Patron X

Todd Van Buskirk’s new novel “Patron X” is as boring and useless as it gets!

The author repeatedly pasted six paragraphs of material into a word document until he had enough words to be called a novel.

The material consists of the text featured below:

“A man inherits a house when his favorite great-uncle dies, and with it, the great-uncle's diary. The pages seem to be profiles of people...photographs, age, biography. These are seemingly unconnected. There are many entries, and these go far back in time. The nature of the pages changes over time, reflecting the book technology of the time (cave drawings, scrolls, sketches, photographs, printed page, even electronic audio/video records). The records are haunting and sad, almost like the people in the book were being tortured, and slowly going mad. All of them mention a demon that lives in the book, who bewitched them. Every single entry cuts off in the middle of a sentence, at which point a new entry beings.
“In the meantime, PATRON X begins a relationship with MIRAMBA, whom he starts to love, but it deteriorates as PATRON X grows increasingly obsessed with the people in the book. He reads it obsessively, does a lot of research, and finds out that every single one of them disappeared out of the blue. Some of them returned after many years, some of them did not. As he continues reading, he feels the spirit of the book get into his head, and start to possess him. The spirit is not malevolent, but sad and driven to insanity in despair. It only wants to be set free, but is unable to tell him how to help. And finally, PATRON X finds a profile on his great-uncle, who also disappeared out of the blue...and so PATRON X realizes that the spirit in the book is really his great-uncle, who is so driven to madness that he'd do anything, even harm someone he loved, to get away. By this time, PATRON X starts growing suspicious about the truth, but it's too late. He turns the page, and finds a profile on himself...he gets sucked in, and his great-uncle is now free.
“The truth is that the book is cursed. Anyone who reads more than a certain amount will want to continue reading obsessively, even though the material is harrowing, and even if they know they're being possessed, until they get to the end. At this point, they can only be saved if somehow, they manage to stop reading. If they keep going, and they see the profile on themselves, they get sucked in, and are forced to experience the tortured memories of all the previous victims, completely alone, and with no break. The only way they can get out is if they can get someone else to read it, and get sucked in. Meanwhile, the book uses up their life. If they can free themselves before they would have died, they might have a chance to return to their old life, their body older by the number of years they spent in the book. This is rare. Most spirits were stuck in the book past their death day, and so when they were freed they just melted away. PATRON X starts going crazy, trying to get out.
“PATRON X's great-uncle is still alive, and is now back in his body and sane, but he's dying. Possibly he offers to willingly sacrifice himself again and take the PATRON X's place. At this point, it starts to get a bit vague. While the great-uncle was in the book, which it turns out he entered willingly, he managed to retain a bit of his sanity, and he explored the workings of the cursed book thoroughly. The great-uncle, a highly intelligent man (maybe he's a sorcerer, and possibly the one who created the book in the first place, maybe accidentally, maybe not), has a plan to break the curse, which is why he got the PATRON X sucked into the book. He laid the foundations for the plan when he was still possessed, but for the final steps he needed to get out for a bit. I don't know what the plan is. Maybe the great-uncle has a nemesis whom he plans to trap, or someone who can destroy it for good, or something. In any case, the great-uncle and PATRON X plot, and the idea is that the great-uncle will set PATRON X free again soon. However, things go wrong at this point. Possibly one of the reasons for delay is that the PATRON X is furious with his great-uncle for using him, and refuses to go along at first. Whatever the reason, by the time PATRON X agrees, and the plan is underway, it falls through. The great-uncle dies before he can carry out the last part, and the next person who ends up reading the book...is the MIRAMBA.
“I have a feeling that the PATRON X starts out by being a rather selfish young man, which slightly lessened his hesitation at trapping someone else, especially someone he didn't like, or someone who was dying, or a faceless stranger, in order to free himself. He knows that if she continues reading, it won't be long until he's free. MIRAMBA has few friends or relatives, and will not be missed. He considers waiting until she gets possessed, regaining his life, and then spending it trying to free her. But having truly experienced the horrors within, he doesn't want to inflict them on anyone, most especially the woman he loves. He doesn't want to use people the way his great-uncle used him. Now he has to choose between losing his real life and living eternal torture, or getting it all back, but inflicting his fate on the MIRAMBA. Even though the curse prevents him from telling her what the curse is, he does everything he can to dissuade her from continuing to read, and it seems to be working...or not. He starts to despair of ever preventing her from reading it, and also of getting free and destroying the book, and it seems all hope is lost...unless he can somehow figure out what his great-uncle's plan was, which seems impossible considering that he doesn't have a tenth of the old man's knowledge and resources, and his uncle left nothing written down. But the clock is ticking. Either the MIRAMBA will reach the end of the book and get sucked in, possessed, and tortured, or the PATRON X's remaining seconds of life will tick away, and he will live forever in the pages until someone sets him free, in which case he will just drift away, and the curse will continue to trap people.
“I'm a sucker for uplifting endings and adventure stories rather than horror (not my forte), so I had envisioned that PATRON X will somehow figure out how to break free, save the girl, and break the curse, but I don't know how yet. If anyone takes this idea, the ending is up to you. Sorry it's so long! I started writing it down, and it just...developed.”

- Todd Van Buskirk