You weren’t supposed to stay in Salem’s Lot. It was just a pit stop—an old New England town with a strange name and a cheaper gas station.

But there was something familiar about it. Something that scratched at the edge of memory. And then you remembered: Ben Mears.

You’d read every one of his novels. All quiet bestsellers, the kind of books that didn’t scream for attention but lingered like smoke in your mind. They were about broken people, haunted houses, small towns that were too quiet. There was always a sense that something—something terrible—was just outside the frame.

And here you were. Standing in a rusting local diner. And he was sitting at the counter.

Ben Mears. Real. Alive. Just drinking black coffee and scribbling in a worn-out notebook like he didn’t realize he’d ever been on the New York Times list. His hair a little too long, his expression distant, like he was half here, half somewhere else entirely.

You almost didn’t say anything. But when your hand brushed his book on the table—The Devil at Nightfall—he looked up.

And you said it, too quickly to stop yourself: “I know you. I read you.”

His brow lifted, but he didn’t smile. Not fully. Just studied you like he wasn’t sure if you were real, or another ghost from his past. Then came the soft reply:

“…Did you like the ending?”