The Printer From Hell

  Copyright 2016 Amy Cross

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, entities and places are either products of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, businesses, entities or events is entirely coincidental.

  Kindle edition

  Dark Season Books

  First published: June 2016

  This edition: July 2016

  This book's front cover incorporates elements licensed from the Bigstock photo site.

  It's just a printer.

  That's what Steve tells himself when he brings the machine into his family's home. Even when he struggles to get the printer working, he tells his wife that there's no reason to worry. After all, a printer can't actually hurt anyone.

  And then the bruises start to appear on their son's arm.

  Soon it becomes apparent that the printer has brought something dangerous into the apartment. Hideous photos start to emerge from the machine, photos that can't possibly exist. But they do exist, and they show scenes from a nightmarish world. A world much like our own, but filled with blood, pain and misery. And when his wife and son disappear from the apartment, Steve is forced to join a madman's quest to return to that world and save his family.

  The Printer From Hell is a horror story about a man who makes one small mistake, and ends up fighting to save his family from the most horrific monster imaginable.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Epilogue

  The Printer From Hell

  Chapter One

  “What the hell is that?”

  Sitting bolt upright in bed, I'm momentarily blinded by a set of bright red and blue lights, flashing on the other side of the room. There's a series of whirring, grinding noises too, and for a few seconds – still in a half-asleep daze – I actually start wondering whether a small UFO has somehow landed on the far side of our darkened bedroom.

  “It's that bloody printer again,” Mary groans, nudging my arm as she rolls over, turning her back to me. Grabbing her pillow, she puts it over her head. “Can you please just unplug it before I lose my mind?”

  “The printer?” I stammer, still a little groggy. “What -”

  “Steve, please! For the love of God, make it stop! That thing is driving me insane!”

  Finally starting to wake up properly, I push the duvet aside and get to my feet. The clock next to the bed reads 5:22am, which means I have to be up again for work in less than two hours. Stumbling barefoot across the bedroom, I stop at the desk and see that the new printer seems to have switched itself on yet again while we were sleeping. Various indicator lights are flashing, the paper load tray is shuddering, and the little screen on the top is showing a message about 'Processing'. It's hard to believe that this lump of plastic and metal could be making such a fuss.

  Reaching around the back, I double-check to make sure that I disconnected the infernal machine when it did the same thing last night. Sure enough, I find that it's still not even hooked up to the computer.

  “Steve?” Mary sighs from the bed. “What are you waiting for? Just unplug it!”

  “I'm trying to work out why it's -”

  “Just unplug it!” She lets out a groan of frustration as the machine continues to spit and spin. “For the love of God, make it stop!”

  Stepping around the side of the desk, I quickly locate the printer's USB ports, which of course are all empty. I tap the screen on top of the machine, trying to get to the menu system, and then I head around to the other side so I can check the rear panel. If I just approach this whole thing logically, I'm certain I can figure out the problem and then take the necessary steps to -

  Suddenly Mary slips past me, gets on her hands and knees, and crawls under the desk.

  “Honey,” I tell her, “I'm trying to -”

  There's a clicking sound as she pulls the plug from the socket, and finally the printer falls dead.

  “I'm sick and tired of this goddamn machine waking us up every night,” she mutters as she gets to her feet. She looks exhausted. Beautiful, but exhausted. “Maybe we should just take it back to the store and get a different model. And by maybe, I mean definitely! And by we, I mean you. Tomorrow.”

  “I'll figure out what's wrong with it,” I reply. “I'm not going to be defeated by a printer.”

  “Defeated by it?” she replies, raising a skeptical eyebrow as she turns and shuffles back over to the bed. “It's a printer, Steve, not a dragon. It's just a hunk of garbage, and it's not working properly. I told you to order one online, but no, you had to go to that weird little store at the mall. You had to go for some cheap-ass option.”

  “I'm supporting local businesses,” I reply.

  “How about supporting your local wife and getting that thing out of our lives? Permanently!”

  “I can make it work,” I tell her, opening the panel at the top, hoping to spot something that might help. “I just need to -”

  “Fine!” she adds with a sigh, flopping down onto the bed and pulling the duvet back up. “Let's talk about it tomorrow. Or better still, let's not talk about it at all. The damn thing hasn't even printed a single page I've sent to it. You realize that, right? I sent print jobs from the computer, but they never actually came out! At this point it's less of a printer, and more of a really loud, really obnoxious alarm clock.” She sighs again. “I never thought I could hate a machine so much.”

  As she rolls over, I stare down at the printer. I've got to admit, in the few days since I bought it at the local store, I've still not been able to get it up and running, and for the sake of our sanity I probably should just take it back. I'm sure the guy would give me a refund, or at least let me trade it in for a different model. Still, I've never been defeated by a machine before, and I'm not gonna start now. My name is Steve Holland, I'm thirty-two years old, and I can install a goddamn printer. Or I'll die trying.

  “Tomorrow,” I mutter under my breath, tapping the printer's side. “Just you wait. Tomorrow, my friend, I'm going to whip you into shape.”

  I turn to go back to bed.

  “Daddy?”

  Stopping, I spot a figure in the doorway.

  “I heard noises,” Josh says nervously, already inching into the room. “Can I sleep with you and Mummy for the rest of the night?”

  “It was just the printer,” I tell him. “There's no need to be scared.”

  “Of course you can, honey,” Mary says, holding the duvet up as our son rushes over and jumps onto the bed.

  “Josh,” I add, “aren't you a little old to be -”

  Suddenly the printer lets out a loud beep. I turn just in time to see a green light blinking twice on the side of the case, and then once again the machine falls still.

  “Is it haunted?” Josh asks, his voice filled with wonder.

  “No,” Mary tells him, “it's
not haunted.” She glances at me with a weary scowl. “It might be possessed, though. In fact, I think it might just be the printer from hell.”

  Chapter Two

  “Maxi... mono... tika?”

  “Moticon,” I reply, before checking the photo on my phone again, just to be sure. “Maxinomoticon. Ever heard of them?”

  As the printer in the office continues to spit out pages, I wait for Magnus to answer. He's flat on his back under one of the tables, fiddling with various wires and cables, so all I can see right now is his legs sticking out across the carpet. Still, as the head IT guy in our office and one of the top tech guys in the whole of London, I figure he's the best person to ask for help with the new printer at home.

  “Maxinomoticon?” he mutters finally.

  “I think they're, like, Japanese or something,” I continue. “Maybe Chinese. The box has all that squiggly text on it, so I suppose it could be... I guess it's probably Asian.”

  “Never heard of them,” he replies as he pulls a handful of wires down and tosses them aside. “What kinda crap do they make, anyway?”

  “We just got this new printer the other day,” I explain, “and it's a complete nightmare. It basically doesn't print anything. It doesn't hook up to the computer, it doesn't even seem to connect properly to the wi-fi in our apartment. All it does is switch on at random times, usually at night, and make all these heaving, grinding noises. I mean, I know printers can be a little tricky sometimes, but this thing is insane. It's like it hates us. The worst part is, our apartment is so crowded, we've got the damn thing in our bedroom. It's woken us up, three nights in a row.”

  “Huh.” He takes a moment to unscrew something. “You're right, printers can be challenging for the layman. Did you install all the drivers?”

  “I can't even find any drivers for it, and there was no CD in the box. The damn thing's impossible. Mary wants me to take it back to the store.”

  He chuckles.

  “I guess that's what I should do,” I continue.

  “Sure. If you're a pussy.”

  “It's just a -”

  “You can't let that thing defeat you, dude.”

  “That's what I told my wife, but...” I pause for a moment, as the office printer finishes its job. Grabbing the copy of the report, I take a moment to staple one corner. “I looked for a website, but this Maxinomoticon company doesn't seem to have any kind of online presence. The box is all in some kinda foreign language, and there's no manual. There's, like, a little menu screen on the top, but I can't work it out at all.”

  “Where'd you get it?”

  “That place at the mall. The guy was pretty keen to sell it. He even gave me a year's supply of ink!”

  “What kind of cartridges?”

  “That's the weirdest part,” I continue. “It has some fancy system that lets it take ink from almost any other manufacturer.”

  “Huh.” He chuckles to himself. “I know exactly which store you mean. They're always getting cheap crap from weird, pop-up manufacturers in different parts of the world. Sometimes that can be good, but sometimes you end up with a dud.”

  “So you think I should just give up and take it back?”

  “Sure, if you don't mind cutting your balls off and dropping them into the box too.”

  I can't help frowning. “Isn't that a little extreme?”

  “Are you insane?” He leans out from under the desk and looks up at me, staring as if I'm a complete idiot. “You have to master that monster, Steve. If you let it get the better of you, you'll never live the humiliation down. The year is 2016, and a man should not be bested by a piece of equipment. That's assuming you are, in fact a man, and not a complete loser.”

  “I just don't know if I have time to -”

  “Excuses, dude,” he adds, clearly amused by my predicament. “If you want to admit defeat and slink back to the store with that thing in a box, go ahead. Squander your dignity. But for the rest of your life, you'll always wonder whether you could have risen to the challenge, whether you could have overcome adversity and proved to yourself – nay, to the entire world – that you can't be beaten. It'll bug you, it'll gnaw away at your soul in the middle of the night, it'll make it so you can never, ever look at yourself in the mirror again. One defeat leads to another, then another, and before you know it you never really make an effort with anything. Is that how you want your life to go, Steve?”

  “There -”

  “Is it?” He glares at me.

  “It's just a printer,” I point out cautiously.

  “It's not just a printer!” he replies, starting to sit up but then banging his head on the underside of the desk. He lets out a couple of mumbled curse words as he crawls out and gets to his feet, but it's clear that he's really warming to his theme now. “It's a challenge. Are you the kind of man who backs down from a challenge, Steve?”

  “Well... No, but -”

  “Then fight the good fight, dude, and master the machine in your home. You'll thank me if you do.”

  Pausing, I can't help feeling that he's taking this just a little too seriously. I mean, it really is just a printer.

  “I guess,” I mutter, figuring there's no point continuing this conversation. I can take the printer back later and be done with it all. “Thanks,” I add, turning and heading to the door. “See you in a -”

  “Plus, you'll save your marriage.”

  “My marriage?” I stop in the doorway, before slowly turning to him. “There's nothing wrong with my marriage!”

  “Not now, maybe, but there will be if you surrender to that printer.”

  “I don't think my wife is that superficial,” I tell him.

  “Rookie mistake,” he continues. “Surrendering to that printer would be a sign of weakness. Chicks don't like weak men, dude, and chicks are still chicks even after you get a ring on their finger. Give up the fight with that machine, and your wife will think less of you. Not a lot less, but less. And that crack in your dignity will grow, buddy. She'll start seeing other little weaknesses, she'll start seeing you as someone who buckles under adversity, and then she'll notice other guys who aren't afraid to face challenges head-on. Before you know it, she's written you off as a loser and then it's just a matter of time until some jock with a can-do attitude steals her away from you. Trust me, it's a slippery slope that'll end with her sliding into bed with someone else, and all because you couldn't install a peripheral unit. How would that make you feel?”

  “Have you ever had a girlfriend, Magnus?” I ask after a moment. “Have you ever even touched a girl?”

  He holds his hand up, revealing a shiny wedding band.

  “Eight years married, this coming November,” he declares proudly. “And do you know what? She's still begging for me in the bedroom, every night when I get home. And do you know why? Because she's never, ever seen me give up. Not in any situation. I always get the job done. I always slay my dragons.”

  He peers into the guts of the PC he's trying to fix, and he pokes at a few circuit boards before glancing at me again.

  “It's not just a printer, dude,” he adds somberly. “It's never just a printer.”

  Chapter Three

  Once I've finished washing my face, I grab a towel and pat myself dry. As I set the towel down, however, I spot my reflection in the bathroom mirror, and I can't help pausing for a moment.

  Crow's feet?

  When did I develop crow's feet around my eyes?

  I turn sideways. Is my neck starting to droop a little? I'm only thirty-seven years old. I'm still young, I shouldn't be getting wrinkles and saggy skin.

  I turn again.

  Are those just laughter lines, or -

  For a fraction, I see something else. My face suddenly, briefly looks puffy and discolored, almost rotten. My eyes are just small dark spots peering out through sore, reddened slits, and my mouth is open slightly, revealing stubby, blackened teeth. I pull back and instantly everything goes back to normal.

  W
hat the hell was that?

  Feeling my wrist, I find that my pulse is racing. I think I just had some kind of brain-fart, a moment when all my senses seemed to flip out. I turn my head a couple more times, to make sure it doesn't happen again, and finally I tell myself that there's no need to overreact. Whatever just hit me, there's no need to worry.

  Sometimes the human mind just does weird things.

  I hope.

  Figuring that the light in the bathroom must be unflattering, I turn and head out to the hallway. Maybe I should start going to the gym again, just to make sure I stay in shape.

  ***

  “What are you doing, honey?” I ask, stopping at the bedroom door and seeing Mary working at the desk.

  “I'm trying to print this worksheet,” she mutters, tapping at the screen on top of the printer. “You'd think that'd be simple, right? Just bring it up and print it, but no.” She clicks the mouse several times, and I swear she's actually grinding her teeth a little. “Of course not. Not with the printer from hell.”

  Tossing my jacket onto the bed, I wander over and see that she's got the printer up and running, hooked to the computer, and now she's cycling through the menu system. So far, however, she doesn't look to be having any more luck than I managed yesterday.

  “It's 2016,” she continues. “You'd think by now, mankind would've invented a printer that just plugs in and actually prints! Why are these things so needlessly complex?”

  “Did you make sure there's paper in the tray?”

  She glances at me. “I'm not an idiot, honey.”

  “Did you check you'd selected the right printer from the list?”

  “Again. Not an idiot.”

  Sighing, she sits back and stares at the machine for a moment.

  “We're smart people,” I mutter.

  “Speak for yourself.”

  “I mean, we're not dummies,” I continue. “Between us, we should be able to get this thing working properly.”