'A Writer's Curse '

'A WRITER'S CURSE'

         

          ‘...or how long the power had been out. Ten minutes? A half hour? Three hours? Waking up on her couch in the pitch dark of her living room had been frightening enough after the nightmare, and to hear these noises just made it that much worse.

         Letting the beam of the flashlight lead the way, Melanie cautiously moved toward the door. She knew this was where the noises were coming from. The door was only partially closed, and she could smell the faint scent of perfume. As she slowly pushed it open a bit more, she was aghast at what the flashlight revealed.’

         “Aghast?” Donna said with disgust, slapping the paperback closed and tossing it on her coffee table. “Who the hell uses the word ‘aghast’ in this day and age? Even I could write better than that!”

         Donna was an avid reader, usually tearing through five hundred page novels in a couple of days, three at the most. This one was shorter though, at only three hundred and ten. She had never read Karen Houston before—never even heard of her—but the preface had looked promising. And in fact the first two hundred and fifty pages of ‘A Writer’s Curse’ were promising, but now this? It seemed just like another overused plot to entice young readers who didn’t know the difference between Dick and Jane and Romeo and Juliet to throw away good money on her work.

         But maybe this Karen Houston wasn’t so dumb after all. She’d managed to get $7.95 out of Donna’s purse, hadn’t she?

         “Pathetic,” she said to herself. Feeling a headache coming on, she got up and went to the bathroom for some aspirin. As she stood there looking out the window over the sink at her neighbor’s house, she heard the distant sound of sirens approaching, and thirty seconds later she saw two cop cars come to a sudden halt next door, quickly followed by an ambulance. Two officers got out, surveyed the scene, and apparently went to the front door. She couldn’t see what was happening from her position, but by the sounds she could tell that they were breaking it down.

         Oh no, Donna thought. What’s happened to Patty?

         Patty and Donna were close friends, having lived next door to each other for the last ten years. They rarely had any company other than each other. She was also an avid reader, and they often shared books and compared notes on their latest literary acquisitions. They were both widowed sixty-somethings, and not having any close family of her own, she practically considered Patty a sister.

         She went out on her front porch and watched as the paramedics wheeled a gurney into Patty’s house.  She was eager to know what happened, even more so than the few other curious people who had come out of their houses and gathered across the street to quietly ask their own questions.

         The minutes ticked by, each one seeming to get slower. It was a half hour later when Donna’s most feared question was answered.

         A tear rolled down her cheek as she watched the paramedics roll the gurney with the covered body of her neighbor out to the ambulance.

~          ~          ~

         Later that evening, sitting on her couch with a glass of vodka, Donna thought about the times she and Patty had shared over the years: relaxing on each other’s porch and talking about authors and books over tea, reminiscing about their youth and the husbands they had outlived, or just casually gossiping about the ‘weirdos’ in the neighborhood. They only had one little tiff since Donna moved here back in 2005, and thinking about it now, she couldn’t even remember what it was over. That brought a smile to her face as she realized just how close they were. But the smile slowly faded as she also realized how much she’d taken that friendship for granted.

         She finished her vodka and poured herself another one, and by eight o’clock the bottle was empty. With the effects of the alcohol muddling her mind, she gradually drifted off to Slumberland. But her sleep was restless, and the few dreams she had she fortunately wouldn’t remember, because they weren’t dreams she would want to remember.

~          ~          ~

         The chimes of her cell phone brought her awake, and after rubbing her eyes and checking the time she saw that it was 7 o’clock in the morning. Nobody ever called her this early, and she wasn’t happy. Especially because her phone informed her that it was an ‘unknown caller’.

         She considered not answering it, but then she thought of what happened yesterday. It was hazy at first, but it took only a moment before it suddenly came flooding back to her.

         What if it was one of Patty’s family members calling, wanting to know just what had happened? She knew Patty had given her number to some of them in case of an emergency...

         Reluctantly, she reached for her phone and answered it.

         “Hello?”

         The voice on the other end was unknown, but it was obviously female. There was static on the line, but the words were still easily recognizable:

         “I know you didn’t like my book, Donna. Patty didn’t like it either, but she did finish it.”

         “Who is this?” Donna asked.

         The static grew louder, almost like it was angry, then gradually returned to the way it was.

         “You know who this is,” the voice said, almost nonchalantly.  “And you have to finish ‘A Writer’s Curse’.”

         Donna could feel her pulse rising, sending her blood pressure higher than it already it was. She’d lost her neighbor just yesterday, her best friend, and the last thing she needed was this.

         “Look, lady! I don’t know who you are, but you better—”

         The line abruptly went dead.

         Donna stared at the phone for a moment, then briefly thought about dialing star 51 to reconnect with this psycho bitch. But that idea swiftly disappeared as another thought entered her mind: how did this maniac know she was reading ‘A Writer’s Curse’?

         Her eyes glanced at the empty bottle of vodka on the coffee table, then to the book that she’d given up on yesterday. She had no idea Patty was reading this same one.

         Without even realizing what she was doing, she picked up the book and opened it. And it wasn't long before she was on

CHAPTER 27

      ‘Melanie had always kept the room empty, intending to one day make it into a study where she could eventually work on her manuscripts in a professional manner, like real authors did. But the flashlight showed more than a bare floor and four bare walls.’

        Donna wiped her eyes. The words were becoming blurry for some reason, but she continued to read.

        ‘There in the middle of the room was a rocking chair, slowly creaking back and forth on its rockers. The sweet smell of perfume was much stronger in here, almost making DonMnea'slanie’s eyes water.’

        Now Donna found her own eyes watering, and the words becoming stranger. She could feel another headache coming on, and if she didn’t know better, she would have sworn that she saw her own name replacing Melanie’s in the text.

      ‘Somebody was in the rocking chair, but she couldn’t tell who it was as they were covered with a blanket. The odd thing was that the blanket, or what it covered, was misshapen, like something was sticking out of the head of whoever the blanket was hiding.

        DonMelannaie slowly approached the rocking chair, her legs weakening with each step.’

        Donna shook her head, trying to refocus her vision, which only made her throbbing headache even worse.

        ‘With a trembling hand, she grabbed the blanket and threw it off the chair. A bloodcurdling scream tore from her throat as she stared at her sister’s dead corpse. The claw end of a hammer was stuck obscenely in the top of PattyD'sonna’s skull, the handle standing straight up, which gave the blanket its misshapen appearance.’

        'A Writer’s Curse' fell from Donna’s hands as the hammer crashed into her own skull. Mercifully, she didn't feel a thing; she died instantly.

        If she’d made it to the very last page she would have been able to read the short biography of Karen Houston:

Karen Houston (1938-1991) was the author of more than 50 books, many of them being on the Top Seller’s List...

        “I know you didn’t like it, Donna, but thank you for finishing my book.”