TWO

Dean told Martha, “This boy here was asking around town about you. Says he’s a big fan and wanted to talk to you. Now I don’t usually tell them where you live, but he seemed like a nice kid. And look at him, he doesn’t seem like a psycho kind of fan, does he?”

The boy extended his hand to Martha. “So great to meet you.”

Martha shook it. The boy thought she looked a bit different from the way she did on the back of her books. Less glamorous, more down to earth. Rougher. More handsome than pretty. He liked that.

“Always nice to meet a fan. Did you travel a long way to get here?”

“You could say that,” the boy answered. “But I am sure it will be worth it. I have so many questions to ask you.”

Martha smiled. “Usually I get away with just signing a book.”

“I am really interested in your work more in depth.”

Martha shrugged. “Maybe you’d better get inside then.”

The boy looked at Dean. The mechanic smiled. “Just have Martha give me a call when you need a ride out of here, kid. I can get you near the highway so you can hitchhike your way home again. You’ve been really nice to talk to you. Hope my kids grow up to be as polite as you..”

“That is so nice of you,” the boy said and made an appreciative bow, palms against each other.

“Sure thing,” Dean said and got back in his truck. The boy waved him goodbye.

He knew he’d been so very lucky to find such an attentive man. Hitchhiking he’d come into contact with a lot of unsavory types and on an occasion or two had to leap from a moving car to keep his virtue intact. His total lack of fear stopped him from thinking twice of travelling in that manner though. In fact, that lack of fear was the reason he’d sought out Martha.

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“Come in,” Martha said. “This is my daughter, Madelyn.”

The boy shook the girl’s hand and went through his knees a bit too make better eye contact, smiling at the girl. “Nice to meet you, Madelyn!”

“You have a nice smile,” Madelyn said. “I like you.”

The boy chuckled. “Thanks, your smile is pretty good as well.”

“Charmers,” Martha said, grinning.

The boy entered Martha’s home. The insides were a bit more luxurious than the outside had you expect. The wall was covered with family pictures, stuffed toys where scattered around the place and it smelled of home cooking and patchouli. Not the kind of dark dungeon you’d figure a horror writer with such a dark imagination might live in.

Martha led the boy into the kitchen. “I was just ready to finish cooking. Would you like to join us?”

“I don’t want to intrude.”

“No worries, I always cook too much anyway. You like pasta?”

“Love it. I’m vegetarian though.”

“You’re in luck! I’m vegan. So no worries. Always good to meet a fellow planteater.”

“Can I help?” the boy asked.

“Dean was right. You are very polite. Sure, if you want. Can you chop the onions?”

“Of course I can.”

Martha handed him a kitchen knife and some onions. The kid immediately started to chop them up like a professional chef.

Martha looked up from the pan she’d just put on the stove, impressed. “Wow! You’re good at that!”

“Traveling, I’ve had to pick up all sorts of jobs. Did a lot of kitchen work,” the boy explained.

“Nice. You seem a bit young to travel though. What do your parents think about that?”

The boy used the blunt side of his knife to shove the chopped onions in the pan Martha had put on the fire. “They kind of understand why I travel.”

Martha shook the pan, spreading the onions around it a bit. “Isn’t it scary? Travelling by yourself? Hitchhiking?”

“That is the reason I sought you out, Martha. I don’t feel fear. I want to learn more about it from you. You seem to have quite a good grasp about the nature of fear, of what scares people…”

“Wait a minute. What do you mean, you don’t feel fear? Not in any way?”

“No. Never felt any my whole life. Psychologists, scientists are all baffled by it. And it makes me feel a bit empty. Less human. I want to experience fear and have been traveling all around the country trying to find something to fear.”

“And some people think my books sound crazy,” Martha said, adding some tomatoes to the onions. “Here, stir this around while I take care of the pasta.”

Things would get way crazier soon though.