Right Off Campus Bookshop was
jumping, and Aaron Welch couldn't be happier. He enjoyed interacting with his
fans on his website and through social media, but meeting them face-to-face at
these book signings always proved to be the best treat. Everyone turned out to
be so nice, so glad to meet him and share the joy his books brought them. Which
always made him laugh when he thought about it. His books weren't about joy;
they were full of terrifying images, horrific violence, and graphic sex. In his
first book, Bloody Waders, he vividly described a scene where the killer gutted
a victim using only a fish hook, some fishing line, and a paper clip. He'd
expected first his agent, then his publisher, to ask him to tone it down, but
the scene stayed. Now, four years later, he still had readers tell him how that
bit kept them up for nights on end, and then they'd shake his hand or slap his
shoulder like he did them some huge favor. His next two books, and now his
fourth, the reason for the signing tonight, all shared scenes of comparable
gruesomeness, and instead of revulsion, his loyal readers heaped on the praise.
"Ready to start,
Aaron?" Nell Hanson, the owner of the shop, asked from the head of the
line. She always did a great job of organizing and publicizing his appearances
here, and tonight was no exception. Though it was a Thursday, a school and work
night, the place was packed. He hoped most people were buying, if not his, then
other books. With the scarcity of independent book stores nowadays, every bit
helped. Nell kept the place safe by both carrying current textbooks and
offering a small student discount, but her true love was fiction, and the more
she sold, the more she could carry. That's why he gladly offered his services
whenever she asked.
"All set, Nell." He
had a half-dozen pens ready to go, along with a pile of custom-made bookplates
with his name, the title of his newest book, Dead Wrong, and a spot for his
signature, which he liked to sign right in front of his fans so they knew it
was genuine. Those were for the fans that already had his book and didn't bring
it with them, or, as was becoming more common, had purchased the e-book. He
embraced the new technology, and had an e-reader of his own he enjoyed using.
Whatever got people reading was fine with him, paper or not.
A middle-aged man and woman,
his first two fans of the night, approached, smiling, both holding a hardcover
copy of Dead Wrong. Each said hi, shook his hand, and told him how much they
enjoyed all of his work while he signed their books. Unless specifically asked,
he only penned his name. He was happy to write a short, personalized message,
but most people, like these two, were thrilled with his simple autograph.
The first half-hour of the
scheduled hour-long event went much the same. He heard which books meant the
most to people, which scenes struck home for various reasons, and which
characters became long lost friends. The normal questions came out, those which
he could answer in his sleep: Where did he get his ideas? Did he live in a
house of horrors? And what did his family think of him writing such scary and
disturbing stories? He had standard answers for each: His ideas came straight
from his dreams, or, more appropriately, his nightmares (which wasn't entirely
true, but tended to get a better response than how he really did it, which was
doodling words on a blank page until an idea struck him as interesting enough
to devote a half-year or more to); no, his house was boringly mundane; and his
family loved that he penned such scary books, though he did often catch them
watching him a bit wearily when they thought he wasn't looking. He added a
spooky little chuckle to that last part, and it never failed to earn him a
laugh.
But, in truth, Mom and Dad
loved that he wrote these tales of horror. They knew it helped him work through
his past, the loss of his beautiful wife and infant son. Five years ago, Zach
died in his crib, and Jenna took her own life because of it. That he hadn't
been home when it happened still haunted him. He might not have been able to
save Zach — crib deaths happened — but he would have kept Jenna alive. That's
where the writing came in. He wrote horrible things on his word processor to
keep from doing equally horrible things to himself. Truth be told, the thought
of joining Jenna in the murky world of suicide had occurred to him on more than
one occasion.
He kept the light and
(hopefully) witty banter up so he wouldn't dwell on these memories. And, as
usual, it worked. He took down Twitter handles so he'd remember who they were
when they later mentioned or retweeted him. He smiled when he got a face of
someone to go along with their name from the message board on his website. He
enjoyed the touching stories people told regarding his books.
