Free Black Evening by David Morrell Page B

while he let his fingers tap whatever letters they happened to select. After all, it didn't make a difference what he typed. The strange machine did the composing. At the end of every television program, he'd read the last page the machine had typed, hoping to see
The End
. And one day, finally, those closing words appeared before him.
    After the success of
Fletcher's Cove
, he'd started typing again. He'd read the title
Parson's Grove
and worked patiently for twenty pages. Unenthusiastically. What he'd learned from his experience was that he'd never liked writing, that instead he liked to talk about . it and be called a writer, but the pain of work did not appeal to him. And this way, when his mind wasn't engaged, the work was even less appealing. To be absolutely honest, Eric thought, I should have been a prince.
    He'd put off typing
Parson's Grove
as long as possible. The money came so easily he didn't want to suffer even the one week he'd calculated would be necessary to complete the manuscript.
    But Jeffrey had alarmed him. There's no money? Then I'd better go back to the gold mine. The goose that laid the golden egg. Or what was it a writer's helper used to be called? Amanuensis. Sure, that's what I'll call you, Eric told his weird machine. From now on, you'll be my amanuensis. He couldn't believe he was actually a millionaire — at least on paper — flying in his own Lear jet, en route to New York and the
Today
show. This can't be really happening.
    It was, though. And if Eric wanted to continue his fine life, he'd better type like hell for one week to produce his second book.
    The jet streaked through the night. He shoved a sheet of paper into his amanuensis. Bored, he sipped a glass of Dom Perignon. He selected a cassette of
Halloween
and put it in his VCR. Watching television where some kid stabbed his big sister, Eric started typing.
    Chapter Three… Ramona felt a rapture. She had never known such pleasure. Not her husband, not her lover, had produced such ecstasy within her. Yes, the milkman
…
    Eric yawned. He watched a nut escape from an asylum. He watched some crazy doctor try to find the nut. A babysitter screamed a lot. The nut got killed a half dozen times but still survived because apparently he was the boogey man.
    Without once looking at the keyboard, Eric typed. The stack of pages grew beside him. He finished drinking his fifth glass of Dom Perignon.
Halloween
ended. He watched
Alien
and an arousing woman in her underwear who'd trapped herself inside a shuttle with a monster. Somewhere over Indiana — Eric later calculated where and when it happened — he glanced at a sheet of paper he'd just typed and gasped when he discovered that the prose was total nonsense.
    He fumbled through the stack of paper, realizing that for half an hour he'd been typing gibberish.
    He paled. He gaped. He nearly vomited.
    "Good God, what's happened?"
    He typed madly,
Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
.
    Those words were what he read.
    He typed,
The quick brown fox
.
    And
that
was what he read.
    He scrambled letters, and the scramble faced him.
***
    By the time he reached LaGuardia Airport, he had a stack of frantic gibberish beside him, and to make things worse, the typewriter jammed. He heard a nauseating crunch inside it, and the keys froze solidly. He couldn't make them type even gibberish. It's got a block, he thought and moaned. Dear God, it's broken, busted, wrecked.
    We both are.
    He tried slamming it to free the keys, but all he managed to do was hurt his hands. Jesus, I'd better be careful. I might break more parts inside. Drunkenly, he set a blanket over it and struggled from the jet to put it in the limousine that waited for him. He wasn't due at the television interviews until the next day. As the sun glared blindingly, he rubbed his haggard whisker-stubbled face and in panic told the chauffeur, "Manhattan. Find a shop that fixes typewriters."
    The errand took two hours through