DP Tool Club 26/CD_ASCQ_26_1295.iso/vrac/rubyv50.zip/RUBY50-2

Text File | 1995-10-27 | 6KB | 113 lines

Copyright 1995(c)

                         Writer's Block
                       By Bob Richardson

    "Going around the old writer's block again?"
    "Yeah...you might say that...it's nothing to write home about.
It's like I'm in this fog."  Dave Low had been staring at the
computer for he didn't know how long. The whole world tended to
disappear when he was in here.
    "Nothing seems to come."  He murmured, letting himself go with
her touch. He felt her hands massage his shoulders as she
leaned against him. "Well, I could think of a thing or two if
you've got the time."  She laughed, leaning down to nuzzle his ear.
The smell of her was deliciously refreshing compared to the stuffy
confines of the room.
     The shadows seemed to disappear when she entered a room, even
this dank, old cluttered thing he called his office. She only came
in when he was here. She said there was too much darkness breeding
too many horrible ideas in the shadows. Usually it was easier for
im to concentrate here, but not lately.
    "All right, you don't have to ask twice."  He laughed, reaching
up to take her hand. He trapped it quickly between both of his as
he stood up and turned. She was a sight all right. She was five
feet seven, blond, blue-eyed and constantly showing off more woman
curves than he'd known existed.
     She'd been on him to finish something, anything, for days now,
tired of his pacing; tired of his constant blank stares in the
middle of their conversations. He knew he was getting worse.
     He didn't know why she put up with him. Her hands slipped
around his waist as she melted into his embrace. Well, maybe he
did know why, they were dynamite together.
    "Hmmmmmmmm."  She was the first to break the steamy kiss.
"See, wasn't that worth writing about?"  Sarah laughed. She eyed
him up and down before stepping on tiptoe to bite his lower lip
and growl deep in her pretty throat.
    Sarah leaned past him to click off the computer and took his
arm, leading him past the stacked remains of his last literary
piece. It was that. It was falling to pieces here in a dark
corner since the last rejection from the publisher.
     "...has promise, Dave..but could you add a little excitement
in the middle. It slows down too much and the main character comes
across all dried up. This is supposed to be a romance, not a
horror story."  It had turned into a horror story, all right. The
next draft was due in a week and he hadn't been able to break
through the curse of his dulled and empty thoughts.
    Sarah had to nudge him. "You're losing it, Dave."  She stared
curiously at him before shaking her long, straight hair falling
softly over her shoulders.
    He gave her a rueful grin as her fingers fought at the buttons
on his shirt. "Losing it never felt so good."  He whispered as she
tore his shirt off and dragged him away from it all.
    "What time is it?"
    "Hmmmmm?"  He had to struggle to get his eyes open. It was
dark, the pitch dark silence of the deepest part of night. Sarah
was sitting up staring at uneasy shadows.
    "They're moving again, Dave. Honest to ... " She was frozen.
He could feel goose bumps on her arm as he sat up to see nothing
at all around him. Nothing but the darkness.
    "Please, say you see them too."  Sarah shivered and jumped at
his touch. Dave nodded as he tucked a pillow behind his back.
"They're just shadows, Sarah. I mean, they aren't talking or
anything are they?" He teased.
    "Don't. It isn't funny. They're real, I tell you, and they keep
coming back now, every night."
    "Shadows tend to do that..." He murmured before realizing the
sound of his voice was too harsh. It was as if she hadn't heard
him, she was so lost in her own fearful world.
    "They are whispering now. Dave make them stop!"  She was
almost yelling, her hands covered her ears, her body next to his
felt rigid and as cold as a corpse.
    He sighed and leaned over to the bedside lamp, flicked the
switch, but nothing happened. Her hands moved then, fiercely
clamping onto him like a vise.
    "Where are you going, don't leave me!"  Hysteria had crept into
her voice.
    "Did you take your pills?"  Dave sighed, running his long
fingers through his thatch of dark curly hair as he sat at the edge
of the bed. His feet hunted for his slippers. "I'm just going to
get the light, honey."
    "Please." she whimpered, crawling across the bed until she
shivered up tight against his back. "They want me to go with them.
Don't let them take me."
    "Come on! Sarah, get a hold of yourself!  It's nothing...
nothing at all!"  He stood up, wrenching her from him as he walked
towards the wall switch, flooding the room with light.
    "There. See?"  But there was nothing to see. He knew there
wouldn't be. He turned to the bed with a reassuring smile.
    "Come on... Sarah?"  He leaned over the bed, wondering where
she was hiding, but she wasn't there either. She was gone. It was
as simple as that. Even the sweet scent of her was simply and
entirely gone.
    He sat at the computer, writing down the last of it. Not
because it was something, finally, to write; but just because he
had to, to get it out.
     He could almost feel them here. They were closest to him here
by the computer, where he sat in the darkness within his writer's
daze. The fog of his mind had brought them. He knew that now.
They were attracted to him. The shadows had come back. They were
meant for him, not Sarah. The last few nights he had thought he had
seen Sarah at the edge of his vision, but when he turned, she was
gone.
     Still, she had been able to whisper that much. They wanted
him. They wouldn't let her go, of course, now that she had seen
them. But it was him who had first attracted their attention with
his writer's block. The dark, cobwebbed shadows of his mind were
like honey to them. He knew they were using Sarah to get to him.
   "One more time around the old block."  He whispered in the
growing, numbing feeling. It was getting dark now. He would have
to just wait and see, here in the darkness. Just wait.

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