The Ghost Writer (Flash Fiction Attempt)

I was encouraged by a prompt I wrote in my flash fiction article and wrote this as an exercise. I wouldn't call it a final draft, but wanted some criticism, hence posting it here for feedback. Maybe someone reading will be encouraged to try their hand at flash fiction, too!

“Lorraine?”

Andrew's voice was always so loud over the phone, even when they were kids! She hastily tapped the volume button. “Yes, what is it?”

“I was wondering about that story I asked for. Are you finished yet?”

Lorraine sighed. Why she ever got into ghostwriting she had no idea. “The thing is, Andrew, I -”

“I really need this project done!”

The forcefulness took her aback! The words were strong, but not loud; at least not by Andrew's standards.

“I realize it's important to you, but you don't have to demand.”

“I didn't. I just asked if you were going to write it,” he said sharply. The quiet, echoing voice resumed, adding, “I need to be able to kill her quickly.”

Lorraine strained to make sense of the last bit, but before she could ask for clarification he barked out a request to meet him at the park to talk about the assignment.

“That kid is mowing the lawn again and it's too damn noisy!” he explained.

There was a click and then silence. Lorraine felt a pit in her stomach, the kind that threatened to reject her lunch if she thought about it. Andrew wasn't the forceful type, and now he was saying things and denying them. Was he ill? Should she offer to take him to a hospital?

He'd never been normal, but never in a way that denotes mental imbalance. He lived alone, working as kind of freelance mechanic for cheap. Lorraine thought he spent most of his money ordering her to write short stories about whatever he wanted. He'd bind them up and read them until he needed to express his creative muse through her once again and would call her up to start another project.

She briskly walked to the park, her thoughts of Andrew constantly interrupted by voices that seemed to echo all around her, the sidewalk a footpath for the constant stream of tourists the summer brought.

Some of them were quite normal. “I hope I'm not late!” “I wonder if the restaurant is still serving breakfast...”

Others were bizarre, even rude. “Why do guys always want to strut around shirtless?” “That shirt just isn't made for a woman that old.”

Lorraine paused and scanned the area, searching for the rude man who would say such a thing. More importantly, if his comment was directed at her!

There was no one, though. In fact, no one seemed to be talking at all, yet the chatter continued. She watched as a couple strode towards her, their hands clasped but their words directed at themselves alone. Stranger, their lips were still, as were the lips of most people who passed by her.

“I'm cracking up,” she thought. “I'm going to have to get to the hospital as soon as I'm done with Andrew!”

Her nervousness increased and eyes blinking back tears, she crossed the road into the park, spying Andrew standing near a bench that was shrouded by an overgrown hedge. As she drew near, she could hear the unfamiliar, quiet version of his voice.

“I don't know how she does it. She won't stop stealing from me!”

“Andrew,” she began, slumping down onto the bench, “I'm so sorry to have to do this to you, but I'm going to have to go to the hospital.”

He took a seat next to her, placing his small bag on the ground. “Are you sick?”

“I think so.”

“I only want to know one thing. Are you going to finish the story?”

“I don't know how!” she confessed. “You wanted a murder mystery this time, but I have no clue how the police are going to find out the guy did it. The plant I chose for the poison is untraceable, and I made the killer plan too carefully. I thought of making use of the victim being the guy's wife, but without evidence... I think I'll have to rewrite some of it first.”

“No need.”

His voice was cold, accompanied by the strange voice whispering, “Do it now! There's almost no one here and they never come this way!”

Her chest tightened, nervousness and self-pity giving way to terror. He reached into the little brown bag and withdrew a spray bottle that held a purplish liquid – the plant poison! She didn't know if the voice told her or she just intuited it, but before she could run his hand seized her arm. Yanking her toward him, he covered her mouth with a large hand.

“You've been stealing from me! All my ideas! I ask you for stories and you write them, using the character names I thought of, the places I created! I have to end this now!”

She understood. What had began as intuition and had matured into the horror facing her now.

Andrew struggled to get a good grip on the bottle with his free hand, although his thoughts were elsewhere. “Don't use your knife! The poison is faster and undetectable!”

Probing his mind, the clear image of his hunting knife appeared in her mind, hooked to his belt and covered by his t-shirt.

Twisting, plunging her hands into his side she lifted his shirt and made a grab for the handle. He dropped the bottle completely and tried to grab her wrists.

It was too late. By the time he got hold of her, the knife was already hers. His thoughts turned from malice into a desperate, frenzied panic.

Then it was over. As quickly as the gift came, it left, returning to spot-on intuition. The ambulance came, paramedics with stretchers raced over. He was still breathing, but bleeding heavily from a wound under his arm. She knew he would live.

She knew she was done ghostwriting.