An Excerpt

A warning to the reader: This is a work in progress, so it's a little disjointed. Hope you enjoy it nonetheless. Feedback would be wonderful.

LEONARD

He fought with himself. How does that joker really know the winning numbers? How he could possibly know such a thing? It’s ridiculous. No one knows things like this. Not even a legitimate clairvoyant (and even that was fiction) could predict it. Yet he clung to the card in his hand, his fingers itching to dial the number on it. Why do I want to tempt fate? What if he’s really who he says he is? What if he really does get my soul if I agree to this? He’s figured out everything else so far. Keeps showing up wherever I am, knows everything about me. It’s impossible to avoid him anymore. And I’m broke – flat broke. I need the money now more than ever.

He pinched the card between his thumb and forefinger, watching the skin and nail delicately rouged by blood pale as he applied pressure. He stared hard at the number, pictured himself pressing each button on the telephone slowly, deliberately, the tone of each number creating an unmelodious electronic ditty, the hushed silence before the first ring. The click as the receiving end picked up, the sweat beading on his forehead as he waited for a greeting, an acknowledgment of his call.

He tore the card up into bits and sprung from his chair, hastily throwing it all into the trash can and slamming the lid shut. No soul-selling today, he thought. Not mine, anyway.

He felt relieved and rubbed his forehead, surprised to find that there was actually a small veil of sweat there after all. He laughed at himself. How he let his mind run away with itself sometimes. He needed to face facts – this wasn’t the quick-fix that was going to work for him. That guy was completely nuts and he’d believed him all because he was desperate. All those sleepless nights worrying about money had made him hallucinate, made him think that he was being followed. Maybe this was some sick game being played by the IRS – creditors did have morbidly creative ways of extracting money out of people.

He grabbed his keys, deciding to go for a drive – the fresh air would do him some good. He stopped at Oakley Park, taking residence on a bench and shut his eyes, listening to the twitter of birds and feeling the sun on his face. Children were playing about, feeding scraps of bread to the gaggle of ducks in the pond across the way as old men sat still as statues on the opposite bank, their fishing poles resting in the crooks of tree branches. To wait that long for one bite that might never come – he couldn’t think of a bigger waste of time or energy. Two women walked by with their dogs, one tugging along a robust beagle who, despite the choke of his leash, strained to sniff every square inch of ground on which he walked. A beleaguered mother sat down on the opposite side of the bench, pulling her child by the arm over to her to wipe the dirt from his face. She and Leonard both gave each other a cursory glance and a quick smile, turning away again and leaving each other to their respective silences. Funny how most people lived this way – we all shared this planet, a common space, but could live our whole lives barely exchanging a single word with another. Her son struggled with her, whipping his head to the side and she scolded him, just barely cleaning the last of the grime from his cheeks as he shook loose and joined his friends back at the tree line where they had all huddled on their haunches looking at some mystery object.

“You keep your hands off that turtle! It can bite a finger off if it gets a hold of one!” she yelled after him. She sighed, leaning back into the bench, closing her eyes and tilting her chin towards the sky just as Leonard had. She had a magnificent profile, thick black lashes curling into perfect “C’s” and defined cheekbones that framed a dark complexion, replete with a head of long, dark, shiny curls. He could see a fine sheen of sweat glistening on her clavicle and let his eyes travel to the swell of her breasts, a small delicious shadow of cleavage barely visible at the scooped neckline of her tank top. She opened her eyes again, caught him staring. He looked away quickly, thinking she would be getting up to leave but instead she turned towards him slightly, knees pointing his way, a classic form of body language that indicated interest.

“This heat’s something else, isn’t it?” she said lightly, her weariness miraculously replaced by a buoyant, carefree tone.

“Sure is,” he offered back. “I like the cold myself.”

“One can get used to the heat if one spends enough time in it,” she countered. “Sorta like people who are born and raised in Florida and think 60 degrees is freezing cold?”

Leonard nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah. I could see how that would make a difference.”

She turned from him and stared straight ahead into the flashing ripple of the pond. Her gaze seemed to take on a severity he couldn’t explain, the whites of her eyes exhibiting an eerie, spectral effulgence.

“Why did you do that?” she suddenly asked.

“Do what?” he queried.

She still did not look at him, her eyes narrowing, the corners of her mouth slightly upturned with covert amusement. “Why did you tear up my card? Why didn’t you just call me?”

My God, he really was going crazy. He scooted away from her, feeling that tourniquet of fear wrap about his chest once again with suffocating ferocity. She placed her hand on his knee, the nails clean and manicured, a map of blue veins pulsing below her knuckles. She leaned in conspiratorially, her full dark lips parted, her dark brown eyes wide and absent of the fatigue that dominated them only moments before. She looked intense, aroused even, and Leonard could detect a coconut-like aroma from the suntan oil on her skin.

“There is no quick fix for you anymore. This is the only way out.”

She paused and leaned in closer again, her tongue flitting into his ear. He shivered and tried to pull away from her but she clutched his shirt, holding him fast.

“I’m your only way out. And believe me, there are benefits to this.”

She leaned back again, facing him. He returned her gaze apprehensively, wanting her to remove her hands but not wanting to have to touch her to make it happen.

“You could have her right now if you wanted to,” she said, licking her lips. She took his hand and put it on her breast. He wrenched his hand away and she laughed at him, smirking. “Just say the word and I’ll take her back to the bushes and you can fuck her silly. You just have to say yes.”

She was a looker - he wouldn’t disagree with that. But there was no way he was going to agree to this just for a quick lay with a hapless possessed park mom.

“You must think I’m a big dumb male,” he snorted, glowering. “Appeal to my cock and I’ll give you my soul? You’ve got to be joking. Even you aren’t that bad at your craft.”

“Au contraire, Leonard, I realize how smart you are. And it's too bad you turned it down - I was willing to give you this one for free,” she purred, stroking his cheek playfully with her finger. “Food for thought, as it were. Besides,” she said, lending a melodramatic air to her voice, “I’ve always wanted to know what it feels like for a girl.” With this she laughed, an unattractive cackle that gave way to raucous guffawing. They were attracting attention now and she was still leaned in close to him, too close for decency. Her son had now turned to face them, along with all his friends, and Leonard was unnerved when he saw among them a pallid, hollow-eyed girl, the first stubble of dark growth just now covering a ghoulishly white scalp that had been shaved. She seemed to look right through him, eyeing him with a combination of contempt and admonition. He stood up, the woman’s arm ratcheting away from his and she abruptly ceased her laughter, her body going slack and slouching. He looked down at her and her wearied gaze had returned, coupled with a stupor that resembled a surgery patient coming out of anesthesia. He walked away quickly, not knowing where he could go that he couldn’t be reached. He passed the bathrooms on his way to the parking lot, a maintenance man perusing the grounds with a garbage pick and trash bag. He paused in his refuse collection and looked at Leonard with a cold, critical gaze as he passed by. Leonard returned the look, thoroughly irritated at his embarrassment.

“Oh, don’t be such a wimp, Lenny,” the maintenance man bellowed at him. Leonard stopped abruptly, feeling his blood boil. “You think about what I said. Really think about it. I want to hear from you tonight.” He dug a wrinkled card from the shirt pocket of his gray jumpsuit and advanced to Leonard, holding it out. Leonard stood his ground, refusing to take it.

“Well, if you don’t call me, you can always call Grace. I can be there, too.” A smug smile revealed a vile, crooked set of teeth stained by copious amounts of coffee and tobacco.

“Leave her alone,” he said firmly.

“Then take my card,” the man insisted, offering it again. Leonard seized it with an angry swipe and turned on his heel, headed for his car. He could hear the man snickering at him as he walked away.


LEONARD

He’d finally made up his mind – he was going to do it. He had his money, he had the numbers that he’d been given. Though he’d made a decision, he was skeptical all the way. It’s got to be a trick – some gypsy-magic trick where their filthy, thieving little team of tramps has fooled me into giving up personal information so they can take everything I have while I’m out here like a fool trying to win at a game that has impossible odds. I’ve been duped, surely I have. Yet his body mechanically disobeyed his mind, each foot firmly placed in front of the other as he got out of his car, walked toward the door of the quickie mart at the gas station and opened the door, the obnoxious buzzer going off above his head.

“One ticket please, and I’d like to pick my own numbers.” His voice didn’t even seem to be his, buzzing in his throat and sinuously exiting his mouth, a vaporous alien entity. The clerk at the counter nodded his head and Leonard handed him the paper with the numbers written on it, the clerk punching in each number with precision and purpose. The machine whirred and spit out a ticket, the clerk whisking it against the serrated strip and handing it to Leonard. Money was exchanged, changed hands, and then their attention was turned elsewhere, the clerk to his customers and Leonard to his ticket. He stared at the solid black digits, questioning the power and the destiny they now held for him. Would he wake up tomorrow a winner or just a bigger fool than he already was? How did he let himself get bamboozled? What did he really stand to lose if this ticket wasn’t a winner after all? Just his dignity, he guessed. He could recover that in due time.

He was still glancing at the ticket, walking to the door, when someone crossed in front of him unexpectedly and they collided. He turned, annoyed but prepared to apologize for not paying attention and his words became stuck in his throat at the sight in front of him. A roan pair of eyes stared back at him, bitter and sunken, framed by a thin, ovular face that beheld a military-style buzz haircut. There were patchy bald spots here and there that revealed an ashen scalp as well as curious bruises – it looked like someone had beat her about the head with the clippers as they had shaved her. Dirty, threadbare clothes hung off her gaunt frame, the crew neck of her oversized t-shirt severely stretched and revealing a prominent clavicle and bony shoulder, the flesh thin and stretched. Emaciated, he thought. Just looking at her gives me a hunger pang.

“I’m sorry,” he said, a little unsure of himself and of her. She continued to stare at him, her expression that of a battered woman who was now certain of another beating.

“You will be, many times over, before this is through. You never should have come here, Leonard. Back out now while you still can.”

Leonard jumped at her reply, half-expecting those cracked, dry lips of hers to stay stubbornly clamped. Before he could even ask how she knew his name, she had walked away from him to the clerk, cutting in front of two other people, the customers glaring at her as she rudely tossed exact change on the counter for the bottle of juice she grasped. Dimes and pennies ricocheted off the solid surface and fell behind the counter onto the tile floor, the clerk yelling at her in his thick accent as she ran out the door, the sinewy muscle on her skinny legs carrying her away with surprising speed and agility.