On Monday mornings, I send out a story via email: ultra-brief tales of 1,000 words or more, usually in genres including horror, science fiction, and the supernatural. Those stories collectively are called Once Upon A Time. I’ve also published several ebooks and compendium volumes of those stories so far.

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Here's story 159, of 240 so far.

Next Day Premium

Brian was running late, but that was nothing new.

There had been so many changes in the last year or two. First they started shipping some stuff without an outer box, to save on packaging, which was fine except that it made stacking the van much harder. Then they introduced the premium delivery option, which meant that he had to take detours from his regular, planned route to make sure the urgent deliveries all got there by the deadline. It took more time for him and every other driver, and used more fuel, and led to a lot more wasted minutes in traffic.

His employer was an e-commerce giant that sold everything under the sun. A few years back they’d split out their own delivery fleet, with branded vehicles and drivers’ jackets, and also the bane of Brian’s life: the little gadget they had to carry around at all times, which told them where to go next, what to scan and what to photograph, and how far behind they were.

They were always behind. Brian was paid a mere pittance per parcel, and his daily load for a 6 AM start could be three hundred parcels or more. Most weeks, he’d work six days, and on each of those days he usually wouldn’t finish until almost nine at night.

He couldn’t listen to audiobooks because he was stopping and getting out of the van every few minutes, or even more often. He barely had time to find a bathroom once or twice a day, and lunch was always eaten on the hop, crammed into his mouth from behind the steering wheel. One of these years, he would have a damned heart attack from it all. Then they’d replace him with someone else and nothing would change.

Brian felt his heart sink as the unmistakable nagging tone chimed from the device yet again. It was sitting in its dashboard mount, surveying its human slave as always, and there was a thick red border along the top of its display.

Next Day Premium delivery LATE, it said.

“Effing thing,” Brian said, fairly sure that in a year or two the gadgets would probably be listening for such remarks, and would penalise the drivers accordingly.

He’d gone over some broken glass a few hours earlier, and heard the sound he didn’t want to hear. It had taken a full ninety minutes to get the van to a garage that was open, and ultimately have the tyre replaced. He could claim a small amount of it back from his company, but by no means all — and the resulting delay had thrown off his deliveries for the day.

All the drivers called the premium deliveries No Damned Patience instead. They were supposed to be done by 1 PM, but management seemed to have no clue about the realities of navigating a city in a large vehicle, all day and every day, handling roadworks and rush hours and people who were slow to come to the door, or who lived at the top of six flights of stairs. Every delivery was unique, but they were sliced into equal time slots, with a travel time tolerance so tight that it practically encouraged them to break the law.

The display indicated that Brian still had dozens of parcels to deliver, but he knew there would be disproportionate hell to pay if the premium ones were made to wait even longer. It was already long past the 1 PM deadline, and it was starting to get dark. Evening rush hour was almost over, and he actually felt a small measure of relief when he saw that the address was on the outskirts, a mile or so into the countryside. It seemed vaguely familiar too, but in his job, everywhere was familiar.

It took ten more minutes to reach the quiet road, lined with hedges, and Brian immediately knew where he was. It wasn’t a very regular stop, but he’d certainly been here ten or twenty times over the last couple of years. A right turn between a set of stone gateposts confirmed his recollection, as he drove up a short approach road that was little more than a gravel-covered driveway, and turned around. The place had once been a farm, but was now a set of short-term rental properties, used by tourists as a base camp for going to see what the city had to offer.

The deliveries he made here were never to the owners, and always to whatever temporary resident was there for a night, or a week, or whatever. Things they’d forgotten when packing, and just decided to buy another one and have it delivered. He seemed to recall that he’d had to carefully manoeuvre the van past grocery delivery vehicles a few times too.

He parked and went into the back, finding the parcel right away because it had been staring at him all day. It was shipped in the manufacturer’s packaging, no box, so he could see that it was a large blackout blind; the kind that attached to a window with suction cups.

Probably got a baby with them, he thought.

He collected the gadget from the dashboard and got out, shut the van’s door to keep the heat in, and went over to the nearest building. It was glass and steel, only built in the last handful of years, and had a door that was painted bright yellow. There was a key safe screwed to the frame, and at the side of the building Brian could see a big red Audi with a roof box. He sighed, and pressed the doorbell.

He glanced around while he waited, appreciating the quiet of the surroundings. Beyond the light pollution of the city centre, the stars were already dimly visible above, dotted around the huge full moon, and he thought he heard a cow lowing from somewhere nearby. It was a nice place for a holiday.

The door was suddenly wrenched open from within, and a man stood there with beads of sweat on his brow. Brian just smiled, holding up the package.

“That was meant to be here six hours ago!” the man snapped, and his voice was strange. It wasn’t really anger; it sounded more like anxiety. Brian immediately didn’t like the situation at all, and he didn’t even try to hold onto the parcel as the man grabbed it from his hands.

“I’m sorry, mate, I had a flat tyre,” Brian said, holding up the gadget. “I just need to scan the code then that’s it.”

The man didn’t reply, nor did he make any attempt to turn the parcel to reveal the barcode label. Brian could see over the man’s shoulder that the little open-plan residence was a cave inside; every window had its blinds or curtains closed.

“I need to scan it before I can release the parcel,” Brian said, keeping the false smile on his face, but again the man didn’t respond. He was standing strangely; rigidly, and looking up at sky now too.

“Meant to be here before dark,” the man said, and there was pain in his voice now, replacing the anxiety of a few moments ago. His voice was also several tones deeper. Brian could see his own van reflected in the man’s eyes, because his pupils were almost completely dilated.

Drugs? Brian wondered, deciding just this once to skip scanning the parcel. He’d pay the company for the blackout blind himself if he had to. Right now, he just wanted to be away. He tapped a control on the screen of the gadget to mark the delivery as left in a safe place instead.

“OK, thanks, have a good night,” he said, not waiting for a reply before he turned and hurried back to his van. He got in quickly, pulled the door shut and triggered the central locking, then started the engine. Then he took one last nervous look towards the building. It was an action he’d regret for the rest of the life.

The man was still there, but he also wasn’t. The blackout blind parcel was in tatters, torn apart by claws that had erupted from his fingertips. His own clothes were rags now, clinging to a frame so much larger than it had recently been. And then there was the hair, and the teeth, but most of all there were the terrible eyes, reflecting the silvery light of the moon above.

The creature started to move, but Brian was faster, standing on the accelerator. There was a single agonising instant before the vehicle surged forward.

Delivery LATE, the gadget urged again, from where it rolled around on the passenger seat, unsecured.

“And it’s going to bloody stay that way,” Brian muttered to himself, checking the rear view mirror every couple of seconds as the stone gateposts dwindled rapidly into the distance behind him.

JINX

KESTREL face a new and terrifying enemy: an all-seeing mastermind who already knows exactly who they are, and many of their deepest secrets. Nothing stays hidden forever, and the line between privacy and liberty is razor-thin…

Book 3 in the KESTREL action-thriller series.

Find Out More

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