Start your story with, 'Dear Sir; I received your
rejection letter today and...'
Approx. 1,005 words
“Dear Sir, I received your rejection letter today and….” ‘Fer Chrissakes, Phillip Pembroke thought; that package is big enough to be a bomb that could take out the entire eighth floor and parts of several others! He checked the return address on the parcel again. “Little Smokey’s Virginia Smoked Ham” it said. “Contents packed in Dry Ice. Perishable.” There was no other name or address. Just before the holiday season, it was not unusual for a friend or family member to send such gifts, but they usually arrived at home, not in the editorial office of True Confessions Crime Magazine.
“Maxine!” he yelled to his secretary sitting just outside the door. “Where did this parcel come from? Do you know who sent it?”
Maxine popped her head inside his door. “No, sir, I didn’t find any attached correspondence. The FedEx courier dropped it off twenty minutes ago and I thought I should just set it on your desk because it was marked perishable.”
“Hmm, strange,” he muttered. “Sorry to have bothered you dear. Perhaps if I finish this letter I’ll find an answer.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, and went back to her desk.
Pembroke continued
reading the mystery letter. “You or your staff rejected my story, saying
that it lacked the ‘ring of truth’ required for True Confessions. It’s obvious neither you nor your employees would
recognize a true confession if it jumped up and bit you on the ass.
“You will not be able to trace me from my
original correspondence, and you will not be able to trace this parcel, for I
have taken meticulous precautions.
Please open the refrigerated parcel to substantiate the ‘truth’ of my
story. I expect you to publish the story
in your next issue… or else!”
Pembroke had found the letter he was reading in a plain manila envelope atop the refrigerated package which was wrapped in plastic. Should he open the parcel? What if it exploded? Cranks often send bombs, he thought. Should I call the post office and ask them to send an inspector?
How many stories had he and his staff rejected in the past six months; 300? 400? More? What if this parcel should result in an incredible story that would push the circulation of True Confessions far above their current level? Could he safely trust the contents to the authorities and perhaps be denied exclusivity to the story? “No guts, no glory,” he thought. “Take a chance, Phillip; this could be the major break you need to advance from this pulp magazine into big time publishing.
The FedEx delivery box had been lined with a thin layer of Styrofoam. Inside that was another box wrapped in plastic. The two-inch gap between inner and outer parcel had been filled with dry ice, evidently cut into layers using a band saw or similar tool.
His mind made up, Phillip took a pen-knife from his desk drawer and cautiously slit away the plastic from the frozen parcel. If it was a bomb, he didn’t want to jostle it unnecessarily. He knew he was taking a risk, but the reward might be fantastic.
After stripping away the top layer of black plastic, he found a wax coated cardboard box inside. Gray duct-tape sealed the flaps and he carefully cut across the top and gently slit the tape at each end.
Didn’t he read somewhere that explosives were much less sensitive when chilled to a sufficient degree? It was possible he could open this parcel and have a delay of several seconds before it would detonate, if it really was a bomb. On the other hand, it might be just a smoked ham.
But what if the bomb was not affected by cold? What if there was a spring actuated or light activated trigger inside? He published crime fiction and he had read of many possibilities. Some cautious impulse nagged at him to leave the box alone and call the police, but his desire to scoop the publishing world was stronger. With great care, he lifted the flaps. Inside he found six one-gallon size plastic freezer bags, the sort which have a little white label to write the date and contents upon. Separating each plastic bag, he found no writing on any of the labels.
The acid taste of vomit began to force its way into his throat and the back of his mouth. Phillip Pembroke was not a doctor or biologist, in fact, high-school biology had nauseated him, but he had a strong suspicion that he recognized the contents of the plastic freezer bags.
“Maxine! Get on the phone to the FBI and tell them to send a couple of agents over here pronto! Next, call downstairs and get a photographer from the art department up here. With camera! With film! And tell him I want him pronto! Yesterday he would have been late!
“Then get Tillis and Early from the pool. Tell them to go over every rejected story in the slush pile for the past six months. Dig them out of the trash if they haven’t been shredded….”
Maxine appeared in the doorway with her steno pad in hand, rapidly making notes. “Yes, sir, Mr. Pembroke. What should I tell the FBI? And what should I tell the junior editors to look for?”
“On second thought,” he muttered, “we’ll call the FBI after we’ve learned as much as possible, but don’t let anyone touch this box except the photographer and me! You got that? No one! And tell the photographer to bring several pairs of rubber gloves from the darkroom. Not those bulky chemistry lab type, but real surgical gloves.
“Quick now, get on the phone! Hurry, Maxine!”
“Yes, sir, but what am I supposed to tell everyone?”
“Sometime in the past three or four months, as I recall, we rejected a story from a serial killer who claimed to have cut the heart out of his victims. I think we have the evidence to prove it now, and I want that manuscript! Now move it!”