“Change it!”
The cold barrel of the silencer pushed up against her neck. She hadn’t been scared before, but now that the gun actually touched her, she felt the sweat trickle down her forehead. The gunman whispered to himself behind her.
“I can’t. It’s already done.” Imke tried to swallow the growing lump in her throat. She gazed out of her two storey window to the passers-by below her, oblivious to her dilemma. She thought of her mother, who she was meant to pick up from the airport fifteen minutes ago. She also thought of the man she never said yes to, and at this very instant regretted that decision. Funny how things long forgotten popped up at the most inconvenient moment.
“Listen Maria. If you haven’t noticed, I’m calling the shots here, and Amy can’t die. She’s the main character! I loved that girl!” Romero paced, a copy of her book gripped tight in his hands. He’d ambushed her in the hallway as she fished out her keys, introduced himself and now here they stood. Well here he stood, and Imke sat, staring at her manuscript on her computer. Next to her research of mental disorders sat a finished book of said manuscript, in all its new shining glory. The cause of her grief now.
“It won’t matter what I do. The series is done. There won’t be any more books.” The cursor blinked at her. She blinked back. The gun disappeared from her neck. Romero stepped away from her and paced more.
“Maybe you could do a lot of flashbacks, or something… I don’t know, I’m not the writer here! Make something up. You’ve got half an hour.” The silencer pushed back into her neck with a vengeance. Imke wondered what kind of person he was when he wasn’t pointing a gun at her. All she knew right now was that he owned a hand gun. She shuddered to think anyone would willingly give him a licence or a gun. It was Australia after all, and handguns weren’t easy to come by legally. Her mind raced at the possibilities. What if, regardless of whether she wrote this story, he’d shoot her anyway, take the story and run? Or if the new story wasn’t good enough, he’d keep coming back until she was all written out, what then? And then he’d shoot her. It always came back to that. Imke sighed and the silencer bit into her neck.
“Are you even listening to me?!” Romero yelled.
“No.” She was irritated now, she didn’t want to die. The phone chirped to life. Neither of them moved.
“I probably should get that.” She muttered, and made to stand.
“You probably shouldn’t,” he replied. She hovered above her seat, not sure whether to move or not. After all, he was the one with the gun. The answering machine kicked to life and Imke cringed at the recording that played out. She really needed to change that.
“Hey. You’ve forgotten to pick me up again. Look, I’ll catch a cab back to your place. See you soon.” The line went dead and the machine switched off. The quiet dragged out. Imke sat back down with a thump and sighed again. Romero swore.
“It could be worse.” Imke said. “She could be coming to cook dinner. Then we’d both be in big trouble. Last time I got food poisoning off her quiche. Quiche!” Imke wasn’t sure who she was trying to reassure. She turned to the gunman. Now that she could see him properly, he was a lot older than her too, forties or fifties, it was hard to tell. A construction worker maybe, with the calluses she could see on his left hand. With the boots and jacket he wore, she knew he rode a motorcycle, so no way to dispose of her body easily. No helmet though, huh. He scratched his head with his gun and made his greying hair stick out at a funny angle. She wanted to tell him but thought better of it. His eyes focused on hers.
“What are you doing? Sit down. Face the window.” She did as she was asked.
“You know, being a hitman clearly isn’t your day job, I’m going to take a stab and guess you’re at least someone who works with their hands,” she said. She relaxed somewhat at that fact, though he still had the gun. She hoped more than anything else, that he didn’t accidentally kill her.
“Carpenter actually. What? Shut up. I’m trying to think.”
“My mother will be here in half an hour, and I can’t write a new ending in that time. Especially with you pointing a gun at me. It’s just not possible, and believe me, you don’t want to be here when my mother turns up.” He seemed to contemplate that thought.
“Right. Up. You’re coming with me then. Grab what you need. Hurry up.” He pushed her along to get her things but Imke stood her ground and faced him.
“That’s not going to work either. My mother is going to expect me here, and when she doesn’t find me she’ll know something’s wrong. Then what? You walked in the building with your helmet off. Which means you were seen on the cameras outside my unit.” He cursed every word under the sun and wiped the sweat from his own forehead this time. He paced. Imke stood and watched warily.
“Romero. It’s not about the book is it? I mean come on. Nobody cares about my writing that much to want to threaten a new ending out of me. Well, not enough to do that in person. So what’s the deal?” She watched the gunman tense, then his demeanour changed, and he slouched on the recliner, his head in his hands.
“You’re right. God I can’t even get this right.” Imke noted the English accent he didn’t have two minutes ago. He placed the gun on the arm rest. “Botched everything up, I have. You were supposed to fix this. A marriage over because of a stupid flipping book.” Imke pulled up her chair, all the while she eyed the gun. Romero wiped stray tears angrily away. Warning bells rang out.
“I don’t think it was the book, Romero.” Imke hesitated before tapping his leg. She wasn’t quite close enough to make a grab at the gun. He nodded at Imke.
“Yeah I’m a fool. This wasn’t going to fix the marriage. But I had to try. You understand that, don’t you? I’d do anything for that woman.” He picked the gun up absentmindedly, then placed it down again.
“Listen Romero.”
“It’s John actually.”
“John. Maybe things didn’t work because you both grew apart, or something like that. It might have been the book that made her realise that, but she probably knew it beforehand.” John nodded at her. “If it was me, I’d probably just pick myself back up, eat through a container of ice cream, and move onto bigger better things. Plenty of fish in the sea they say.”
The gunman nodded and after a while of quiet he stood and picked his gun up. He looked at his watch and cursed. Maria looked at the clock behind her. They had maybe five minutes before her mother turned up.
“Ice cream, you say. I might give that a go. Oh, and sorry about all of this.” He waved the gun between them and Maria flinched. He handed the gun towards her. “Here, you can have it. It’s just a water pistol. I couldn’t bring myself to use the real thing. Maybe we could do this again sometime.” He said.
“Sorry, I don’t think so, John.” He nodded at her, as if he realised how absurd that statement was. Maria watched him walk to the stairs and pick his abandoned helmet up. When she saw him go down she closed the door as quiet as possible and bolted it shut. She leant against it and cried.
Five minutes had gone by and a knock rang out at the door. Maria hadn’t moved from where she leant but took a deep breath and peered through the peephole. Her mother stood on the other side, with her hands full of groceries.
When she opened the door, her mother hugged her and introduced Maria to her friend. John stood holding her mother’s bags. He grinned at her as if meeting her for the first time.
“Maria, this is Robert, he was so kind to help me with my bags. You don’t mind if we have extra company?
Maria cursed.
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