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Everyone Needs a Vacation [MultiFormat]
eBook by Bruce Boston
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eBook Category: Dark Fantasy
eBook Description: His life was nearly perfect. He was a successful novelist with a trophy wife. Then the limousine pulled up across the street ... his scalp began to itch like terminal dandruff ... and the dreams and hallucinations began.
eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Dark Regions and Horror, 1999
Fictionwise Release Date: July 2002
Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [57 KB], eReader (PDB) [26 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [12 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [12 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [63 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [84 KB], hiebook (KML) [36 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [42 KB], iSilo (PDB) [10 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [13 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [41 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [21 KB]
Words: 3729
Reading time: 10-14 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
 
I turned up the hot water and let it flow across my body. It should of scalded me but instead it felt good. I took the shampoo that Pederson had given me, poured a dose between my palms, and rubbed it into my scalp. As the medication penetrated the itching lessened and disappeared. I'd been through this routine before and knew relief would be temporary. Within hours it would again feel as if my scalp were infested by a colony of angry mites.
My life had seemed perfect until a few days ago. That was when the itching started. The dreams began. And the limousine pulled up across the street. In reverse order.
* * * *
I had just started work on my latest novel. Actually I'd been working on it in my head for over a week. After thirty books in as many years I no longer need to put outlines on paper. Only a few of my titles have graced the best-seller lists, but they all sell respectably and are often translated abroad. Although there's never been a film, several books have been optioned. I may not be a literary lion but my writing provides me with an income and a life style that most envy.
The plot of the new book was clear in my mind and I'd set aside Thursday to begin work. I knew I'd have the apartment to myself. Hannah had started her latest commission: she's a design consultant and a successful one at that. The cleaning service had finished its weekly stint. We don't employ a cook because most of the time we eat at restaurants. When we don't dine out we can always fix something ourselves. Hannah has a lamb curry that will take the roof off your mouth and leave you begging for more.
Once I get rolling on a book nothing stops me. Yet wrestling with that first sentence, trying to catch the tone for the first few pages, can be like climbing Everest without a Sherpa. That was why I wanted the quiet of an empty apartment. Yet still it wasn't happening for me. On the blank screen the cursor winked insistently ... like the eye of an idiot in on some secret I knew nothing about.
I began to pace. The blocked writer's first resort.
My study is arranged for that purpose. Despite Hannah's objections, I've pushed the furniture against the walls. She's redecorated the apartment more than a dozen times in the seven years we've lived together. Twice it even made the pages of Interior Design. Yet my study, unfashionable as it may be, has remained inviolate.
While pacing I chanced to look out the window, across the street and down to the park. That was when I saw the limousine. It had pulled up in a no-parking zone opposite the building. Standing on the sidewalk beside it was a man in dark red livery. He was looking up at my study window. Since I was looking down, he was staring directly at me. There was an air of expectancy about him. He was clearly waiting for someone and had fastened upon the wrong apartment.
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