17-year-old Simon Blink hires a private eye to help him find who murdered his uncle. It is soon discovered that his death was linked to a mysterious painting.
It's the number one question writers get, it's the number one question writers hate to answer, and it's the number one question writers don't have an answer for.....except for Paul Ernst.
The story goes that one afternoon, Paul Ernst came home from the bank after cashing the check he received for the latest story he had written for a popular pulp fiction magazine. The check was less than he expected. In fact, it wasn't even enough for him to pay his rent. Believing this would be one of the few remaining nights he would be spending in his apartment (and being depressed), he went to bed early.
While he was asleep, Ernst had a dream about a man in an all red Zorro costume casting spells and committing crimes. When he woke up, he leaped out of bed and started pounding away on his typewriter. He had the story finished and on it's way to Weird Tales Magazine that day. The name of the story was "Doctor Satan."
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The character of Doctor Satan would appear in seven more stories by Ernst. The occultist, who dressed in a red costume with horns on the top of his mask, would become one of the most popular villains of the pulp era, soaring Ernst to immortality and allowing him to continue his dream of being a full-time writer.
Now, I have told you that story so I could tell you this one.
The following story is my homage to Ernst. It does not feature Doctor Satan, even though it could have. Doctor Satan is not yet in the public domain as it has not been 75 years since Ernst death, and even though we Wattpad writers have certain liberties others don't, I chose not to put the master villain in this story, but I have taken several elements from Ernst writings to give Wattpad readers this original work. With that, I am proud to give you this story in the tradition of one of the greats.
