Tales From The Mist: An Anthology of Horror and Paranormal Stories

by Scott Nicholsonan

  Why did she say that? Why didn’t she just let him be? Things were hard enough as they were.

  She blew a kiss and pressed her palm against the glass again. He did the same. With a last, lingering look, she was gone.

  It was like she’d said goodbye.

  Not only for today, but forever.

  The emotional roller coaster he always felt inside after his mother’s visits made its presence known as the guard accompanied him back to his quarters. Its punch was harder this time, its stab sharper. He craved the seclusion of his cell and wanted nothing more than to spend days and weeks alone with only his books for company.

  He waited for the sound of the lock and sat on the cot, his hands gripping the thin mattress and blanket. Blackness descended on him, clung to him like soot. Being around people now would break the surface calm he carried with him every day. He needed time to steel himself and manage his misery.

  Even his studies sometimes seemed pointless—like at right this moment. Doing for others was not enough to kill the anger inside. He’d let it best him one time and that was his downfall.

  It had all come crashing down on his birthday, at the club where he caught his girlfriend making out with one of his classmates.

  She was a ho, everyone told him that, but she had him by the balls. She’d swing her wide hips, flick her hair back, and give him that fuck me look while her breasts said hello from a low–cut tank top … and he was done for. He thought she was into him, his first serious girlfriend. He’d bought her a charm bracelet with his pizza joint paycheck and tattooed her name on his biceps. Their love would last forever and he would show off his pretty jewel to the world, his chest puffed with pride...

  Every time he showered now, he scrubbed and scrubbed over that dreaded name, but Maya never went away, just like his crime. He could cover it with clothing or prison scratch but it stayed there, on his skin. With him.

  Every day he cursed himself.

  Every night he was haunted by visions of the other man, fresh blood oozing from his chest, throat and mouth on the plush green carpet of the club. Horrible gargling sounds escaped his lips as death took him. Dirty South rap blasted through the speakers. Chaos erupted, but Luke couldn’t hear with the heavy pounding in his ears.

  That was the part of the nightmare at which he woke up in a pool of sweat and faced reality.

  Luke shivered as memories racked him with startling clarity. He’d been shooting pool with his buddy Dave when Tommy from the old neighborhood told him about his Puerto Rican temptress’ betrayal. Blind with rage, he rushed to the club and pushed through the crowd. A reluctant white man in a hardcore black environment—a rabbit among wolves. He knew he’d raise hell but not to the extent he had.

  He’d killed a man because he dared to put his hand up Maya’s skirt. She’d let him, too; he saw her tongue trace his earlobe as he groped her with lust. She hadn’t complained when Luke told her that afternoon he’d spend the night with the boys who he rarely saw these days.

  Luke had lost it that night. In a flash, he went from thinking whore to I’ll bust your ass, you son of a bitch!

  He grabbed his mean Swiss knife and made a beeline to the couch, where he jammed the blade in the guy’s heart and throat. Many, many times, until strong bouncer hands managed to get him off of the body and the red hot, pure rage morphed into paralyzed shock.

  After that night, the bad dreams mingled with the memories. His mind’s eye evoked a black suited figure bent over the lifeless body. The man’s fancy green suit stood out in a sea of dudes with untied sneakers, large tattoos, and swipers—pants so low they could barely walk. Yet the thick gold chain he wore around his neck would have blended in, were it not for the singular large pendant, a pentagram with a skull in the middle.

  As cold fear beset him at the sight of so much blood, the dark–skinned man looked up and gave him a toothy smile. He understood. He smelled the air and sighed, as though he fed off of the hovering terror. His diamond–studded gold tooth flashed in the club lights—a pimp or hustler’s calling card. The square planes of his face were mostly hidden by shadows.

  “Who’s that?” he’d gasped to his friend Dave who pried the knife away from his grasp and dragged him by his t–shirt sleeve when a bunch of patrons screamed bloody murder; a sissy white boy had offed one of their own.

  “Who?”

  He looked over his shoulder at Dave, who shook his head, his eyes disbelieving and vaguely accusing.

  Trembling, Luke returned his gaze to the horror he’d committed and the mysterious man wasn’t there anymore, vanished like steam. Had it all been a figment of his imagination?

  The bouncers took over. They escorted him to the back office and called the police.

  Luke handed Dave the car keys. “Go pick up Mama and take her to her sister’s. Please tell her I’ll call her when I can.”

  The parking lot was right behind the back door to the office. Dave let himself out. Luke listened to the sound of the engine start and Dave’s foot slamming on the accelerator. The tires screeched on the concrete as he made it out of there without a hitch.

  Then the preying nightmare grew flesh claws and dug them deep into his soul. His freedom was gone and so was his clean record. His dreams of a future along with them.

  Involuntary homicide with some reservations, the court said. No bail. The best years of his life would be spent within four walls and the confines of his thoughts.

  Then there was the guilt … six degrees of separation from madness.

  His mind must have been playing tricks on him because he could swear he just heard someone laugh. It sounded very close, too close, but it hadn’t been the stern–faced bouncers or the panicked manager …

  A fast moving image of brown skin and white teeth crash–zoomed before him, the man’s ebony eyes deeper than a mountain crevice. Luke’s blood turned to ice. Then the vision blanked out, replaced by his stark environment—as though the entire space had turned into a giant zoetrope, a large version of the thing that Dave, who was a bit older and studied film, had once shown him. Off–the–chain stuff.

  He shuddered and again the laughter rang in his head, this time without visuals like the cheesy glimmer of gold and diamonds.

  “Hey, you! What do you want?” he shouted to the walls. “I have nothing to give you.”

  Six degrees of separation from madness.

  Was this to be his new jailer?

  ∼ ∼ ∼

  I think this is the last time, my darling. If only I had a little longer …

  Evelyn Fowler registered her son’s face in her memory, although she didn’t have to. Every line, every curve, every groove was imprinted in her mind, and would be forever.

  She’d take that with her at least, but where she was going, would she forget him in the end? That was her biggest fear.

  The walk back to the car was a blur as tears of hopelessness and despair streaked down her face. She’d been given eighteen years, just enough to see him grow into a man, but she was not yet ready to pay the price. Luke was in trouble, but that demon Jonas turned the tables on her. She had to surrender if she wanted Luke free, but she would never get to see him back out in the world.

  Today, she would fight it. She would fight Jonas.

  With all that she had, she would fight Satan himself.

  The car seemed to drive itself up the interstate but, rather than take the turn that would take her home to College Park, she kept straight on to the Andrew Young International Boulevard exit. From there, she meandered the web of roads in lively morning traffic to Mitchell Street.

  The store she parked in front of was flanked by a dilapidated showroom on one side, and the pile of rubble of an early construction site on the other.

  Sonata made up in its name what its neighbors didn’t allow it—the allusion to beauty, a perfect composition nestled in the cacophonous jungle of downtown Atlanta. Yet that’s where the misconception ended, with the paltry six letters of this beautiful word.
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  She walked through the tacky glass door cluttered with removable decals listing the merchandise. Candles, dolls, voodoo kits, rabbit feet, black cat bones, spells, books, soaps, lucky bags, oils, incense, charms, and more.

  Come inside and see … it further invited into its dark and dingy interior. On any regular day she would have no desire to visit such a place. To be on the other side of the storefront, staring at shelves that burst with a motley of things ranging from the familiar to the bizarre.

  “Look what the wind brought in,” came a deep voice that to her seemed darker and bitterer than pure cocoa. He didn’t sound surprised, though. He knew she would soon visit the lion in its den because each day was borrowed time for her.

  He’d even demanded she go to him that week and she couldn’t put off the inevitable.

  Jonas sat behind the long glass counter, a lit cigar in his hands. He puffed smoke into the air and smiled at her. “What’s your pleasure, sweetie pie?”

  She walked to him, grateful for the low barrier of the counter between them. He remained seated, or lounging more like, his legs crossed and stretched before him. With his purple zoot suit and polished black patent leather shoes, he looked every inch the hustler who would arrogantly walk into The Waldorf and order whiskey straight, at the bar. Caught by the overhead light, his gold chain and pendant glittered so evilly it was impossible to ignore.

  He didn’t look a day older than when she first met him long ago. His shrewd black eyes observed her with blasé humor. After all, he knew he had the upper hand.

  “Luke’s in trouble. I need more time.”

  No visible reaction came from him at that request. He drew in sharply on his cigar, his eyes narrowed behind the billowing smoke. “Originally our deal involved you being able to raise him. He’s a man now.”

  “But then we talked again. You know I can’t leave him now, more than ever.”

  “You wanted my assurance he’d be free. I give you my word he won’t be locked up long.”

  “How can I leave him before I’m sure—?”

  “Sounds to me like you cryin’ wolf now that paytime’s arrived.”

  “I need to know my son is safe. After that, I don’t care what you do. You want to cheat me out of that?”

  “An even swap is no swindle. Contract’s clear ’bout that and I explained it more than once. We discussed it months ago when you asked for leeway. It all boils down to this: I give you somethn’, you give me somethn’. You gettin’ all greedy’s not in the books.”

  She clutched her bag and rummaged through her thoughts for the right words. Her head was a mess. One didn’t bargain with Satan’s people.

  Never trust the Devil.

  He grunted and extinguished the cigar in a wooden ashtray carved into a crocodile shape.

  “Negotiations are over, but I tell you what.” He leaned forward, his elbows on the chair arms. “I’m generous. You say you’ll fulfill your end of the bargain and I’ll put down that your son will be out of jail in six months after you pay up.”

  A legal–sized sheet of parchment paper appeared in his hands out of thin air. “There you go.” He handed it to her across the counter. “Read the highlighted part, sugar.”

  She’d read most of it twice before. The new words jumped at her now as if they were etched in flames. They were just as he said. Plain, simple, and utterly terrifying.

  Trembling like a leaf, she put the sheet on the glass counter, right above the display of black cat bones in neat black pouches.

  “That stuff’s illegal,” she pointed out, stalling for time.

  He stood up slowly, rested his hip on the counter and crossed his arms. A good foot taller than her, his intense gaze pinned her to the spot. He didn’t speak until she squirmed under his scrutiny.

  “Customers believe what they want,” he offered. “Just like you believed what you wanted when you and I had that little talk eighteen years ago.”

  He wouldn’t let her change the subject. His hand was already outstretched, waiting for her to offer her finger for the signature.

  “So you’re saying this is it …”

  “I’m sayin’ a deal is a deal, however you choose to understand it.”

  She swallowed hard, past the tangy taste of copper and bile. Her knees buckled and she pressed her sticky palms on the cool glass.

  “Fine,” he dismissed her and moved to one of the shelves to arrange a selection of dolls. “There, there, Lena, you so pretty. Someone’s gon’ notice you yet and you gon’ bring me luck. Just you wait,” he cooed in velvet tones.

  The sexiest voice Evelyn had ever heard.

  It was that voice that had made her trust him blindly the first time he spoke to her—the sensual lilt that promised fulfilled desires and gentled your direst fears. The voice that made you forget the enormity of what you gave up for something you couldn’t live without. Jonas’s ace card was one’s obsession, be this borne of greed, passion or love. The reason was irrelevant; it was that single–minded emotion that played the crucial role.

  For her that something was the love for her unborn son that hit her like a ton of bricks. She’d wanted to end it that day she met Jonas, yearned to be rid of her husband’s cruelty and manipulation for good. She left the house, crying, and crossed Peachtree Street after a blind corner. There was no pedestrian crossing; she knew what she was doing but didn’t care.

  But after the car’s impact with her pregnant body, she desperately prayed for the life of her son. The car hadn’t been going at top speed, or they wouldn’t have survived. She’d clutched to a thread of consciousness and begged for Luke’s life.

  How could she ever have thought to give up the only treasure that was part of her in the truest sense of the word?

  Jonas captured the frequency of her prayers and beat God at the race. Luke was born almost two months premature weighing just over three pounds. He was a little fighter; she knew it the first time he’d curled his little hand around her finger and gripped her with surprising strength.

  Then that girl Maya got under his skin and ruined his life, but he was putting on a brave front now. He was the best son a mother could ask for. Sensitive, too much perhaps. He did not deserve this.

  She wondered how her life would have turned out if she’d been patient and waited for a different sign from above, but what use was that now? She’d given Jonas and the master he served exclusivity over her soul.

  And he was always there, hovering in the background, making dead certain she was aware of time ticking. She always knew where he was; for the last fifteen years, she drove daily by this place on the way to her office job.

  Some people say they’d give anything to know their future. Why? It was a silly and irrational concept.

  Jonas was still murmuring softly to the dolls as though they could hear him. If she’d seen just anybody act like that, she would have pitied that person.

  “I’ll do it,” she said. Before she changed her mind, she grabbed a pin from a small cushion in a stationery organizer and stuck her finger before placing the bloody digit on the thick paper. The red blot seemed to magically burn into its texture next to the addendum she just read. “Here, I’m done.”

  He stopped his motions and turned to her.

  Another of those unsettling grins. “You did good, sugar. I had faith in you.”

  “Will I … be able to see Luke after I’m gone?”

  He grabbed a dust cloth and passed it over a shelf, the large gold rings that adorned his fingers sparkly and clean.

  Unlike his soul.

  “I think the most fascinating part of the afterlife is the mystery that surrounds it. Chill out, my pet. You’ll find out soon enough.”

  She stared at her hands, at the little stain of dried blood on her finger. “I see.”

  Tears threatened to spill again but she didn’t want Jonas to see her private pain—even though he seemed to know everything. She turned to leave.

  “Hey sugar,” he called back when she’
d just opened the door. “I’ll be coming over one of these days. Tomorrow, next week, next month, can’t say. I’m a busy man,” he grinned.

  She rushed to the car, her throat and eyes stinging, and got in. Her head fell on the steering wheel along with the outpour of raw grief and sorrow.

  She mourned until the river ran dry.

  ∼ ∼ ∼

  As he lay in his cot, Luke watched the first weak rays of the sun dapple the black ceiling. In a quarter hour tops, the world around him would stir to life. The guards would change their shift. In an hour, they’d be serving breakfast. Life went on as normal, day in, day out. Tomorrow would be another visiting day, but not for him.

  There were no more visits from his mother.

  His mother was dead—dead for over five months. He had no other close family left, at least none that cared enough to visit.

  His mother was dead.

  But he’d pushed himself, studied, worked hard—he was making it up to her. Surely, she saw him from wherever she was?

  Was she finally resting, at least?

  He’d used his money to pay transportation and security to and from the funeral. During the short service he sat with his head bowed, apart from the smattering of cousins, neighbors and distant family members who attended with curious gazes fixed on him. He’d forgotten most of it; couldn’t even picture the sleek brown coffin being carried out of the church. The pain clouded his senses, crushed him into submission. It was worse than committing murder.

  Nothing made sense.

  Nothing mattered.

  His mother was dead. They said it was a weak heart. She died because of him … and she left him some money, the small house she’d inherited from her father, the furniture and a few keepsakes. She also left him a journal that she’d kept all his life so he’d know how much she loved him.

  He had no father, siblings, wife or children. The will he’d decided to have done a few weeks ago left everything to the family of the man he killed. It was measly payment for what he’d done, and his life was going nowhere. But some day he had to stop paying for his sins.