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"How was that?" Nick pulled the headphones off resting them around his neck.

"You sounded like a dying cat." A.J. said from the other side of the glass.

"No way. I sounded like fucking Josh Groban. I nailed that take."

"You sounded like Josh Groban's dying cat." A.J. said as Nick flipped him the bird. Flipping the bird back with a grin A.J. slapped the shoulder of the producer who was wildly turning knobs and flipping switches. "Hey bro, we're going to call it a night." The producer threw a wave over his shoulder as A.J. met Nick at the studio door.

"You know we're screwed right?" He said offering Nick a cigarette.

"No way, everything is going to be fine. The CD is going to kick ass, you just have to have faith." The guys were in Los Angeles recording what was to be their "Big Comeback". It was supposed to be the best work they had ever done. The CD was almost complete save for some last minute tweaking, and everybody but A.J. felt confident that it would be a best seller. A.J. didn't know why but he had been feeling strange lately. He'd been having dark nightmares and pounding migraines that wouldn't let up. His Mom always said that she thought he was psychic, but the very idea only made him laugh. If he was psychic then why wouldn't he have foreseen a drinking problem and headed it off at the pass instead of winding up in rehab the butt of jokes on Late Night T.V.

p> "I'm going home what about you, you wanna come by?" Nick climbed behind the wheel of the rented dark blue Mercedes, flicking his cigarette to the ground.

"Nah, I'm going to go home too. We have an early interview tomorrow to plug this damn thing so I want to get some beauty sleep."

"Okay man I'll catch you later."

"Yeah, later Nick."

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Gary walked into the gas station around 1:00 a.m. his mind racing. He strolled around the store jingling the charms in his pocket. He had picked them up at some store in a strip mall in town weeks before, not telling his sister. They were perfect, matching the charms he had created in his mind.

Smiling to himself he grabbed a package of Twinkies and then walked back to the cooler for a drink, the reflection in the glass of the pretty cashier behind the counter catching his eye.

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Nick was sitting on the couch watching some old eighties movie when the phone rang. Picking it up he was trying to figure out when Demi Moore and John Cusak had ever been in a movie together?

"Yup." He always answered with the same greeting.

"Hello Nick." It was a female voice, one he didn't recognize right off the bat.

"Hey." Flipping the station he stopped on a Steven Segal movie just as the old guy was kicking some major ass.

"Did you get Gary's letter Nick."

Dropping the remote Nick scooped up a fistful of popcorn and shoved it in his mouth. "What letter, who is this?" He had to stop giving out his home phone number to every pretty girl he saw. It was definitely a weakness but he craved company even if it was just on the phone.

"Did you get Gary's letter." She repeated the question in a soft trembling voice.

"Nope," Nick smiled as Segal slammed two guys' heads together before dropping them to the ground. "I don't read my mail I have some security company that does it for me to weed out the psycho shit."

"You should have read my letter Nick." A man's voice came on the line. "It would have prepared you more for what is to come next."

"Who is this?" Nick reached for another handful of popcorn. "Brian is that you? I told you to quick prank calling me when you're bored." Suddenly there was a blood curdling scream from the other end of the phone followed by the woman Nick had first spoken with pleading for her life.

"Please, please don't hurt me. Just take the money if that's what you want."

"Shut up, shut up."

"Oh my God, why are you doing this to me. Why, why??.."

"You know why I'm doing this, it's all part of the plan. With this charm I beseech thee�!!"

Sitting forward, wide eyed, Nick pressed the phone to his ear. "Who is this? Hello." He could hear more screaming followed by gurgling sounds and then a thud.

The man came back on the line.

He was breathing hard but his voice was laced with the faintest hint of amusement as he said."You better watch out…..I'm coming for you Nick."

Why did the name Gary sound so familiar to Nick?

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The story was on the evening news and it was bizarre. Some people in an apartment building in Los Angeles heard screaming and fighting coming from the apartment below them. They called the police to investigate.

When the police arrived at the apartment they found the older sister Desi Wainwright dead in her brother's bedroom from an apparent strangulation, a small silver charm had been placed in the center of her forehead. And her brother was nowhere to be found.

The news reports stated that the police had found large boxes in the brother, Gary Wainwright's bedroom closet containing thousands and thousands of photographs, posters and magazine pictures of the band The Backstreet Boys. In his bookshelves there was an impressive assortment of books on the supernatural, witchcraft and the occult as well as a thick manuscript for a story Gary had apparently written with the title PHANTASM scrawled in red on the title page.

While there was no word yet on what was contained in the manuscript, the police had confirmed that it was a strange rambling dialog that had many mentions of The Backstreet Boys. They felt that what was contained in the manuscript showed that it was the work of a deeply disturbed young man who had gone off the deep end.

As the evening progressed there was a late breaking news story involving the murder of a young woman working at a gas station in Los Angeles. She was strangled to death while working the swing shift, her body dumped behind the counter a silver charm placed in the center of her forehead.