Free The Mammoth Book of Terror by Stephen Jones Page B

pound notes as if they
were change.
    He stayed on until reaching the city, the phone burning a patch in his pocket. Alighting near the Bank of England, he tried to understand what might be happening. Altered perception, Daz had
said. Daz, who had not replaced his own mobile since it was stolen, so why hadn’t he altered perception to make himself really, really rich?
    Why wouldn’t you? There had to be some kind of problem with that, didn’t there? How specific did you have to be? Tom Thumb’s Three Wishes-specific, get the wording exactly
right or else you end up with a sausage on your nose? What were the parameters? Was there a downside, some kind of come-up-pance for being greedy, for failure to perform a good deed? Did the Devil
appear, hands on hips, laughing hard at Man’s foolishness? Already he had forgotten talk of binary existence and was replacing it with the lore of fairytales, a language of quid pro quo
cruelties, kindnesses and revenges, because that’s what is ckarly fuckin’ called for in this situation , he thought, sweating at the seams.
    Obviously, he needed to try again. There was a transmitter mast at Alexandra Palace, but what about mobile masts? There had been some kind of argument about placing one halfway up Tottenham
Court Road, so that was where he headed next.
    He couldn’t get high above the ground, but he climbed to the second floor of Paperchase and stood near the rear window, close enough to see the phone mast, hoping it was closer enough to
register. Flipping open the mobile, he examined the screen. The pulsing chroma-rain had cleared itself after the transmission of the last message. Suddenly, his sealed existence had unfolded into a
world of possibilities. Suppose he could do anything, anything at all? He could save the world. End starvation and poverty. Reverse climate change. Bring back the Siberian Tiger. Build a special
community in the Caribbean where artists from all over the world could live and work together in peace, free from the pressures of society.
    Fuck that shit. What about the things he really wanted?
    The exhilaration welled inside his gut as he realised that he could be a good six inches taller for a start, five-eight to at least six-two. His height had always bugged him. And a better
physique, get rid of the beer belly. No, wait. He needed to think carefully before doing anything else. His priorities were ridiculous and wrong. What he wanted most, what he needed more than
anything, was a girl – no, not a girl, a woman, Women. Lots of them. He wouldn’t force them to like him, just provide them with the possibility. Wishes go bad when
they’re forced , he thought. But what he really needed was money, lots of money, because it could buy you freedom. He’d be able to travel, because that was how to make yourself truly
free. Go around the world and hang out with whomever you liked. It was all a matter of slipping through the cracks in perception.
    Whatever he asked for had to be something he wanted very badly. As quickly as the possibilities occurred, they faded away, leaving behind a fog of appalled anxiety. If it was so easy, why
hadn’t Daz done it? Why was he still hanging out at his mother’s council flat?
    He punched out Daz’s number and asked him.
    Daz sounded surprised. “That’syour perception, Mats. I only feature in your world as some kind of sidekick, a support to the main act. But that’s not the way I see it from my
side, compadre. I’m the big event – you barely exist. You see, once you’re really through to the other side, the digital world, that’s when you discover who
you should really be, and you’re free. You get the life you always deserved, probably the life you have right now but simply can’t see. Figure it out, Mats, the answer’s right in
front of you. Just help yourself.” The line went dead. Was he stifling a laugh as he rang off? It sure as hell didn’t sound like Daz talking. He couldn’t usually