Hanging with Christina Bergling, author of The Rest Will Come
Murder can be risky…and not just for the douchebags on the business end of Emma’s power
saw.
Men only let Emma down. They cheat, and they lie. They send unsolicited pictures of their
genitals. Ready to give up hope, Emma decides to go on one last date. Then it finally happens—
she finds the thing she loves most of all.
Killing clueless jerks she finds on the internet.
Lost in a happy haze of hunting her victims, devising increasingly-clever killings, and
streamlining her dismemberment process, Emma gets careless.
As her need for her murderous outlet grows, she runs an increasing risk of getting caught…or
worse—falling for one of her victims.
Biography
Colorado‐bred writer, Christina Bergling knew she wanted to be an author in fourth grade.
In college, she pursued a professional writing degree and started publishing small scale. It all began with “How to Kill Yourself Slowly.” With the realities of paying bills, she started working as a technical writer and document manager, traveling to Iraq as a contractor and eventually becoming a trainer and software developer.
She avidly hosted multiple blogs on Iraq, bipolar, pregnancy, running. She continues to write on Fiery Pen: The Horror Writing of Christina Bergling and Z0mbie Turtle.
In 2015, she published two novellas. She is also featured in the horror collections Collected Christmas Horror Shorts, Collected Easter Horror Shorts, Collected Halloween Horror Shorts, and Demonic Wildlife.
Her latest novel, The Rest Will Come, was released by Limitless Publishing in August 2017.
Her latest novel, The Rest Will Come, was released by Limitless Publishing in August 2017.
Bergling is a mother of two young children and lives with her family in Colorado Springs. She spends her non‐writing time running, doing yoga and barre, belly dancing, taking pictures, traveling, and sucking all the marrow out of life.
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A Friend to
Die For
Christina Bergling
Everyone needs a friend. Family is biological, necessary,
but friendship is a chosen connection. We crave that counterpart to make us
feel understood. We need that confidant to prove to ourselves that we are not
actually alone in the world.
I remember being a teenager and defining my life by my
friendships. When we were out being youthfully ignorant and making horrible
life decisions, anything was possible. When they crawled into the darkness with
me, I could survive the worst. Yet, when we fought or grew apart or anything
went wrong, my world was ending.
My mind has grown since those teenage years, expanded in
perspective. Friendships have become one of multiple important and shaping
factors in my life, though no longer the primary one. Yet I still harbor an
exceptional dependency on my friends. Over the years, I have painstakingly
assembled a secondary family, a chosen family. They play an essential role in
every part of my life.
I have supportive parents, a sister who survived our
childhood with me, cousins I pseudo-grew up with over summers. Yet as necessary
and fulfilling as these relationships are, they were thrust upon me by biology
and proximity. The connection cannot actually be eradicated. My friends and I
chose each other from the wide world of circumstance and choose still to make
the effort to remain in contact. There is no societal obligation or cultural
echo to bind us.
After all, it was a friendship that spawned my book, The Rest Will Come. It was a sisterhood
navigating through the traumas and turmoil of adult life that triggered the
inspiration. In The Rest Will Come,
Emma’s best friend Ronnie supports her, challenges her, irritates her,
motivates her. She does all the wonderful and painful things that a good friend
does.
And if you’re wondering (and many people seem to be), I am
the Ronnie of the friendship. Sometimes, I am surprised that my friends have
stuck around as long as they have!
Friends are there to endure the worst of life with you. My
closest friends have climbed into the darkest pits with me, picked me back up
after the worst decisions or traumas. We all need that support when we are low.
More than anyone, perhaps, a serial killer needs a good
friend. This may seem counterintuitive. When you think of a serial killer, you
probably envision a brooding, potentially psychotic loner, stalking victims or
plotting murders in the dark. However, I am not saying all serial killers have
a good friend. I am saying they all NEED a good friend.
Think about it. Serial murder has to be one of the loneliest
occupations. To avoid incarceration (whether legal or mental), a killer is
forced to keep this hobby entirely under wraps. Here you are, completely
enthralled in taking lives, finally discovering that one thing that just feels
right for you. It probably monopolizes the majority of your time and even more
of your thoughts. Yet, you cannot share that with anyone.
Sure, you might be able to reveal your true self with your
victims, but that honesty is certainly not long-lived. They get to see the real
you. You can confide within them fully, tell them every dark little secret and
detail if you want. Then they are gone. They have given you what you need in
their death, yet the relationship is disposable. Like the bodies.
At the end of each crime, as the blood pools and the body
cools, you are alone once again. No one to share in the rush of the crime. No
one to ease the burden of cleaning up the mess. No one to understand why you
need this.
With such a lonely pursuit, a serial killer clearly needs a
best friend. Even more than a friend, a killer might need a partner in crime,
for once a friend knew all the secrets, they become an accomplice. Knowing all
the dirty details, the friend would have to decide to pick up the phone or pick
up a shovel.
Imagine slicing and dicing with your very best mate then
harboring this wonderful, defining secret between the two of you. Could
anything bind two people any closer than crime? Love is fleeting and can fade,
yet a crime is captivating, at least as long as the statute of limitations. The
two of you could balance each other out, preventing each other from making
those inevitable mistakes that end in capture and conviction.
Well, maybe every serial killer having a best friend would
not be the best for the victims or the police.
In The Rest Will Come,
Emma definitely only survives her divorce and the horrors of online dating
because of her best friend. Ronnie picks up the pieces when Emma is broken. She
force-feeds her when she is too depressed to eat. She calls her out on her
stupid decisions and personality flaws. She gives Emma the tough love that she
hates yet needs.
However, when Emma turns to murder, when she discovers the
serial killer coiled quietly inside her, she cannot take Ronnie with her. Her
murder isolates her from her best friend and the support on which she has
become dependent. She may be discovering her true self through her crimes, yet
she cannot share that revelation with the person who once knew her best.
Things would have been perfect for Emma if she could embrace
the killer inside her and also share that with her bestie. Things would have
been better still if she could find a person with which to share her new
pastime. Maybe every serial killer would be happier with a friend. It could
make them more efficient killers or even eliminate their need for murder.
Whether you are a killer or not, we all need that one
friend. Your ride or die partner. A killer might need that connection all the
more. If I was a serial killer (and I’m not. Promise!), I would not be complete
without a partner in crime, a friend to die for.
Christina Bergling
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