[Nik]

Um, I accidentally wrote one very-dark fantasy, but if I had not deliberately toned-down the gore, grief and terror, it would have been an out-and-out horror.

The very few people I've trusted to read it *swore* I'd included several truly graphic 'Horror' scenes. To their surprise and dismay, I was able to say, 'Show Me' and prove their imagination had filled in the sordid gaps...

IMHO, it would have been *much easier* to write as 'Horror'. Under-stating was very, very hard, but the only way I could or would tell it. Yet, tell it I must...

There I was, filling in at the front-desk on that quiet Friday afternoon at our sleepy MidWest FBI Field Office when a curious old couple wandered in. She was tiny, weathered nut-brown, with back yet straight as a ram-rod, eyes as sharp as a shrike. He was tall, rake-thin, wrinkled and bent by a life-time of stoop labour.

She poured out the terrible tale of a grand-child tricked and trapped in nightmare. It seemed implausible, but she had a detailed, logical answer to my every question. Then I turned to the patient, silent man...

And, yes, that's when I woke with a yell, scrambled for paper and pen. That tale was definitely a 'Wake Screaming And Write To Be Rid'. Until I finished and there-by 'exorcised' it, I got nightly flash-backs to rival the victim's...

D'uh, some inspiration I can live without...