Hastings cursed as he viewed the Literoticum's "Survivor Contest ScoreCards" list. He was number 10 on the list. TENTH PLACE! After all his hard work, the sleepless nights he stayed awake, working on his stories; writing, rewriting, perfecting, and nurturing them as you would a small child. He knew 10th place was nothing to be ashamed of, but he also knew he was the best.
This year would be especially hard. Hastings had entered the Survivor Contest for the last 5 years but it was always the same thing. Close, but not close enough! Each time others beat him out of placing at the last moment by submitting dozens of stories at once. He had vowed not this year and he had been carefully watching the score card since the beginning. But unfortunately his job had made unexpected demands on his time given the economy. He had submitted enough of his stories to remain in the top ten.
He had dozens of more for submitting at the last moment; he had learned to play that game. But it was not going to be enough to take out the leaders this year. Wife2hotblk, Boxlicker, Bakeboss, Familyguy and the others were just too far ahead. But desperate times called for desperate measures.
"Sure," he thought to himself, "they're ok, but not even in the same league as his. I'll show them, I'll show each and every one of them, who the greatest survivor writer, really is!"
He had sent emails to the editors of the website. Explaining why he should be in first place. At first they assured him that the point system decided the winners, not the editors, but soon they tired of his persistent complaining and stopped answering his letters all together.
He wrote letters to the other writers and entered into forums, commenting on the injustice and the flaws in the system, but he was either ignored or publically ridiculed about his comments.
"Get a life, loser" or "You are in the top ten, live with it!" or "Man, are you paranoid!"
"Ignore me, laugh at me, and call me paranoid!" Hastings thought. "How dare they? I will take care of those other mediocre survivor writers. They are all in this together the editors, the Literoticum board of directors and their buddy buddy writer friends. I'll get them, those other writers who stole my first place!"
His mind continued to dwell on the solution. The question was not should he, or even when should he, kill them. The question was how he would exact his revenge on those conniving authors who had bribed their way and manipulated the system to get to the top of the Literoticum's "Survivor ScoreCard" list. "Yes!" He though. "I will take care of them, but each one had to be eliminated just right. After all, I am a poet, and poetic justice requires some careful thought." As the Wicked Witch of West once said, "These things must be done carefully!"
That was a few weeks ago and he had already taken care of some of the authors. The question was who's next?
He decided his next victim would be a writer who went by the name of "Familyguy". Most of his stories involved incest themes. A real sicko! So, he likes incest huh! I'll give him incest!" Hasting thought to himself.
"So Familyguy, you are next!" he thought. He carefully planned his strategy. Step 1-Win Familyguy's confidence. Step 2- Set up a meeting. Step 3- Eliminate Familyguy!
He started sending emails to Familyguy using a different a different email address and name, telling him that he was a publisher named Bill Presel who admired his writing and wanted to meet with him to talk about possibly publishing a collection of his stories. It worked! Familyguy or Buck, as Hasting came to know him by, was completely taken in and very flattered that someone whould be interested enough to want to publish a book of his stories. They agreed to meet at a local coffee shop to discuss, publishing his work.
Hastings had carefully planned everything. The meeting place, the knock-out drops, the rope to tie him up, and the gag to keep him from crying out, everything was carefully thought out.
