by Matt Shaw
FROM THE SAME AUTHOR
Love Life
The Vampire’s Treaty
(The Peter Chronicles)
Happy Ever After
G.S.O.H Essential
A Fresh Start
PETER
All Good Things
9 Months Book One
9 Months Book Two
9 Months Book Three
Non-Fiction titles
im fine
PlentyOfFreaks
Wasting Stamps
Self-publishing: Releasing your book to the digital market
Short Story Collections
Scribblings From a Dark Place
Reviews, Critics & Mystery Shopping
The Story Collection: Volume One
Novellas
Smile
The Dead Don’t Knock
Writer’s Block
Buried
The Last Stop
The Chosen Routes
A Christmas to Remember (YOU choose the story)
Romance is Dead
The Breakdown
Picture Books
I Hate Fruit & Veg
With thanks to all those who follow, and support, my work.
Without you I’d have no voice with which to tell my stories.
© Matt Shaw
The right of Matt Shaw to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any format without written consent from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for insertion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast.
The characters, and story, in this book are purely fictitious. Any likeness to person
WITH THANKS TO:
Elena Helfrecht of Apokryphia Art
For the awesome job she did with the cover design and photography.
You can see more of her work at:
http://apokryphiaart.deviantart.com
http://apokryphiaart.jimbo.com
Or look her up on Facebook!
PROLOGUE
“Dad, I’m bored!” my youngest daughter, Ava, yelled from the backseat of my Dodge Ram. I winced in pain as I bit my tongue. How can she be bored? She has everything she could possibly need back there. She has a television screen built into the back of my seat playing her favorite cartoon movie, the pink Nintendo DS she got for her sixth birthday last week after begging and pleading with us for several months prior, a stack of games to play on; most of which were also on her extensive present list she deemed fit to drop on our laps at the start of her birthday month. She even has the magazines she begged Susan for at the last gas station we visited. And yet she’s bored? She should try sitting in this traffic. She’d soon understand boredom then.
I looked in the rearview mirror at Jamie, my eldest daughter, who was staring out of the window blissfully unaware of her sister’s boredom thanks to the headset of her MP3 player replacing Ava’s whining voice with Heavy Metal. What happened to my sweet little girl? As soon as she turned seventeen years of age her pale complexion was made even paler with thick, white foundation and her dark brown eyes were suddenly surrounded by black eye-shadow and eye-liner. When she first started wearing it I teased her saying that she looked like a panda bear but she paid no attention; just grunted at me. The grunts being another side effect brought on by her seventeenth birthday. I’m just waiting for the day she comes home with tattoos and piercings all over her body. Susan, my snoring, open-mouthed wife in the passenger seat next to me, promised it was a phase. To her everything is a ‘phase’.
“Dad! I’m bored!” Ava yelled again.
I wonder whether Susan is even asleep or just pretending so as not to have to deal with Ava’s constant moaning. I swear, when I get home I’m selling Ava’s toys. Wonder if I can sell Susan too...
“Dad!”
It’s a shame I can’t get away with pretending to be asleep. I twisted the rear-view mirror to make it easier to see her, “Play your game,” I said. I tried my best to sound ‘friendly’ despite my tired mood wavering towards psychotic.
“It’s boring,” she moaned.
“Well play another one.”
“I don’t want to. I don’t like them.”
I am definitely selling her toys, “Then watch the film!”
“I don’t like it!” she moaned. I hate it when she moans. Thankfully it isn’t very often. Nine times out of ten she’s a good kid. I guess she stayed up too late last night. No doubt, when Susan wakes up, that will be my fault.
“How about a game of I-Spy?” I suggested if only to keep the peace. I-Spy with my little eye - back to back fucking traffic.
“Noooo...” she whined.
I want to meet the person who put the rule in place which states you can’t hit children. I’d like them to borrow Ava for the day. Make that a week.
“How much furtheeeer?” she asked. I hate it when she moans. She seems to add extra vowels to the last word of the sentence to make it even longer and more whiney than if she had just said it normally.
“Stop whining,” I snapped. I don’t dare tell her we’re hours away yet. It’ll only set her off. Hopefully she’ll fall asleep when the truck starts moving, once we’re out of this God-awful traffic.
“Where are we? Are we there yet?” asked Susan as she stirred from her unexpected slumber. I shot her a look. I can see the headlines now, Local author guns down family out of frustration. “What?” she asked.
“We’re not even out of the city yet,” I replied.
“What? How come?” She looked out of the windscreen to see what the hold up was. “Traffic?”
I really wanted to say something like ‘No, I just thought I’d pull up to the sidewalk for a few hours but, instead, opted to go with, “Must have been an accident.”
“Mum, I’m boreeeed...” moaned Ava from the backseat.
“Play your game then,” said Susan.
“I don’t like them, they’re boring!”
“Then watch your film - it’s your favorite...”
It’s going to be a long trip. I reached across to the radio and turned the volume up.
THE CABIN
1.
“The kids are getting hungry,” Susan pretended to observe.
“They’ve got food,” I said.
“Chocolate isn’t food,” Susan argued.
“Try telling them that. If you let them, they’d live off it.”
“Okay, I’m getting hungry,” she corrected me, “and I don’t want to live off chocolate.”
“Oh, well, darling why didn’t you say so? Of course I’d love to stop off to get some food for you, and our delightful children, just as the traffic has all cleared and we’ve finally managed to make some fucking progress...”
“Watch your language. It’s not my fault the traffic was bad.”
“I’m hungry too,” Ava piped up from the back.
“I know, baby, we’re stopping off soon,” said Susan even though, technically, I had made no such promise. I didn’t argue with her and took the next available turning off from the highway. I could already feel my temper was frayed and it would only lead onto a shouting match had I started an argument; neither of us like to back down once we get going. My temper because of everyday stress and her temper because she’s from Brooklyn. I had hoped leaving the city would have helped me calm down more or less straight away but then my temper probably wasn’t helped by the traffic. There’s something about New York, something in the air maybe? Something, that is, other than smog and pollution. I always feel so stressed which is why I like to escape the city life when the pressures are too much and, with my agent breathing d
own my neck for a new book, the pressures are definitely too high at the moment.
“Are you okay?” Susan asked. The first time she had asked for as long as I can remember. I must really look like I’m close to cracking.
“I’m fine,” I lied, “I just can’t wait to get to Brattleboro.”
“You have looked more stressed than usual,” she pointed out the obvious, “the break will do you some good.”
“Yeah, I know.” Another lie to keep the peace.
I love how she thinks this is a break. The whole point of escaping to the family cabin, in Brattleboro, was to try and get my head down to do some serious writing. Instead, she decided to turn it into a family weekend away. It’s not even as though the kids wanted to come. She made them. She said it would do us some good to get away, as a family, and they’ll enjoy it when they get there. Ava will be wanting whichever toys we didn’t pack for the trip and Jamie will be missing her boyfriend Zak. I have a feeling I won’t be getting any writing done.
“Fresh air, long walks, peace and quiet - it’ll be perfect. Romantic.”
I smiled at her but desperately wanted to weep.
“Sounds great but I do need to get some writing done too,” I said. I tried my best to stress the importance of the writing without making it sound as though her own plans weren’t important too.
“I know,” she said. I felt myself breathe a sigh of relief. “But it won’t take all weekend.” And, just like that, the relief I had just felt had completely disappeared and been replaced with dread once more. I suppose it’s my own fault as I tend to only write when she’s out of the house otherwise I can’t get anything done because she’s normally too busy fussing around me, or making noise, for me to be able to concentrate. Because she’s not normally present when I’m writing, the first she knows about my new book is when I tell her I’ve finished it; when I sit back with a cigar in one hand a glass of champagne in the other. My little rewards. The ‘speed’ in which these new books pop up probably makes her think they’re easy to write but they’re not. They’re incredibly draining. People don’t seem to understand that, as an author, you tend to experience all the emotions your character experiences too. What happens to them also happens to you and, if like me the authors write in the horror genre, well sometimes we can go through a lot of different emotions in any one given day of writing. Another good reason to ensure you’re home alone when you’re working. That way you don’t take your moods out on anyone else.
I turned into the car park for McDonalds, “This’ll do.”
“MCDONALDS!” screamed Ava with excitement. Finally something to break the sound of whining.
“You’re joking, right?” said Susan.
“What?” I asked.
“McDonalds? I think we can do something slightly better than McDonalds.”
“Are you hungry?” I asked. She nodded. “Good,” I said, “then you’ll eat it.”
I turned the engine off, undid my seatbelt, and climbed from the truck. Ah, fresh air. Immediately I felt my building headache begin to subside. We’d only been on the road for just over an hour and it had done me in. Perhaps stopping for food, if only for hour an hour, was the best thing to do for all concerned. Everyone can eat and I can unwind a little before setting off again. Definitely a good idea to unwind before we drive through Massachusetts regardless. If they still haven’t done anything to help the traffic flow there, other than to open the breakdown lane, I could end up getting stressed again as we go bumper to bumper once more. Maybe I should let Susan drive the rest of the way. Actually no, forget that. We’ll never get there whilst it’s still daylight.
Susan climbed from the truck still moaning about my choice of restaurant, “I just think we could go somewhere a little better than McDonalds. A nice steak house or something.”
“And I heard you but, right now, all I want to do is get to Brattleboro. We can get a proper meal there this evening. Whatever you fancy, I promise. Besides which,” I pointed towards Ava who was excitedly bouncing around in the back of the Ram, “the kids are happy. In fact, if I were you, I’d take a picture; this is probably going to be the happiest you’ll see them all weekend. Well Ava at least. I think Jamie’s forgotten how to smile.”
“I heard that,” said Jamie as she climbed from the backseat.
“Did I hear that right?” I asked. “Did you really just speak to me in something other than a grunt? You did, didn’t you? Honey, did you hear that? We communicated!”
“Stop winding your daughter up,” said Susan as she helped Ava down from the truck. Meanwhile Jamie just shot me a dirty look.
I simply smiled back. “I have such a happy family.”
* * * * *
Susan reluctantly agreed to get our dinners on the understanding I looked after Jamie and Ava at the table in the far corner of the fast food restaurant. Given the choice between standing in what has to be one of the longest queues I’ve ever seen or looking after our children I’d always choose the latter of the two. Well, not always. Today, though, I think I’ve had my fair share of queuing.
“One happy meal with nuggets for Ava, one Big Mac for daddy, a chicken wrap for mummy and a box of nuggets for Jamie,” she said when she finally came back to the table. She sat on the opposite side to me, next to Ava who was more interested in the toy which came with her meal than she was in actually eating the food. “Put that away until you’ve finished your meal please, baby,” Susan took the toy from her and dropped it in her handbag. Oh good, more junk for the house. Had she let her play with it now Ava would have probably been bored with it by the time we came to leave and we could have just dropped it into the bin with the rest of the rubbish, or given it to another family to be stuck with until their next yard sale at the very least. I didn’t say anything. No point.
I looked at my miserable looking burger and laughed, “Have you ever noticed how these things look nothing like the pictures on the wall?” I picked it up and held it in perfect line with the poster which advertised it. “Look at that, the burger in the picture is all plump and juicy - tasty looking - but this...”
“It’s flat!” laughed Ava.
“See,” I said, “she gets it.” I peered into the box which hid her food, “What do you have? A box of chicken heads?”
“No, daddy, nuggets!”
“Nuggets? You best let daddy try one of those! Just to make sure, of course.” I leaned into the box and grabbed a nugget before I popped it into my mouth.
“Daddy, their mine!” she shouted.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, “did you want it back?”
I opened my mouth wide enough for her to see the mushed up state of the nugget within and she laughed. Even Susan, the ice maiden, laughed.
“You’re so disgusting!” moaned Jamie. There was a time when she would have laughed too. I turned my head to make sure Jamie had a good look too.
A step too far for Susan, “Stop being disgusting!”
“Yes, mum!” I said. Ava and I laughed.
“What’s wrong with your burger?” Susan asked Jamie. Whilst the rest of us were tucking into our food she hadn’t touched any of hers other than her milkshake.
“I’m vegetarian,” she said before taking another sip from her milkshake.
“Since when?” asked Susan.
“Since seeing the state of this burger probably,” I said as I took another bite.
“You chose to come here so stop your complaining!” she said. She turned back to Jamie, “Why didn’t you say something when I went to get the food?”
“You didn’t ask,” Jamie answered back. This was typical Jamie. I had learnt to ignore it long ago but Susan always rose to the bait. Jamie would soon decide she wasn’t a vegetarian when the hunger kicked in. “Zak told me how the animals are treated right up until the time they die...Did you know sometimes...”
“I don’t want to hear it,” snapped Susan. “If you...”
I interrupted to save a full blown argument kicking o
ff, “Do you honestly think they’ll stop killing them just because Jamie Hopkins of New York City decided to jump on the vegetarian bandwagon?”
“I don’t care...”
“What’s a vegetarian?” asked Ava.
“Someone who only eats vegetables,” said Jamie.
“Vegetables are yucky!”
“Do you know how they make what you’re eating right now?” said Jamie.
I had a feeling it was more of a rhetorical question and jumped in with, “They make it in the kitchen. Duh! Everyone knows that!”
“Yeah, everyone knows that!” shouted Ava. She mimicked my ‘duh’ sound too. A good effort. Jamie turned away. She’d already lost interest in the conversation.