Dark Corners - Twelve Tales of Terror (24 page)

“
Hi,
Bob, how are you?” she said, forcing herself to sound cheery.

“
Fine,
Fine. Just had some time to kill and thought I would check in.”

Unlikely. They both knew the reason for his call. Her
book should be long finished and in the advanced stages of the copy
editing process by now—not three chapters from an end she
hadn’t even conceived yet. He wanted a progress report. The
agency Bob worked for wanted to cut the dead weight from their client
list, and she was included in that category. He was under immense
pressure to cut her loose, but had stuck with her in spite of this,
which raised some speculative eyebrows within the company. Now they
were both relying on the success of this unfinished book to justify
the delay. She could imagine him sitting in his office, chewing his
nails or running his hands through his thinning hair. Bob had a
reputation of being hard to please, but she had always found him
professional and more importantly unafraid to share his opinions on
her work. Bob had a small nose and deeply set eyes, topped by large
almost comically bushy eyebrows. She could see him now in her mind’s
eye, frowning in his brown office chair, perhaps scratching his
carroty beard as he considered the best way to approach the
unfinished novel.

“
Hello?
Terri, are you there?”

She had drifted away while he’d been talking.

“
I’m
here. Sorry, Bob, you caught me at an... awkward time.”

“
I’m
sorry—I didn’t disturb you
working
did I?”

She had to give it to him. As far as approaching a
sensitive subject goes, he had done well.

“
Not
exactly. I was just heading out.”

“
I’m
sorry. I wouldn’t have called at all, it’s just—”

He trailed off, hoping that she would pick up the bait.

“
You
want to know about the book?”

“
You
know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. It’s
just that the powers that be are breathing down my neck and I need to
tell them something. Can you at least send me a few pages so I can
shut the damn pricks up?”

She felt sorry for Bob, and would have done as he asked
without question if only she had something to send him.

“
Look,
Bob, you know I’ve been going through a tough time lately. I
just haven’t been able to concentrate on my work as fully as I
would like. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.”

“
I
understand, really I do, but I need something from you, Terri. I hate
to tell you this, but there have been serious discussions about
cancelling your contract.”

She was stunned.

“
Can
they even do that?” she blurted, hating how whiny she sounded.

“
They
can and they will if we don’t move on this. I’m fighting
for you, Terri, but I can only do so much.”

“
Bob,
I’ll finish the book, I swear to you I will, but you have to
see it from my point of view—I can’t just pull it out of
my ass. I gave them two books in the last year, surely they can give
me a little leeway?”

“
Hey,
I know you and Mark breaking up has put you under serious strain, but
they are already forty grand in the hole with the marketing campaign.
They’ve had to push back the release date twice now. On top of
that...”

“
What?”

“
Well,
the fact is that although the first book sold well, Moonlight Shadows
barely scraped up enough to cover the distribution costs.”

“
They
put me head to head with J.K. Rowling. What did they expect?”

“
You
and I know that, but they don’t see it that way. They paid you
an advance for three books and only have two, now they’re
already losing money on the third. They want this one finished and in
print whilst they can still make some money off your name.”

“
That
makes me feel loved.”

“
Forget
love. This is business, and like it or not, it’s the nature of
the game. I just want to help you get back on track here, ok?”

“
You
think I don’t?” she barked, cheeks flushed with anger.
She instantly regretted her outburst. If he was offended, Bob didn’t
show it.

“
Hey
look, I’m on your side here. I told them you would turn the
book in and that there’s nothing to worry about, but they kept
pressuring me for a deadline.”

She didn’t like the way this conversation was
going. She sensed she was about to hear something she wouldn’t
like.

“
I
know my damn deadline, Bob. You told me. Three weeks.”

There was an awkward silence whilst Bob carefully chose
his words.

“
That
was the old deadline. I had to act, Terri—and believe me, I did
my best for you.”

“
Spit
it out, Bob.”

“
You
have until Monday to turn it in; otherwise they are terminating your
contract and will start legal proceedings against you for loss of
earnings.”

Fear and anger erupted within her. She was squeezing the
handset so hard her knuckles had turned white.

“
How
the hell could you let this happen? I thought you were on my side!”

“
If
you had any idea what I had to go through to delay this then you
would be a little more grateful.”

“
Grateful?
Grateful? You don’t get it, do you Bob? It’s not that I
won’t write, I can’t write right now! M
y
fucking head is in pieces
!”

There was silence apart from the steady sound of Bob’s
breathing on the other end of the phone. He spoke calmly, trying to
reassure her.

“
I
understand that, but it’s not just your ass on the line anymore
here, Terri. Do you have any idea what I’ve had to sacrifice
for you? It’s not for the pay check, let me make that clear.
And it certainly isn’t for the stress it puts me under.

“
Then
why do it, Bob? Why not cut me loose like everyone says you should?”
She was desperately trying to keep her voice from wavering.

“
I
do it because I have faith in you. I’m doing the best I can for
you, and that’s regardless of my twenty percent fee.”

Her anger dispersed, and she realised that it wasn’t
Bob’s fault. The blame lay at the feet of that sham of a woman
in the mirror, the twenty-nine year old, red-haired, green-eyed girl
from upstate New York. Unable to write, on the verge of being dropped
by her publisher, and completely alone in the world. She closed her
eyes.

What a mess.

“
Are
you going to be ok?” Bob asked calmly.

She was crying now, unable to control herself

“
I’ll
be fine. It’s just... a lot to take in right now.”

“
I
understand, believe me I do. I’d come over and see you in
person, but I’m out of town right now meeting with another
client.”

“
That’s
ok, Bob. I understand... I don’t know where I’d be
without you.”

“
Look,
I’ve told you before, you are a great writer. You just need to
get your head in the game. Now, bullshit aside, how much do you have
left to write?”

“
The
last three chapters,” she said with a sigh.

“
Ok,
that’s doable. You have until Monday. Today is Tuesday. You
have plenty of time.”

“
It’s
not the time that I’m worried about, it’s the writing
itself. I don’t know what to do.”

“
Look,
let’s just get it done. Wing it, re-hash it, make it up. Hell,
plagiarise it if you have to. Just hand something in on Monday and we
can get this one behind us. After that, take a break and recharge
your batteries. Maybe take a vacation.”

“
I
can’t do that, it wouldn’t be right.”

Bob laughed then, a hearty sound that made her smile
despite her woes.

“
I
was only half serious anyway. Look I have to go. I have a meeting in
twenty minutes and traffic will be hell. Seriously, though, do
yourself a favour. Lock the door, take the phone off the hook, sit in
front of the computer and write. I know you have it in you.”

“
I’ll
do my best, Bob. You have my word... Thanks for calling, and sorry
for being such a bitch.”

He chuckled again and already she felt better.

“
Don’t
worry about it. I’ll drop by on Monday to pick up the pages,
ok?”

“
I
can just as easily email them to you. It’s not the dark ages.”

“
I
know that, but I’m passing through anyway and want to check in
on you. We agents aren’t
all
the devil’s spawn you know.”

Now it was her turn to laugh, and it felt good.

“
Ok,
point taken. I’ll see you Monday when you pick up your
rehashed, plagiarised pages.”

“
I
look forward to it. Take care, Terri.”

She smiled again as he hung up the phone, and thought
about how she was going to finish her book. One thing was for sure,
she would have to cancel her meeting with Jane. She had to get
started straight away. She grabbed her phone and sent another text to
Jane while mulling over the details of her conversation with Bob.
Then she switched off the phone, walked to her computer and powered
it up, watching as the screen illuminated.

“
Now
then, my old friend. It’s time you and I did some work.”

Despite the drama of the morning, she felt strangely
optimistic. Perhaps this was exactly what she needed to kick-start
her life. She forgot all about the red velvet box on the table, and
dove into her work.

2.

Steve Reynolds had worked as a delivery driver for
CASHCO for over seventeen years. He was considered by his colleagues
to be one of the most experienced men in the fleet, and although he
didn’t make much of a fuss about it, he secretly liked the
attention. He drove the huge, snarling cherry red eighteen-wheeler
down Grove Street, one tattooed arm dangling casually out the window.
He turned left and changed gears, heading up the steep hill at Grove
Lane, remembering the previous winter when the hill was covered in
sheet ice and said to be impossible to climb. He had made it though,
coaxing his truck up and over the crest, and on to his destination.
As the truck ascended in low gear, the engine briefly protested with
a throaty growl. He stifled back a yawn and began to fiddle with the
radio tuner, searching for something other than the stream of modern
pop music that seemed to fill the airwaves these days. He missed the
days of real music: rockabilly or country, something with a real
groove. He glanced into his rearview mirror, wincing at his
reflection. The young twenty-something-year-old who first sat in this
cab was long gone, and a grizzled, grey-haired man with heavily lined
skin had snuck in at some point to replace him.

Finally he settled on KWLM East. Johnny Cash was on now,
crooning about spending time in Folsom Prison. Steve thought that
many of today’s modern musicians could learn a lot from the man
in black. As he crested the hill, the road was straight for a few
yards, and then rolled steeply down and to the right.

He set off down the hill, allowing the vehicle to coast
as he always did, saving a little fuel in the process. This was one
of his regular runs, at least twice a month he would drive the same
route, and he was somewhat on autopilot when the accident happened.
Later, there was speculation that he simply lost control, but the
fault had been with the truck itself. The brake line had sheered
loose as Steve had tried to slow his descent in order to make the
turn onto Cabal Lane.

With no means to slow down, the eighteen-wheeler was a
thirty-five ton missile. In the end, Steve’s skill behind the
wheel had saved many lives, even though his own and that of Jane
Steen would be lost. He had wrestled with the truck, narrowly missing
a class full of school children out on a day trip, and somehow
avoided the customers eating lunch outside Sam’s, one of his
favourite burger joints. The truck ploughed into the brick wall
between the Good Cup Coffee house and the town library at over sixty
miles an hour. Not wearing a seatbelt, an old habit that quite
literally died hard, Steve was thrown through the windscreen and
later had to be identified by his fingerprints. The unfortunate
pedestrian just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Having just received a text message from her friend Terri—cancelling
their planned meeting for coffee—she was on her way home. She
might have heard it coming had she not been listening to her iPod.
Killed instantly, Jane would never hear about the mystery box left on
Terri’s doorstep. Nor would she see ever see her daughter Mia
again. By a bizarre twist of fate brought on by the arrival of a
strange, hand delivered box, Terri’s best friend of twenty-two
years was dead.