FFCBeta: BETWEEN THE PAGES By Natalie L. Sin

Filed Under Fiction, FFCBeta, FFCWinner, FFC1stplace

Harold didn’t mean to overhear Sharon’s conversation. He had never been a snoop, mother had taught him better than that. All he had wanted to do was pick up the phone and call his agent, Earl Greenwood. Harold wanted to tell Earl  that he was going to be a little late with his manuscript. It was supposed to be turned in  this week but Sharon had wanted to get away for the weekend. She would have been upset if Harold said no, so he didn’t. Besides, it was normal for beautiful women to like nice things. Sharon deserved fancy dinners and pretty things to wear. He was lucky to have someone like her. 

At least that’s what he told himself before he heard the phone call. Sharon had been talking to some gentleman whose voice Harold couldn’t place at first. Sharon sounded annoyed. That was the only reason he stayed on the phone. If Sharon was upset, he wanted to know it so he could fix it. It took hard work to keep a woman like Sharon happy, but gosh darn it he was up for it! After all, the girlfriend of a best selling horror writer deserved to be treated right. Then he heard it. 

 “Oh Travis, I wish Harold was a real writer like you.”

 

Harold felt like he was about to cry. For a man who had written the critically acclaimed “Hell Hound” series, he was surprisingly tender. He still got misty eyed when he thought about  Bambi’s mother getting shot. 

"Well, Sharon, you know how horror writers are. They’re just little kids with overactive imaginations.  Did Harold even graduate high school?” 

 

Did he ever graduate high school?! Well, Harold might be a sensitive guy but he didn’t have to stand for that kind of gall. He had half a mind to give that Travis fellow a tongue lashing he wouldn’t soon forget. 

“You’re right, of course.” Sharon cooed. “So how is your new book doing? I heard it was already at number four.” 

"Number three.” Travis replied smugly. “Honestly, sometimes I even surprise myself with how good I am. Did I mention that there’s talk of a movie being made? Apparently Tom Cruise reads my books and is a big fan.” 

It suddenly occurred to Harold who Sharon was talking to. Travis was T.D. Wellington. Harold had met him once at a book signing and hadn’t been too impressed. Sharon, on the other hand, gushed all the way home about how smart and well written Wellington’s political thrillers are. Later she had asked Harold if he ever thought about writing one. 

Heart broken, Harold gently hung up the phone. He couldn’t compete with T.D. Wellington. Wellington wrote the kind of books that wound up on talk shows, the kind Oprah built book clubs around! Harold just wrote horror novels. Gory, bloody stories with people getting killed in nasty ways and unspeakable creatures rising up from the depths of the beyond. He liked to think he did it well,  but he’d still never be on Oprah or have Tom Cruise begging to make one of his books into a movie.  

It was tough being a horror writer. Even if you were good people still asked you when you were going to write a “real” novel. They didn’t seem to care that it hurt Harold’s feelings. Back in his office Harold ran his fingers over the books on his shelf. His books. He had written eleven so far, and sometimes he felt like they were the only ones who understood him. Which was silly of course. Still, after pouring so much of his soul into them it was easy to get attached. 

He smiled softly. His books were good, no matter what smelly old T.D. Wellington said. Harold got e-mails all the time from fans saying how great they thought his books were. And sometimes at horror conventions the girls would flirt with him. He didn’t know if they were pulling his leg or not, but he blushed all the same. 

“Yes, but more girls flirt with T.D. Wellington.” An ugly little voice in Harold’s head remarked. “Sharon flirted with him, you heard it on the phone. She likes him.” 

Stupid voice. When Harold was a kid he thought it would go away by the time he was a grown-up. Instead it had only gotten ruder. It said mean things about his books, his clothes, and his thinning hair. Sometimes it even made fun of his penis, which wasn’t nice at all. 

                                                                                 #

 

Sharon went looking for Harold shortly after her phone call ended. She found him in his office, fast asleep in his hideous brown recliner. The one that Sharon refused to allow  anywhere else in the house. Not that it would matter much longer. She and Travis had a plan for dealing with Harold. For being just a horror writer, he made a nice chunk of change. Not the mention the insurance policy Sharon had coaxed him into. After that, Sharon could settle into her new life as the trophy wife of a respected author. She might even get to meet Tom Cruise. 

 Nose wrinkled, Sharon picked up one of Harold’s books as if it was something dirty that needed to be thrown out. Pausing a moment to glance inside it, she snorted. He wrote such grotesque stories. She was about to drop it disdainfully on Harold’s writing desk when the book jerked violently. A hand shot up out of the pages: the hand of something wrinkled, green, and not of this world. With a yank it pulled Sharon inside as the book fell to the floor. After a few minutes it let loose a meaty belch. 

 

The End

 

 

 

Turbo Tagger

 

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Comments

5 Responses to “FFCBeta: BETWEEN THE PAGES By Natalie L. Sin”

  1. D S Knight on November 3rd, 2007 10:12 am

    I was so hoping it would end that way! :D

  2. Gregory Adams on November 3rd, 2007 12:32 pm

    And you saw the ending! Are our posting problems kaput? Will all stories be visible in their complete glory from here on in? Tune in next week True Belivers! Same BBT time, same BBT channel!

    –G

  3. biguglyhairyscary on November 8th, 2007 10:43 am

    Nice short, Natalie. I wish everyone that asked us humble horror/macabre/black-humor hacks questions like “When are you going to write a REAL ?” would meet the very same fate.

  4. FFCBeta Winners! FFCGamma begins! : BBT Magazine on December 2nd, 2007 8:11 am

    […] Between the Pages By Natalie L. Sin […]

  5. name on July 27th, 2008 11:01 am

    neploxo tak, i`m glad,