Spinetinglers Anthology 2008 Read online

  “Give me strength!” Andrew pushed the manuscript aside. He really didn’t care about the exact nature of the curse, and he certainly didn’t want to plough through three hundred more double-spaced pages to discover the eventual outcome of The Tower by David Black. When would someone send in something half decent? Unless he discovered that literary light soon, Seething Dread magazine would be putting up the closed sign and he would be condemned to a life of writing for dull trade magazines.

  “Home time,” said Andrew, switching of his desk lamp.

  He walked from the small desk to his sofa and reached for the TV remote.

  “Home,” he sighed.

  “I read an appalling manuscript the other day,” said Andrew, taking a bottle of wine from the fridge.

  “Surely that’s not unusual is it?” asked Catherine, depositing her dirty plate into the murky water that filled the sink.

  “I’ll wash that later,” said Andrew.

  “I’d wash the rest of whatever in there, too.” Catherine grimaced at the smell rising from the bowl.

  “I work long hours and have a very demanding girlfriend who expects me to cook her romantic meals three times a week,” said Andrew, kissing her. “Shall we drink this in the living-room?” he gestured to a sofa in the corner of the open-plan studio flat. “Or, in the bedroom?” He nodded toward a futon in the opposite corner.

  “The living room sounds fine,” said Catherine, “I could do with a change of scene. So what was so awful about this particular manuscript?”

  “It just really grated on me. I only read the first two chapters. It was about three hundred pages or more. I just can’t believe someone with so little talent would go to so much effort.”

  “How many terrible manuscripts do you get sent to you though?”

  “Loads, but most of them are about twenty pages long. This was probably six months work, or more, and it was dire.”

  “I predict a standard rejection letter,” said Catherine, taking the glass of wine Andrew offered her.

  “I sent it the next day. He’ll have read it by now. Probably cursing me as we speak, telling his friends he can’t believe I could be so short-sighted as to reject his masterpiece.”

  “I can’t believe you’re even thinking about it,” said Catherine.

  “Nor can I, actually. You’re right, I read crap stories every day. But this one made me feel a bit dirty it was so bad.” Andrew sat, stretching his legs across Catherine’s.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” she said. “Don’t worry about my legs going to sleep. I’ll just hobble home like some old drunk.”

  “Why don’t you stay?”

  “Early start tomorrow. Lots of marking to do that I should be doing now.”

  Andrew pouted. “I like it when you stay.”

  “Don’t be a baby! Mr Chuckles the Rabbit will keep the nightmares away.”

  “You promised never to mention Mr Chuckles,” said Andrew.

  “And I never will again,” replied Catherine.

  Mr Chuckles didn’t do his job that night.

  Andrew was in the tower – the tower from the terrible manuscript by David Black. He remembered the author’s name, even in the dream.

  “Talk about taking your work home with you,” he thought, climbing the stairway. He could just make out the servant up ahead.

  “The master is expecting you,” said the old man, nodding solemnly toward a door with a handle shaped like a snarling dog.

  “I think I’ll pass,” said Andrew. He had thought about forcing himself to wake up, but he was worried he wouldn’t get back to sleep and he had another load of manuscripts to plough through tomorrow.

  “The master is waiting,” said the servant, and Andrew, deciding he had nothing to lose, opened the door and stepped into a vast, circular chamber. The room was completely bare and icy cold. Andrew couldn’t remember feeling cold in a dream before.

  “Welcome,” came a high-pitched, gurgling voice, and Andrew looked up. There, floating just above him was the creature from The Tower.

  “Grotesque,” said Andrew.

  “Charming,” said the creature.

  “Sorry,” said Andrew, “I’m just a bit bored with this dream. I wasted enough time reading the terrible story without having to relive it.”

  “What?” the monster looked puzzled, or as puzzled as a blob with a head like a rotten jacket potato protruding from its chest can look.

  “I may just wake up,” said Andrew.

  “I’m sorry,” said the monster, bobbing up and down. “This isn’t in the script. Why is he rewriting the script?”

  “I have no idea,” replied someone from the shadowy depths of the room. “Who are you exactly? You’re supposed to be Giles, but you look nothing like him. And what on Earth are you wearing?”

  Andrew glanced down at himself. He was wearing a pair of boxer-shorts dotted with yellow ducks. Catherine had bought them for him.

  A man wearing a pair of striped pyjamas and a red dressing gown stomped into the light. He was holding a manuscript in one hand and a pen in the other.

  “Who are you?” he asked again, glaring at Andrew through a pair of black-rimmed glasses that made his eyes look enormous.

  “Andrew Mandrake,” said Andrew.

  The man muttered the name under his breath several times. “Andrew Mandrake!” he suddenly blared. “Editor of Seething Dread magazine?”

  “Editor, publisher, owner,” said Andrew.

  “And complete tasteless, fucker,” said the man.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “My name is David Black,” said the man. “And this,” he flapped the manuscript, “is The Tower, the novel you so stupidly rejected.”

  “This is too much,” said Andrew.

  “Oh. I am sorry to waste even more of your precious time,” said David. “I just spent a year of my life writing this, and what do I get in return? Rejection letters from every publisher I send it to. You were my last resort.”

  “I don’t actually publish novels,” said David. “If you’d read the submission guidelines panel in the front of the magazine, you’d have seen I don’t publish anything over 8,000 words. I don’t know why I even bothered reading the first couple of chapters of your book.”

  “The first couple of chapters!” screeched David. “The first couple of chapters!” he looked at the monster, still bobbing in midair. The creature shrugged, or did whatever a blob with no shoulders does instead of shrugging.

  “So you didn’t actually read it at all then?” said David, taking a few steps toward Andrew. “You rejected my book without even reading it.”

  “Yes,” said Andrew. “I don’t publish novels, just short fiction... eight thousand words and under.”

  “You could have serialised it!”

  “We don’t publish serials, unless they’re by a known writer.”

  “How am I supposed to become a known writer, if nobody publishes me!” demanded David.

  “Do you spend much time revising what you write?” asked Andrew, trying to be helpful.

  “What do you think I’m doing now? I’ve spent every night since your rejection, going over and over every scene.”

  “Chapter, you mean.”

  “I like to think of them as scenes. I’m a very visual writer.”

  “Fair enough. Look I hate to be rude, but I’m going to wake myself up now.”

  “Oh, typical! Don’t stay and listen to a bit of feedback from a disgruntled contributor will you! It’s people like me that keep magazines like yours going!”

  It’s people like you that close most of them down, thought Andrew.

  “Go on then! Wake yourself up, but when you realise what a dreadful mistake you’ve made, give me a call.”

  “I don’t have your number.”

  David spat out a ten-digit number. “Write it down when you wake up, and call me on it when you need to apologise.”

  “Will do,” said Andrew and he screwed his eyes shut and hea
rd the familiar buzzing in his head as real-life seeped back, squeezing out the last remnants of the dream.

  An hour later, while he was sitting at his desk reading the latest batch of terrible manuscripts, the phone number jumped into his head. He scribbled it down on a scrap of paper, smiling at his own stupidity and continued reading. Ten minutes after that, he picked up the phone and dialled it.

  “Hello,” said the voice at the other end of the line.

  “Hi,” said Andrew, feeling utterly ridiculous now. “Could I speak to David Black, please?”

  “Hello Andrew,” said the voice. “This is David Black speaking.”

  Andrew slammed the received down and pushed his chair backwards as if the phone were contaminated.

  “Something weird happened today,” said Andrew, already drinking wine, even though it was only six o’clock. His usual rule was no alcohol until after eight.

  “What?” asked Catherine, depositing a bag containing two chicken kebabs on the coffee table.

  “I dreamed about that book last night – the one I told you about, the really awful one.”

  “Not that again.”

  “It gets better. The writer was in the dream. He had a real go at me about not reading the entire manuscript and told me to ring him when I realised I’d made a mistake rejecting it. He gave me his phone number. I don’t know why but I remembered it this morning and rang it. He answered.”

  “Who?”

  “David Black, the writer.”

  Catherine froze halfway through removing her coat.

  “What did you say his name was?”

  “David Black. Why are you looking at me like that?”

  Catherine slumped onto the sofa.

  “I think I know him,” she said.

  “There was a boy at school called David Black who had a crush on me,” said Catherine, clutching her glass of wine. “He was a bit of a geek – curly, dark hair and glasses with really thick lenses. He bought me roses once and gave them to me in front of everyone in the sixth-form common room. It was awful. I walked away without saying anything and dumped the roses in the first bin I came to. I felt terrible, but I was just so embarrassed. It was after that the dreams started.”

  Andrew topped up her glass and filled his own. “Go on,” he said. “I’m gripped.”

  “They were just really vivid dreams and he was always in them. In one of them, I was trapped in a tower, and he rescued me by climbing up the side like Spiderman. In another one, we were floating down a canal in Venice, and he was singing that song from the Corneto adverts – remember them?”

  Andrew nodded, impatient for her to continue.

  “The last “David” dream I had, we got married. I was dressed in this hideous, flouncy white dress, and he was all tuxed up, with his hair slicked back. He told me I’d make him so happy if I’d just say ’I do’ at the appropriate point. Next thing I know, there’s a priest and he’s asking me if I’ll take David Black till death do us part.”

  “And did you?”

  “It just slipped out. It was only a dream and he looked so excited, I couldn’t bear to disappoint him. Anyway, I woke up and the phone was ringing. It was David. “Thanks for making me the happiest man alive,’ he said, and I just screamed the house down.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “I tried to ignore him, but he kept putting his arm around me and calling me Mrs. Black. He really thought we were married. Finally, I snapped and told him exactly what I thought of him in front of quite an audience. He looked completely crushed. I thought he’d be popping up in my dreams for weeks, making my life a misery, but I never dreamed about him again.”

  “Do you want to stay tonight?” asked Andrew. “You look really shaken.”

  She shook her head. “I think I’d rather be at home. “Andrew, the last I heard, David Black had been committed. He was a sick man – really disturbed. Be careful.”

  “But he never tried to get back at you for rejecting him?”

  “No. But I think he’s probably more upset by your rejection.”

  The elephant hadn’t moved since Andrew had found himself staring at its leathery knee. He wasn’t sure exactly how long that had been. In reality, maybe no more than a few seconds, in dreamtime, it seemed like quite a while.

  Beyond the stationary elephant stood a similarly static stag, with one antler missing and next to this, a three-legged hippo.

  A shadow fell across the scene and Andrew looked up to see a huge boy staring down at him through thick lenses.

  “You again!” squealed the boy, his voice breaking halfway through. There was a massive spot on his chin.

  If this is a nightmare, that spot will burst, thought Andrew.

  “Why did you hang up on me?” the boy demanded.

  “What are you talking about?” asked Andrew.

  Oh, grow up!” said the boy, and Andrew found himself looking down into his magnified eyes instead of up. The animals he saw were made of plastic and arranged on the floor of what was obviously the boy’s bedroom.

  “It’s me,” said the boy. “David Black. I’m just in character. I play to boy-from-the-book in this part. Not that you even bothered reading that far. The story goes on to tell about a boy, called David actually, who has inherited the curse brought upon every generation of first-born sons by the murderous Giles.”

  “I see,” said Andrew. “That sounds great.”

  “In a minute, this beautiful, female vampire will appear at my bedroom window. She’s come to bite me and condemn me to a life of eternal misery, like all the first-born sons before me....”

  “Jesus!” Andrew was staring at the window, or more specifically, the stunning woman that floated outside. She was the archetypal female vampire – lush, black hair, perfect, white skin and the biggest pair of breasts Andrew had ever seen – in dreams or in real-life.

  “I’ve overdone it with the breasts, haven’t I?” said David.

  “Not one bit!” said Andrew. “Give the punters what they want.”

  “I should knock a few inches off.”

  “No! Add a couple on and give us both a dream experience to remember.”

  “I’m a minor!” said David.

  “Well, close your eyes then.”

  “You would as well, wouldn’t you?” said David. “You’d come into my dream and shag one of my characters right in front of me, after rejecting my novel without a second thought.”

  “Yes, I would,” said Andrew.

  “Go on then, be my guest. Knock yourself out, have a field day. Fuck her senseless!”

  The window blew open, and the beautiful creature floated into the bedroom. She smiled at Andrew and cupped her breasts in both hands. “Come on,” she whispered. “Come and taste them.”

  Andrew took a step toward her.

  “Oh, dear!” said David. “I think I can hear your alarm clock, Andrew.”

  And Andrew heard it too, the clanging of the big red clock he’d bought from Woolworths. And, as the vampire reached out to pull him to her bosom, he woke up to a dismal Wednesday morning, and Mr Chuckles, the Bunny, clutched to his hammering chest.

  “You don’t remember exactly why he was committed, do you?” asked Andrew, taking a bite from a piece of toast, while he waited for Catherine to reply. The line crackled while she thought.

  “No,” she replied eventually. “I only heard a rumour, a couple years after I left school, that he’d had some kind of breakdown and been sectioned. All sorts of stories were flying around for a bit – that he’d killed someone, that he’d molested some child. I don’t know whether I believe any of them, but I do think he’s unstable. As for this dream- thing he does, I don’t understand that at all. I’d started to think I was the mad one.”

  “He certainly makes the most of his dreams,” said Andrew, “the way he uses them to revise his stories.”

  “I remember his writing now,” said Catherine. “He used to show me his stories sometimes. They were always a bit sick.�
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  “In what way?”

  “Science fiction and fantasy stuff, but always with a nasty edge. I can’t put my finger on it – just sick.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have rejected his novel so quickly, sounds just like what I’m looking for.”

  Catherine made a noncommittal noise. “I have to go. Sally’s due in ten minutes, and I’m still in my bathrobe.”

  “Okay, pet, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Don’t call me pet. Andrew, it makes me feel like someone common from a soap opera.”

  Andrew laughed and blew a kiss down the phone before replacing the receiver.

  He glanced at the pile of unread manuscripts on his desk and then at the scrap of paper with David Black’s phone number scribbled on it. It would be so easy to ring it and arrange to meet with him. There was something fascinating about a man that could pull other people into his dreams.

  He yawned. “Bedtime,” he said. It was seven fifteen.

  He was standing in the middle of a cornfield, dotted with enormous red toadstools.

  “Hello,” he said to David, who was sitting on one of the impressive fungi reading his manuscript.

  The writer looked up from his revision. “What?”

  “I just said, hello.”

  “I’m busy. Why are you here again? I don’t ask you to keep coming into my dreams. I just want you to publish my book.”

  “I don’t publish books, just....”

  “Short stories of no more than 8,000 words, I know.” David’s gaze returned to his manuscript.

  “So,” said Andrew, after a tense silence. “How long have you been able to do this dream-sharing thing?”

  “Always,” said David without looking up.

  “I think you know my girlfriend, Catherine Healy.

  “That bitch!” Now, he looked up, his face baring an expression like someone who has bitten into an apple and found half a worm.

  “She is not a bitch.”

  “She was to me. We were married.”

  “She told me.”

  “Is she still as prissy as ever?”

  “She’s wonderful, actually.”

  “I’d forgotten about her. It was a long time ago. I’ve been through a lot since then.”

  “Are you still...?” Andrew paused.