Wild Fiction

‘Don’t you realise what’s just happened?’ Rebecca asked him. ‘She’s just paid someone a million pounds to have you killed. You’re not safe with her.’
‘Come with me, all of you,’ the author said looking at Rebecca. ‘Hiding is not going to solve this, we have to face up to it.’
The author parked the car in the lane beyond the driveway of the house and they climbed the garden wall. They entered the kitchen through the garage without speaking. The sound of footsteps on the floor above them echoed on the wood.
‘She’s in the study,’ the author whispered pointing at the ceiling.
There was a loud crash as something fell over. The sharp smash of glass came next.
‘Stay here and make sure that no one comes into the house,’ the author said looking at Conrad and James. He grabbed Rebecca’s hand and pulled her up the stairs behind him and into the study. The computer’s monitor lay in the middle of the floor, broken; shards of glass fanned out in front it. Kneeling on the desk, above the computer was Genevieve. She had the electromagnet placed directly on top of the machine and in her hand was the lever. The cable snaked over the desk and plugged into the wall.
The author felt his body go numb. He looked across at the shelf and his pile of three and a half-inch floppy disks that he kept his backups on. He felt the butterflies take off in his stomach and put his hand on the doorframe to steady himself. He had not backed up his computer for half a year. Everything, the whole of Wild Fiction, except for perhaps the preliminary notes, where on that hard disk. The hard disk that Genevieve was sitting over with an electromagnet in her hands. He did not even have a printout of the manuscript to date. One pull of the lever and it was all gone.
‘Don’t,’ his voice came out in a wavering line. ‘Don’t switch that thing on, don’t pull that lever.’
‘Why not?’ Genevieve was grinning wildly.
‘It’ll have worse consequences than you can possibly imagine. It’ll end everything.’
Rebecca stood very still next to the author. Her eyes flicked from one to the other, like the spectators at a tennis match, watching the ball go back and forth over the net.
The author looked down at the plug in the wall. His fists were tightly clenched and shaking.