A little shop of Horrors
This is a story which I had to write in less then one hour for my mock Junior Cert examinations. Please email me at talktome@stuffslashersaw.com to help me fix gramatical errors and plotholes, or use the 'Contact Me' button at the top of the page. Thanks!
It is based on this magazine story.
Of course, the fact that I used the name of a very amazing podcast novelist has nothing to do with my opinions of her. I love her work, and was just stuck for a name to use. No offence was meant.
A little shop of Horrors
March 15th, 1997
Nina Kimberly sat at her desk, at her day job in San Francisco. She worked as a tech support
lady, but fixing somebody’s cd-rom drive was the last thing on her mind right now. She
looked at the latest letter she had received. It had the same writing on the front, looking like it
had been scrawled by a child with a thick headed marker, and yet another postage mark. They
were all coming from the same person, different places of the country.
She opened the fresh brown envelope, and pulled out the piece of paper which she
knew was inside. This one was different. This one did not have writing on both sides, only
one side. On the other was a scrawled stick figure scene, one looking at the other, each a
mirror image of its companion.
The writing was, as usual, typed up on an old typewriter. Other then the writing on the
front, she had never seen her tormentors handwriting. The smudged, slightly faded letters
stood out clear against the paper.
‘Why not come out of there? It must smell like mothballs, but make sure that you don’t
touch the door knob.’
The letter made as little sense as the others, and this was her third. All she knew about the
writer was that he or she lived around the Florida area, as this was the third letter which was
postmarked in that state. The other letter was postmarked in Alabama. Sighing softly, she put
the new letter into her bag, intending on bringing it home to show Mary, so that they could
both look at it, and compare it, before placing it in the secret place where they put all the
other letters which this person sent, and having some lovely homemade apple pie, then
sleeping the stress of everyday life off.
May 25, 1999
Nina was promoted to a head tech help woman. She was called out 5 times a day, and paid
per hour which she fixed something. She loved this new job, as she got to meet new people.
Nina liked people. Her latest job was a mundane one, but one which her boss though that she
could fix. A man had called, claiming that he had a strange error appearing on his computer
screen, one which totally shut off his computer before restarting it and sending an email to
200 people, most of whom he did not know. It was a normal computer virus, Nina
understood, and it would only take an hour or two to kill.
She knocked on the door, and waited. Looking around, she saw that the
House which she was standing at backed into a garage, which had a storefront.
According to the sign on the door, it was currently closed, but would offer delicacies of
Duclod later that week .Nina had never heard of the animal, and presumed it to be an almost
extinct creature. She would have to report this to the authorities when she was done. She
might even be able to drag a tip out of the man, to keep her quiet!
February 13, 1992
Nina sat at her first computer. At the age of 15, she was the youngest person whom she knew
who had one. After only three months of owning it, she knew her way around it completely,
able to do the most basic and complicated tasks in half the time most experts could. There
was one problem which was troubling her, though. Every time she connected to her slow
Internet connection, her email junk folder filled up with 2 megabytes of the same email. It
read ‘This email is from a man who is to become the start of you, the end of you. You may
think that you have started life, but as the sick young child who you are, I know that you have
not. The only way you can be fixed is to drag you out of that confined space which you live.
Stop fooling yourself, stop fooling others’. The email came from a slightly strange address,
du@clod.com. She could not stop them coming, no matter what she did.
May 25, 1999
Nina stood waiting at the door to the house, and willed Robert Jayson to answer the door, as it
was getting cold outside. She did not have long to wait, as an old man opened the door, and
welcomed her inside.
‘Hello Nina. I have been waiting for you’ he said, quietly.
‘Can you show me the problem please, sir?’ Nina asked uncertainty; she had not told him her
name.
‘Yes. Right this way. Something won’t come out’
Nina raised her eyebrow at this senseless sentence, and followed him.
He hurried into the dark depths of his house, and gestured to a door underneath the stairs.
‘It’s right down there, in the cellar’. Wondering who could bare to keep a computer in a damp,
dusty cellar, Nina climbed down the ladder.
Fumbling for a light switch, Nina squinted her eyes, and looked around. When she found it,
she pulled the grimy feeling cord, and spotted the computer. She slowly walked over to it, and
switched it on. Nothing happened. It was unplugged. Looking around for the culprit, she
noticed a wire trailing along the ground, into a shadow. She followed it, and suddenly noticed
a dank and musty smell. Finding the plug, she shoved it into the wall, and went back to work.
Half an hour later, she was done, and climbed up the ladder, to meet Robert.
‘Do come in for a cup of tea’ Robert mused, ‘I have some lovely new duclod which I just
cooked.’
Interested, Nina agreed, thinking that it would be a good time to ask for payment. She stepped
into the narrow hallway, covered in stained wallpaper, and through a door into a glinting
white kitchen. She sat down at a small table, while Robert shuffled past her, to the fridge, and
took out a plate of meaty sushi. As he blocked the view of the fridge, Nina noticed that he
was slightly hunched. She could only guess how he managed to get in and out of that cellar
all the time. Bringing the sushi over, along with a steaming pot of coffee, Robert thanked
Nina, telling her that all his life’s work was on that computer, and that he hated to see it
emailing strange things to people he didn’t know. Taking a bite of the strange meat, and
gagging at the salty taste Nina asked him what the emails said, and he replied
‘Something about fixing people, dragging them out of a confined space which they live in’ As
he said this, his voice got audibly stronger and louder. A flicker of memory went through
Nina’s head, but she was unable to grasp it, like it was thick water running through her hands.
Robert stood up to get some more sushi from the fridge, but this time did not block the
entrance. He opened the door, and Nina gasped.
‘Mary’ she whispered, for in front of her was the head of the girl she had loved since she was
14.
Robert stopped hunching and smiled at Nina.
‘Don’t worry. It won’t hurt. You should have stopped when you had the chance, but you never
were one to touch the handles’. He picked up a kitchen knife, and started walking back
towards Nina.
