Certain holidays in The Twain Shall Meet bring about milestone personal events for fictional characters in the Collective Obsessions Anthology.
For instance, Shannon Larkin (who becomes a major fixture in the anthology from this point forward), meets the love of her life during the Thanksgiving holiday. Shannon is a young girl of twenty-one, while Scott Page is ten years her senior, an alluring and strikingly handsome man of the world. Their antagonistic beginning soon blossoms into love when they share a "first kiss" on Christmas morning.
Shannon's initial meeting with Scott comes just weeks after she escapes the demented attentions of Mike Sullivan who, for all intents and purposes, is hell-bent on possessing her body and soul. Even though he is eventually sequestered at the Bangor Mental Hospital, Mike plots his ultimate revenge to deny Shannon her unfolding happiness.
Mike emerged from an alcove at the far right corner of the café. He watched Shannon drive away, an unreadable expression on his face. But his eyes were bright, almost glittering in their intensity. Anyone looking into his eyes at that moment would be moved to describe him as stark, raving mad.
He grinned and whispered softly to himself: "Oh no, Shannon Larkin. We'll see who has the last word, and the last laugh."
Fleshing-out diabolical characters is much more enjoyable than writing the norm, i.e. romance and white-picket-fence endings. Mike Sullivan was loosely based on a real person in fictional development, although I gave him sharper edges. His ultimate presentation is pure fantasy, and not anything like the young man I used as a template for his character.
The Twain Shall Meet is book three of the Collective Obsessions Anthology, scheduled for release by Club Lighthouse Publishing early next year.
