The Evil Inside Read Online Free PDF

jovial atmosphere.
    ‘Bouncing on the beds like Austin Powers.’
    I held up the cute white shirt with the tomahawk emblem. ‘Anthony gave me a little Braves top for him.’
    *
    ‘… And so the big old giant never bothered the people of that town ever again.
The end
.’
    ‘Hmm.’
    ‘Did you like that story?’
    ‘Yeah. But it was a little bit scary.’
    ‘But they got rid of the giant in the end. Then all the people were happy.’
    Callum considered this and then had a thought. ‘Daddy, would I be like a giant to Bubby?’
    ‘Yes, you would have. But Bubby’s gone away now, remember?’ I kissed his head. ‘OK, darling, ni ni.’
    ‘Daddy?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Where did Bubby go?’
    I hesitated. ‘I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t want to come to America so she hid somewhere back home.’ I had had no idea how to answer that question, and was so unprepared for it that I said the first inane thing that came into my head.
    ‘Oh,’ he sounded unconvinced. ‘I still miss her.’
    ‘We all do. Now cuddle Buzz and go to sleep.’
    I really didn’t want to be reminded of Bubby. Bubby’s sad, short life had had a terrible impact on all of us, but particularly Mia.
    As I switched off his Noddy lamp, Mia was standing in the doorway. I smiled but she didn’t smile back. She stared at me through the half-light like one of the Dakota gargoyles. It was as though she could read my mind. Mia didn’t want to forget Bubby any more than Callum did. She couldn’t forget. How could she? I was the monster trying to erase her pitiful little memory from the family archives. Mia brushed past me, kissed Callum on the forehead and climbed silently into the other bed, fully clothed.
    I went to bed myself soon after. Even though I hadn’t done any actual work yet, the first day on the job had been as enervating as it was exciting. Mia was already exhaling deeply beside me as I dozed off into a recent happy memory.
    The three of us – four including the baby – were lying on our bed back home in Melbourne as Sunday afternoon rain serenaded us through the window. Callum had drawn a big smiley face on Mia’s bare bulging belly with a black Texta colour. As we succumbed to the natural lullaby outside, I had the feeling that we were on a lovely soft raft. Drifting together on a huge, gentle and kindly ocean.
    *
    Part of Brave Face’s new business-building strategy was to offer advertising as well as their usual PR staple to the ever-expanding roster of FMCGs, utilities, government departments and dotcoms they wanted to snare. And that’s what I did: advertising; peddling powders to the great unwashed; feeding the piranhas.
    After studying Anthony’s ‘Clients We’d Love to Work With’ list, I surmised there were about eight companies that could benefit immediately from running targeted B2B or consumer campaigns – mostly dotcoms based in the giddy gold rush of Silicon Valley, as well as a couple in New York’s own ‘Silicon Alley’. One of the reasons Anthony had hired me over a local recruit was because he suspected a direct, no-bullshit Aussie approach might be enthusiastically received, especially by the fast-moving new Internet companies he now wanted to target. (The other reason, of course, was that he was a good guy who wanted to help give a buddy a fresh start.)
    I ran the names by him. Based on his broad knowledge of the dotcom sphere, he scratched out a couple of my suggestions and added three new ones that hadn’t made his master list yet.
    ‘There you go, Girly,’ he said one evening in my office as the sun kissed the Chrysler Building goodnight. ‘Nine companies, nine new business pitches. That should keep you out of trouble for, what, how long?’
    Anthony often called me Girly – as in ‘Guy/Girl’.
    ‘Just strategic and creative first thoughts? Or fleshed-out spec campaigns?’
    ‘Say spec campaigns for the most promising half and strategic outlines for the rest – I’ll tell you which