I spent the morning not writing. I’d never done anything like this, purely commercial stuff, but I had taken a screenwriting course in graduate school, and this was sort of the opposite. So I figured I’d do a diagram first, breaking down the supposed movie into acts and scenes, which I could reassemble into a book narrative.
While I was immersed in that, the phone rang and it was my current pelvic pal, Kit Majors, wondering whether I’d forgotten about lunch. I told her I was on my way out the door, and then I was.
I really should make myself notes. It was normally a ten-minute bike ride to the Irish restaurant, but I made it in five, sweating a little bit.
When I walked in, she signaled the bartender, and he started tapping me a Guinness. I was actually going to get us a nice bottle of wine, to celebrate, but that could come later. Kit liked to be in control, which was usually okay with me.
We kissed. “I got a job.”
“Jesus, you’re kidding. Someone put up a plaque.”
“You peasants may laugh, but in fact it is a real job, real money. I’m gonna be a literary prostitute for fifty large. As much as a half million down the road.”
“Wow. Room in that bed for another one?” Kit was a poet as well as a mathematician.
“You wouldn’t want to do it. Novelization of a horror movie.”
“Ew. People who go to those things read books?”
“Big words and all. This one’s by Ron Duquest.”
“I’m supposed to know who that is?”
“He did the Bradbury remake you liked, Dandelion Wine.”
“That wasn’t horror.”
“Depends on what scares you.” The bartender brought the beer and took our food order, a steak for her and a Cobb salad for me.
“You’re gonna waste away.”
“Not for a while.” I’ve always been what they call “big-boned,” but had never had to watch my diet, until the past year or so. I had to admit I was getting paunchy.
“Your mother called.”
“What, she called you?”
She gave me a look. “No, she called the bartender. I couldn’t help but overhear.”
“All right. She always calls my cell. But I turn it off when I’m working.”
“She said you promised to fix the porch, once it stopped raining.”
“Oh, shit. Of course I’m gonna fix the god-damn porch. It’s not like I had to write a book or something.”
“I could come help.”
“Nothing to it, really. Replace a step and stain it. But yeah, I could use the company. Talk to Mom, distract her.”
“Tell her about our sex life?”
“No. She snores. You drive over?”
“What, you biked?”
“Two hundred calories. And the guy in the screenplay bikes. We could swing by Hawkeye’s and pick up a plank and some stain. Then go surprise the old lady.”
“You pay for lunch?”
“I’m a big Hollywood guy now. We always pay for lunch.”
“Yeah, but you get blow jobs.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “Everything has a price in this sorry world.”
THE MONSTER
by
Christian Daley
CHAPTER ONE
He was so big that people couldn’t help staring at him. If you guessed his weight, you might say four hundred pounds, but it was more like five. A relatively large head with small features pinched in the middle. Straggly long hair and no eyebrows. Ugly as hell. If he were on a television show he’d have a sweet disposition. In real life he was quite otherwise.
On police blotters in four states he was called Hunter. He was a monster, so far uncatchable, unobserved.
He hid his windowless van in a cul-de-sac and labored up a hill to a location he’d scouted out earlier. A jogging trail that had thick brush for cover, but by moving a couple of steps to the left and right, he could see a hundred yards or more in both directions.
He could hear for a mile. There was no one coming.
He tied a length of monofilament fishing line to a sapling and laid it across the path. It was almost invisible.
He hid in the bush and quickly applied military camouflage makeup to his face and hands, matching the green camouflage suit he’d made out of a tent. He snapped the wire up a couple of times, testing. It would do, catching the runner midway between ankle and knee.
The first jogger down the trail was a beautiful teenaged girl, blond hair streaming out behind her, breasts bouncing softly, her scarlet silken outfit clinging with sweat. He salivated at her beauty but let her pass. He was doing boy-girl-boy-girl and didn’t want to confuse the police analysts. Not yet.
The next one was a boy, but he was too close behind, probably striving to catch up with the girl. If he made a noise, she might hear. If she saw the fat man at work, she would call 9-1-1. That would make things too complicated.
They both were well out of sight, though, when the next one came up, clearly exhausted, almost shuffling, a man of about forty. That was all right. He yanked on the monofilament and the man fell flat on his face.
He was up on his hands and knees by the time Hunter had lumbered out to the trail. He punched him once in the back of the head with a fist the size of a bowling ball, knocking him flat. He picked him up like a sleeping child and carried him back to the van.
The rear door was open. He laid the man out and wiped the blood away from his mouth, then slapped duct tape over it. Then he bound his hands and feet with tape, working quickly for one so fat, and handcuffed him to an eyebolt on the side, then quietly eased the door shut. The whole process took less than a minute.
He got a gallon jug of water out of the front seat and cleaned off the camo makeup. Then he took off the outfit; he had regular shorts and a tee underneath. Then he carried the water back up to the trail, made sure no one was coming, and rinsed away the spatter of blood the man’s face had left. He thumbed open the large folding knife he always carried, severed the monofilament, and wrapped it around the jug as he walked back down to the van.
From the coffin-sized cooler in the back, he took out two quart bottles of Budweiser. Then he got in the driver’s seat, the van dipping to the left in spite of its custom springs.
A lot of people drink beer while they’re driving in Alabama. He decided not to take the chance. He drank both quarts sitting there, and finished off two bags of hot peanuts and a bag of bacon rinds. Life was good.
He put the empties and wrappers in a plastic bag and washed his hands and face. He ignored the faint sounds from the back and headed for the interstate.
2.
After I finished that little chapter, I checked the e-mail and lo, there was an $8,500 PayPal deposit from my agent, Duquest’s down payment minus her fifteen percent. I actually clapped my hands together.
Duquest sent an e-mail, too, all lower case: “good so far.” Hey, don’t give me a swelled head.
Of course once the novella was in Duquest’s hands, he could screw it up any way he wanted. But hell, he was paying for the privilege. I didn’t much like surrendering control, even if it was a work done for hire. But I wrote HALF A MILLION BUCKS on a three-by-five card and taped it over the computer, in case I started to get depressed.
I decided to go buy a nice bike, like the private eye does in the story. Maybe I’ll go buy a pistol, too; see how a 9-mm feels. But if somebody calls and tries to hire me to find a fat guy who kills joggers, I’m so outta here.
I printed out the first chapter and quit to clean house. Kit said her parents wanted to meet me, and I had ignored the voice inside, screaming “Ah-ooga! Ah-ooga! Dive! Dive!” and invited them over for dinner. So I had to weigh my options: good impression or self-defense food poisoning. I opted for the former, but took the chicken out of the fridge a tad early. Let the gods decide.