For Rye Gavin Gardiner (best book club books for discussion TXT) 📖

return to Millbury Peak decades later, our time together, and, finally, your imminent witnessing of Sandie’s demise. Your suffering – the finest thing I’ve authored – hasn’t been about revenge, but at long last the granting of that elusive truth-infused story you so craved. I’ve spared you the formulaic pulp you loathe so; in this book I’ve so lovingly crafted for you, you’ll find no one with which to sympathise, no relief from the artifice of human nature. For we are all beasts, wild and feral, scurrying for the upper hand at every expense. Scrambling for our lives.

Our feud was that of opposing demons, a feud in which our most precious of these feral beasts were caught – my mother, your daughter. I suppose I never really left that night in the clock tower, our first time truly alone. The man I fell in love with never existed, but my love was real. Even through the insanity that’s come to define our connection, my love remains somehow true. Which of these few remaining pages will finally allow the conquering of this insanity, of the evil swallowing our worlds? Sympathy, empathy, hope: petty musings which remain on the shelves of every bookshop, flocking around the Quentin C. Rye display like some mad congregation. Evil cannot be conquered, for it defines this vile human condition we call life. Reality is fire, my love, and tonight I bring you that fire.

With the midnight bell you’ll come running like the obedient dog you are – no earlier, no later, for you now understand what it means to disobey me. As you run through the house, frantic, panicked, scrambling to locate the distant muffling of Sandie’s sobbing, notice this very manuscript on the table. What is that pile of pages? Why does the cover page scream your name in my scrawled hand? At this point, ignore it. Force yourself to ignore everything but that abhorrent darkness beyond the toppled bookcase from where your daughter’s animal screams call as steel enters flesh.

Descend, Quentin. Enter your sweet Sandie’s chamber of rebirth and bear witness to the fulfilment of my promise that you’d once again look into the girl’s eyes.

Then see.

Under the light of a single poised flame, see your work. See reel upon reel of your flammable nitrate film strewn around your only daughter, waiting for its moment. See the blades of Sylvia Wakefield’s fabric scissors lodged in the girl’s crusty flesh. See the emerald green dress clinging to her brutalised body. See your darling spawn reborn, a shadow begging for death by light. Then see my instrument of annihilation: a simple lighter, once a token of our love, now my trigger, scarred with words that never found their way to you, yet say it all:

One truth: ours. Thank you, Quentin.

And before I let the lighter and its flame drop, before the fires of the nitrate film drown her and I, hear the girl’s voice one final time. Let the blades twist against bone, coaxing like milk from a cow your child’s last words:

Midnight…

Hear them, my love.

…midnight…

Feel them.

…it’s your turn…

Then hear the bell.

…clock strikes twelve…

It tolls for thee.

…burn…

The lighter drops.

…burn…

The flames take us.

…burn.

I cannot know the specifics of the end, for the events I describe – my final descent to Sandie, her call to you, my lighting of the flame – will only begin once the closing word of this book is committed to the page. Will you reach for her, my love? Will you scramble through the spreading flames to try and tug Sandie from my grasp, and from the bonds binding her to her fate? Dear Quentin, will you join us as the girl and I melt into one, as the two things you love and hate most in the world fuse together in the flames? You’ll know you can’t succeed, but let the fires lick your skin anyway. You’ll know it’s already over, but pull at her blistering flesh all the same. Struggle, please struggle to free your baby from this raging hellfire of your own doing. Whatever your actions in those final moments, know I’ll be there in that inferno to seal her and I to our shared destiny, stroking those beloved blonde locks as they turn to dust.

Then weep, my love.

Weep for the charred remains of your daughter. Weep for your dead wife. Weep, then find this, the tale of your family’s demise. Will you refuse to read these words? No, the great Quentin C. Rye must know the truth. He always had to know the truth.

Quentin, this book is my parting gift; her eulogy, my elegy, our legacy. This is for everything you did for me. For the love, hate, lies, and truth. Always for the truth. For all these things I give to you the end of all that you hold dear. For you. Everything I have done has been for you.

Let it be known that this is for you, my love – my truth, my lie.

This is for Rye.

Thank You!

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About the Author

Gavin Gardiner’s lifelong love of horror didn’t manifest into this novel until his early thirties. Between the completion of For Rye and its publication, he wrote a novella, several short stories, and a selection of non-fiction articles and analysis pieces. These can be found in various online publications and in print via:

www.gavingardinerhorror.com

Before he threw himself into the writing game, Gavin dedicated much of his teen years and twenties to the pursuit of music. Although the nightmares he’s since committed to the page have garnered