Never Say Such Things (2 page)

“What do you want me to do?”

She smiled, or snarled, I’m not quite sure. Either way, it wasn’t pretty.

“I want souls. I want you to get them for me. Untainted souls. These unsavory ones taste bad on my tongue. I want souls that are pure and good. They don’t have to be perfect, no one is. I want the ones that are giving, selfless, true and honest. Bring me one soul a year and in exchange
, I grant you one year more to live. If you don’t bring me a soul, I take yours for pay.”

She sighed, seem
ingly happy with the deal she’d offered. “I offer you a way out, though, forever. If you bring me the soul of your true love, I will leave you to live your life as if you’d never met me. Otherwise, in one year, I will collect a soul. Do not fail me. I will find you, no matter where you hide.” She let go as I crumbled to my knees, looking up at her as she morphed into the ugliness of her previous form. “One year, Alan Morgan. And never speak of this.
Never say such things
.”

With a leap, she disappeared into the grey mist above. The drench of night chilling me to the bone. I scrambled to my feet and tumbled out of the alleyway, stumbling the entire way home.

~In Memorium~

“ALAN, IS THAT
you?” Rachel’s voice echoed into my study. I shook the fog of memory from my head of that long ago fateful day and plastered on my happy face.

“Yes, dear. I got home
early from the college. I wasn’t feeling well.” I gulped, closing the calendar I had nearly worn out as she entered. My wife gave me a darling smile, one that made my fear go away, my anxiety wane and my worries fade.

“You alright? Need anything? I can make some chicken soup if you like.” She reached over and felt my forehead. Her touch was healing
, and I sighed as the pain of my head temporarily fizzled with her. I wondered how she did that. She would just smile and turn away, reassuring that I would be okay and that her soup would fix it all. I was sure it would, I always seemed to feel so much better after eating that soup of hers.

“Thank you, hun,” I called out behind her as she hummed to herself down the hall. I breathed in deeply, relieved that she didn’t ask about my calendar, or why
, at this time every year, I would incessantly flip through it to this month, this particular date every time.

September 12
th.

Each year it kept coming
.

Each year
she
would come with it.

Each year, another person went with her.

So many years…so many…

I rubbed my forehead again, the twinge of pain returning. It would start at the beginning of the month, a slow steady throb. As the 12th neared, the pain
would be unbearable. It wouldn’t fade. It wouldn’t go away but with my wife’s touch. The only other cure was handing a soul to the gargoyle woman. Only then would she touch my cheek where she’d first touched me, taking the pain back with her for another year. It was always the same. It never got any easier. I still had not handed her the soul of my true love so it would never end.

I never would. Would I?

***

The café window misted up, making it hard for me to peer out from it. I wanted to see the gloom outside, feel it to my very soul. Somehow, the misery of the day matched my soul well. It was a comfort in the vast loneliness I felt within.

“Hey Alan!” the voice of my colleague interrupted my thoughts. I waved at him as he shed his raincoat before tossing it onto the seat of the booth. The vinyl groaned as his weight made it rub in that most annoying way. I stirred my tea as I turned back down to watch the steam swirl off its honey surface.

“Hey Richard. Looks like a river out there.” I sipped the hot fluid, letting it semi scorch my tongue. Punishment in light of wrongdoing seemed appropriate.

“Sure is! Dang! I hope what you asked me to meet with you for doesn’t involve outdoor activities.” Richard ran his hand through his sopping wet blonde hair. He was in the same year as me, but was heading towards pre-med instead of English like I had chosen.

“Well, unfortunately, it can’t be helped,” I muttered. Pushing the teacup away. I sighed, rubbing my head to ease the stabbing, increasing pain that had lingered far too long. I had to make it stop. I had to.

“You okay there? You haven’t been looking too hot these past few days. Finals getting to you?” Richard gave me a suspicious glance before the waitress interrupted for his order. Asking for his usual coffee, straight black, he settled back and studied me. We had been friends since grade school. I could hide nothing from him.

“Just having these bad headaches lately. Maybe too much studying, not enough sleep.”

“Hmm,” Richard gave me a quick nod. Knowing he was not a fool, I had risked a lot in asking him to come today. He would see through me in no time. I was starting to wonder if this was all a mistake. But I was desperate and I had no more time.

“Well, I hope they go away soon. You look like hell. No way you can study much more and live to see yourself graduate at that rate,” he chuckled and gave his steaming coffee a swig not a moment after the waitress set it down. Her eyes lingered on his gleaming blue ones that twinkled with mischief, giving him a blushing smile before turning away. “I on the other hand am having a blast. This pre-med stuff is cake! I think I’ll die of boredom before I ever get to medical school. I was thinking surgical rotation. What do you think? Dr Malcom- Head Surgeon? I love the sound of that…”

His haughtiness annoyed me at times, but right now, I wanted to shake him into reality, tell him to quit being so stupid. He was a good guy, but the road he was heading, he would end up selfish, conceited and alone in no time. Rich but empty inside. I guess it didn’t matter then what was about to happen really. Not with his end so near.

“Yeah, that sounds great Richard. Listen, we have to get going. We’ll be late if we don’t leave now.” I fished a crumpled ten dollar bill onto the table and waved for him to follow me out into the fading light of the evening, out into the dismal rain.

Groaning, Richard complied. He might’ve been smart, top of his class and handsome, but he was still naïve in a way. I felt bad that I was leading him to the horror that lived with me every day. He, of all people, was the one I chose for my first. My best friend of all my years.

I didn’t know why I had felt nothing at that moment. Even when I saw the terror rip through him as the creature seized him, taking in his fine cultured looks and sucking his soul away.
She had enjoyed it to the max−relished it with pleasure that swam along her cracked, stony face as my friend faded. I was so numb, I wouldn’t let myself feel it. I had nothing to feel any more from that day forth. I was tranquilized into a submissive state that was only interrupted by the bliss of the lack of pain in my head as she reached out to graze my cheek again.

Taking the anguish with her was my payment. It was all, after twelve days of unbearable misery and dread, it was all I had. To be pain free and dead inside.

~Of Love and Dust~

“WHAT DAY IS
it?”

The nurse pushed the brakes on my wheelchair out in the Rotunda in the middle of the courtyard of St Augustine’s Home for the Beloved. The nurse straightened and tucked a blanket around my legs and made sure the one across my shoulders was secure.

“Why Alan, it’s September 12th. You know that. You have it circled on your calendar in bright red.” She smiled and pushed a strand of my scraggly white hair that needed a cut badly behind my ear. “Honestly I don’t know why you insist coming out here in this cold weather. I really could get in trouble if you get sick.” She sighed as she plopped down on the cement, ornate bench. She rubbed her neck, a migraine surely building under her soft brown eyes.

My fingers rubbed incessantly on the blanket, I hated this. I hated the endless wait. Usually
at dusk the thing came. I’d had a soul each year. It’d been easier when I was free to move around. But here, here it was not such a simple task to wrangle a good soul to sit with me as the sun set and be taken instead of me. Here, institutionalized now for five years, it’d been a struggle.

Luckily, no one had put two and two together in these past five years. Each year, on the same date, a person would die or go missing. Luckily, there were some old folks here near the brink of death anyway that I was able to finagle into hang
ing out at dusk with me in the rotunda
.
Sh
e
would come, give me a nasty look as she took these souls. She had to. It was part of the deal. They were old and stale she said, but she could not deny that they were good and untainted. She would suck their life force, their essence and give me a disgusted face.
They will do, but get me a better soul next time or else…
was all she’d say before leaping away into the sky. Her stone wings lifting her body in a scrape of rock and masonry.

Those had been my friends for at least a few months. I had spoken with them, spent endless hours playing chess and enjoy
ed the afternoon sun. Yet, I’d given them to her. I gave them all away, just like that.

I wasn’
t a good soul.

I could see that now.

I wouldn’t be giving her another soul this day, or ever again. I was done with that. My wife was visiting today. I specifically asked her to come on this day of all days. She was still moving about, healthy as an ox. She was fifteen years younger than me so I could see why she had so much energy. But today, her blissful healing energy would be gone forever. I had to give her to the gargoyle and end it. I had to end it now.

“Miss Nancy,
would you get me some water? I’m quite thirsty.” I saw my wife exiting the building and walking towards us, waving happily. I didn’t want Nancy to be here, she was too young to die. She was still needed in this world. Knowing it would be at least ten minutes before she made it to the cafeteria and back with a bottle of water, I sent her away.

“Hello dear! Gosh it’s quite chilly out he
re! Why are you out here? You’ll catch your death sitting in this weather. How about I take you inside? We can play checkers? I brought you some soup.” Rachel bent down to kiss the top of my head. A whiff of gardenia perfume filled my nose as she held out a thermos, filled with my favorite soup. Her long coat covered her svelte body and she wore wool lined boots on her little feet. She was beautiful, even with the streaks of grey running through her light brown hair. Her grey eyes twinkled at me, her skin smooth for a mature woman. No crow’s feet clinging to her eyes.

“No
, I’m fine out here, hun.” I took her hand as she sat on the bench Nancy had vacated, placing her purse and the thermos next to her. I had told her I would like her to divorce me and find another, but she wouldn’t. She said I was her only love. She needed only me.

I wish I could say the same. I loved her, but my past had a way of cutting this love down. I had to push her away, had to hold her at arm’s length. To love her was to die. To not love her, was to wither. I had
no choice either way. I still didn’t.

“What’s wrong dear? You look worried.” She wrinkled her nose, her eyes filled with knowledge. “It’s September 12th isn’t it? I don’t know what it is about this day but you always did lose your sanity on this day. One day, you will tell me
why, no?” She rubbed my hands, hers were warm and savory. Mine−old, cool and frail.

“Yes, I promised I would tell you one day. Today I will.” My voice was
solemn, icy cold and bland. I’d thought about this day for eons. I had gone over it in my mind so many times that I knew what to say and what she would say. I knew it. Yet, the words didn’t flow out as easily as they had in my head. Never that easy.

As I choked them out, I told her everything. That day in the alley, the gargoyle, the robber and the loss of his tainted soul. The deal, the years and years of people, my friends
which I had handed to her. The good, untainted souls I’d so easily sacrificed instead of myself. Instead of her.

As I finished, I watched her face, calm and serious. I wanted to know what hovered in her brain, what her thoughts were and if she hated me. Her grey eyes were darker in the dusk than the midday sun, they didn’t twinkle or sparkle like usual. In fact, they were stormy and full of things unsaid. I wanted to drain the storm, make it wither away and pull her light back into them. I hoped I would see her light up again. At least before she came.

“How could you do that?” Rachel finally spoke. She didn’t look at me, but her anger steamed about her face like a mask, morphing before my own eyes.

“I had to. I told you, I had to or I would die.”

“So, why didn’t you?” She looked up at me, the grey in her eyes swirling with the storm clouds above. Tears filling them, threatening to pour.

“I–I, what? What do you mean, why didn’t I? I would have died, or worse, I would have to give her you! I couldn’t have don
e
tha
t
.” I swallowed. My throat dry as deserts without rain, rough and sticky.

“All those people, Alan. You gave them to her? How could you?” She stood up. Her face now twisted with pain and hate. I looked down to the ground rather than to face her like that.