>> SEAN BALDWIN

-The Contract-

The last bit of sunlight was already seeping down behind the hills when Irv’s pickup skidded to a stop on the soft shoulder. The vehicle shuddered when he released the clutch, as if cold shivers had gripped it after release from a bad dream. The engine didn’t put up a fight when Irv turned the key, but wordlessly died(well, maybe not wordlessly; there was almost a quiet sigh of gratitude that accompanied the truck’s dying rumble when it quit). Irv’s pickup was in a bad way, to say the least. Compared to Irv, however, the truck was still in its golden years. He struggled for a second with the driver’s side door lock and then almost convinced himself that he was not going to be able to move the door the moment before it swung free. Having spent so much energy in this act, the sudden movement of the door surprised him, and he damn near fell off his seat onto the road’s gravelly edge. He caught himself, though, and eased his rapidly-aging frame off of the cracked vinyl seat. When he had steadily balanced himself on both feet, he turned and looked at the pickup. The door was still open, but the first thing to catch his eye was not in the cab. On the rear panel of the truck’s left side, a flash of movement drew his attention. Upon closer examination, he discovered what it was. The rust marks were growing. Hard as it was for him to believe, this was what he was seeing. The faded red side of the pickup’s bed was covered in orangey-brown rust stains, and he could see them expanding and elongating, the painted metal fading and corroding before his eyes. It was like watching a paper towel absorb liquid; the way the water made patterns in the paper fibers before the whole towel became soaked. It freaked him out to watch it happen; the change had never been this fast before. He had to get moving. He slammed the cab’s door and trudged around the front end of the truck. He walked a few yards off down the slope and into the thick roadside grasses, wheezing heavily as he did so, and then stopped. His time was short, but he couldn’t go where he was headed unprepared. He turned and, after struggling a little to make it back up the incline, reached into the bed of the pickup. The light provided by the rainbow colored clouds was fast fading, as was his vision, but he didn’t need to see well to locate what he was after. His hand closed around the hatchet almost immediately. He knew it wasn’t likely to do him much good, but he thought that some protection was better than none, even when you were dealing with demons. He slid it into the hammer loop of his overalls beneath his plaid shirt and once more stepped off of the shoulder.

* * * *

It took him almost an hour to reach the cabin from where he had pulled off the highway. By that time, his walking speed had slowed considerably, and he hadn’t been moving that fast to begin with. He doubted if he had made much more than a mile by the time he saw the fire-lit window in the distance. He stopped for a minute to lean on an oak tree and catch his breath. The stars had wandered into his vision again, and this time they had come much more quickly. The lightheadedness was not the worst of his worries, either. The most noticeable sign of his decline was that his hair had begun to fall out. At first he had thought it was just leaves drifting down from the tree branches; it was Autumn, after all. Then he had reached back to brush a leaf from his neck, and his plaid shirt had come back with gray hairs clinging to it. When he reached a second time, shivering with fear yet determined, he grabbed a whole tuft from the nape of his neck. It was eerie how easily the clump of hair had come free. When he looked at the contents of his palm, he noticed that there were bloody bits of scalp still clinging to some of the fibers. He almost threw up, but was somehow able to force the stinging-hot acid back down his throat. Getting sick would not help him any. He withdrew his shoulder from the tree, waited to make sure he could keep his balance, and then continued toward the light in the distance.

Five minutes later, he was clomping up the stairs of the cabin’s porch with his old boots. The heel had peeled off of his right boot during his journey, but he had done his best to pay it no mind. When he ascended the short stretch of steps, once again out of breath and this time seeing black spots instead of stars, he once more had to rest, leaning on one of the awning’s support columns. When the pressure in his temples had died down somewhat, he shuffled to the cabin door and feebly began to knock. If he had had the time to think about it, he would have realized that the door began to open almost before he began rapping his fist against it. His eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, and he winced at the light that came pouring out from the doorframe. When his pupils had dilated themselves down, he looked again, studying the figure in the doorway.

"Irving, good to see you!" said the figure, a grinning man of average height clad in a black turtleneck, denim jeans, and wearing a pair of Lennon-style spectacles on the end of his nose. The man removed a pocket watch from the right front pocket of his jeans, clicked it open, looked noticeably surprised at the hour, and then clicked it shut again.

"My my!" he said through the smile, adding a tinge of contempt to his otherwise not unpleasant voice. "You’ve never been this late before. I was afraid you weren’t coming!"

"You knew I’d be here, alright," Irv said, making no attempt to hide his disgust with his host’s cheerfulness. "There are only two ways for these evenings to pan out, and you know it. Either I get here, half-dead and struggling to hold up my head, or the state troopers find me, all dead, lying face-down in a pile of leaves somewhere. Isn’t that about what you expected to happen tonight?"

The grinning man feigned a hurt look. "Irving, my dear man, surely you know I don’t want that! That’s a worst case scenario, of course, but I’m hoping it won’t have to come to that." He slipped the watch back into his pocket, where it made no apparent bulge. "I’m sure that’s what you’re hoping, as well."

"What I’m hoping is to see you in a shallow grave. Now move out of the goddamn doorway so that I can come in and sit down." He stepped towards the cabin’s interior.

"Of course, of course!" The man said, his grin returning. "Where are my manners?" He retreated as Irv advanced, vacating the doorway in favor of the old man. After Irv was out of reach of the door’s swing, the young man swung it closed. Outside the cabin, the silence, uncommon in these woods, was replaced by the soft hooting of owls and the scratchy murmuring of cicadas. There was no love lost between the forest animals and the inhabitant of the cabin. They didn’t know just what separated him from the hunters and campers that routinely infiltrated the forest, but they knew they didn’t like him, and the less he opened that cabin door, the calmer and more habitual they were.

* * * *

Once Irv had put the wooden door between himself and the cool autumn night, his condition began to improve dramatically. His breathing, which had been shallow and ragged since he left his truck, suddenly found a calm rhythm. The ache in his joints also disappeared, and he was able to move about much more freely within the cabin than he had been able to without. He didn’t move far, though; he simply shuffled over to the big oak table that dominated the small space of the cabin’s kitchen and sat down in one of the accompanying chairs. The sudden improvement in his health no longer surprised him, but he had not become used to it, either. The absence of pain unnerved him. At least the pain is real, he had often thought to himself on previous occasions. When I’m hurting, at least I know I’m still alive. I don’t know what I am when I’m in this place.

Irv was not thinking about his usual considerations tonight, however. There was only one thought that occupied his mind right now, one question, and it was so big and vibrant and ultimately poisonous that he couldn’t help but get it out of his system the moment he was settled, not waiting for the grinning man’s attention.

"Why tonight?" he said, his eyes planted firmly on the back of his host’s head.

"What’s that?" came the reply, almost a dismissal; after Irv’s entrance the man had immediately began bustling about the kitchen, looking in drawers and cabinets, not finding what he was looking for, and moving on.

"The change, why did it happen tonight? The last time I was here was less than a month ago. We didn’t agree on specific terms, but I been keepin’ track. I can go at least four months, sometimes five, before I have to come out here again. What’s the deal?" As Irv spoke this last sentence, his fingers noticeably increased their grip on the table’s edge, his knuckles whitening.

"Oh, we’ll come to that, don’t worry," the man said, speaking with his back turned. "We’ll discuss that a great deal. But not yet. First things first. Aha!" Apparently, the man’s search had ended. As his hand withdrew from the cupboard, it held what appeared to be an old whiskey bottle. Irv saw it, and knew it well. He had drunk its contents on many occasions. As the man turned and moved toward the table, his find in tow, Irv got a closer look at the bottle. The label was faded and peeling, and many of the letters had faded or worn off, so that what once may have said Fine Rye Whiskey now only read F ye Whis. Though age and possibly water damage had made the label virtually indecipherable, two of its aspects were still intact. The brand name, Henry Roth, was displayed in faded but intact script below a picture of a well-to-do gentleman in a three piece suit and derby, presumably Henry Roth himself. Irv had never had the pleasure of meeting Henry Roth(outside of his dreams), yet he couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of loathing for the man rising from within him at the site of his picture. Well, seeing another man’s face in the mirror will do that to you, Irv thought, and struggled to hold back a fit of giggling.

The host slid into his chair and brought the bottle down in the center of the table with a flat thud. Irv looked from the bottle down to the empty space in front of him to discover it wasn’t empty. A glass was neatly placed halfway between the bottle and himself, separated from the table’s lined wood surface by a fancy cloth doily. It hadn’t been there a second ago, but Irv dismissed this fact. Things had a way of moving themselves around the cabin while he wasn’t paying attention, and while he didn’t accept it as normal, repeated exposure to these events had a desensitizing effect on him. One evening a few weeks ago, he had been contemplating the increasing lack of shock he felt towards the abnormal and had had a disturbing yet profound thought: I guess, after enough time, the damned could get used to Hell. He shuttered at the recollection.

"Have a drink, Irving," the man said jovially. "I bet you’ve been looking forward to it." Irv’s first impulse was to pull the hatchet out of concealment and strike the grinning man, to cleave that smile from his face, to punish him for daring to insinuate that he enjoyed being here, doing what he was about to do. Before he could act on this emotion, however, it occurred to him that the man was right. Whether he had expected to need a dose from the bottle this evening or not, he had definitely been looking forward to it. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced, and he would be hard-pressed to describe it. The closest he had ever gotten to putting the feeling into words had been one night six or seven months ago, sleeping next to his young wife, Amelia, some time between one and two A.M. They had recently made love, and were nestled against one another, embraced by the aura of warmth created by their combined body heat. She had been deeply asleep, and he had thought he was, when a revelation came into his mind from nowhere, jolting him awake and forcing him to sit up before he spoke. "It feels like inhaling rainbows," he had said, and that had awakened her, asking him was he okay, what was wrong. He had dismissed the revelation as a nightmare(which it may very well have been) and told her to go back to sleep. She had checked on their then four month-old daughter, Corinne, before doing so, and then they both drifted off again. Amelia knew nothing about this business, not who he really was, not that her happiness was merely a side effect of his agreement, not any of it. That was how he preferred to keep it. If she knew the truth, the fact that she might divorce him was the least of his concerns. He feared it might actually drive her insane.

Grudgingly as usual, Irv reached for the bottle. As he picked it up by the neck, he saw something that almost made him drop it on the floor. Sitting in front of the grinning man, there was an empty glass. He never had drunk out of the bottle when Irv was there. Not once. The contents of the bottle was for him and him alone, the man had told him. It was one of the stipulations of the contract Irv had signed.

"What’s that for?" Irv said, his voice on edge. He set the bottle down to his right, leaving his view of the man and his empty glass unobscured.

"You ask too many questions, Irving," the man said tiredly, the grin leaving his face for the first time since he had met Irv at the door. "Don’t you want to drink?"

"Don’t bullshit me," Irv said, the beginnings of a snarl on his face. "I want to know what your glass is for."

The man sighed, glancing down as he did so. When his eyes met Irv’s again, they were emotionless. "Tonight, I drink with you."

Irv stared at the man for a moment, then his eyes moved to the bottle, which his right hand still grasped. There wasn’t much left. It had never before occurred to him that the bottle could run dry, but suddenly the idea became all too possible, and icy fear crept up his spinal column. His grip intensified around the bottle’s neck. "There’s not enough for both of us."

The grin returned to the man’s face long enough for a sharp bark of laughter to break his lips. "Don’t worry, you greedy old bum. There’s plenty there. Your eyes just aren’t in good enough shape to see it."

"You never drink. Why now?"

"I guess you could say I’m celebrating."

Irv’s eyes narrowed to slits as he glared at the man. "Celebrating? What does a shut-in of a demon like you have to celebrate?"

The man’s left hand, which had previously been under the table, moved into the light, and in it was a rectangular piece of paper, which the man unfolded to reveal a legal document. One of the things written on it which Irving could see clearly, even at a distance, was his own signature.

"Our contract is fulfilled tonight."

All of the bones in Irving’s back turned to jelly. He tried to fight the shiver, to maintain a confident air in the presence of this bastard, but was not entirely successful.

"Wh-what did you say?"

The man spoke, and as he did, he seemed to gain an unseen weight, a reality that dulled everything that surrounded him. Irv discovered he was unable to move. "The AGREEMENT," he began, speaking to Irv as if to a five-year-old child, "which YOU SIGNED, is FULLFILLED. Our BUSINESS is COMPLETE."

"How…how can it…how can the term be over already?" Irv said, numbness growing in his left hand and creeping up his arm. "I’ve only been coming here for…" How long had he been visiting the cabin? He couldn’t remember. The day before, he could have remembered the exact date when the strange man had walked up to him, a vagrant lying in cardboard, rags, and filth, and offered him a drink. The contract had come later. He could still picture the events of that day with almost perfect recall, but he’d be damned if he could remember when it had happened.

"Does it matter how long ago we began our business?" the man said calmly. "The point is, tonight it is done. I have provided everything which the contract required, have I not? You have youth, wealth, a family . . . I’ve been more than fair. All I ask is that you give me what is mine. If you aren’t agreeable to that… I guess I’ll have to take more aggressive measures." With this last sentence, his grip on the document tightened, and, at the places where his nails dug into the paper, little tendrils of smoke rose.

Irv’s mind felt like an abyss, and he was falling endlessly through the center of it, reaching out for anything he could grab and save himself, yet finding nothing. He found that his left hand, which had been numb and distant, was curling around the wooden handle of the hatchet. At this realization, hope rose in his heart. Could he fight his way out of this? Maybe, maybe not, but it was worth a t-

"Oh, BE REALISTIC!" the man said as he stood, Irv cowering at the volume and ferocity with which the man spoke. The handle of the hatchet was thick and strong, and Irv had possessed it since God knew when with no signs that it was near breaking, yet it snapped like a toothpick in his hand at the sound of the man’s voice. "Do you REALLY THINK I’d let you in here if I thought you could ever POSE a THREAT? You underestimate me."

Irv began desperately grabbing at straws, anything that would get him out of this. "My wife, my daughter… they’re not prepared for this! They won’t be able to-"

"Not my concern. Neither your wife nor your daughter signed the contract, so my business is not with them. It is with you."

"She’ll call the police!" Irv said. He was near hysterics at this point. "They’ll search for me when I don’t come home!"

"Well they won’t ever make the connection to me; the only people who know of our relationship are the people in this room right now. They could never find their way out here either. You’re able to only because I allow it." His eyes took on a condescending, don’t-think-you-can-fuck-with-me look. "You might say I like to keep my interests guarded. Besides, you won’t go missing, ‘Henry.’ You’ll be in your bed when your wife wakes up, just like you always are. You’ll just be a bit less energetic."

"Please!" Irv screamed, tears of rage and fear in his eyes. "I’LL DO ANYTHING!"

At this, the good-natured, if ill-fitting, smile returned to the man’s face, and he sat down again. "Ah, desperation," he said smugly. "Now there’s a quality I like in humans. It makes business so much easier to conduct." He glanced down at the contract he held, studying it for a second. "I can’t alter this document. It’s legal and binding. However, I’ve been in this business for a lot longer than you’d think. I like to leave myself loopholes for occasions such as this." He looked up at Irv. "And, despite what you might think, I like you, Irving. A part of me cheered when I happened upon you that day, when you were stinking of refuse and urine. Only someone in your position can truly appreciate the services I offer." At this point, his expression grew solemn. "But the fact of the matter is, the bottle must be refilled, and I must drink." Irv knew what he meant by this, had always known what their business had really been about, but he had buried it deep in his mind, because he didn’t like to think about it. The man continued. "Henry Roth was a good customer. He knew what I required of him in exchange for my services, never argued, and in the end, he went quietly. Surprised me a little, in fact. He was the first in a long time to do so. I never had to take extreme measures with him, and he didn’t weasel his way out of his responsibilities." A slight look of alarm(obviously forced) came into his eyes. "I’m not saying that I don’t understand your position. But I am requiring that you understand mine." Irv focused his attention at this; if a deal could be made, now was the time it would be available. "The bottle must be filled, and it must be done by midnight the day after tomorrow. That gives you a little over forty-eight hours. If, by that time, you bring me a replacement suitable to my needs, then our business may continue." His expression became stern. "However, if you try to cheat me and run, I’ll know. My reach is long, Irving. I can strike you dead where you sit at this very moment, or tomorrow when you’re on a plane to another country with your family. I will if I have to. But if you play nice, then perhaps we can avoid that."

Irv was silent for a long time. He thought for what might have been hours. When he spoke again, he spoke with the voice of a man who has been humbled.

"What do I have to do?"

"Ah, he is agreeable!" the man said cheerfully. He would have thought the man’s grin couldn’t get any bigger, but here he was proven wrong. The man stood up, and went to the cabinets by the kitchen sink. There was no hunting for bottles this time; the man knew what he wanted, and quickly got it. When he sat down, he handed Irv a small purple vial. "I will mark the one I need. Sometime between now and the deadline, you will encounter that person." His eyes darted to the vial. "Use that. A couple of drops will be sufficient. Slip it into their coffee, or something." Irv had the strangest notion that the man was trying to hold back laughter. He disregarded it, his eyes drawn by the vial. It was very ornately decorated, and seemed to have a hypnotic, pulsing glow coming from within. It was so damned… pretty. When Irv spoke again, he heard his voice coming from somewhere else than his own mouth.

"Will they…that person…feel it?"

The man shrugged. "Who can say? I have no way of knowing what they will encounter on the other side, except to say they will be taking your place, shouldering your responsibility, so it’s not likely to be pleasant. However, as far as physical sensations, there will be no pain. It will be like…like going to sleep." The man withdrew his watch again, and took a quick glance at it. "You’d better get moving if you don’t want your wife to be worried."

"Okay," Irv said absentmindedly, the light from the vial dancing in his pupils.

"Oh, and Irv, there’s one more thing."

"Wass’at?"

"Didn’t you come here for a drink?"

* * * *

Somewhere around one in the morning, a figure began walking out of the woods near the 71 extension outside of town. Nobody saw him approaching the highway, and that was fortunate. Had there been a witness, they would have noticed something decidedly odd about his appearance. From the edge of the highway, his clothes seemed to be moving around on his body. This image wouldn’t necessarily be at odds with the viewer’s logic; there was a light breeze blowing, which could have resulted in the motion. However, had that potential viewer been closer to this man, they probably would have rubbed their eyes or done a double-take; they almost certainly wouldn’t have believed what they saw. Not only were the man’s clothes moving, but his skin was, as well. There were only a few areas where this was still happening; most of the man’s appearance gave the impression that he was young, in his early thirties, with dark brown hair and wearing a casual suit complete with a power tie and a stylish-if-muddy pair of DKNY shoes. However, this image was not complete. Interspersed with his thick tuft of brown hair were little patches of gray. They were disappearing. Slowly color was creeping up from the hair follicles into the roots and ends. This was also happening with the wrinkles around his cheeks and eyes and the random patches of red flannel apparently sown into his suit; all the aberrations were slowly being replaced. The man did not seem to notice any of this; he walked along, whistling a tune, as if this absurdity was routine for him.

What happened next would have caused that potential viewer to schedule an appointment with his shrink. As the man reached the highway shoulder, he began to walk up the road a bit, towards a rusted-out wreck of a pickup truck. There was no telling what the vehicle’s original color may have been, the flaky brown rust dominated its surface. The axles were bare; if the truck had ever had tires, they had worn off or been stolen long ago. The man arrived at the truck’s driver side door and gripped the handle. Remarkably, it did not fall off in his grip. Even more remarkably, it worked; the door opened with an audible creak. When the man removed his hand so that he could get into the cab, the metal handle had begun to change shape, sliding in on itself and changing color, from brown to shiny chrome, then to black. Similar changes had begun to happen all over the vehicle; the dented hood gave birth to a decorative hood ornament, a crack in a side-view mirror regressed to leave the mirror’s surface unblemished, even the characters on the license plate were changing. All told, the transformation took more than ten minutes, the man waiting calmly and whistling. When it was complete, the man was not sitting behind the wheel of a rusty dinosaur, but a BMW luxury sedan. He closed the door, pulled the ignition key from the left front pocket of his slacks, and inserted it into the steering column. As luck would have it, the engine turned over.

* * * *

"Morning, sweetie!" Amelia Roth said, cheerfully wrapping her arms around her husband’s waist and surprising him while in the act of shaving. It startled him, and he very nearly nicked his cheek with the razor. He turned around and grabbed her in a loose headlock, grating the knuckles of his right fist on top of her head.

"What are you trying to do, make me slit my throat?" he said, starting to laugh. She was laughing as well by this point, and when she could get enough of a breath to do so, she feebly cried out "Uncle! Uncle!" At this, he released her, and they both stood there a moment, laughing and panting, before she shoved him.

"You big goober! Why’d you have to mess up my hair?" she said, attempting push a few random strands of hair back in place, and not doing such a great job.

"I never do anything because I have to," Henry said, as he embraced her and kissed her mouth. They both lingered in the kiss for a moment, and when she pulled away, her eyes looked hurt.

"Why did you sleep on the couch last night? I got up to get a drink of water around three, and when you weren’t there, I was worried."

"Got in late last night. The meeting went over, and afterwards me and a couple of the guys went out to grab some chow and discuss the proposal we have to make to the board next week."

"Yeah, and I’ll bet you discussed business all night." She curved her hand like a glass, tilted her head back and feigned the act of drinking.

"Well, we may have had a few," he said smiling. It gave him the creeps, her being that close to the truth. I don’t want to think about that right now, spoke a small voice in his head. In a couple of days, I won’t ever have to think about that again. "The point is, it was late when I got home. Didn’t want to wake you."

She gave him a sly look. "Like it’s such a pain waking up to you. I kind of wish you had come upstairs." She reached over, slid her hand beneath his towel and touched him where few other women had. "We might have gotten up to some trouble."

"Heyyy!" he said, grinning. "Later! I gotta get ready for work!"

She sighed, but kept smiling. "Don’t we all." She kissed him again, this time a quick peck on the cheek. "Love you."

"Back atcha with interest."

Then she turned around and was gone, off to prepare for her own busy day; she taught fifth graders at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School. He watched her go. God, how he loved her. Never in the farthest reaches of his imagination did he think that he would be blessed with someone like her. He didn’t deserve her; he knew that. And to think, he never would have even met her if… if he hadn’t…

* * * *

He was sitting at the dining room table, reviewing some notes he had made yesterday before he had suddenly had to go…run an errand. He had gotten a bit behind because of that unpleasantness, so he had set aside most of the morning for catching up. A half-eaten bagel with apricot jam and a lukewarm cup of coffee sat to his left, forgotten, as he poured his mind over the properties of the Wilkenson account. He hadn’t totally lied to Amelia; he did have a big proposal to give next week, but he had missed the preparatory meeting with his coworkers yesterday, and was reviewing their planned strategy in hopes that he would catch as little hell as possible.

All of a sudden Amelia burst in from the kitchen, her arms gripped around a coat, a purse, and a business satchel with papers sticking out, the most visible of which displayed a B minus circled in red ink. Already out of breath, she began to speak in a torrent, her words running together.

Hey, sweetie, could you feed Cory, I’ve got her bottle heating in a saucepan on the stove, I’m gonna be late for my first period, and I’ve already been bitched out once this week by that hag vice principal, Cheryl, my first class is such a bunch of little brats, I can’t get written up again this semester, Rose will be here in forty-five minutes, you don’t care, do you? Okay, see-you-this-evening-love-you-BYE!" She slammed the door, and he sat in the silence that followed the echo, bewildered by her actions.

"Well, shit," he said finally, and got out of his chair. It looked like he was gonna have to get a tongue lashing after all. Maybe he could talk the company president, Mr. Bitterman, into giving him and his partners an extension on the proposal. Maybe not.

He walked into the kitchen, got the bottle of formula from the stove, tested it, and headed to Corrine’s room. As he went through the doorway, he heard the usual gurgles and giggles that accompanied her wakefulness. She was gonna be a handful for Rose today, no doubt. She kept Cory in a playpen in the kitchen while she cooked the evening meal, and Cory’s favorite habit these days was to try and see what decorations she could get off of the bookshelf and into her mouth. As he leaned over the crib, she blew a large spit bubble at him, her usual greeting.

"Well, hello to you too, you big bean bag," he said, and lifted her up to his shoulder. He walked out to the foyer, and sat down in the big rocking chair Amelia’s uncle had given them as a wedding present. This was his favorite place to feed his daughter, and he found that the rocking motion soothed her, and helped keep her from getting an upset stomach. As usual, about halfway through the bottle, she started to jerk her head from side to side and moan, as if the prospect of food no longer interested her.

"C’mon, I don’t have all day, apple core!" She didn’t seem to agree with him, and kept jerking her head left and right. As she did this, movement from behind her left ear caused him to turn lean her head to one side and have a look. He thought it might have been a gnat; he had found several of them buzzing around the light fixture in the hallway, and if this was one, he was going to get it. What he found was no gnat. It was a small, fresh scab, smaller than a dime, on the soft flesh of her neck. He had just long enough to think, Good God, girl, what have you been getting into? before he noticed what the scab was. It consisted of two lines, one straight and even, one curved. A lower case d.

At that moment, time slowed to a crawl and then stopped. He could feel his heartbeat in his chest, could hear it, and realized there were two rhythms, not one. There were two of them, one big one and one little one, and the little one was Cory’s, oh God, the little one is Cory’s, bump, bump, bump, d, d, d, death, death, oh God no, she’s been marked, she’s been marked for death, I can’t, please, I can’t do that, anything but that, I’ll go, I swear I’ll go quietly, just like Roth, I’ll come back out there, and our business will be done, and they’ll find me dead, but she’ll be alive, she’ll be alive, oh sweet Jesus don’t make me…

If he had kept thinking in this circle, one of two things would have happened: he would have had a heart attack, or he would have lost his mind. Either option would have been better than what happened.

What did happen is that Henry Roth, formerly Irving Cunningham, felt a third rhythm, pulsing along with his and Cory’s heartbeats. This new rhythm was slower, though, and he found it was remarkably easy to imitate. His pulse had slowed almost to normal by the time he figured out where it was coming from. He reached in his left pocket and pulled out the small purple vial he had all but forgotten. It was pulsing, and this time with much more force and a much brighter light. He became lost in its light; it enveloped his mind in soft and comforting yet commanding thoughts. She won’t feel a thing. The cops will never know. Amelia will never know. And… our business will continue.

Cory began flailing her arms around loosely; he noticed this as if he was in a dream. He knew what her motions meant, though. She was still hungry. She wanted to drink again. No, he thought, he wants to drink again. And our contract…is fulfilled.

Years later, when all the buried memories of this time in his life resurfaced, he tried to convince himself that he had hesitated.

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