Venom'd Stang, Chapter 1 - The Call

In this first chapter, Charlie receives a mysterious phone call with the tip that Robert Burns is a fraud and must convince his boss to give him time off to investigate the story.

Leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes, Charlie Hammers shut out the mass hysteria all around him with a long deep sigh. He could still hear it though - the hectic whirlwind of people and papers churning together, whilst the printers and photocopiers wheezed out their electronic despair as they were over worked.

  He'd been listening to this un-harmonic symphony relentlessly for the past five hours and had long since grown tired of it. Watching the chaos was even worse though; it made him feel completely useless as he sat and organised his boss's unopened mail into alphabetical order of sender. Maybe if she would allow him to do something useful his mind would become so absorbed in the task that he could block out the frenzy all around him. But no, demeaning and pointless tasks it was. Whoever said journalism was glamorous was really, really wrong.

  It had been six months since his father had gotten him the job as Helen Springer's assistant and he had learned nothing other than the woman received a lot of letters. She was one of the most highly respected journalists in England - she could interview a deaf, dumb and blind man and come out with three pages worth of informative notes with which she would use to write the most detailed article of the decade. Yet the one thing she could not do was teach. Charlie had come to the conclusion that this was the result of some insanely overdeveloped paranoia that she had procured over thirty years as an established journalist, making it impossible for her to trust anyone new. She believed them to be layabouts, troublemakers or spies from rival newspapers looking to steal her latest story.

  Charlie was none of those things. He was young, enthusiastic and keen to prove himself worthy of the position he had been given; to show that he deserved it for a reason other than a favour Helen owed his father. Yet that determination was slowly chipped away at by the unyielding brick wall that was Helen.

"You got those letters sorted out yet?" asked the stern voice of his employer from in front of him. Charlie opened his eyes to find her peering over her glasses at him with an eyebrow raised in accusation from her adjoining desk. It had been her idea to have his desk facing hers; no doubt another attempt to ensure that he could get up to no good. For Charlie however, it was incredibly distracting.

"Yeah, just finished them a minute ago Helen," Charlie responded, leaning forward into 'work mode' as he liked to call it.

"Good, then you can organise my latest load of responses in order of urgency of delivery then take them to Derek down the corridor for mailing," instructed Helen, dumping a large stack of loose letters and envelopes onto Charlie's desk, "Oh, the addresses are on the back of the letters, just transfer them onto the envelopes like you did last week."

"Are you kidding me?! This is one week's worth? That's twice as much as the last time!" Charlie complained exasperatedly, sinking his head into his hands.

"In case you hadn't figured this out yet Charlie, the world keeps on spinning between weeks, which means there's always new news that people want to know about. As journalists it's our job to tell those people but in order to make sure they are getting the correct information we need to confirm what we learn with witnesses and specialists. Which means, yep you've guessed it, sending letters," Helen lectured facetiously.

"Then why don't you use emails? They are free, instant and don't clog up the post office unlike another form of communication I could mention," Charlie asked, genuinely believing he'd outsmarted Helen with this one.

"Because there's nothing quite as professional looking as a well drawn up letter, which encourages people to actually read the things instead of just deleting them. Plus I can never figure out where the damn send button is," Helen murmured the last sentence under her breath but Charlie managed to pick it up and sniggered at the comment.

"What are you laughing at; come on get working!"

  It was these occasional demonstrations of humour that made working with Helen tolerable - the more jokes she made the more Charlie believed she was coming to trust him and therefore the more likely it was that she would eventually give him something decent to do.

  Just as he was lifting a handful of letters from  the pile to start working on, Helen's desk went berserk with the sound of phones ringing. She had a good six or seven garishly coloured ones cluttering her desk that had their own individual phone numbers that she gave out to specific groups of people. If the dirty green one went off it was a call from another journalist that had a story for her that they couldn't handle and if the burgundy one rang that meant it was a general member of the public that had seen something, and so on. Right now every single ugly phone was ringing, which meant a whole load of work was on its way.

  Charlie watched with fascination as Helen's face creased into full concentration as she started ordering people around her to take the calls for her. It was this knack for taking control of a chaotic situation that made her so good at her job; anyone else would become flustered and overwhelmed with the pressure but not Helen. She was just too sharp.

"What are you staring at newbie? Pick a phone and answer it for me!" Helen demanded, snapping Charlie back into the real world.

  He could barely contain the cocktail of excitement and curiosity that buzzed through his system. Finally, after so long, he was being given the opportunity to prove himself. His mother had always despaired at his aspirations, longing to keep him at home or at work in the family business of retail where his future was easily secured. Her oppression was what drove him to show that he was capable and whilst Helen was still attempting to hold him back, he was now able to snatch at this new opportunity and explore the world he longed to be a part of. He had never felt more exhilarated, nor had so many options directly in front of him than when those phones had all rang.

  Which path would he take? There were so many possibilities, so many stories waiting to be told and they were all within his grasp. There could be a terrorist attack, or a corrupt politician needing exposed, or even some crazy old woman reporting the case of Mr Snizzles the lost cat. The unpredictability of the outcome was both intoxicating and damning.

  Within seconds he knew which one he had to select. It only made sense that the one with one of Helen's journalism colleagues held the most potential; they wouldn't call her unless it was urgent.

  Eagerly, he reached towards it but then something...odd came over him. He knew exactly what he wanted, he had made up his mind, yet he found his hand reaching towards the public phone instead. His body was no longer his own, it was as if something had possessed him, dragging his arm over against his will.

  His eyes bulged in terror as his heart throbbed crazily in his chest - he did not understand what was going on, why could he not control his arm? Was it his subconscious playing tricks on him? Did he actually want the utter randomness of the public after all? Was he that desperate for the thrill of the unknowing? No, it couldn't have been, there was something altogether wrong at work here, something almost supernatural in origin. It was almost as if another consciousness was working against him, worming its way into his mind to make him his puppet. But why?

"Hello, Helen Springer's phone. How can I help you?" Charlie managed to force out as he answered the phone, the professional within him overcoming the grip of the hidden intelligence.

  Silence was the only response. Silence and a very odd crackling distortion. It terrified Charlie for reasons he could not bear to put into words. At that moment all he wanted to do was hang up the call  but whatever was controlling him refused to let him move. It was making him stay on the line, taunting him with the sinister silence. He could hardly think or breathe through the horror of what was happening to him, he just wanted it to end. He wanted to scream out to Helen and others, plead with them to hack off his arm or anything, just to be free of the willpower pulling at his strings inside his mind.

"Uh...Hello?" Charlie called once more, physically unable to hang-up the phone no matter how much he wanted to.

"...Is this Helen Springer?" the caller finally answered, though this was no relief to Charlie. The voice was devoid of all emotion and semblance of humanity, yet somehow he managed to recognise it as female. It sent a trickle of raw fear running down his neck to his spine, oozing its way into every pore it came across and spreading like a virus through his system. He just wanted it to end, to be released.

"Uh, no, this is her assistant Charlie Hammers, I can take a message for you if you'd li-"

"I must speak with Helen Springer," the woman interrupted, still revealing nothing other than its need to talk to Helen. He hadn't been sure up until now but based on his recent response he was sure that on some level she was controlling his words. Given the chance he would have bitten down on his tongue to stop himself from talking but instead the words spilled out of his mouth against his will. At the very least he wanted to ask how she was controlling him, yet whenever he tried to ask his stream of thought was redirected to what she wanted. It was utterly horrifying.

"Well I'm sorry she's busy right now. If you tell me what you need help with then I'll pass on the message as soon as she's free," Charlie stated, unable to say anything else.

"...Very well. I have a case that needs investigated by none other than the most experienced of journalists," the woman said.

"Okay, if you just give me your contact details and information about the case I'll be sure Helen gets back to you."

"My name and how to contact me is unimportant. In Scotland there is a town called Alloway that birthed a man that for many years has misled countless people into believing in him and his work. It is a lie and he must be exposed. You will find the truth in Alloway," the woman explained.

"Alright, what's the guy's name?" Charlie asked, scribbling down the important pieces of information.

"Robert Burns."

"Okay, got it..."

Suddenly he could feel the control of his body returning to him, as well as his ability to control his words. With the case details given, the woman must have been releasing him before she hung up the call. This was only chance to demand of her what was going on, so he leapt at the opportunity.

"Who the Hell are you?! How are you doing this to me?!" Charlie snarled furiously, now in full control once more.

"...I am Mary Campbell."

 The call abruptly went dead, cutting Charlie off before he could insist that Mary answered further.

  With bared teeth he slammed the phone down venomously and hung his head in defeat, breathing heavily from the strain he had put himself under whilst mentally fighting Mary's will. He wanted to throttle something - for all his efforts he had nothing to show for it except a name and a case for Helen. There was no way she would even take the case, he simply hadn't got enough information out of her. How he was going to explain that the reason behind that was that Mary had only extracted the information she wanted from him, he had no idea.

  Telling Helen was an impossibility but leaving the case unsolved was even more so. If Mary had gone to such efforts just to get someone's attention he couldn't bear to think what she would do if no one investigated it. Maybe she would possess him fully until she got what she wanted. That thought and the fact he had gotten used to the idea of possession so quickly was terrifying. How she had possessed him and why she was so set on Helen taking it on he had no idea but he knew for certain that it had to be him that looked into Mary's case. There was no other option. He had been desperate to have a case of his own and now, ironically he had one that he was far from pleased about taking on.

  Deciding that he may as well do a bit of background reading on Robert Burns, he opened up an internet browser on his computer. When the agonisingly slow internet kicked in he found himself gasping at the results. The man had been alive in the 18th century and was widely considered to be one of Scotland's best poets, having written around five hundred poems and three hundred songs. Many of them were still famous today such as one Charlie had heard of called Auld Lang Syne, which he sang at New Years every year with his family.

  If Mary was right then one of history's most famous poets was actually a fake. How had he gotten away with it for so long? Had he taken the work from someone else? What was Mary's connection to all this and why hadn't she exposed him sooner?

  Charlie slumped back in his chair, running his hand through his scraggly hair as he stared at his computer screen in vast bewilderment. Mary could have just handed him the story of the century that would have dire ramifications on Scottish history if it were exposed. There was a great war raging through his consciousness - one side fought for the preservation of another country's culture but the other was fighting to save its own skin from Mary's influence. If only Mary had gotten Helen or someone else to pick up the phone instead of him he wouldn't have to worry about it.

  Crap, Helen.

  Right now she was still busy dealing with all the calls but any minute now she would want to know who had phoned her and what they had wanted. What he going to tell her and how was he going to convince her to let him take time off to investigate Burns he had entirely no clue. Then, with a bolt of inexplicable inspiration he knew exactly what he was going to say.

"There. Thank Christ that's over. What've you got for me newbie?" Helen asked as she hung up the phone she had taken.

  A tiny jolt of a mixture of dread and excitement pinched at his heart as he realised that it was time to put the lie in place. He paused for a moment to compose himself, then very calmly said, "Nothing, a bunch of kids got a hold of your number somehow and decided it would be funny to pull a prank." He looked at her directly as he said it, certain that he had read somewhere that a lie was more convincing if you stared at the person unswervingly rather than look away.

  The few seconds before her response were agonisingly long - he could hear his heart pounding relentlessly, hammering at his chest wall to break free of its fleshy cage and reveal the truth. He had no idea what she would do if she saw through his ruse: call security to throw him out; scream at him; smash his brains from his skull to be splattered across his desk with one of her ugly rotary phones; the possibilities were endless for a woman with her imagination.

  Finally, with a sigh she said, "Damn, sometimes the best stories come from public sightings."

  It had worked! He had tricked her! He was one step closer to being set free to work on Mary's case. Now all he had to do was get time off to go and investigate Burns in Alloway. How he was going to persuade Helen to let him go was a whole new kind of puzzle. Or perhaps...perhaps he didn't have to.

  Reaching for his mobile in his pocket, Charlie picked it out, looked at the screen and frowned in fake annoyance. He then looked up at Helen and said, "Sorry Helen, my Dad's phoning me. Mind if I take the call? I'll leave the room so I don't disturb you."

"Why isn't it ringing?" Helen asked suspiciously.

"I put it on vibrate; it's a pain otherwise," Charlie lied, mentally patting himself on the back for such quick-thinking.

"Hell, I didn't even know they could do that. Fine but hurry up, I need those letters sent by the end of the day," Helen insisted sternly.

  Thanking her hurriedly, he pressed the accept call button and put the phone to his ear as he walked away from the desk. Before he was out of Helen's earshot he said, "Hey Dad, what's up, I told you not to call me at work," crossly so that she would believe that Charlie was just as inconvenienced as her by the call.

  Once out of the office he headed straight to the men's room and sat in a cubicle for a few minutes so as to make the length of the call believable. Then he exited the bathroom and headed back to the office, pausing before opening the door and exhaling heavily to calm his nerves. Now's the tricky part, he thought nervously.

  As he entered the room, he pulled the most sorrowful of expression he possible could, slumping his arms and focussing at the floor rather than what was around him. Without a word to Helen, he slumped into his desk chair, gazing absently at the keyboard with his hands at his sides. In the corner of his eye he could see Helen watching him, but he didn't look at her - he simply waited for her to make the first move.

"Well?" Helen asked impatiently, frustrated by Charlie's lack of an explanation.

"I...My uncle...he - he had a heart attack," Charlie stammered, still avoiding Helen's gaze. He might have been able to pull off a regular lie and look at her, but he could not do the same thing whilst having to act as well.

"Oh, uh, is he okay?" Helen asked with the closest thing to compassion that Charlie had seen her manage.

"No...they've got him wired up to a respirator and all that other stuff but...they don't think he'll last the night," Charlie said faintly, trying to sound as weak as his voice would allow him.

"Oh my...Charlie I'm so sorry. Is he far away? You could go be with him when he, uh, passes," Helen suggested just as Charlie had hoped.

"The hospital's on the other side of town. If I take my bike now I'll probably make it on time."

"Well then you'd best get moving then hadn't you? And don't worry about being in for a while, just let me know when you're fit for work again," Helen said briskly, returning to her firm, pitiless manner.

  Charlie simply nodded in response, then packed up his things to go. He couldn't believe how smoothly things had gone; how quickly Helen had believed him on all accounts. He had always known he could lie effectively; he had done it on many occasions to escape the house when his parents had been having one of their many arguments about his father's excessive commitment to his job over family life but this had been a whole new level of deception.

"One second Charlie" Helen called after him as he started towards the exit.

  His feet melted into the ground at the sound of her voice, sticking him to the spot. The sensation threatened to spread to his knees and cause him to collapse but he fought it; refusing to accept that she had figured it out. He turned round to face her, wondering if his face gave away what she potentially already knew.

"Yes Helen?" Charlie asked, relieved that his voice did not waver under the pressure.

"It's a real shame that call didn't have a case with it. I was going to give it to you for all your hard work. Still...this isn't the best of times to be thinking about that, right?" Helen said with something close to a smirk.

"Y-yeah. Not the right time at all," Charlie stuttered, completely derailed by Helen's statement.

"Never mind, eh? See you soon Charlie," Helen said, returning to her work.

  Turning back to the door, Charlie somehow managed to un-stick his feet and walk towards the exit. What the Hell was that? Did Helen know? If she did then why was she letting him go?

  It was all too much for Charlie to handle now. He had gotten out with the case and right now that was all that mattered. He could go home, settle his nerves and make arrangements for his trip to Alloway. Helen could be worried about later.

Author's Note

This is a new draft of the first chapter I released a while ago and I'm much MUCH happier with this version! let me know what you think of the changes :)