Free The Black Chronicle by Oldrich Stibor Page A

immediately decided to buy it.
                  She worked her way through a bottle of red while working her way through the pile and it was nearly a full two hours later before she made her second choice. A very cute story about a witty teenage vampire that made her laugh out loud from the very first page, so it was no fault of the story when she started to doze off in the chair. It had simply been a long day and the wine had siphoned off the last of her energy. A thin trail of drool on her cheek woke her, officially signalling bedtime.
    Wiping it from her face she dog-eared the page she’d left off on and dropped the story back onto the table. Just as she found the effort to get up to stumble to bed one of the envelopes caught her eye. It was black and blank save for the name “Mister” written across it in white-out. She recognized the name, of course. Mister was the serial killer who famously painted himself white before breaking into people’s homes, abducting some and killing others.
    He had spawned a copycat, Victor Matherport, who also dressed up in white and butchered people in their homes. Or Matherport had spawned Mister. Either way, it was terrifying living in the same vicinity in which the crimes had taken place. If someone had submitted a short story about him, it was in very poor taste. There were many people who objected to the horror genre claiming that it was a glorification of violence. She didn’t see it that way. To Mary, horror was, ironically, about life and the primal need to preserve it, but she understood how people could be of a different opinion. Yet even then, she did not condone the exploitation of real-life tragedy. The Mister killings were a horrific tragedy and she would not allow that to be twisted into some sort of entertainment. There had to be a line somewhere and that was where she drew it.
    Still, the envelope piqued her curiosity. Sitting back down, she tore open the flap and reached inside. It was empty, save for a disc. She opened her MacBook, inserted the disc into the slot and waited.
    The first image was a static shot of a perfectly white room. A good minute passed by before anything changed. Then she could hear the sound of footsteps somewhere off-screen.
    She thought she knew what was coming. This wasn’t the first time—and probably wouldn’t be the last—a fan had made her a video with no other motive than to perhaps…what? Scare her? Impress her? It was usually a homemade short, based on one of her movies or even just a droopy-eyed teenager professing his love for her. Sure enough, the person off-screen finally stepped into frame dressed head to toe in white. His face, even his eye brows, all coloured white. Immediately she began to feel uncomfortable. There was something very eerie about the way he moved. Each step was tentative; his body slithered at the spine, his eyes burned madly straight at her. Somehow she knew that this was a very disturbed man.
    Then, very slowly, he lifted his white gloved hand and covered his mouth with it as he spoke. “I know who you are Mary. More importantly. I know why you are… I have a surprise for you,” the creep said and walked off camera.
    Mary could feel fear wrapping around her like a hungry boa constrictor. She was no stranger to this sort of thing. Being who she was she tended to attract the attention of creeps world-wide, but this was different. Maybe it was that she was tired, but for some reason she had a strong and sudden urge to turn the video off, which only meant, to someone like her, that, that was precisely what she could not do. 
    After a short time he returned pushing someone bound up in a wheelchair. The captive was dressed in a black robe and a black sack had been tied around their head.  From underneath the hood Mary could hear the soft whimper of what sounded like a young girl.
    It was official. She was scared shitless and for a brief moment she applauded the man for being able to achieve that.