annie Wilkes start to fade from view. Stephen could see right through Annie, could see the Berni Wrightson print that hung on the wall behind her, blurry at first but clearer and clearer as she lost cohesion. The hatchet dropped from Annie's hand and fell to the floor with a muffled clang as it hit the throw rug next to the bed. And then she was gone. But Stephen had no doubt that others would follow and his last coherent thought before he passed out was that it was time for him to boogie right the hell out of Bangor.

A week later he found himself in southwestern Pennsylvania.

The face disappeared from the jagged hole and a bare arm snaked its way through the opening. Stephen continued his frantic efforts to locate the knife. The arm bent and its hand opened and closed like a viper's head, searching for the door lock. "Gonna getcha, Steve," Jack said from behind the door. His hand brushed the security chain and snapped down on it. "Gonna getcha."

Stephen's knee rolled painfully over something hard and round. The knife! He grabbed it without looking and found himself holding an ordinary pencil, apparently shot out of the overturned nightstand. A pencil, not the knife.

"GETCHA! GETCHA! GETCHA!" Jack yelled and began working the security chain out of its track.

Stephen lurched to his feet. For one long moment he froze, very near panic, then suddenly he bounded across the room in three loping strides, not thinking. He held the pencil out in his right hand like a dagger. "This is crazy," he said -- but it felt right. He stabbed Jack's forearm with the pencil. It went through the arm with sickeningly little resistance. Jack howled. Blood as black and thick as dirty oil flowed from the wound. The air smelled suddenly of rotted meat.

Jack yanked his arm out of the opening, leaving Stephen holding the bloody pencil. He wiped it off on his jacket without thinking. Mightier than the sword, his mind reeled, not just the pen, but the pencil, too. Mightier than the sword.

"You bastard! You bitch!" Jack cried.

The pencil had hurt Jack much more than an object so innocuous had any right to. Stephen had sensed that immediately.

It was in the tone of Jack's cry. There had been more than just pain and anger in that cry. There had been fear. But why? He looked at the pencil. It was just an ordinary pencil, a Berol Black Beauty, nothing at all unusual about it. Stephen had used the same kind years ago when he had been a student. But it felt warm and alive in his hand, like it was filled with living, pulsing blood instead of dry graphite. And did it glow somewhat in the predawn darkness? Perhaps.

Jack howled again from the outside. Stephen didn't seem to hear. His gaze was locked on the Berol. It was definitely glowing now, there could be no mistake of that. The room was visible: the bed, the upturned nightstand, a scattering of motel stationery. All visible.

Jack had retrieved his axe and brought it down on the door again, but this time there was no force in the swing and the blow was mostly ineffective. "LET ME IN!" he wailed. "YOU GOTTA!"

Stephen looked slowly at the door and then back at the pencil in his hand. He walked around the bed, plucked a sheet of stationery off the floor and righted the nightstand.

"Jack," he said softly.

"LET ME THE FUCK IN!"

"Jack, listen to me."

"NO!"

"It's not your fault."

"NO!"

"You're going away now, Jack."

"NONONONONO!" He hammered the door.

Stephen looked at the piece of paper in his hand almost reverently. He set it down on, top of the nightstand and brushed it straight with a gentle hand. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, you are." Then he sat on the edge of the cheap motel room bed and using the nightstand as a writing table he wrote: 'Jack Torrance came back from the dead looking for revenge. What he found instead was his permanent demise. Jack Torrance was written out of existence for good, once and for all.'

Stephen King read back what he had written. He smiled, his first real smile in over four months. He thought what he had written sounded just like the beginning of some cheap pulp novel. But he also thought it'd do just fine.

And, God, didn't it feel good to be writing again!

The Shape Under the Sheet: The Complete Stephen King Encyclopedia by Stephen Spignesi, 1991 pp. 131-135