Dweller - Jeff Strand [97]
The rest of 2005 was spent trying to cope with guilt while sober, and frantically trying to predict when the police would burst into his home.
Nobody even questioned him. Toby knew that it was probably because the man had no job, no relatives, and nobody would ever miss him, but he secretly liked the idea that the man might have been part of some top-secret government agency, working undercover, and that his disappearance would be discovered after the deadline arrived for him to file his report on the bizarre Owen-creature that had befriended a human.
2006
Toby’s cell phone rang while he leaned against a tree, sharing a bag of gummy worms with Owen. Wow. The phone company had promised outstanding reception, but it had never worked out here before. He glanced at the display and didn’t recognize the number. Probably a telemarketer—naturally, they’d have the technology to boost the signal to try to sell him a magazine subscription out in the woods.
“Yeah?”
“Is this Toby Floren?” The voice sounded young, like a college kid.
“Who is this?”
“I’m Steve Crown. You probably have no idea who I am, but I run the website Three Window Giggle Fits.”
“I don’t know it.”
“We’ve been around for about a year, and our hits are going up every single month. It’s all original content. Right off the bat I want to say that we can’t pay, yet, but it’s great exposure and Kirk Hart who does our strip Wheelies just got a major syndication deal.”
“Why are you calling me?”
“It’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever heard. I supplement my income by reading slush, and I was clearing out boxes of stuff from years and years and years ago that they were going to throw away. My job was just to make sure that they didn’t have some old strip by Gary Larson or something that could be valuable. So I was looking through some of it, and I found Rusty & Pugg, and there’s this weirdness to it that I really tapped into. It’s not laugh-out-loud funny, and I don’t even get all of the punch lines, but it’s got this odd, enchanting charm.”
“You want to publish Rusty & Pugg?”
“Yes. Online.”
“Every day?”
“It doesn’t have to be every day, but some sort of regular schedule. Fleece is weekly, and Crush Manhattan is three times a week, but Wheelies and most of our other strips are daily, although Wheelies is the only one that does a Sunday strip.”
“I’m in.”
“May I ask how old you are?”
“Sixty-one.”
“See, no offense, but you’ll never get a major syndicate to pick you up. Me, I think that’s awesome. I’m going to use that as a selling point.”
When the conversation ended, Toby slipped the phone back into his pocket and turned to Owen. “Three Window Giggle Fits. What a shitty name.”
Yes.
“But people are going to read my strip!”
Toby went out that afternoon and bought a computer. The salesperson, a girl in her early twenties, thought that it was unbearably cute that such an old man wanted to learn how to use a computer. He was pretty sure she sold him features that he didn’t need, but the whole thing was gibberish and he pretty much just handed over his credit card.
The next week, he began taking classes.
2007
Kirk told him that Rusty & Pugg was getting 700 hits a day.
“Is that a lot?”
“Third highest-rated strip on the site.”
2008
Toby had yet to receive a single check, but quite honestly he didn’t care.
Kirk sent him links to some online discussions about the strip, and Toby didn’t care much about those, either. He’d started to register for the first site, decided they wanted too much personal information, and didn’t bother completing the process.
He was happy just to write and draw the strip and know that it was out there.
Owen was happy for him, too. Toby had the software to draw the strip directly onto his computer, but he stuck with paper and ink and a scanner, and mostly drew the comic while spending time with the monster.
2009
Kirk called him to let him know that he was shutting down the website, effective immediately. It wasn’t a decision that came easily, but advertising had