M is for Matty-Bob (A-Z of Horror Book 13)

  BOOK SUMMARY

  What follows are the true-life inspired events of Spring 2015.

  Iain Rob Wright was a young author, trying to support his family by making a name for himself in the Horror genre. He was gathering fans quickly.

  But when Iain met a fan named Matty-Bob, things became stranger than fiction. The horror in his life became more than just the words in his books.

  “There’s a fine line between support and stalking and let’s all stay on the right side of that.”

  – Joss Whedon

  “12 quid for a teabag!”

  – The real-life Matty-Bob, 2015

  -1-

  “How did you sleep last night?” Iain asked his wife, Sally, as he came downstairs at 8AM.

  Sally, holding their ten-month old baby, Jack, in her arms, blinked slowly. “Like shit.”

  “What time did he wake up?”

  “Half-five, but I left him babbling ‘til six.”

  Jack reached out to Daddy and Sally thrust him away gladly. She sat down on the sofa and sipped her coffee while Jack proceeded to pull his daddy’s hair.

  Iain took a seat beside Sally, Jack on his lap, and reached out for the mug of tea waiting for him on the side table – Sally was so good to him, so good to Jack. The television was on, playing a loop of Timmy Time that she had found on Youtube.

  “What time you going to your mum’s today?” Iain asked.

  “After Jack’s nap. You starting a new story today?”

  “No, I’m still editing at the moment. Waiting on Stephen for a cover, too. Did you hear something in the night?”

  Sally frowned at him. “Like what?”

  He shrugged. “Not sure. I thought I heard something in the garden. Probably just cats.”

  “God, Iain. Don’t tell me that! I’ll be seeing strange men in the dark now.”

  Iain adjusted his struggling son on his lap and chuckled. “Sorry. It wasn’t anything like that. Just wondering if our cat got into a fight or something.”

  “No, Jess was in last night. It was raining.”

  Iain sniffed and then pulled a face. “I think there’s a poop in the poopy pants.”

  Sally sighed, but then put on a great big smile and tickled Jack’s ribs. Looking into his face, she said in a silly voice, “Is there a poop in the poopy pants? Do you have a poop in your poopy pants?”

  Jack giggled deliriously as his mother picked him up and took him away to change him in the spare room that now possessed the constant odour of ‘poopy pants’.

  Iain picked up his laptop from the side table and started checking emails. He deleted the spam that had resulted from a month-long hobby of entering online competitions and sorted out any messages of import. There were the usual sales reports and promo responses, along with a few fan emails, but one message in particular stood out. It read:

  “YOU ARE MY LIFE.”

  Iain frowned and clicked the email to open it. What popped up on his screen was a photograph of a smiling ginger man in glasses. He was topless and held a finger to each nipple. Written across his round tummy, presumably in lipstick, were the bright red words: Iain Rob Wright for the Win!

  Iain felt a knot in his stomach. As his popularity as a horror author had increased, there had been several occasions when fans had made him feel uncomfortable. Some had demanded his time more than he was able to give them, while others had confided strange stories about their lives or asked him for personal details about his own. As much as Iain adored each and every one of his fans, he had a wife and child that took priority. It was situations like this man now that Iain found so hard to deal with. This man was obviously a supporter of his work, but possibly a little unstable also. What was the best thing to do? How to let someone down gently without being an asshole about it?

  Iain checked the sender’s name and identified the man as MATTY BOB. Strange name for sure.

  “Iain!”

  Iain flinched and almost dropped his laptop. From the panic in his wife’s voice, it was clear that his presence was required. He hopped up from the sofa and hurried into the spare room where the stench of fresh poopy pants hit him in the face like a wet kipper.

  “Woah!” he said, waving a hand in front of his nose, then looked at his obviously upset wife. “What’s wrong, babe?”

  “There’s a man in our garden.”

  Iain felt that knot in his stomach again. “What?”

  “In the garden there is a man, look!”

  Iain slid around the room’s bed and went to the window. Sure enough, sitting on the lawn, plucking at blades of grass was a man in a bright red cape like Superman’s.

  “What the hell?”

  Sally picked Jack up from the changing mat on the bed and held him against her chest. He immediately gave her a right hook and then started pulling at her necklace. “Should I call the police?”

  Iain was stuck staring at the strange man in his garden. He couldn’t be sure, but it might have been the man who had emailed him. He spotted a crop of gingery-blond hair and a pair of glasses.

  “I… just hold off on calling the police. I’ll go and talk with him.”

  “Iain, you shouldn’t go out there. He could be crazy.”

  “That doesn’t make him dangerous. He might need help.”

  “Iain, you surely are the kindest man alive. I hope that all your fans know that.”

  Iain smiled. “I’m sure they do. God bless them all.”

  “Iain?”

  Iain snapped out of his daze and looked at his wife. “Sorry, what? I was daydreaming.”

  “How can you be daydreaming? I said, should I call the police?”

  “What? No, I’ll deal with it.”

  “Be careful.”

  Iain nodded. “Just stay up here.”

  He went down to the lower floor and into the kitchen. Sure enough, the man was still sitting in the garden. When he saw Iain through the French doors, he leapt up and began waving.

  Iain swallowed the lump in his throat and stepped outside. “Can I help you?” he said. “You’re in my garden.”

  “I know, I know,” the man gushed. “You’re Iain Rob Wright. You call your fans Wrighters. Well, I’m your biggest Wrighter. I love you.

  “How did you know where I live?”

  “Your address is listed at Companies House. Your business is registered here.”

  Iain sighed. He was no businessman and left those kinds of things to his accountants. His office was at home, which was why his business’s head office was listed as the same. Damn it!

  “What do you want?”

  “To meet you, of course. Did you get my email, my picture?”

  “I did. Thank you… I guess. You really can’t be here. This is my home.”

  The man took a step towards him.

  Iain held his ground, wanting to appear in charge. Now that the other man was standing, it was disturbingly apparent that he was mentally unwell. He wore only muddy boots, stained white y-fronts, and that bright red cape.

  “I had to see you,” he said excitedly. “I had to tell you that your novel The Last Winter is the best horror novel of all time.”

  “The Final Winter.”

  “What?”

  Iain cleared his throat and said it again. “It’s the Final Winter, not the Last Winter.”

  “Oh, yeah, right, I knew that. Well, anyway, it changed my life. Harry is me. Do you understand?”

  “Not really. You need to leave. I will chat to you happily via email, but you can’t come to my home. My family deserve privacy.”

  “How is little Jack, and Sally, too, of course? Where is she?”

  “Out,” Iain
lied. “If you don’t leave, I will have to call the police.”

  “Like in ASBO?”

  Iain sighed. “Yes, like in ASBO. It’s been lovely to meet you – Matty, is it? – but you have to go.”

  “It’s Matty-Bob.”

  “Okay, Matty-Bob. Time to go.”

  “Can’t I come in and have a cup of tea?”

  “No, you cannot.”

  “Okay. Well, I’ll see you soon.”

  Iain tilted his head, narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. Keep writing, Iain. You da man.”

  With that, the unhinged fan swept up his cape and ran towards the back fence. He leapt up and tried to climb over it, but ended up dangling foolishly.

  Iain rolled his eyes and groaned. “Jesus, man, let me open the back gate for you.”

  -2-

  “If he turns up again, I’ll call the police,” Iain told his wife as he spread Marmite on his toast. “He’s a bloody nutcase.”

  Sally nodded understandingly. “Well, we all knew this could happen when people started calling you ‘the next Stephen King’. With your remarkable talent and skill, people were always going to fall hopelessly in love with you. The other horror writers have barely had a chance since you came along.”

  “I know, I know. Sometimes I think about retiring just to make it fair, but it just wouldn’t be right, would it? Everything I have to offer the world…”

  “Iain?”

  Iain shook his head and snapped out of his daze. “Sorry, what?”

  Sally shot him a scornful glance. “Were you even listening to me? I said that I’m leaving with Jack now, but you need to call the police if that crazy man comes back. I don’t want to come home and find you tied to a chair.”

  Iain frowned. “Did you see the guy? I could take him easily if I have to.”

  Sally groaned. “You’re not on a council estate anymore, darling. My husband is a man who watches cartoons with his son; whose favourite show is Nashville; and who cried when Buffy’s mum died. So no more talk about fighting crazy men in our garden, okay?”

  Iain nodded and watched his wife and son go out the front door. He sat down at the kitchen table and ate his toast in silence. He had work to do today, but was completely unmotivated. The man in the garden had distracted his thoughts for the day, which meant he probably wouldn’t get into a good flow until Noon.

  Maybe he would take a bath to snap out of his fugue. Do a bit of reading and get his head in the game? Yeah, that was what he would do. He’d soon forget about that crazy man who had invaded his privacy.

  Unless he came back.

  -3-

  In a funny mood, Iain had spent the last thirty minutes taking bathtub selfies of his scrunched up face and chin, then uploading them to Facebook. His fans were horrified, but also amused, so it had been worth it.

  He turned the tap on with his foot and shuddered as the hot water brought the temperature up.

  His phone pinged for an email.

  It was from Matty-Bob.

  So grate to meet you earlier, Ian. I felt we really connect and I’m just sorry you aske me to leave. I understand what I did wrong, thou, and I am on my way to correct its.

  Iain sat up in the bath, alert. Was that psychopath coming back to the house?

  “I brought pizza!”

  Iain leapt up out of the bath so quickly that he slipped over the side and fell to the ground headfirst; his naked arse left pointing in the air. The pain didn’t register as much as the panic, though, so he was up on his feet quickly.

  Matty-Bob stood in the doorway to the bathroom, this time wearing a scruffy brown tuxedo that looked like it had been dragged out of an antique chest.

  “Wow, fella!” Matty-Bob pointed to Iain’s uncovered genitals. “Did you get that thing from an elephant? Your wife is a lucky girl.”

  “I… I am blessed.”

  “Hey, Iain?”

  Iain shook his head and snapped out of the daze caused by the blow to his head.

  “You okay there?” Matty-Bob asked. “That was quite the fall you took and you went a bit fuzzy on me there for a moment.”

  Iain looked at the lunatic holding a pizza and was utterly shocked, and very very angry. “What the fuck are you doing in my house?”

  “I brought pizza!”

  “Fuck your pizza.”

  Matty-Bob looked confused, but then he shrugged. “Okay.” He proceeded to pull his penis out of his pants and shoved it into the cheesy pizza.

  “Jesus Christ!” Iain shouted. “I didn’t mean literally. Get the hell out of my house. I’m going to have you arrested, you maniac.”

  Matty-Bob looked confused. “But you love your fans. You say so all the time. That’s why I’m here, to be with you.”

  “To be with me?”

  “Yes. You say you love your fans, well here I am – your very biggest. Or is that all bullshit? Do you just pretend to be a nice guy? Is it lies? Please don’t tell me it’s lies.”

  Iain realised he was debating this man while standing completely in the nude. He grabbed a towel off the rail and wrapped it around himself. “Of course I don’t pretend, but that doesn’t mean you can just break into my home. If you wanted to meet me, you should email me like any normal person.”

  “You don’t meet fans, though.”

  “I do sometimes.”

  “Not really.”

  “I have a ten month old son. Meeting people is not something I have a lot of time for. That doesn’t mean I don’t care, though.”

  “I know,” said Matty-Bob. “That’s why I came to you. Come here, big fella.”

  The man went to hug Iain, but Iain shot out a leg and kept him at bay. “What? No, not ‘come here, big guy’. More like, ‘get out of my house, you goddamn freak’.”

  Matty-Bob froze on the spot, his embracing arms stuck open like pincers. “It’s all lies, isn’t it? You don’t love your fans.”

  “I do,” Iain growled. “Just not the ones who stick their dicks in pizzas.”

  Iain turned around to look for his phone, but was dismayed when he saw it at the bottom of the bath beneath the water. “I’m calling the police,” he said, “So you’d better-”

  Something struck him in the back of the head, sending him sprawling back into the bathtub. He thrashed in the water and turned himself around to face his attacker.

  “Eat it!” Matty-Bob screamed, shoving a slice of pizza into Iain’s mouth. “Eat my cock pizza, you liar.”

  Iain managed to right himself in the bath and kick out with his legs. Matty-Bob went flying backwards into the wall, giving Iain the chance to leap up out of the bathtub and make a break for it.

  Matty-Bob grabbed out at Iain’s shoulder as he passed, long dirty nails digging a furrow in his flesh.

  “Ow!” Iain yelled. “That really hurt.”

  Matty-Bob snarled. “Not as much as it’s going to.”

  Iain had lost his towel and was naked again, but he couldn’t worry about that now. He ran down the stairs, testicles slapping against his leg while Matty-Bob was right behind him, screeching and hollering like the madman that he was.

  “I just want to be friends,” he kept shouting. “You always say how you consider your fans to be your friends, your family. Liar!”

  Iain crossed the middle-floor landing and wheeled towards the next set of steps. With no regard for his own safety, Matty-Bob threw himself down the stairs and collided with Iain’s back. The two of them went tumbling down the stairs, hitting the cat litter tray at the bottom.

  Matty reached out and grabbed a pile of cat shit that had fallen out and immediately started thrusting it at Iain’s face. “Eat it, you lying son-of-a-bitch. You lying ol’ dirty bird!”

  Iain threw a punch and caught Matty-Bob under the chin just as the cat shit was about to meet his lips. Matty-Bob fell sideways to the floor, while Iain clambered back to his feet and ran into the hallway.

  Matty-Bob was right behind him again, continuing the
chase. “I just wanna hang out,” he shouted. “NO BIG DEAL!”

  Iain reached the front door and grabbed the handle, ecstatic that Sally hadn’t locked it on her way out. But before he could pull open the door, Matty-Bob flew into the back of him and started licking his ear.

  “Get off me, you freak.”

  Matty-Bob smacked his lips. “Taste like chicken.”

  “I just had a bath.”

  Matty-Bob leapt forwards and this time bit Iain in the shoulder, clamping down hard like a zombie from one of his books. Iain managed to shove the maniac away from him before any blood was shed.

  “You’re insane.”

  “Remember when Shawcross died at the end of Ravage? This is just like that, don’t you think?”

  Iain shook his head. “Shawcross was the bad guy. Bad guys lose.” He wound up a punch and let it fly, but Matty-Bob ducked and punched him in the gut.

  Iain dropped to his knees, wheezing.

  “Just calm down, Iain. Put the kettle on. We can talk about what book you’re going to write next. Maybe you can put me in it. You do that sometimes for your fans, right? Like you named the boat in Sea Sick after some woman. Well, I can promise you that whoever that woman was she doesn’t love you as much as I do. Write a book about me. Make me a dashing hero. I love you, did I tell you that?”

  Iain tried to catch his breath. “If you love me… then leave me… alone.”

  Matty-Bob pulled a knife from his tuxedo pocket and held it up in front of him. “Not until I have something to remember you by.”

  Iain groaned. “Won’t a simple autograph do?”

  “Anybody can get your autograph. I want something nobody else has.”

  Iain yelled in terror as Matty-Bob lunged at him with the knife. His eyes closed instinctively, but no pain arrived – just a tugging at his hair.

  Iain opened his eyes again to see that Matty-Bob had cut a lock of his hair off and was smelling it. “Some of your fans think you’re going bald, but I think it gives you an air of distinction. What does Sally think? I can’t wait to meet her. Is she really as sweet as she seems? Do you think she would let me be Jack’s Godfather?”