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Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Guest Post: Brian Pinkerton
The Most Frightening Show
on Television
By Brian Pinkerton
When I was young, fear was defined by monsters of the imagination: living dead, bloodsuckers, werewolves, aliens, mutants and bogeymen. They captivated me.
As a parent, my fears have changed. I’m far too pragmatic to worry about ghosts and goblins. There’s only one thing that truly scares me: the nightly news.
Every evening, I am dished up a mind-numbing display of shock and horror. The stubborn storylines don’t change: deadly shootings… terrorism attacks…gruesome car wrecks…tragic drownings and fatal fires…child abductions.
That last horror especially resonated with me when my children were little. I remember dropping off my daughter each morning at daycare with a rise of cruel angst tormenting my psyche.
What if she’s not here when I return?
It was unthinkable, which was why I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
How did I cope? I did what any decent writer would do to exorcise demons. I exploited my own insecurities. I wrote about it.
I simply switched the daycare setting to a nanny and let ‘er rip. My novel Abducted was born.
Abducted tells the story of a young mother, Anita Sherwood, who quits her job to become a stay-at-home mom with her 2-year old son. He has been under the care of a nanny. The nanny is very attached to the little boy and becomes distraught when she learns her services will no longer be needed.
On the night of the mother’s goodbye party at work, the nanny disappears with the boy. The next day, the nanny’s body is found drowned off the coast of California, with a suicide note that indicates she also drowned the child. But they never find the boy’s body.
A few years later, Anita is on a business trip in Chicago, standing on a street corner. She sees a sad face in the window of a passing bus. And that face looks just like her son.
Outlandish? Perhaps, but read on.
On the day that Abducted was released, a news story broke on CNN about a mother who found her kidnapped little girl, who had been presumed dead in a house fire. As it turns out, the fire was deliberately set by a kidnapper who took the baby. Everyone thought the baby perished in the fire.
But the mother refused to believe the baby was dead. Years after the fire, she saw a little girl at a neighborhood birthday party and was struck by the girl’s resemblance to her own children. She told the girl there was bubble gum in her hair as an excuse to pull out some strands. She took the hair to the police for DNA analysis. And it was a match.
As a parent, that story is mortifying. As a writer, the plot twist is exhilarating.
So the next time you’re looking for a good scare, don’t bother with the obvious: The Walking Dead, American Horror Story, Dexter or True Blood. Just catch a whiff of your local news and remember…
Real horror is closer than you think.
To read more about the creation of Abducted, download the free e-book The Making of Abducted from http://www.brianpinkerton.com/makingofabducted.htm
About the Author
Brian Pinkerton tells stories to thrill, frighten and intrigue. His novels include Anatomy of Evil, Killer's Diary, Abducted, Vengeance, Bender, Rough Cut and How I Started the Apocalypse. Select titles have also been released as audio books and in foreign languages. Brian’s short stories have appeared in Chicago Blues, PULP!, The Horror Zine and Zombie Zoology. Visit him at www.brianpinkerton.com.
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