City Slicker
A Short Urban Horror Story by Richard GK Stark
SMASHWORDS EDITION
City Slicker
Copyright © 2012 by Richard GK Stark
Website : http://www.richardstark.co.uk
*****************************
The train came abruptly to a halt in the subway of the capital city. Moments later the carriage doors opened and a swarm of office workers – bank clerks, sales men, financiers and marketing personnel – emerged and raced towards their destinations. In amongst the throng was a young, smart, ambitious woman looking just a little bit more sharply dressed than the rest.
Her name was Monique and she worked in the city for one of the top PR Agencies, providing PR to the Fashion Industry, Celebrities and Businesses – pretty well whoever needed it. The lifestyle was hectic as you were often working for several clients at any one time. In the morning you could be meeting a famous sportsman followed by a business seminar the other end of town, then back to head office to begin planning the varying campaigns. She enjoyed the lifestyle, in fact she loved it, and often would not get home until late in the evening. The weekend was the only time she had to relax, and this morning was going to be another busy one.
She had taken this journey numerous times before and was used to the hustle of the rush hour. On this particular morning, in her haste to pass a man who was dawdling in front of her, she accidentally trod on the rows of heather laid out on the floor as Good Luck Charms for sale by a middle-aged Gypsy woman. The Gypsy looked up and cussed at her, but she was in far too much of a hurry to stop and talk, or apologize. Besides, these gypsies shouldn’t be allowed to just sit in the corridors of the underground, she thought. As she rushed off, head held high in her stylish mid-length dress, the gypsy stared intensely at the back of Monique and muttered “What you destroy will grow back and destroy you”.
She got to work just after 9am, and began preparing for her meeting later in the day. It was with a famous Sports personality who had recently appeared on a Reality TV Show who wanted to capitalize on the exposure with magazine articles and TV/Radio interviews. He also wanted the Agency to help launch his new range of designer Trainers. Many of her co-workers were jealous of her as there is much rivalry in the office as to who gets to work with which clients, and many of her co-workers wanted that job – she had to make sure she did it right. A lot of bright, talented people squeezed into one open-plan office makes for a vibrant, buzzing but also highly competitive atmosphere. She knew that if she failed to do well there were plenty of people, despite being outwardly friendly, who would love to take her place. The one exception to this was a guy named Derek. Whenever there had been a dispute he had always stood up for her and he had come to be the one person she could rely on to cover her back when she was, for instance, on holiday or out of the office for any other reason.
She rushed out of the office just after lunchtime to meet with the sportsman to discuss his PR campaign. The meeting was in a Hotel lobby (a neutral territory such as a Hotel lobby seemed to be better places to meet than in her office). The meeting went well, and within two hours they had a comprehensive PR campaign outlined that would cover the next three to six months. Secretly she had had a crush on the guy from what she’d seen of him on the Sports programmes on TV, and sure enough he was a good-looking guy who was also charming, but a little shorter than she’d expected.