Penchant for Darkness

by J Elizaga

  Most everyone ignored the drunk old man walking unsteadily by himself, except for one man, a jeepney driver on his route. Colorfully-painted jeepneys were the staple public transport zigzagging through the busy streets of Manila. The driver made a passing glance at Pulo, and then found his eyes on the reaper.

  The driver’s face turned pale. He momentarily lost focus on driving before making a sharp movement with the steering wheel to correct himself. The vehicle suddenly swerved, catching several pedestrians by surprise. A woman shrieked and people jumped out of the way. The vehicle steadied its course as it left a trail of angry voices and raised arms. Lucifer was pleased that a seer saw his reaper and scrambled in horror to get away.

  The old man had walked two blocks when Lucifer heard a voice. He ordered the two spirits to stop moving and let Pulo fall on his knees. The old man stopped singing.

  Lucifer listened through the reaper’s ears. The woman’s voice was distinct. She was lying, but there was no guilt. Rather, she was indignant and confident. She was going to win the argument. She sounded like someone who enjoyed anger, someone who did not like following the rules. He was intrigued, and suddenly, Pulo no longer mattered. The dying man would be left to live a few more days in extreme pain.

  The reaper slithered down to the old man and whispered, “You get to stay for a little longer.”

  “I’m not going to die today?” But quickly, tears filled up Pulo’s eyes. “This is not going to end well, is it?”

  “Such is life with gin,” two voices answered before the reaper untangled and split back into the two errant spirits.

  “I will see you soon,” came the devil’s final whisper to the old man.

  Pulo became conscious of his surroundings. He was a block away from his house. He attempted to stand up, but the excruciating pain in his torso would not go away, spreading all the way to his throat and his back. The old man screamed before falling to the ground. Vendors, peddlers, neighbors and nosy-bodies ran towards his unconscious body.

  Lucifer pulled a new errant spirit and moved to the house where the woman’s voice emanated.

  CHAPTER 3

  Richelle found little time to admire the square logo made of 14k gold plated metal shining beautifully against the black grain leather of her new bag. In the middle of an argument with her husband, she angrily and quickly typed a text message to her sister-in-law.

  How dare you tell Miles that was all the cash I gave you! You didn’t have the common sense to ask me for more money after seeing that the food wasn’t going to be enough?

  She hit Send and returned to the argument with her husband, in time to hear him ask, “Why didn’t you give the whole amount that I handed to you in the first place? We already agreed I would pay the caterer for Mom’s seventy-fifth party.”

  Because I didn’t want to give your sister a load of money we worked hard to earn and I saw that cute grain-leather bag.

  She ignored her phone’s incoming text from Miles’ sister as her anger increased.

  “I gave them the amount based on the RSVP replies received, Miles, not the guest list. What I didn’t want was a lot of leftover food. The caterer was ready to add more food if we needed it. All your relatives had to do was give the order. I waited for someone to tell me they needed more appetizers or dessert, or drinks. Not one of your sisters said anything during the party! And they complained after--as if I held back?” Richelle flipped her hair angrily as she faced her husband and said her last line. “I’m not going to be the villain here, because I didn’t do anything wrong!”

  The husband and wife continued arguing, unaware of an invisible presence in their midst. The errant spirit Lucifer controlled only oozed with remorse and regret. Its lingering sobs were a small distraction. The spirit leaned casually behind the capiz shell-style windowpane in the couple’s living room as Lucifer continued to watch the unfolding scene starring the woman whose voice caught his interest.

  “But that’s not what we agreed on, Chelie. If you stuck to the original plan, there wouldn’t be this miscommunication. Mom’s seventy-five only once. There’s no next time.”

  Richelle glared at her husband. She found it incredulous that they were arguing about a measly five thousand pesos. “Yes, there is no next time. That’s why your mother had one hell of a birthday party, did she not? This is an example of your sister’s lack of communication skills.”

  Richelle was ready with her sharp tongue but when she saw that Miles crossed his arms across his chest, she knew her point of view came across. She could tell he was deliberating whether to continue their argument.

  “All right,” her husband let out a small sigh. “Let’s bury this one. But I want to take Mom to brunch, just the three of us, to celebrate a second time. We can use the five grand you kept—”

  “I have no problem with that,” Richelle interjected. She did not want the conversation to return to the cash which she used to buy her new leather bag. “We didn’t need to fight in order to decide to take Mom to brunch. Gee, Miles, did you just want to piss me off to arouse me? That only happens in movies.”

  Richelle watched her husband’s shoulders drop down. Match-point, Richelle and Lucifer concluded simultaneously.

  Miles looked at his wife with a surprised but hopeful stare. “Are you?”

  Richelle’s anger was gone. She could not stay mad at her husband for very long. He was even-keeled Miles and she was the spitfire. He was the lover and she was the fighter. He always said her heart had two halves, and one half liked to fight.

  “What do you think?” she teased.

  They came together in an embrace.

  An unseen presence walked around their living room while the husband and wife breathed heavily. Lucifer noticed a stack of business cards beside a new black leather bag and a short pile of papers. The card read Richelle Penchant, Senior Project Manager.

  Miles had taken his shirt off. Richelle’s shirt dress was fully unbuttoned.

  “We’ll keep trying, right?” Miles asked hurriedly as arms and clothing tangled on their way to the floor.

  “Yes,” Richelle answered.

  Their short exchange caught Lucifer’s interest. The spirit turned from rummaging through Richelle’s belongings to look at the couple heavily engaged on the rug.

  You have been trying to conceive. Unsuccessfully.

  Lucifer’s algorithms reacted to what he discovered. He found a weakness, and an opening. He sent the first message to the woman’s brain.

  The softest of male voices whispered in Richelle’s ear, “I can give you what you want.”

  “Of course,” Richelle replied.

  In between breaths, Miles said, “What?”

  She opened her eyes and looked at her husband. “You said something.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Well, I heard, oh, forget it. Keep going.”

  “Say please.”

  Richelle tugged at her husband’s hair. “Please, dammit.”

  But as Miles resumed his action, he suddenly looked towards the window pane to his right. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a shadow. It was a strange and fleeting feeling, but he was drawn to look at that particular spot of the room. Unknown to him, it was the spot where the errant spirit walked through the wall and exited their house.

  CHAPTER 4

  Lucifer hated the weather on Earth, when high atmospheric ions prevented him from properly hacking into human minds. But he was determined to communicate with Richelle before a storm hit the city, so he decided to introduce himself to her at the office. The office building had a restless spirit, a construction worker who was accidentally buried in concrete when the foundation was being laid. That was the presence Lucifer commandeered.

  He watched Richelle as she stared seriously at her computer screen until with a sigh, she got up and headed towards the coffee room. He saw her relief upon finding it empty so she could enjoy her second cup of joe without interruption. The call center where she worked provided of
fice perks that included a real espresso maker and fresh fruits on each floor.

  She sat across from the vending machine with her back on the espresso maker. After taking the first sip of coffee, her thoughts returned to her major project. She was due to present a business plan to executives in two weeks, and there was a lot of data to summarize before she could even start the presentation.

  She was staring absent-mindedly at the vending machine’s glass casing when she began to notice a shadow forming on the reflection of the espresso machine. She quickly turned around to look.

  A dark-haired man wearing an expensive-looking fitted suit turned around at the same instant she did, his stare meeting hers. He had a beautiful face. For a second, Richelle wondered why she did not hear any sound when he walked in, but the thought disappeared when the man smiled at her.

  “The espresso machine has run out of coffee beans.”

  He sounded as beautiful as he looked. Richelle continued smiling at him, thinking she had already replied until he raised an eyebrow and clarified his request. “Any more coffee beans around here?”

  “Yes, of course we have coffee beans,” she stood up, embarrassed to have been caught staring.

  She walked over and opened a cabinet door beside him. He thanked her, reached in to get the beans, and proceeded to brew himself some coffee.

  “Nothing like a fresh cup when you need it,” the man proclaimed as he raised his cup. Richelle noticed an accent. Quickly returning to memories of her first job as a call center agent, she switched her speaking pattern to match his international ear.

  “Indeed,” and she raised her cup as well, smiling back at him.

  “I’m Luc,” and he stretched out his arm, capturing and shaking her hand.

  “Richelle Penchant. Are you one of our international instructors teaching here this week?” And without thinking she blurted out, “That’s a nice-looking suit.”

  “Thank you. I have a tailor in Rome. We’ve known each other for a very long time, it feels like a thousand years,” he divulged before answering her question. “Actually, I’m not an instructor.”

  He produced a business card from his suit pocket and handed it to her. “Brand-spanking new VP of Operations, replacing Lansing who resigned a couple of weeks ago.”

  The business card read Luc Xultare.

  “Oh, I didn’t know you were already here. Welcome, and let us know if you need any assistance navigating the office.” Richelle smiled back at him. Suddenly feeling a strange vibe from the new executive, she started to turn away from him.

  “Richelle, did I pronounce your name correctly? To which team do you belong?”

  “Yes, you did. It was perfect. I’m with the workforce management team.”

  Luc smiled. “Great! We’re on the same floor. I’ll be seeing you around then. I’m occupying Lansing’s office. It still smells of fresh paint.”

  “That’s part of the welcome kit to new executives.”

  Luc’s appreciative laughter was cut when Richelle’s mobile phone beeped. She turned her attention to the text message and proceeded to walk back to her cubicle without another word to him.

  Luc did not appreciate being suddenly ignored, but he saw that she carried his business card, and that she looked at it again before putting it down by her keyboard.

  “Chelie,” her coworker Lisa stood in front of her. “Do you have the updated data table? I need to do some pivoting.”

  “Oh, fun,” Richelle grimaced. “I’ll send it to you right now.” She opened an email and sent the file. “I met the new VP of Operations in the coffee room a few moments ago.”

  “The new VP? Jean-Pierre Nishant? I thought he wasn’t arriving until next month. His office isn’t even halfway done yet.”

  “Yeah, he said it still smells of fresh paint.” Richelle looked on her table for the business card Luc gave her. “But his name is not Jean-Pierre, I heard him say his name was Luc. I can’t remember the last name.”

  She definitely remembered the business card and looked under a few sheets of paper. But she could not find it. There was a small blank index card pinned under one end of her keyboard. She picked it up while muttering to herself, “I’m pretty sure I had his business card a moment ago.”

  But Lisa broke her thought. “It’s more than just the smell of paint. It’s dusty in there. Carpenters cleared the room, then placed tarp all over the floor last week. It’s pretty rugged, to say the least.”

  Richelle smiled before lowering her voice. “It would suit him, he looked pretty rugged. He had a five o’clock shadow but the suit he was wearing was creaseless and he smelled like a men’s magazine perfume sample insert.”

  Her coworker laughed. “Wow, really? I’ll have to check him out. Is he still in the coffee room?”

  The two women continued their silly conversation as their invisible subject stood across from them.

  “It will not be long before you want me all to yourself,” Lucifer claimed.

  Richelle returned her attention to her mobile phone, reading it as soon as her coworker left. It was from Miles.

  Change of plans with the coming typhoon next week. Tony and I are going to the island resort on Thursday instead.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Philippine archipelago boasted hundreds of islands that were surrounded with powdery white sand beaches, coconut trees, farmlands and tropical forests. As an engineer consulting for solar electrical systems, Miles intermittently travelled to different islands. He and another field engineer named Tony drove after flying in from the capital city to a soon-to-open Mediterranean-themed resort. Tony was at the wheel of the rental car.

  But Miles had felt a strange uneasiness since the trip started.

  “Did you see that reminder email about the checking their service entrance set up?” Tony’s voice cut through his thoughts.

  Miles straightened up and moved his eyes, observing the surroundings. “Yeah, I did. They want a plan for power during monsoon season.”

  As he spoke, he thought he heard a very faint hissing sound. His body started reacting to it, even though he was not sure if he actually heard something.

  “Can you move over to the left lane, mate?” Miles asked Tony.

  “Left lane? Why?”

  “I don’t know, I have a strange feeling—”

  Suddenly, both men heard a loud hiss. Miles turned around and saw a power line had snapped from its pole. Live electricity hissed through the thickly-insulated cable.

  “Watch it!” Miles shouted.

  Tony swerved the car sharply to the left, but the car skidded on the shoulder of the road, heading towards a ditch. They were still close to the loose cable full of live current flinging itself wildly behind them. Tony took his foot off the gas pedal and moved the steering wheel back to center. As soon as the car steadied, he pressed hard on the accelerator. When they were a good distance away, they stopped the car on the side of the road. Fortunately, they were the only car in the area.

  “What the hell was that?” Tony put the hand brakes on but forgot to turn the engine off.

  “Are you okay?” Miles asked, breathless from the adrenaline rushing through his body.

  Both men got out of the car, leaving the doors open.

  Tony was looking at his hands. “My hands are fucking shaking. What about you, bro?”

  Miles nodded. “I didn’t shit in my pants.”

  They could hear the cable still hissing and crackling.

  “That was ten thousand volts, Miles. It could’ve fried us.”

  Both men took deep breaths and steadied themselves.

  “Did you see the cable when you told me to move to the left lane?” Tony asked. “I didn’t hear anything.”

  “No, I didn’t see it, man. I told you, I had a bad feeling, and I couldn’t figure what it was,” Miles replied. “Let’s get out of here. We have to call the fire department and the power company.” He produced his phone and called the authorities.

  Tony and Miles resu
med their trip. Miles was silent as they drove, letting Tony talk. His mind went back to the night he met Richelle.

  At the bar where he worked as a prep cook, the evening had been busy because of a college basketball game. Order tickets arrived non-stop for appetizers. He was pulled from washing dishes to chopping vegetables. In the middle of slicing a bag of tomatoes, something drew him to look towards the employee door. He ignored it initially, but it felt like an invisible hand was pushing him to go outside. He picked up a garbage bag filled with vegetable peels while still holding his chef’s knife and headed towards the back door.

  He heard a female voice as soon as he opened the door. She sounded tense. He walked around the corner of the building where the garbage bins sat and saw two men taking turns putting their arms around a woman, who was not complying with their demands.

  When Miles saw one of the men pull the woman’s arm with a force that flung her cigarette to the ground, he called them out.

  He never told Richelle what drew him to get out of the kitchen at that moment. He, himself, was not sure except for the sensation in his gut. Over the years of being together, they discussed their serendipitous meeting many times, and each time, concluded it was their fate or destiny to meet.

  But he had felt these warnings, whether they were called intuition or gut feeling, since he was a teenager. Sometimes, he ended up thinking of Mamie Rosa whenever he had these feelings although he was not sure what the memory of the old woman had to do with what he felt.

  Gradually, Miles’ brain registered Tony speaking. “Bro, maybe you’re psychic or maybe someone’s looking out for you. Whatever it is, thank you.”

  Miles did not want to draw attention to something he did not like discussing. “I just paid attention to my gut, man. Nothing strange about that.”