Feature Writer: RockStarGod
Feature Title: THE DEVIL’S DUE 1
Published: 21.11.2022
Story Codes: Erotic Horror
Synopsis: A beaten man is confronted by a demonic benefactor
Author’s Notes: Greetings! I hope you enjoy my latest offering. There’s no sex in this opening chapter, just implied sex. I will make sure there’s more sexiness and debauchery in the next installment. As always, comments with constructive criticism are welcome, but vulgarity and abuse will be deleted with no warning. Enjoy!
The Devil’s Due 1
As he laid on the dirt hardpan, thoughts began to swirl in his mind- questioning thoughts bounced back and forth. And one certainty: I’m dying. Partial clarity flittered back to him, and he saw through squinting eyes that he was sprawled on what appeared to be a desert surface, baked mercilessly by the ever-present blazing sun. His mouth tasted of the grit constantly swirling about him, mixed even with the copperish taste of his own blood. He struggled to get to his knees then collapsed again on the sandy scorched earth, clutching his right side as if someone had slipped a knife between his ribs.
Someone kicked me, his mind barked as he lay on the ground, the sweat beginning to pour from his brow from a combination of pain and climate. He gingerly rolled on to his back and yelped once from the resurgence of pain in his torso. His eyes slammed shut at the glaring of the intense sunlight and he raised his left hand to shield the rays. Looking to his left, he saw the outline of mountains- massive mountains! It was then he realized that he was far from home. He mused that the only mountains in Michigan, if they could truly be called mountains, were the Porcupine Mountains. But those were over five hundred miles northwest of where he lived in Gravel City. No, these mountains, combined with the arid atmosphere, (Hot!) made him reason that he was quite a distance from his home state.
Events of the past came flooding back to him as he once more struggled to his knees, this time completing the miniscule journey with a slight scream as his side once again let him know he was not uninjured. Someone kicked me, he repeated in his mind as he sucked in air and more grit into lungs that felt like they were running at half capacity. Sweat from his brow spattered on the inhospitable surface in tiny droplets and quickly evaporated in the roasting heat. He put a hand to his head to wipe the moisture away and felt a series of lumps and contusions, one in particular that caused his hair and scalp to fold back. Blood covered his fingertips when he pulled his hand away from the gaping wound.
It was Erickson! He stated in his head as more memories came to him. He could remember the last day he saw home. It was Sunday afternoon, the Lions had just lost (again!), and he was walking to his car to get… something. There was something he was going to get from… (the store?) He could not remember what it was he was going to buy, but he did remember the sharp pain on the back of his head as he fell into the driver’s side door of his GMC Terrain. He had placed his hand on the door to steady himself and remembered a black cowboy boot slamming down on the back of his palm causing him to fall to the cement driveway. That was when he felt the kick to his right side and a sharp prick to the back of his neck. Then… nothing…blackness… until he regained consciousness a few minutes ago in his new barren surroundings.
The sounds of the desert plain began to creep into his ears. The wind, as infinitesimal as it was, whistled slightly as it crossed the hardscrabble, every so often gusting enough to create a tiny whirling dust devil. A noise in the not too far distance alerted him to another creature. He assumed it was the rattle of a Western Diamondback, then confirmed the creature’s existence as he spotted the lengthy reptile no less than twenty yards from his position. He endeavored to get to his feet and get moving before an encounter with the venomous serpent. He reasoned that a bite from the rattlesnake would certainly finish him off in his current state.
More pain cascaded through his body as he finally stood up from the sizzling ground and stood upright. Holding his injured side, he took in the landscape around him. He thought it would be quite beautiful under different circumstances. The sightline looked to him like a landscape painting as the mountains carved a purple and tan outline in the horizon. He spared himself one more second of gazing before shuffling his feet aimlessly across the desert floor in search of help. He was sure his attackers had assumed he was dead and left his corpse to be picked over by scavenging buzzards and other scant life forms.
The sun was directly overhead and was of no use to him trying to get his bearings on a general direction. He looked again to his right to keep a wary eye on the rattlesnake and saw that the slithering serpent had left its spot, but he could still hear the incessant rattle, now seemingly closer to him. When he turned his head back forward, he saw the offending animal not three steps in front of him, coiled and poised to strike. Fear washed over him as he tried to slowly back away from the deadly reptile, but with every step back he took, the snake uncoiled and matched his backward progress to keep pace with him.
He took a few more steps back and watched as the serpent moved with him, as if stalking him for the inevitable kill. He took two more steps backward then felt his heel hit something behind him. He tripped and landed hard on his buttocks, sending more sharp pains through his ribcage and he now coughed up a generous amount of blood. His eyes slammed shut for a moment and when he opened them to slits again, he saw the snake at his feet, its rattle waving in a blur behind its coiled legless body.
Just do it… he thought as he closed his eyes again, waiting for the inevitable puncture in his skin that would deliver the viper’s toxic serum. He waited for what seemed like an eternity for the unwanted injection into his body, but still nothing came. As he prepared to open his eyes, expecting to see the snake’s vertical pupils peering into his own dilated blackness, he felt the sun’s rays on his face instantly cease and a coldness wash over him. Here it comes, he thought. Death.
He opened his eyes and saw a full moon nestled in a black sky with more stars than he had ever seen. The Milky Way was in full prominence, and he could even make out a faint nebula whose name escaped his overwrought brain. The snake had disappeared, in its place was a man. A man! He was dark skinned, as black as the immediate night sky minus the stars, and his white teeth sparkled in the moonlight as he smiled at the amazed form looking up at him. The man was dressed to the nines in a white tuxedo, complete with a black shirt, red bowtie and white bowler with a band that matched his tie’s shade. A blood-red carnation poked from the pocket of the man’s jacket, and he crooked his neck down to give the flower a quick sniff. A single petal fell from the carnation’s bloom as the man’s nose touched it and it fell silently to the cracked desert ground.
“W-where’s the snake?” he said to the tuxedoed man, amazed at the hoarseness of his own voice.
The well-dressed man laughed as though he had never heard anything so funny in his life then answered the question posed to him.
“Snake? Ain’t no snakes around here, son. Looks like just you and me, kid!”
“Who’re you” he asked the figure standing before his crumpled body. “What’s your name?”
“Puddentane! Ask me again and I’ll tell you the same!” the well-dressed man exclaimed and laughed loudly again, his bellows echoing around them both.
He did not care for the suited man’s joke, only addressed him as he had been told, “Puddentane, can you help me?”
The man in the tuxedo bellowed laughter once more then replied, “Oh, kid. You make me laugh. Name’s Phineas.” The man in the suit then reached into his jacket and produced a large bottle of water and took a long draught. “Can’t be wanderin’ around out here without some of this, right? Say, you need a drink, son?” He handed the bottle to the beaten man on the ground, and he drained it in three long gulps.
“Easy there, son,” Phineas said as the man sucked down the life-sustaining water, “you gon’ puke it back up if you’re not careful.”
He struggled to keep the cool water from climbing back up his throat and gagged once but kept the fluids in him. He laid back on the hard desert floor and croaked out his question again, this time using the moniker the man had related to him.
“Phineas, can you help me?”
“Why, didn’t I just do that?” Phineas replied with a question of his own. He smiled once again then spoke once more. “Sure, I can help you, Sam. After all, that’s why I’m here!”
“How… how do you know my name?” he asked puzzled as he struggled once again to sit up. “I… I know you…”
“Well, sure you do! And I know lots of things, Sam,” Phineas answered with another toothy smile. “And I can help you. But let’s talk for a minute or two. I think you’ll want to hear what I have to say.”
++++++++++
“Sam, you know you’re not going to win this one,” the stunning redhead that he had been married to for thirteen years said sharply. Veronica never failed to stir his animal cravings, even now while she stood in the kitchen making her impossible demand. “I’m going to do what I want, when I want, and with WHO I want, got it?!”
“Yeah, I get it, “Sam said devoid of emotion. “You want to have your cake and fuck it too, is that the main point of this conversation?”
“Don’t be so vulgar, Sam,” Veronica retorted, as if she were completely faultless. “This is what it is. I am not leaving you. And I do still love you, in some strange way. But I need some attention, some action. And you don’t seem to be willing to give me either one. So, Johnny stepped up!”
“And just how long has ‘Johnny’ been ‘stepping you up’?!” Sam asked, suddenly annoyed, and enraged at his wife’s admission.
“Oh, Sam,” Veronica laughed as she answered, “you know the answer to that. You already know he and I have been sleeping together for almost a year now. Ever since your little… breakdown.” Her voice inflected up at the last word, showing disdain for her husband’s recent psychological episode.
Sam winced at her cavalier attitude toward her infidelity and her mocking attitude at his recent mental issues. His anxiety had finally caught up with him after thirty-four years of squashing his fears and cramming them down into a dark place that he thought the demons would never rise from again. But they did rise, and with a vengeance! After a particularly difficult day at work where he managed an auto parts manufacturing plant, Sam’s internal demons reached up to the light side and dragged him down to their level. He sat in his office crying for twenty minutes before his secretary, Jeanette, called both Sam’s wife and the local hospital after Sam told her he could not walk to his car to drive home.
“So much for ‘For better or for worse’ then, huh, Ronnie?!” Sam spat at his spouse, exacting a little revenge, and using the nickname that he knew would set her off.
“Don’t call me that!” Veronica screamed and moved to slap her husband’s face. Sam caught Veronica’s arm in mid-swing and pushed her back firmly so that she bumped her back and shapely ass into the front chrome facade of the built-in dishwasher. A shocked look appeared on her face as she realized that her husband had gotten physical with her for the first time in their marriage.
“You bastard!” Veronica shouted at the top of her lungs. “You’re gonna regret that!”
“Self-defense. Ronnie.” Sam said as calmly and coolly as he could while his wife stared back at him with rage blazing in her green eyes.
Veronica steadied herself after the bump into the kitchen appliance and smoothed her short red dress with her hands. She tugged at the hem of the garment so that the tops of her black stockings no longer showed. She repeated her earlier threat, “You are gonna regret that, mister.
“What are you going to do, Veronica? Leave me?” Sam asked sarcastically. “Seems to me that you’ve already checked out, darling.”
Veronica let a sly grin creep across her painted mouth. “Oh, I’m going to do more than leave you, bub. I’m gonna take everything you have and leave you twisting in the freezing wind. And I’ll tell you another thing, Sam- you’d better grow eyes in the back of your head.
“Are you threatening me, Veronica?” Sam questioned the beauty walking away from him on four-inch heels. She responded without turning back around to face him.
“I’m not the one threatening you, little man. Not me…”
“What? No kiss goodbye?!” Sam said as he watched her walk seductively through the kitchen of their modest home and through the front door exiting the house, her curvy hips swaying back and forth as if they were bumping into invisible walls in a narrow hallway.
Sam couldn’t help but watch her sexy backside bounce as she strode through the front door of what used to be their untroubled home. He cried no tears but, as was his modus operandi, internalized his grief, and pondered Veronica’s cryptic threat as he heard the roar of the powerful engine of his wife’s German sports car and the squealing of its tires on the white concrete of the home’s driveway. Sam had never felt so utterly alone and had no idea where this turn of events would take his life. They would, indeed, take him somewhere that he never thought imaginable.
++++++++++
Two days later, Veronica tottered back into the home she had shared with Sam for over twelve years. She was dressed the same as when she had left, only drastically more disheveled. Her hair, normally stylishly coifed, was a rat’s nest of orange-red straw. Her red dress remained but was wrinkled, as if it had just been drawn out of the hamper and had suspect stains near the bosom line that marked the adulterous actions of the previous weekend. Veronica wore no shoes, only carried the black stilettos by their backstraps tandem in her left hand. Her black stockings remained on her chiseled legs, both nylons had numerous tears and holes with more stains announcing her infidelitous forty-eight hours away.
Sam saw his rumpled and used wife walk into the living room of the home and nearly lost the salami sub and two hazy IPAs he had for lunch. He jumped from his seat on the couch and ran to the kitchen sink to splash some cool water on his face and take a quick slake to keep his midday meal from coming back on him. Sam stayed bent over the sink until he felt that his stomach would not turn again then turned to face his wayward wife.
“You disgust me,” Sam said to his obviously well-used bride. “You look like Hell, and you smell like alcohol and sex. Are you drunk?”
“Maybe a little…” Veronica replied as she teetered on her heels. “Why? You want a little piece of this? There may be some left after Johnny and the others had their fill.” She cackled as only a drunk would laugh and placed a hand on her hip trying to elicit an emotional response from her cuckolded husband.
“Veronica, you make me sick,” Sam responded to her proposal. “I wouldn’t touch you again if you paid me. Just get the hell out of here. We are done!”
“I’m not going anywhere, Lover boy…” Veronica slurrily answered Sam’s demand. “If anyone is going, it’s you. This is my house too, y’know.”
Sam walked toward the front door and grabbed his jacket off the hook. He fished his car keys out of his pocket then reached for the doorknob. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. If you’re still here, then I’m going to stuff your clothes in a garbage bag then stuff YOU in a cab. I do not care where you go after that, but you are not staying here. You brought this on yourself, Ronnie. I’m not to blame here.”
“Remember what I said on Friday, Sammy,” Veronica spoke with an inebriated accent as she grabbed for Sam’s hand on the knob. “Better have your eyes open…”
“Whatever,” Sam replied as he shook his wife’s hand away and opened the front door, “like I said, fifteen minutes. Do not be here, Ronnie or I will take you out of here myself.” He swiftly closed the door and made his way to his SUV. It was a brisk late autumn evening in central Michigan and the sun was setting quickly in the West. Shadows were non-existent, and Sam looked up when he realized the motion sensor light over his garage did not snap on when he crossed the beam’s path. Why didn’t that… was all he thought before the sharp blow to the base of his skull knocked him to his knees on the cold concrete driveway.
Sam placed his hand on his SUV in the driveway and immediately felt the heel of a boot smash into it. He dropped his hand from the vehicle and tried to scream in pain and for help, but a swift kick to his ribs took the wind out of his plea for help. As he tried to suck in a breath, intense pain radiated from his side where the boot had connected with bone. Punctured lung came to his mind as more blows rained down on him from unknown assailants. Sam tried to cover up the best he could to mitigate any more injuries, but the assailants did not let up until a voice, familiar at best, wafted through his buzzing ears.
“She told you, Sammy!” the voice said, hot breath flowing onto Sam’s ear as he spoke. Two quick blows to the left side of his head preceded another kick to his injured ribs which confirmed both the broken ribs and the punctured lung as Sam coughed up a copious amount of blood through his mouth and nose. He faintly felt the needle jab into the back of his neck as the sedative was plunged into his bloodstream. The voice spoke again but seemed much farther away this time and faded before he heard its conclusion.
“You should have gotten out of the way, buddy. Now you’re…” Sam lost consciousness before he heard the voice finish its statement. But he would later recall, through incredible and horrifying means, that the last two words were, “buzzard meat.” His limp and battered body was carried to an inconspicuous grey van and thrown ungently into the back to stay there for the eighteen-hour journey to his would-be desert grave. Sam began to regain consciousness once during the trip and his eyes briefly fluttered open, but all he saw was a brief glimpse metal of the inside of the van’s roof before another injection of tranquilizer knocked him out for the remainder of the trek to the scorching desert out West.
++++++++++
“Talk to me, Sammy boy! What you doin’ out here in this terrible place all alone?” Phineas said as he stood above Sam’s slumped form. The stranger’s face and voice, as much as he could make out through his blurred vision, reminded Sam of Scatman Crothers, the old TV and movie character, but not as cherubic and warming. Phineas took another long sniff of his breast-pocket carnation as he waited for Sam to answer his question.
“Right now, Phineas,” Sam replied as he crouched on his hands and knees on the baked desert floor gasping for air through his wounded lung, “it kind of feels like I’m dying.”
This elicited a roar of laughter from the well-dressed unknown. Phineas nearly doubled over like he had never heard anything so funny before. “Boy, ain’t that the truth?! You. Are. In. Sad. Shape, son!
“Phineas,” Sam said as he struggled to look up at his new acquaintance, “I don’t mean to seem ungrateful… but I could really use some more help, other than the water… And I’m willing to do anything to pay you back if…”
“Oh, you won’t owe ME anything, my boy,” Phineas interrupted the ailing man on the scorched dirt. “But there will be a price to pay, at some point down the road. Now, what exactly would you like from me, Sam-You-Am?”
“I could really use some medical attention before I die out here,” Sam wheezed in reply to Phineas’ question. “I’m not a doctor, but I think I have some broken ribs, a punctured lung, and some internal bleeding. Not to mention I’m quite sure I was heavily drugged for the past two days.”
“You want me to fix you up?” Phineas asked then posed another query before Sam could reply. “Is that all? Well, sure, Sammy boy!” The ivory tuxedo-clad stranger did not wave his hand, nor did he snap his fingers. He merely blinked once. At the shuttering of his eyelids, Sam realized he was off his hands and knees and standing before his benefactor pain-free and seemingly no worse for wear from his time in the desert.
“How… how did you do that?!” Sam exclaimed as he checked himself over: No excruciating pain in his right side, no blood from his nose or mouth, and no disheveled hair or clothes battered from the wind and sand. He took a deep breath and felt no stabbing pain. He looked and felt exactly as he had before his attack in the driveway two days before.
Phineas put a hand to the side of his face as if he were telling Sam a big secret and said quietly, “If I told you, then I’d have to kill you…” The dark-skinned visitor then laughed again as if he had told the original joke. When he finished guffawing, Phineas looked Sam up and down as if sizing him up. “You look better, Sammy. But you’re a little underdressed for the meeting.” With a second noticeable blink from his new savior, Sam found himself dressed nearly the antithesis of Phineas in a black suit and shoes with white shirt and blue bow tie, but sans bowler on his head.
Sam, with a hand still at his previously injured right side, marveled at his newly acquired threads yet puzzled at Phineas’ statement. “Meeting? Who’re we going to meet?”
“Why, the One, of course,” Phineas answered as if Sam should know what he meant all along. “The one who will put it all right for you. He has the power to give you what you really want. You DO know what you want, don’t you, Sam?”
“What do I really want, Phineas?” Sam asked, even more puzzled than before.
“Revenge, of course,” Phineas responded. “You know what they say about revenge, Sammy? That it is a dish best served cold. But I prefer a hot meal before a hot time in the old town. You hungry?”
Sam had not thought about it, but at the notion of a meal, his stomach quickly knotted, and pangs tore at him. “Famished,” he answered.
“Let’s get some food in you before I take you to the meeting,” Phineas said as he placed an arm around Sam’s shoulder. “Things always seem better after a good meal, don’t you think?”
++++++++++
Sam Bailey’s early existence was not what the average person would call ideal. His family was not well-to-do, most would describe it as dirt poor. Sam and his family, mother, father along with two older sisters, lived in an older clapboard farmhouse that created whistles through rotted cracks when the wind picked up. The house was situated on a couple of acres of land that, despite his mother’s constant tending, produced few fresh vegetables from a withered garden. Sam’s father worked at the local sawmill ten hours a day, six days a week for little pay in horrible conditions. Dutton Bailey would sneak scraps of lumber home into his old pickup truck to try to patch the gaps in the family home so that rain and snow would stay outside where it belonged.
Dutton worked odd jobs around the sparse neighborhood and nearby town of Gravel City to compensate for what he didn’t earn at his full-time job. It also gave him an excuse to not come home until late most nights. Dutton may have had a family waiting for him at the uninsulated house twelve miles out of the city limits, but he would rather stay away as long as possible, most nights drinking cheap whiskey at an edge-of-town bar or in the cab of his truck, his scabbed and battered hands wrapped around a pint of rotgut. Dutton Bailey never physically abused his wife and children, but the emotional scars of his negligence were evident.
Sam Bailey was the only member of his family to pass the eleventh grade in high school. His father left school midway through his eighth school year due to lack of interest and his mother quit as a first-year student to work on her uncle’s farm to help make ends meet with her parents. Both of Sam’s sisters decided that ten years of organized education was enough for them also and set out to work in greasy spoon diners serving undercooked meals and hole-in-the-wall taverns slinging watered down drinks. Sam had three things going for him to keep him in school: intelligence, determination, and a strong right leg that helped land him on the varsity football team as both placekicker and punter.
Sam’s aforementioned determination helped him land and keep his starting position on the team. He was not the biggest player, but he kept at his craft and stayed late after practice kicking field goals and extra points until he was barely able to walk. Sam was also determined to keep his starting status on the team despite both lack of interest from his parents and suitable means of transportation by working jobs so that he could afford to buy and fix up a 1985 Chevy Monte Carlo so that he didn’t have to bum rides from teammates or miss practice altogether. It was not the prettiest auto in the high school parking lot, but Sam made sure it purred like a kitten with regular oil changes and tune-ups.
In the second to last game of his senior season, the Gravel City Raiders found themselves down by five points to their rivals, perennial powerhouse Brockton Bees. The Bees’ star quarterback, Jesse Ocuna, was heavily recruited by top-tier universities and would ultimately go on to play for the University of Texas then as a journeyman backup in the NFL and CFL.
But on this day, he only had one thing on his mind: beating the team from the school that lay twenty-four miles west on State Road 64. Both teams were 8-0 and the winner of the contest would be a lock for the Michigan High School Athletic Association divisional playoffs as a number one seed.
Gravel City found themselves with a third and seven at Brockton’s forty-seven-yard line with only four and a half minutes left in the fourth quarter. The Raiders QB, Erik Decker, dropped back to pass and was immediately sacked by a blitzing Brockton linebacker. Fourth down was announced over the public address system and Sam grabbed his helmet, fastening his chinstrap around the bottom of his face. As he began his trot on to the playing field, the Gravel City special teams coach stopped him on the sideline.
“Bailey,” the young coach said into the earhole of Sam’s helmet, “we’re going to fake it. Pass to Landry on the right edge but only after he gets past the first down marker. Think you can do that?”
Sam said nothing, only smiled through his facemask and nodded slightly so that the other team wouldn’t be tipped off to the treachery. Sam was also GC’s emergency quarterback and he had taken both reps at QB in practice and had gone over this play numerous times. Sam trotted to midfield to join his teammates and let them in on the trick play.
“Don’t fuck this up like you did that shank last week, Rusty!” leviathan offensive tackle and all-around jerk Joe Farly spit out in the huddle when Sam announced the play. Sam had earned the unceremonious nickname of Rusty after Farly, and other not-so-nice teammates saw him getting into his oxidizing car one night after practice.
Sam grabbed Farly by the facemask and brought him nose-to-nose, “Just keep those rushers off my back for three seconds, fat ass! If I get taken down because of you, we’re gonna lose and I’m gonna slam my Size 11 cleat up your giant can! Now let’s do this!”
Sam released Farly’s face protector with a slight jerk downward then broke the huddle into formation. When the center snapped the ball, Sam went through his normal motions of punting the ball then sprinted three yards right to get in the clear to make the pass. The home crowd roared as he looked downfield to find Landry, Sam realized that the trick play had not fooled Brockton and his intended target was covered by two yellow and black clad defenders. It was too late for Sam to punt. He reversed his field and saw nothing but open yardage between him and the goal line for the score.
Sam jetted as fast as he could to the left sideline and cruised down the field, picking up the much-needed first down but he did not stop at the marker. Sam could smell the end zone and sprinted toward the white goal line. The crowd went wild as Sam ran over the hashmarks on the edge of the field, a shoo-in for the touchdown. A speedy defensive back was bearing down on him, but Sam had three steps on him. Sam took a quick glance at the DB then looked over to the sideline at his teammates and the cheerleaders shaking their pom poms in anticipation of his score.
Sam smiled as he focused his eyes back to the end zone in front of him then slipped backwards at the sight before him. A black man in a white suit and hat was on the field no more than two yards in front of him, and he was smiling at him. The black man took a sniff of a flower in his lapel buttonhole then looked straight at Sam and spoke.
“That quick boy behind you is comin,’ son,” the mystery man said. “Better get movin’.”
Sam dug his heel into the turf to slow his progress so that he wouldn’t slam into the stranger then fell backward at the six-yard line, the first down made but the score eighteen feet in front of him. The crowd collectively groaned as Sam fell to the grassy playing field. He heard the footsteps of the defender behind him and the referee’s whistle blow ending the play. The Brockton defender ran up behind Sam and slapped the back of his helmet. “Nice move, kicker-boy! You see a ghost?”
Sam looked around while still seated on the ground. He saw no black man in a white suit on the field or anywhere in the stadium for that matter. He saw nothing but exasperated fans with their hands in the air wondering what they had just witnessed. “I think I did,” he said to his opponent then got to his feet and trotted to the bench to hang his head. Both the special teams coach and head coach came to where he was sitting alone.
“Bailey!” the head coach screamed, “What the hell was that?! You looked like you hit a brick wall out there!”
“Sorry, coach,” Sam sheepishly replied. “I slipped… I got the first down…” He waited, cringing in anticipation of the coach’s response.
“I suppose you did,” the coach answered, surprising Sam. “It was a good run for a kicker.” Coach put his hand on Sam’s right shoulder pad, “Don’t worry, Sam. We’ll get this one for you…”
Both coaches went back to the action on the field and left Sam sitting on the bench. He saw no more action that night other than an extra point after GC scored on the next play after his run. The Gravel City Raiders beat the Brockton Bees that night 29-27 after GC intercepted a pass in the end zone on Brockton’s final play of the game. Gravel City lost in the divisional playoffs three weeks later, effectively ending Sam’s football career. Although he was the number one punter in the league and ranked number seven in the state, he was not recruited by any universities and graduated with no plans for his future.
Sam had fond memories of his playing days in high school but the memory of the apparition he saw on the second to last regular season game of his senior year haunted him daily. Now, sitting across from the very apparition that stopped him from scoring a touchdown that night, Sam Bailey suddenly believed. He believed in ghosts, demons, Heaven, and Hell. And he believed this man could help him get his revenge on those that had tried to kill him.
++++++++++
“So, why did you appear to me that night on the football field?” Sam asked his benefactor between bites of his second medium-rare steak. Sam finished his first plate then realized he had not eaten in nearly three days and ordered another meal.
“I’ve always been with you, Sammy,” Phineas replied as he sat across from the man he saved from the desert, an uneaten basket of French fries sitting on the table in front of him. The duo neither walked nor drove to the diner where they now sat in a booth with a chrome-trimmed table. Phineas merely blinked once more, and they both were standing outside the roadside restaurant named Dooley’s. “I have appeared to you many times before. The football game is the only one you remember. I’ve been watching you a long time, Sam.”
“But, why?” Sam queried to Phineas. “Why me? Can you see the future? Did you know this was going to happen to me?”
“I can see lots of things,” the powerful being answered. “The past, the future, things that will happen, things that may happen…” With that, Phineas laid his palms out and conjured visions in the air above them. Visions of pain, worldwide war and famine, humanity’s despair, and downfall. Sam closed his eyes and turned his head away from the visions before he spoke again.
“All this will happen because of me?” Sam asked on the verge of tears and suddenly not hungry. He pushed his plate away.
“No,” Phineas responded, “these are things that MAY happen. Events are always in flux, Sam. The choices we make today have consequences for tomorrow. I know what WILL happen if you decide to refuse. Some of the things I just showed you MAY happen if you refuse. This is bigger than your revenge on your wife and those big fuckers that hurt you, Sam. Much bigger. My boss is not the most pleasant being to be around, but she knows when things have gone too far. That is why you need to come with me and see her.”
“Wait,” Sam interjected, “I thought you referred to your boss as ‘He’ earlier. Now it’s ‘She.’ Which one is it?”
“It’s whatever it wants to be, Sam,” Phineas answered, “So don’t be surprised with what you may see. If you are finished with your second steak, then we can go now.”
The nausea in Sam’s stomach caused by the visions had subsided but he still felt that he could eat no more of his meal. “Yes, I’ve had enough. And I am as ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose.”
“Good,” Phineas said, drawing his reply out. Again, there was no wave of his ebony hand, no snap of his fingers, merely a blink of his eyes transported the two back to the desert, but not to the same locale where they had met. This area was more mountainous, and Sam found himself standing before a tall escarpment, a tower of stone that jetted upward into the night clouds.
“Where are we?” Sam asked. “This doesn’t look like any mountain I’ve ever seen. At least not in North America anyway.”
“It’s a barrier…” Phineas responded, “And a gateway…” At his words, a cave opening appeared at the foot of the enormous rock structure and an instant heat spewed from the aperture.
“Is… Is this the gateway to Hell?” Sam hesitantly asked Phineas.
“Sooooo… You are finally catching on!” Phineas exclaimed then laughed as if he had heard the best joke ever. “I’m glad we’re on the same page now, Sammy Boy!”
“Well, it’s my hallucination so I suppose we should be in agreement.”
Phineas produced an annoyed look on his face, “You still don’t get, do ya, boy!” He bent down to pick up a dried-out tree branch at his feet. At the touch of his hand, the stick contorted then writhed, changing into the very rattlesnake that Sam had encountered before the dark man appeared to him.
“Do you believe in God, Sam?” Phineas asked as he held the serpent in one hand and stroked its scaly hide with his other. “Because if you do,” he continued not waiting for Sam’s reply, “then you must believe in the other side, the side that Mankind proposes to resist but, more often than not, gravitates toward. We all want, Sam. Our desires drive us. Drive us to make more money, to have the things we want- a house, a car, a woman- all that we desire. Revenge can be that desire also, Sam. But God does not answer those prayers. He is not concerned with what we want, only what we believe.”
Phineas took a step closer to Sam then held the snake out to him. “Do you believe that this little fella will sink his teeth into you and put his poison in your veins if I move another step closer to you? Does it seem like a hallucination now? Do you think God will stop this beast from killing you?”
Sam’s eyes went wide as the venomous reptile hissed and lunged slightly at him, its needle-like fangs gleaming in the shining moonlight. Sam took a step back. “Yes, I’d say I believe that very thing, Phineas.”
Phineas smiled then set the rattler back on the ground. In an instant, the serpent changed back into the branch it had been before Sam’s companion had touched it.
“Very well then,” Phineas said as he brushed the dirt off his hands the motioned toward the cave. “After you…”
Sam said nothing, only entered the hollow with Phineas close behind him. The cave’s darkness quickly illuminated after a few steps inside and Sam saw that he and his new companion were travelling down a stone ramp that looked to have been cut out easily with a sharp knife. Sam touched the side of the trail and felt warmth and smoothness on the rock wall. To get to their destination, Sam thought, they would have to travel thousands of miles beneath the Earth’s surface. Less than ten minutes into their journey, Sam spied a door, emblazoned in red with a 24K gold knob and knocker. He turned to Phineas and spoke.
“What? No sign hanging over the door? No ‘Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here’?”
“There’s lots of hope here, Sam,” Phineas responded as he stepped in front of Sam and produced a key, golden as the door’s accessories, and slipped it into the slot. “But hope is not free here. Just like back home. There is always a price to pay. I’ll let someone else explain that to you.”
Phineas turned the key and twisted the gleaming gold knob. The crimson door opened effortlessly on silent hinges, and the white tuxedo-clad creature walked over the threshold into a larger stone opening. Sam followed him in and saw nothing he had expected. No interminable fire and brimstone, no tormented souls writhing in agony, no torturing demons causing pain to the unfortunate. Sam only saw two lit torches at either side of the carved-out room, two sets of curved stairways leading to the floor with a table and two chairs facing one another, the furniture seemingly fashioned from cut and polished alabaster.
“Is this where we meet your boss, Phineas?” Sam asked as he turned to face his new acquaintance. “Him? Or Her? Or whatever it is?”
Before Phineas could answer, another voice, remarkably familiar to Sam’s ears echoed throughout the stone parlor. “Yes, it is, Sam Bailey. I have been expecting you.” Sam heard clicks on the smooth rock steps that led to the seating area and focused his eyes and attention on the figure descending. The creature spoke again.
“Welcome home, Phineas,” the being said as it continued down the stairs toward the setting. “My thanks and appreciation to you for a job well done.”
“My pleasure, Boss,” Phineas replied as he tipped his bowler to his employer. He waved his hand toward the table and chairs, inviting Sam to meet the demonic CEO in the middle of the room. Sam stepped forward and was finally able to see Phineas’ superior. It was in the form of a woman. Not just any woman. A familiar woman. Dressed in a red dress, black silk stockings and four-inch heels, her fiery-red hair coifed seductively, Sam felt his groin involuntarily stir as the image of his wife completed her traverse down the stone steps to meet him at the black table.
“Veronica?!” Sam said astonished.
“Of course, Sam,” the beautiful woman answered. “Who else did you expect to meet? The devil with horns and a pitchfork?” The Veronica creature laughed the same laugh that Sam had heard before his attack then motioned for him to sit across from her. “Please have a seat, Sam. We have a lot to discuss.”
THE END