The Diorama

By Sebastian Bendix

The only escape Martin Taper has from his miserable life as a pet store clerk is his diorama, a fantastical playset populated by miniature heroes, villains and monsters. Frustrated with his bullying manager and an unrequited crush on a beautiful co-worker, Martin acts out his fantasies nightly in the diorama, never imagining that any of them will come true. But when he invites a strange young boy into his world Martin's luck suddenly starts to change, and soon finds that the diorama may have a mind, and a vengeance, of its own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sebastian Bendix
• Release date: Apr 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310271861

Sebastian Bendix

Sebastian Bendix is a Los Angeles based writer and musician, as well as founder of horror film series, Friday Night Frights. He attended school at Emerson College for creative writing and spent his formative years in Boston playing in popular local band The Ghost of Tony Gold. Upon moving to LA he shifted his focus back to writing and began contributing articles to entertainment websites such as CHUD.com and the print publication Mean Magazine. However, his true passion lies in the realm of horror fiction. Bendix has found success both online and in print with numerous stories published in genre imprints and noted podcast The Wicked Library. In 2013, Bendix self-published his first horror/fantasy novel titled "The Patchwork Girl." This was followed by his second novel, "The Stronghold," a thrilling story inspired by real-life events, which has been published and is available digitally and in print. Alongside his writing endeavors, Sebastian Bendix is also a devoted film lover. He has made contributions to a science fiction anthology film called "Portals," released in October 2019. Recently, Bendix completed "Hell Bent for Heather", a horror novel in the style of Stephen King that he hopes will be the definitive take on heavy metal horror, it is currently out to publishers. He also just published "Hollow Jack & the Blood Curse of Blackwater", the first in a series of western horror novellas centered around a supernatural gunslinger. Sebastian Bendix's diverse background in writing, music, and film influences his unique storytelling style, making him a notable figure in the world of horror fiction. Bendix currently resides in Atlanta with his wife Jennifer and their supermutt Annie.

Book preview

THE DIORAMA

By Sebastian Bendix

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2015 Sebastian Bendix

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Before he had made it across the parking lot, the sky opened up and pissed on Martin Taper, raining hot and foul. It pooled in the whack-a-mole potholes of the Price Kingdom Shopping Center, each puddle a window into a more promising dimension. The Martin that existed in those watery portals was a spy or a superhero or a warrior of the post-apocalyptic wastes, not a lowly clerk facing down a nine-hour shift under the whip of branch manager Ethan Nulby. Martin sighed and raised his eyes to the ValuePet, his retail tomb that stank of dog paws and cat dander. As he approached the automatic doors he caught a glimpse of his face in the glass, rain water pasting his hair into the beaten lines of his brow. The doors gasped open, dry as a pharaoh’s curse, and he dragged himself into the hopeless flicker of fluorescents, his feet squeaking out a requiem on the charcoal-flecked linoleum.

Hey, Tapeworm, Nulby greeted, the opening salvo in today’s belittlements. It was a sad act of manifest destiny that a sap with the name Taper would end up a clerk in a store that sold parasite medications, arming the bullying manager with a nickname to wield as ridicule. But Martin took it with his customary good humor, because what was he supposed to do? The world was full of Ethan Nulbys; Martin had endured them all throughout his school years, where his failure to engage with curriculum had doomed him to a lifetime crushed beneath the heels of middle-management. It was in those frivolous days of youth that Martin first conceived his diorama, a world all his own that allowed him to live out fantastical dreams, heart-rending romances and nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat adventures. It waited back at his apartment, silent under the eaves, ready to salve Martin from the cruelty that the next eight hours would undoubtedly inflict.

Your counts were short again last night, Nulby informed him with phony regret, as if not savoring every scrumptious, reprimanding bite.

Why didn’t you mention it at the end of the shift?

Because I did a count again this morning. The exalted branch manager was indignant that a lowly clerk would deign to question his command of protocol.