I'm back from my wonderful honeymoon in Florida, where I did all of the parks in Orlando and much more. I put on loads of weight, got a little bit of a tan, and a memory card full of happy photographs (most of which you can see on my Facebook account so add me if you haven't already: http://www.facebook.com/IainRobWright.
I was originally going to come back and post a load of pictures and stories about my vacation, but I decided that it would just be an online version of giving someone a slide show, and nobody wants that. So instead, I will just stick to what I am here for - letting you know about my books. I wrote half of my next novel before I got married and I am now working feverishly to get it completed. It is already 60,000 words long with perhaps another 30 or 40 to go. Below is a draft version of chapter one. It is yet to get a title, but its working name is THE SICKNESS. Enjoy!
Chapter One
“The whole town is dead,” said Paul,
re-entering the shop with a bored shuffle.
Nick gazed out at the shopping centre’s vacant seating areas
and deserted walkways and saw that his co-worker’s statement was correct. The Boots
megastore opposite – usually teeming with customers – was currently devoid of a
single shopper and its typically vibrant team of staff were pottering around
aimlessly, rejigging shelf displays and chatting to one another for lack of
anything else to do.
Likewise, the small mobile phone shop that Nick managed was
also dead. It had been more than an hour
since the last customer had stepped through the open shutter at the store’s
entrance.
“I wonder why it’s so quiet,” Nick wondered, addressing his
colleague. “Are England playing today or
something?”
Paul shrugged and shook his bald head. “Hey, I’m Sikh. I only know when there’s cricket on.”
Nick chuckled. “So,
all the other stores are just as quiet as us, then?”
“Yeah. I spoke to
Chris at Game Traders and he said
they haven’t had a customer since eleven.”
Nick’s watch told him it was now just after three. The daily sales target was now a near-impossible
feat to achieve. Paul had set up a
two-year iPhone contract for an overweight teenager first thing that morning
but hadn't sold anything else since then other than Pay As You Go top-ups. Nick himself had not taken more than a couple
quid through the tills either.
Nick rubbed at the stubble on his chin and stifled a
yawn. Area manager’s going to have my bollocks in a vice. What can I do, though? Can’t force people to come to town and buy
overpriced gadgets.
Slow days weren't uncommon in Nick’s line of business, especially
with a recession in full swing, but this was one of the worst footfall days he could
remember. There was barely any point even
being open. In fact, with the cost of
electricity and wages, the store would be losing money today.
Paul strolled over to the store’s laptop display and started
to browse the Internet. It was against
company regulations to use the computers for personal use but Nick wasn’t about
to be a jobsworth for the sake of it.
Nick had an idea. “Look
if you can see if something’s going on today that we don’t know about,” he said.
“Find me an excuse to give the area manager. An outbreak of plague would be ideal.”
“No problem, governor,” said Paul, typing away with his gold-ringed
fingers.
Just then, Chelsea came back onto the shop floor, having
finished her lunch. She looked at the
empty shop floor and then at Nick. She
pulled a face.
“I know, I know” he said to her. “If it stays like this much longer, I’ll
probably send you home. No point the
three of us being here.”
No point even one of
us being here.
If it was up to Nick they would have left already; he would
have just closed up shop and called it a day.
But Head Office didn’t allow him to make such judgement calls. They paid for him to be there ten hours a day
and that’s exactly how long they expected him to stay (whether there was any
need for it or not). There was no requirement
for Paul and Chelsea to suffer, though.
I think they might
just slip into a coma if things get any more boring.
Screw it.
Nick was just about to tell both Paul and Chelsea to go home
when, finally, a customer entered the store.
“At last,” he said.
“Go get him, Chels. We need to
get a contract out of this guy or I’m screwed on the conference call tonight.”
“No sweat,” said Chelsea, flicking her long blonde hair
behind her back. “Watch a sales-ninja at
work.”
Chelsea swaggered over to the customer, her trademark fake
smile on full beam. The customer didn’t
seem to notice her approach, however, and the man slumped against the central
display unit where live demo-phones were lined up on individual pedestals. He was hunched over a Nokia smartphone so
closely that he could probably smell the lithium in the battery.
Great, Nick
thought to himself. Our first customer in hours is a useless pisshead.
Nick decided to shadow Chelsea, just in case she got into problems. The girl had a short fuse with difficult
customers and a drunken waster would certainly qualify as a potential trigger.
“Are you okay there, sir?” Chelsea asked the man.
He remained hunched over, almost like he didn’t even hear
her.
“I said, are you okay there, mate?” Chelsea was already beginning to look
irritable. She turned to Nick and shook
her head, tutted.
Nick eased her aside
with his hand and stepped towards the customer himself. It was best for a manager to deal with anyone
who was obviously not going to buy anything. “Sir, are you okay?
I’m afraid you can’t sleep it off here.”
Still no response from the hunched-over man.
Nick reached out a hand.
“Sir, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to go someplace else.”
The man shot upright, like a spring uncoiling. He turned to Nick with swollen, bloodshot eyes
that were somehow vacant. A thin strand
of saliva hung pendulously from his lower lip and seemed ready to make a break
for the floor.
Nick took a step backwards.
His stomach flipped over like a wet pancake. “Jesus!
What the heck is wrong with you?”
The man gazed at Nick, swaying rhythmically on his feet and
groaning. He seemed completely out of
it.
But then the man spoke.
“I…I’m not feeling well.”
“No shit,” said Paul from over by the laptops. “You look rough, mate.”
The man wobbled for a moment and then spoke again. “I…I don’t think I can make it home. W-will you call my wife for me, please?”
Nick found himself staring for a moment, unable to
reply. The stink coming off the man was foul,
even worse than the sickly sight of him.
Eventually Nick found his voice. “Yes, yes, of course. Chelsea, will you grab my mobile?”
Chelsea hurried over to the sales desk and procured Nick’s
phone for him. She handed it over at
arm’s length, almost as if he was contagious of something merely for talking
with the smelly man in the store.
“What’s the number?” Nick asked the man.
“It’s…it’s – one moment.
It’s 07…0798…07985…”
It took about two minutes, but eventually the man managed to
give Nick his full phone number. When he
dialled it a woman picked up on the other end and asked who was calling.
Nick held the phone tight against his ear. “Oh, hi.
This is Nick Adams. I’m calling
from Phone Booth in town. I have your husband here with me. I’m afraid he’s not feeling very well. He needs someone to come collect him. Would you be able to make it into town?”
Nick listened while the woman on the other end of the line informed
him that she could be at the store in twenty minutes. The thought of having to babysit the sick man
in the meantime wasn’t something Nick relished, but what worried him even more
was that his wife sounded sick too. The
voice on the other end of the phone was disorientated and thick with mucus.
“Okay,” Nick uttered into his mobile phone, swallowing a spongy
lump in his throat. “See you soon.” He slid the phone into his pocket and smiled
at the unhealthy man in front of him.
“Your wife is on her way,” he said reassuringly. “She won’t be long. Perhaps you should take a seat while you
wait.”
“I’ll make the poor sod a cup of tea,” said Paul, wandering
off to the back. “Looks like he could
use one.”
Nick led the sick man over to the carpeted sales area where
there were several places to sit. The
reason that part of the floor was carpeted was to make people feel more at home
and relaxed, more inclined to buy. Nick
thought the theory was a load of rubbish, but what did he know? He wasn’t exactly a genius.
As the sick man took a seat on one of the area’s plush,
cubed sofas, Nick was forced to arc his head away as malignant body odour
threatened to make his eyes water. The stench
seemed to drift off the man in hot, humid waves. Nick made sure to sit on the opposite side of
the desk as he kept the man company.
“Should I do anything?” Chelsea asked. The girl looked sick to her stomach and was
fidgeting with her hair with a worried look on her face.
Nick waved a hand at her.
“Just go, Chelsea. Paul and I
will be okay to hold down the fort.”
Chelsea grinned. “You
sure, boss?”
“Yeah, just get out of here.
I’ll see you when you’re next in.”
Chelsea skipped off to the staffroom to get her things just
as Paul returned from the back with three mugs of piping hot tea. Nick felt more relaxed just by looking at the
steaming beverages.
Paul placed the mugs down on the desk and slid the
least-grimiest towards the sick man.
“Here ya go, fella.”
“Thank you,” the man replied weakly. He seemed a little better since sitting down,
but still looked terrible.
“I’m sorry to
put you all out like this,” he said. “It’s
just that I felt as though I was going to pass out. I just headed into the nearest shop to get
help.”
“So you’re not interested in getting yourself a shiny new
phone then?” Paul joked.
The man didn’t laugh.
His head kept falling towards the desk as if he was having trouble holding
it up.
“So what’s wrong with you?” Nick asked.
The man shook his head and spattered the vinyl surface of
the desk with bubbling drops of spittle.
“I-I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I’ve
been feeling under the weather since yesterday morning. It really got bad this afternoon,
though. I thought I just had a cold at
first, but I think I must have the flu or something.”
Nick nodded. “Yeah,
probably. Might be worth getting
yourself down to see the quack. People
underestimate the flu and how bad it can make you feel.”
The man nodded. “Soon
as my wife picks me up, I’ll be heading straight to my local doctor. Don’t worry.”
“Your wife sounded poorly, too,” Nick mentioned.
“She has whatever I
have, but she only started feeling ill this morning.”
Nick sipped his tea and tried to ignore the smell of wet
fart drifting continuously over from his guest.
“Well, I hope you get well soon, mate.
Sucks being ill.”
The man’s head slumped to the desk with a thud.
Paul and Nick exchanged worried glances.
***
Fifteen minutes later, the man was
still face down on the desk when his wife arrived. She tottered into the shop looking almost as
bad as her husband. Her eyes were bulging
and bloodshot, same as her husband, but she seemed a little more lucid than he
did; less dazed. Her mousy brown hair
was still kept neat in a tight ponytail.
“Hi,” Nick said to the woman.
She sneezed twice and then said, “I’m here to take George
home.”
“Of course. He’s back
here. I think he’s napping.”
The woman staggered forward, her steps uncoordinated and
clumsy. Her husband – George, apparently – actually managed to
lift his head up and look at her as she approached. He seemed unable to get up, though.
Paul headed over and placed his thick, brown hand on the
man’s shoulder and squeezed. “The missus
will get you to the Doctor’s now, fella.
You’ll soon be on the mend.”
Like a thrashing animal, the man snapped his teeth at Paul’s
hand and bit into it, clamping down his salivating jaws like a pit bull. Paul yelled out, yanked back his arm, and
wrenched his hand free. He clutched it
to his chest and cursed in his native Punjab.
“Haramjada!”
George looked startled, almost as if he had no idea what he
had just done. “I…I’m so sorry. I…”
“George!” his wife
cried. “What the bloody hell are you
playing at?”
The man looked scolded, tiny and afraid. “I’m so sorry,” he said to Paul. “I…I don’t know what came over me.”
Paul shook his injured hand and seemed totally bewildered. “Hey, erm, don’t worry about it, fella. I’ll just put it down to the fever.”
George’s wife ushered her husband away, leading him out of
the shop in a hurry and chastising him all the way.
When it was just Nick and Paul left in the store, they
looked at each other in confusion.
“The fuck just happened?” said Paul.
Nick shrugged. “Hell
if I know. How’s your hand?”
“Hurts like a mother.
That gandoo broke the
skin. I probably got rabies or
something.”
Nick shook his head and rubbed at his temples. He felt a huge headache coming on, vibrating
like an approaching passenger train.
“Screw it,” he said. “I’ve had
enough of today. Let’s just cash up and
get out of here. I’ll do the conference
call at home and pretend I’m still here.”
Paul nodded. “Sounds
good to me, governor. I’m sure things
will be better tomorrow.”
