Lucifer's Gift, Part III

This story begins here.  The last entry was here.

...and bumped against one of the fallen cherubs, who was now sitting on the floor.

With his fat, baby-like fingers, the reached out for the apple sitting in front of him.  The apple was gleaming, shining, looking perfect.  It definitely did not belong in the grasp of this chubby little imp!

Lucifer's Gift, Part II

Continued from Part I, found here.

Like I said, I knew that this was a dream.  And as I looked around, even if I hadn't thought so before, it was now abundantly obvious.

I appeared to be standing in a diner, looking like it was straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting.  That is, except for the cherubs.  And the devil.  And as the waitress sauntered over to me, I noticed that she was dressed in ripped tights, a strapped-up leather bustier that looked to be covered in nasty symbols, and sprouting a pair of batlike wings hanging off of her back.  As my eyes fell on her, she licked her lips at me with a curiously long tongue, in a manner that can't possibly be considered anywhere below PG-13...

Lucifer's Gift, Part I

As the little cherubs flapped around my head, making rather annoying bleating noises, I stared back at the man in front of me and became absolutely, completely certain of two things:

First, this was definitely a dream.

And second, this man in front of me was the Devil.

"Dream" - Part 3

If you're just jumping in to this old short story that I wrote, you will probably want to start from the beginning.  Reading this part, and then the preceding parts, may give you a wonderfully unique experience, somewhat like the first viewing of the movie "Memento".  However, many people do not enjoy reading books backwards.

Part 1 can be found here.  Part 2 can be found here.

            A week later we got a new manager at our firm.  Her name was something Agrona.  I don't remember the first name.  It wasn't important.  She was very well credited, supposed to be a great asset, I supposed.  It didn't matter.  I recognized her.  I had seen her a week ago in the alley.  Her hair was dyed, but it was the same woman. 

            I hadn't told anyone about what had happened.  I had gone back to the alley.  There hadn't been any pile.  There had been a red splotch on the ground, just another stain among countless others.  There was nothing else.

            Her shirt was low enough to tell that there was no scar where there should have been one.  Her eyes were a light blue color.  They were dull.

            I guess I must have been going crazy, even then.  If I am crazy at all.  I don't think that I'm crazy, but that's just my perspective.  If I knew that I was crazy, we wouldn't be having this discussion at all, would we?

            I tried not to talk to her.  Whenever I saw her, I felt like those dull eyes were reading me, as if they knew what I had seen.  I tried to stay away, keeping to my work.  I met a woman whose son had been raped.  I told her she might be able to get a six figure settlement.

           

            It went on for two months before I couldn't take it anymore.  You know about what happened already from here on.  It's all in the police reports.  Or at least most of it is.  It talks about how I cornered her in an office after hours, about how I had a gun and threatened her.

            She told me stuff, although none of it helped anything.  Most didn't even make sense.  It was all this fancy talk about replacement, and sustenance, and replenishment, and energy funnels, and decay.  The one word that stuck with me from it all was entropy.  I don't know what she was using it to talk about, but it's the one that most stands out.

            The police came before I could do anything but listen.  I don't know how they found out; we were alone, it was after hours, and there wasn't any alarm that went off.  I think I know how, though.  They all had the same flat eyes.  They were all dull.

            As they were trying to pull me down, I shot her.  I remember shooting her.  I hit her twice, once in the chest and once on the side of the forehead.  There were only trickles of blood that came out, as if the rest was already gone.  No one seemed to notice that she had been shot.  She didn't have any wounds when she testified.

            You don't believe me, do you?  It makes sense, though.  I'm still not sure whether I believe myself.  It doesn't even seem real, somehow.  There are these . . . others . . . walking among us?  It sounds like something out of a science fiction paperback.

            It would almost be easiest to think that I really was going crazy, and that I made it all up.  I've been let out on a few visits, these last few months.  Every time I go out, I see more and more people with dull eyes.  Maybe it's not anything.

            Even you, Doctor.  Even you've got dull eyes.

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"Dream" - Part 2

Part 1 of this old story (written back when I was about to start college - man, that was a long time ago!) was published on Monday.  You can find it here.

            It was the third time that I spotted him that really did me in.  Bad things always come in threes, don't they?  Isn't that what they say?  Although nothing terrible happened the first two times I saw him.  I guess maybe I just couldn't have my run of good luck keep up forever.  I'd been winning enough cases to stay afloat, so I perhaps wasn't thinking as cynically as I should have been.

            I was stepping out past the pungent odor of tobacco for a stroll before lunch when I glanced over and noticed him, ducking into the alley where the sun never seems to penetrate.  Some vague recollection must have stirred in my memory, because I played the damn fool in deciding to follow him.  He had a backpack on; it was gray as well, although the bottom seemed to be stained darker.

            It wasn't noticeable, but he was moving pretty fast, scuttling along a little.  He still seemed rather confident, though, as if he belonged where he was, not as if he was doing anything wrong.  I kept well back, which was probably the only sensible thing that I did do that day.

            I tailed him through a couple twists and turns of the alley, 'till we came to the far fence.  A woman was standing up against it, leaning nonchalantly.  She must have been waiting for him, since she straightened up when he came.  The man's backpack was dropped loosely against one wall of the alley, out of the way.

            It was here that I got the first real look at both of them.  I thought "hooker" as soon as I laid eyes on the woman, but then realized heartbeats later that, although she was wearing somewhat skimpy clothes, she was fairly well off, likely in business.  I could tell that much from her posture, upright and crisp.  The skirt might have ended well above her thighs, but the gray suit seemed to almost be flickering in on the edges of my vision, as if my mind knew that it was what she belonged in.  A faint stream of light from above glinted off the diamond on her ring.  Restrained, but expensive nonetheless.  She didn't look half bad, probably a good five or six years younger than myself, judging by the way she filled out her disguise.

            And the man?  Again, I didn't even seem to notice.  He was, well, background.  He had on gray jeans.  They were splattered with something dark, maybe paint.  He had a gray shirt on that was a little long, coming down to his crotch.  Something bulged in the back of his pants.  He had dark gray hair.  I don't remember anything about his face.  His eyes were shaded by his hair; I couldn't even see their outlines.

            They were talking, but I couldn't hear.  I probably could have crept closer at the start without being noticed, but it took a while before I had the nerve.  The woman was facing me, but she seemed not to be able to take her attention off of the man in front of her for a second.  She seemed to be ill at ease.  The man was just as confident as he had been walking into the alley.  His smooth bass overrode the woman's rising and falling alto.

            As they talked, the woman became more and more agitated.  I thought that I could see a glint of worry in her eyes, and I slowly emerged from behind my corner and slunk closer.  I was worried that the man would hear and turn, but he didn't seem to notice.

            Once I was closer, I was able to more adequately judge the look in the woman's eyes.  It wasn't worry, I realized; it was fear, pure and simple.  She was starting to edge back away from the man, heedless of the rough boards of the fence stopping her retreat.  "No, no," she was protesting over and over.  "No, you promised!"  I heard her voice rise uncontrollably on the last word.

            The man said something in return.  " . . . should have known what was coming," were the last few words.  I couldn't catch the rest.  He stepped forward smoothly towards the woman.  One of his hands snaked around to pull the bulge from the back of his pants.  It was a knife, I saw.  It was the same dull gray as the rest of him.

            The woman tried to shriek.  The man covered her mouth easily with one hand as he slid the knife upward in a smooth motion.  Amid the screams I was trying to stifle, an absurd thought noted how neatly he had done it.  Almost as if he did this sort of thing all the time.

            I must have been backing away at this time.  I don't remember too clearly.  He had lowered the woman to the ground, and was, well, emptying her.  I can't think of a better word for it.  He was removing everything inside her, depositing it all in a careless pile. 

            I was backing away, yes, but I couldn't wrench my eyes away.  I watched as he held up what was left after he was finished.  It was limp and boneless, like a strangely shaped sheet of rubber.  The last thing that I saw was him unzipping the backpack with one hand, holding it in the other. 

            At this point, my gag reflex took over and I fled out of the alley.  I threw up at the entrance, not even receiving a glance from the passerby.  They didn't care, of course.  They hadn't seen.

            The man left the alley a minute later, carrying the backpack over his shoulder.  I could see his entire front covered in liquid darkness, the same as was dripping from his backpack.  Didn't anyone notice? I was silently shrieking out.  Didn't anyone realize what he had done?

            He glanced at me as he walked past.  I saw his eyes then.  They were blank.  I don't mean that they looked any different than yours or mine, this part is always hard to explain.  Everyone's eyes glint, it's just the light reflecting off of them.  His didn't reflect any light.  They weren't any unusual shape, or color, or anything.  They were just dull.  They made him look lifeless.

Stay tuned for the conclusion, coming Friday!

"Dream" - Part 1

So I figure I'll start this blog by putting up an old story that I wrote.  This one is about 5 years old.  Maybe this will show a wonderful growth in writing ability when compared to more recent stories!

Or maybe it will show that my writing skills have dropped precipitously.

            Hello, Doctor.  Should I just sit down and start, like the other times?  I don't know why you have to hear this again, I know that you've got it all on file already.  Don't worry, I don't mind saying it again.  I keep hoping that this time I'll catch something I missed before, something to reassure me that it's not all just my delusions.  Anyway, it all started with a man.

            I didn't notice the man until he was almost out of sight, turning around the corner into the dirty alley.  Past the group of daily smokers getting their nicotine fix, past the homeless bum, his grimy fingers outstretched pleadingly for change.  All I caught was a flash of gray, plain clothes that vanished against the graffiti and murky shadows marring the cement walls of the alley.

            I gave him no second thought, of course; that was the only time I laid eyes on him in that day.  As I think back now, I realize that I never even caught a glimpse of his face.  He was simply another back of a head, no different from the dozens of clients that I see each day.  Even with them, I have a name, a face to connect to, even if after a while all their tears seem to swim together.

            I didn't see him again until the next week.  I was leaving the office, grateful to be outside even in the smog of the city after having to deal with sobbing parents and growling middle-aged men, an endless list of average joes lining up to present their pitiful problems to me in hopes of getting money or revenge.

            He was wearing the same gray clothes, had the same black-gray hair, and was ducking into the same alley.  Once again, I spared no conscious thought on him, but I did glance into the alley as I walked past.  There was no one in sight. 

            I think I might have wondered about it for a second or so to myself, now that I look back on it.  I mean, where could he have gone?  At the time, I just assumed that he had gone around a corner, or into a door, or maybe even hopped the tall fence in back.  I didn't care; the only thing on my mind was getting home to my bed and the still only half-empty bottle perched on the top shelf of my refrigerator.

Part 2 to come soon!