Substitutions

by Michael Marshall Smith

As Smith recalls: "This story came about in the simplest way, the way I always enjoy most - something happening in real life that makes you think 'What if?' "Our household gets a lot of its food via an online delivery service, and one day when I was unpacking what had just been dropped at our house I gradually realised there was something...not quite right about the contents of the bags. "There's two things that are strange about that experience. The first is that - given that every household is likely to buy at least some things in common - you don't realise straight away that you've been given the wrong shopping. You don't immediately think 'This is wrong', more like . . . 'This is weird'. The second is how personal it is, gaining accidental access to this very tangible evocation of some other family's life. You can't help but wonder about the people the food was really destined for. "In real life, I just called up the delivery guy and got it sorted out: but in fiction, you might tackle things slightly differently . . ."

Genres: Horror

18 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 26, 2012

About the author

Michael Marshall (Smith) is a bestselling novelist and screenwriter. His first novel, ONLY FORWARD, won the August Derleth and Philip K. Dick awards. SPARES and ONE OF US were optioned for film by DreamWorks and Warner Brothers, and the Straw Men trilogy - THE STRAW MEN, THE LONELY DEAD and BLOOD OF ANGELS - were international bestsellers. His most recent novels are THE INTRUDERS, BAD THINGS and KILLER MOVE.

He is a four-time winner of the BFS Award for short fiction, and his stories are collected in two volumes - WHAT YOU MAKE IT and MORE TOMORROW AND OTHER STORIES (which won the International Horror Guild Award).

He lives in Santa Cruz, California with his wife and son.

Reviews

[Char · Rating 4 out of 5]

Satisfying short story about a man that accidentally gets someone else's grocery order.
I plan to look for more by this author. He's won lots of awards but has somehow escaped my attention until now.

[ᴥ Irena ᴥ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
A simple mistake with a grocery order and a man starts thinking about those other lives. At first I was afraid the story would go in a very annoying direction, but fortunately it didn't. Curiosity is a very dangerous thing. Great story.