Horror Fiction | Horror
Avarice.inc (part 4)
A momentary lapse that made his head find its center, despite the seemingly endless boon that had found him from the ether. A line writ-
ten in a dark foreboding book that exuded a heavy aura, a far cry from the essence of who he was, prevented him from savoring the present moment.
His head gravitated back into a magnetic pull that only that book could
provide. Life had been rearranged, and in the back of his mind, that night,
despite the suturing of his heart from the shattered mess it had remained.
While he attempted to enjoy his girlfriend’s return, the weight of guilt
about Jonathan and his downfall was bearing down like a dagger into his
brain. After they talked about their days, Daniel feigned exhaustion with
a reluctance to truly dive into his day, knowing exactly how ludicrous it
would sound. Sat down at the rustic oak table to have dinner, they joked
and laughed in between their bites of food, just like old times. When they
were finished, he pulled Rebecca in a deep, long embrace, kissing her
deeper than even his memory could ever recall.
Rebecca, surprised, said, “Look at you kissing me like you missed me,
you haven’t kissed me like that since we met, well I’ll see you in bed,” she
winked at him and flaunted her rear end playfully while she went off to the
bedroom happily for the night.
It was not long before the guilt that had been slowly rising inside of
him like an all-consuming tide of darkness, that Daniel found himself
placing a telephone call to 1–800-AVARICE.
The dial tone rang twice, Veronica answered in her ultimate joyful
tone. “Hello, Mr. Schmidt, are we enjoying the book so far? It’s only one
entry, but I do suppose it’s a start, though maybe to more accurately record
things, you should invest in a pen that works, I bet Rebecca has one.”
A statement of facts that made Daniels eyes shoot wide open in a fear-
ful display of disbelief as he pulled the phone away from his ear. He looked
at the phone and then anxiously scanned the apartment with its girly
décor — most likely Rebecca’s doing. A room filled with different gold and
purple knickknacks, incense holders, and even a chart about chakras and
where they correlated to on the body. Though they weren’t his main focus
in the echo of the phone where Veronica prattled on describing his day in
exact detail, his eyes couldn’t help but behold how his home had changed
as he felt his heart start thundering like a horse running a race around a
track. That echo from the phone, wasn’t doing anything to let loose its
grip from Daniels’ ability to speak. Everything was in such fine detail, even
noting how he just had to have his face perfect at the beginning of the day.
Daniel finally stammered out, “ how… how d-d-d-did you know any
of that?”
Veronica’s menace could be felt through the radio waves of the phone
despite her joyful tone, “ Mr. Schmidt, we keep close tabs on all of our
friends for their wellbeing and ours.”
Daniels mind jumped to wire taps, surveillance equipment, and even
being on some sick game show. There were so many hoops his mind was
passing through that he may have very well considered performing in the
circus. Clearing his throat, “What is this? What are you? One minute everything is what I’ve always known, and the next, I’m suddenly a manager, and a guy that’s been nothing but good to me is now a junkie and convict. I don’t live where I used to, and I can’t wrap my head around this.”
Veronica retorted playfully, “Mr. Schmidt, first of all, your co-workers
definitely got paid more than you. Jonathan got what he needed for his
greed and cocaine use, now you can have anything you want, but you can’t
have everything you want. Someone, somewhere has to pay a price for
what you want, didn’t you read the instructions in the beginning?”
Daniel felt his annoyance needling into him, “You mean that shitty
little poem, that wasn’t a set of instructions, it wasn’t even an introduction,
I certainly didn’t know I was going to ruin a whole person’s life for what I
wanted!”
This however prompted a much different voice than he was accustomed to hearing. This voice was dark and gritty like a rogue tide filled with ocean debris coming to flip everything upside down. “Mr. Schmidt, while I offer reasonable patron service, I’d advise you against your tone,” said the voice, as it sank in tone like a ship in the night, ever deeper and more insidious to the point it reached the bottom of a demonic ocean. “Just because I am a pleasant voice on the other end of the phone, don’t think for one minute I won’t come to your home in Salem, New Hampshire in room 214 and rip the still beating heart out of your chest, just so I can make you eat it.” Then abruptly the voice returned to its joyful British tone, “ok?”
Daniel’s tongue was caught by the chain of events in a conversation.
He found himself unable to form words as his heart pounded in his chest
for a few moments.
Veronica beamed at him through the phone with a sickening artificial
sweetness, “There, there Mr. Schmidt, I know I had to get a little serious
on you there. It’s ok the moment has passed and as long as you find a
way to be pleasant with us, we will be pleasant with you, now take a deep
breath, we’re here to help all of our friends.”
Coming back down to a workable anxiety, in an entirely different tone of voice that was verbally shaking out the words “ok ,my mistake, Veronica, but I still have some questions about the book.”
To which Veronica responded with the utmost joy yet again, “alright
Mr. Schmidt, let’s have them then.”
Daniel, finally winning in the search for his tongue, asking, “First,
what are you?”
Veronica chuckled with maleficence at first but then gave up the
answer. “Oh, Mr. Schmidt, we are watchers, we have been since before
the flood, and we will be even after the fall of mankind, we don’t sleep, we
don’t eat and everything you do, we see.” Veronica paused only briefly and
then continued. “After all, a friend in need is a friend indeed,”
Thoughts whirled around in Daniels head like a tornado. “So, what are
you saying? That if I use this book, I’m going to lose my soul or something?”
An audible snort that became wicked laughter echoing through the
speaker of the phone. Veronica was like a child thoroughly amused with their new toy on Christmas morning, she let out a sigh that ended her
laughter. She answered positively chipper, “No Mr. Schmidt. Technically,
we don’t deal in souls. Again you can have anything you want. However,
your wants must be subtracted from the haves of others. The world needs
to balance out essentially, like the ledger for a company.”
The guilt of Jonathan that had been at the back of Daniel’s brain, that
deadly prion was finally coming full force, into a meltdown of guilt with
his brain itself liquifying into tears that began streaming down his face.
Through the tears he tried to choke back, he flipped open the book and
said, “So, anything I want, anything at all I’ll get? All I have to do is write
it down and then everything will be balanced accordingly?” Daniel eagerly
waited for the voice from the other end of the phone.
Veronica, after some moments of tepid silence finally brought the
salve to his ears, “Absolutely, Mr. Schmidt, anything you want at all, just
remember there is a price to be paid, but I think you understand that now.”
As Daniel grabbed the pen, his thoughts centered on the heartbreak
he had for years being repaired. But this was Jonathan and his price, as
he scribbled on to the page of the open book: I wish none of this had ever
happened.
Veronica on the other end of the phone giddily said, “Oh Daniel, after
hundreds and thousands of millions of times, you’d think you’d learn to be
more specific about a subject before you just go and write anything down.”
A final tear soaked confusion hit Daniel as the phone line went dead.
Daniel day finished in tears of guilt. He wandered into the bedroom,
crawled into bed next to his only love. He embraced Rebecca tightly in his
arms and drifted off to sleep. He’d never wish this burden on anyone.
The alarm clock rang out through the room with the sudden burst of
Frank Sinatra I don’t dance from the oldies station it had been set to from the day it was brought to the then-new home on that cold December day Daniel had moved into his apartment. Music which was almost entirely shrouded by the hammering rain coming down on that mid-April
morning, Daniel had barely even heard it, even after it changed songs for
nearly fifteen minutes. By the time, his bleary hazel wood eyes opened,
it had made its way to the Chordettes hit song lollipop, another of his
personal favorites. Ruffled red hair from the tossing and turning at night,
anticipating today with all his excitement, he reluctantly despite his antsy nature, fell asleep. All due to last night’s notification on his Samsung Galaxy phone which said that his shipment of books would be arriving today, fortunately, it coincidentally happened to be one of his days off. A decent turn of events since package theft was a little bit of a problem at his apartment complex, after all was said and done he pulled a decent amount of money at a locally owned restaurant as a cook. However, it would never
be enough to cover all of his packages that had gone missing, to take that
grand old second attempt of getting something he had paid for.
A pale white hand slathered with freckles slapped down on the off but-
ton of the alarm clock, the average yet gangly ginger featured man in his yogi bear pajamas arose from his full-sized bed decorated with a custom
Deadpool comforter and matching pillowcase set. Passing by the modern
styled bookshelves that lined his left wall, semi filled with books, more so
lined with a particular series of comic books, mainly featuring the same
peculiar character from his bed set that he had spent what seemed like an eternity collecting. Passing through the doorway with his hand accidentally brushing on the desk that also had his desktop computer he had custom-built; it was but a short distance to the bathroom in this one bedroom apartment that he had finally made feel like home, despite the setbacks that had popped up along the way. Stopping in the view of the
mirror to admire himself, the urge to stroke his ego was far too great, with
Daniel speaking to his reflection in his oddly placed baritone voice, “you’re
getting older, but damn you still look good buddy,” the tension down
below suddenly reminded him that his bladder was the real reason that he
had gotten up out of bed in the first place.
If you enjoyed this: claps, comments, staying for at least 30 seconds, and highlights go a long way.
Thank you for reading, I really appreciate your support.
You can also connect with me via
https://twitter.com/skibickisteven
https://instagram.com/thefiresidesin?igshid=aHh3eWZzczJ5aHd5
Threads
https://www.threads.net/@thefiresidesin
Blue sky
