Twisted Fate (Tales of Horror)

by Saul, Jonas

  At 3:00 p.m. exactly I was standing in front of the butcher shop, right where I was supposed to be. Nothing happened at first. All my senses were on full alert. I watched anybody and everybody. I watched where they were walking in case a car was coming too fast. I especially watched older people. The area quieted down a little. I looked at my watch.

  3:08 p.m.

  Nothing happened. Anger seeped in. What if the sender of the text was a rival real estate agent and at that moment they were showing the Garrison house to my client? I decided to believe in the validity of the text. I had nothing else to go on, and they had come true twice. No one could’ve known my sister would show up at the butcher shop at the same time as me. I remembered it clearly. So the texts had to hold some greater purpose, something more than my ability to understand.

  I decided to remain where I was, and wait. At 3:30 p.m., my cell phone rang. Call display said it was the office. Maybe my client wants to put an offer in, I remembered thinking.

  “Yeah.”

  “Hi.” It was Jessica. She sounded broken up, like she was trying to catch her breath. “How did you know?” she asked.

  “Know what?”

  “The house.” She could barely get it out. “The house is gone.”

  “Gone? He bought it?” I asked, hoping that was the case.

  “No, gone. As in destroyed.”

  What is she talking about?

  “Destroyed? What’s going on Jessica?”

  “They think it was a natural gas explosion. The house you were supposed to show at 3:00 p.m. has been leveled. It blew up like a bomb hit it.”

  I remember dropping to my knees so hard that little pebbles on the sidewalk left bruises. “Is anyone hurt? Who showed the house in my place?”

  “When I called your client, he said they would view it when you were ready. They only wanted to deal with you. The owner of the house and his workers weren’t there because they had expected the showing. I didn’t call them because I was trying to get another agent in. At any other time, several people would have been there. Because you booked a showing for 3:00 p.m., and then didn’t go yourself, you saved a lot of lives today. You saved yourself.” I heard her stop, catch her breath, blow her nose, and then clear her throat. “But I killed someone. I’m so sorry.”

  What the fuck is she talking about now? I dodged a bullet here. I’m alive, in one piece, and Jessica is talking her shit again.

  “I killed someone,” she repeated.

  I heard her sobs and was disgusted with her.

  “Is this about your parents, because if it is, you have really bad timing? I could’ve been killed today. I saved myself. It isn’t always about you Jessica. Get over it already, geez.”

  “I killed someone you know intimately.”

  “What? Are you mad? I didn’t know your parents.”

  I was completely confused. Most of the phone call, I was in another reality, another field somewhere, stupefied at my good fortune that I was still alive.

  “I killed … I killed your sister, and now I have to die.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I was getting mad. I had no idea this woman was so fucked up.

  She blew her nose into the phone. “Your sister called here looking for you this morning. When you told me to take messages and tell you them tomorrow, I didn’t say anything about her. You cancelled the 3:00 p.m. booking. I couldn’t call her back anyway. She didn’t leave a number.”

  “Where are you going with this? How could you have killed her? As far as I know, she has cancer. She’s probably dead already.”

  “She asked where you’d be today so I told her about the Garrison house. But you canceled. She was there. She was there.”

  Her twisted logic hit me.

  “Were there any casualties at the Garrison house?” I asked.

  “Yes. One. Your sister. I killed her by sending her there and now I have to kill myself. Goodbye.”

  She hung up.

  Shit. I couldn’t have a dead secretary in my office. That kind of thing was bad for business.

  I ran for my car, all the while attempting to raise Jessica on my cell phone.

  I was tired of the bitch. If she wanted to off herself, that would be one less person to eat the last apple turnover at my favorite bakery. One less person to take a seat on the bus from an old lady. One less person to nab the numbered ticket before me at the butcher shop.

  I just couldn’t allow her to do it at my office.

  When I pulled into the parking lot, there was no indication a suicide had taken place, raising my hopes that she had gone home to do it, or some ditch on the side of the highway.

  I unlocked the front door and stepped into my office’s foyer, acting as if nothing could bother the savvy real estate broker. It’s not every day you have a dead sister and a secretary who wants to die.

  “Jessica?”

  The lights were all out. The blinds had been drawn.

  “Jessica?”

  I heard a police siren in the distance. After a few seconds, the siren drew closer outside. I realized they were stopping out front.

  “Jessica, did you call the police?”

  I stood in the main office, not venturing down the hall. If she did off herself, I didn’t want to find the body. I wasn’t willing to have bloody dreams for the next fifty fucking years.

  The woman of the hour stepped out of my office. She had a gun in her hand. She raised it and aimed it at me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, trying to hide the fear I instantly felt.

  “Do you want to die with me?” Jessica asked.

  Oh, my shit. Every one of her marbles were on the floor, because she had definitely lost them.

  “I think I’ll take a pass. Living is much more fun and the possibilities are endless. Did you call the police?”

  She nodded. “I can’t kill myself. I’ve tried too many times and failed. I have to die like my parents did. Like your sister did. Indirectly. Death by cop is indirect suicide or whatever you want to call it.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” I said.

  She turned her head sideways and looked at me with an expression that showed her madness quite clearly. In the little light of the room, I saw her eyes were completely bloodshot.

  “Are you serious?” she asked. “I did not expect you, of all people, to try to save me.”

  Her condescending tone pissed me off. The world would be a better place without people like her, littering it with their demented sicknesses.

  There was a loud knock on the front door.

  “Police! Open up!”

  “Umm, Jessica, we’re going to have to get that.”

  “Why? You worried they’ll bust the door down? That could get expensive.” She raised the gun, butt end extended to me. “Here, shoot me and this ends now. Or get out of the way so I can open that door and have them shoot me. Either way, I die today, and the blood stain will be on your carpet. It was here that I directed your sister to her death, it’ll be here where I direct my own.”

  “Can we talk about this?” I was getting seriously angry. “Go home. Do it there. Why do you have to ruin me in the process?”

  Jessica moved forward. “You don’t get it, do you? This is all your fault. If you felt love, even for one day, you would understand what was happening here. But you don’t.”

  She walked past me and touched the door handle, the pistol in her other hand.

  “Get what? You want to end it. That’s easy. I get it. Just save me the name in the paper. Do it at home. And what does this have to do with love?”

  Jessica hesitated. She held the doorknob and stared at the floor.

  “If you loved your sister and didn’t judge her for what your parents did, you would’ve taken her call. Had you done that simple, humane task, she would be alive today. If you could fathom what love is, you would be alive today. You’re dead on the inside.” She raised her head and stared into my eyes. “I lost my parents. I feel respon
sible. If I could go back, I wouldn’t be driving that night. I’d had too much to drink. If I could go back, I wouldn’t be working here, for a soulless man who only cares about money. You’re more dead than I will be in the next minute.”

  She turned the knob.

  “Wait!” I shouted.

  She stopped and looked at me.

  “I’m sorry. You’re right. Put the gun down and step away from the door.”

  “Why should I?”

  “Because, I can change.”

  She shook her head back and forth. “No one changes. This isn’t about you. I die today and ultimately, as much as it is my fault, it’s yours, too.”

  I heard a noise in the back of the office. Maybe they were coming in through the rear entrance to surprise us. I hoped they hurried and disarmed Jessica before she did something I would regret.

  “Please,” I said, thinking maybe I could disarm her first. “Give me the gun. We’ll deal with this together. We’ll get through it. I’m sorry I’ve been such an ass to you. Give me a chance. Show me what it means to love again. Teach me. I’ll be your student. It’s quite evident how much love you have to give. Your parents are gone and it crushes you. My parents are gone and I laugh about it. Bring me over to your side. Teach me how you are the way you are. Help me and I’ll help you.”

  Yeah, right. As soon as you go home I’ll fire your ass and you can kill yourself there, in your own bathtub.

  She let go of the doorknob and turned toward me. “Are you serious? No jokes?”

  With a show of exaggeration, I shook my head back and forth. “No jokes. Realness here. Seriousness.”

  Someone was moving around in the back of the office.

  Good. They’re coming. I will have her gun in seconds.

  I reached out. Jessica shivered as she started to cry. She handed me her weapon. Then she stepped over to her desk and sat down, resting her head in her arms on top of the desk.

  I lifted the gun up to look for the safety.

  “Drop it!” a man yelled behind me.

  When I turned around a red laser pointer moved about on my chest. Three men dressed in some kind of ski hats, with what looked to me like military fatigues, were battle ready, guns aimed at me.

  “I’m trying to flip the safety on,” I said, my heart thumping in my chest. The last thing I wanted was these guys to see weakness.

  “Drop it!” the cop repeated.

  I turned it around, my fingers shaking, found the safety and used my other hand to flip the switch. I didn’t realize that the barrel was aimed at the cop.

  They fired at me.

  A barrage of pops resounded in my small office. My heart felt like it stopped. I lost all ability to stand. There was pain in my chest. More popping sounds. I dropped the gun. Jessica screamed somewhere off to my left. My eyes closed.

  When I look back, I realize the text messages were a chance for me to set things right, to curb my personal evils. I could have done right by John Turnbull and sold a cheaper house to the lottery winners. I could have spent more time with my sister. I understand now why the text said that it was my last chance. It was my last chance at salvation.

  I know I saved a life.

  Mine.

  There never was an explosion at the Garrison house. Jessica had been approached by my sister six months before and together they worked out an elaborate plan to bring me back to the land of the living. My sister acted like she was dying of cancer. The texts were a collaboration of work between Jessica and my sister. Jessica knew the Turnbulls were going to call in. She knew on most Friday’s I love to buy meat for a barbecue. She’d called my sister and told her to meet me there, and then sent me a text.

  The suicide thing at my office, was a set up. Would I save a life? Even after finding out I’d just lost my only other family member?

  The three officers had a key for the back door. Two of them were ex-boyfriends of my sister and one was Jessica’s brother. They fired blanks and one of them tased me so I’d lose control of my body and assume that I’d been hit and dying. They took me to the edge of an insane reality and brought me back so maybe I could live again.

  They did it because they love me.

  Life is but a river of tears. At least now they flow from joy. I’m married and I have two lovely children. I work from home so I can spend time with my family every day. For me, waking in the morning is a blessing. Every day I breathe is one more day I get what I wasn’t supposed to have. Hearing my kids laugh, enjoying the smile on my wife’s lips, eating ice cream, playing catch with my son, watching a sunset are all examples of life’s little pleasures, that for me, amplify the beauty of my surroundings.

  I know what’s important in life. And it isn’t money. It’s hearing my wife whisper, ‘I love you’ while we’re having a family hug before bed each night.

  I don’t own a cell phone.

  I don’t send or receive texts.

  The Witching Hour

  Dear Vanessa,

  If you’re reading this, then I have died. You have no idea how much I wanted to watch you grow up, get married and have children of your own. I’m so sorry that you have to go through this loss, this pain. I tried to stop it from happening, but fate played a hand I couldn’t beat.

  If only I’d married another man. But then I wouldn’t have had you and having you made everything worth it. You’re old enough now to move out and get away from your dad.

  If you do anything for me it will be to distance yourself from the monster you call a father. I don’t know how he did it, but I’m assuming he pulled it off to make it look like a suicide.

  As I write this I need you to know that I DID NOT kill myself. I would never do that. I love you too much to be that selfish. That’s why I’ve been saving money for over six months and getting ready to make a run for it and to take you with me.

  Your father found out and I got a phone call from your father’s girlfriend today. He’s on his way home right now. I’m scared. I have nowhere to go. I’d leave but you’re in school and I don’t have the car.

  Remember that I love you and I will get us out of this mess.

  But if you’re reading this letter, then I failed you and I’m sorry.

  Please forgive me.

  In the back yard you’ll find a small box with two thousand dollars wrapped in plastic. It’s beside the oak tree on the left of the shed buried about four inches deep. Get it and leave but don’t tell your dad or anyone else where you’re going or he will find you.

  I love you. I’m watching over you.

  I’ll always be with you my darling.

  Love,

  Your Mommy.

  The bell signaled the end of another school day. Vanessa was outside and on her way to the town’s small police station two minutes after the bell. The sun shone high and bright, doing its best to maintain a warm September.

  Tomorrow it would be exactly two years since her mother had died. Vanessa found the note from her mother in her diary. Whoever left it there was playing a game, and who better to have access to her diary than her father?

  Vanessa decided to discuss everything with James Redfield, the town’s local sheriff. If there was anyone in the little town of Hover’s Grove who could help, it would be him.

  Then she would confront her father.

  Her mother had drowned. That’s what the police had said. Death by misadventure. Swimming in the lake at midnight by the light of the full moon.

  They filed it as such, but it was rumored a suicide because who would go swimming at midnight when the temperature had dropped so low on that September evening? Her dad had said Mom was a good swimmer, and at the time, Vanessa had just thought he was trying to put on a brave face and let her mother die with dignity.

  Vanessa knew her mother would never have ventured out in the middle of the night for a swim unless she meant to kill herself. And it looked like she had good reason. Vanessa’s parents were fighting near the end, screaming at each other into all hours of th
e night. Vanessa would lie in bed crying as her parents destroyed any kind of marriage they might have had left. Mom always wanted to leave Hover’s Grove and Dad said they had to stay.