The Devil, the Grim Reaper, and a Ghost
A Collection of Four Dark Short Stories
Sean M. Hogan
The Devil, the Grim Reaper, and a Ghost
Copyright © 2017 by Sean M. Hogan.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN:
ASIN: B073NBTTBP
First Edition: July 2017
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
The Devil, the Grim Reaper, and a Ghost
MOTEL BLACK
The Grim Adventures of Meryl & Doug
The Voice of the Beyond
TheMonster With No Eyes
The crow behind the mirror
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
A Halloween Carol
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
E-Mail List
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MOTEL BLACK
THE AIR GREW BLACK, the sky bled gray, and the sewers reeked with white chemical foam. People paced the sidewalks as animals pace in manufactured steel cages, stepping in rhythms and routines carved out from years of soulless practice. A dim light bulb flickered in the alley while drug dealers exchanged merchandise and bums ciphered through trash cans and graffiti marked dumpsters. Pigeons crowded the dead remains of a maggot infested stray cat as prostitutes and pimps hustled the streets and darted between honking taxis and screeching cars. A dead body laid face down in a filthy pool of gutter water. No one seemed to mind.
Alex Greenhorn stared back between the plastic blinds, through the cold damp window, and out toward the black asphalt laced city. His nervous eyes scanned for the flashing lights of police cars. A man’s voice boomed out toward Alex, jolting him from his trance.
“Relax, Greenhorn,” said the voice. “He’ll get here.”
Alex glanced over then back out the window. “I can’t help it,” said Alex. “I just got this feeling, you know, a gut feeling.”
“It’s called indigestion,” said the voice. “Now sit your ass down, you’re making me nervous.”
Alex shut the blinds, walked over to the table, and sat down next to a man with charcoal black skin and even darker eyes. The snap and shuffle of the cards gave out a rhythmic beat as the man with the dark eyes laid each card down in their place. Alex never played solitaire himself but that did not stop him from watching. His eyes needed somewhere to go to avoid making eye contact.
“Here, a little liquor will do you some good,” the man said, twisting the cap off of a bottle of Jack Daniels and filling two shot glasses to the brim. He slid one over to Alex and downed the other. Alex just stared at it for a brief awkward moment before sliding it back.
“I’ll pass,” said Alex. “I like to have a clear head when I’m on a job.”
The man frowned as his dark eyes stared down at the glass. He shifted them back up to Alex.
Alex nervously repositioned himself in his chair.
“I didn’t know they were gonna pair me up with a stiff,” said the man. “You need to relax friend, slowdown and enjoy life. I could hook you up with an old acquaintance of mine if you want. She’s had plenty of practice loosing up—”
“I’m married,” said Alex interrupting him.
The man paused. His eyes met with Alex’s and he continued. “Listen kid, in this line of work a clear head is the last thing you need. Besides it’s been one fucking long night and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna spend another minute of it with a stiff. So, I suggest you loosen the fuck up and have a drink.” The man pushed the glass back over to Alex with the tips of his fingers.
Alex glanced down at it before picking it up and pressing it against his lips. He downed the shot as quickly as he could manage.
“Well, you don’t have to worry about being around me for much longer,” said Alex. “Unlike you, I don’t plan on making a career out of something like this.”
The man gathered up all the cards on the table. He shuffled them a few times before starting a new game. “What, you don’t like getting your hands dirty? You should of thought about that before.”
“I didn’t have much of a choice. Money’s been tight since the baby came. I didn’t even have enough for a ring.” Alex raised his naked left hand. “You have family?”
The man gave Alex a cold glance up from his cards.
“Yeah, you don’t look like the type,” said Alex. “I’m new at the whole father thing myself. Shit I’m no expert at the husband gig either. My wife can testify to that.”
Alex quieted himself by taking in a deep breath. He watched the ceiling fan spin and wobble in its noisy rotation. His hair danced and whipped across his face as the memories of his family flooded back to him. “I knew the first time I looked into my son’s eyes things had to change. That’s why I had to do this. They deserve a real home. A safe neighborhood to grow up in. The good life far from shit holes like this. I owe Nicole that at least.”
The man gazed up at Alex’s emotionally ridden face. “Nicole?” he asked.
“My wife,” replied Alex with a smile. He pulled out his leather wallet and flipped it open.
The man stared back at a photo of a woman lying on a beach. Nicole donned thick black sun glasses that hid her eyes and an old weathered straw hat that framed her face and smile.
Alex smirked. “Gorgeous, huh?”
The man resumed his game. “I prefer white women myself.”
Alex stuffed his wallet back into his pocket. “Yeah, well to each his own.”
“You know there are other ways a man can earn his share. Other more reputable ways.”
“None with this high of a turnaround, but don’t worry because unlike the rest of the scum you work with I haven’t sold my soul just yet. I mean I’m no saint but even the Pope sins now and then, right?” Alex paused to force a smile. “A good drinker knows his limit.”
“The funny thing about the color white. Once you add a little black it can never go back to its purest form again,” said the man. “No matter how much white you put back into it. It is forever gray.”
“You know what? I’m fucking glad we did it.” Alex shifted in his seat. “Wasting that demon, Albright, was a real pleasure. If anyone deserved a seat in hell it would be him. As I see it, I should get a medal like a fucking hero.”
Maxwell Albright was the first man Alex ever killed. He was a conman, a gangster, and a moral destitute. He gained himself a black spotted card, the mob’s death sentence, when his associates discovered he was stealing from them. When the hit was ordered, Alex jumped at the chance for an upgrade in salary.
“Funny, I never read a comic where Superman put a nine to the back of some poor slob’s skull.” The man tossed down the Ace of Spades.
“Not much of a comic fan. So, what got the great Jack Thorne into this line of work?”
“A man usually gravitates toward something he’s got a little talent in,” said Jack. “It just so happens I’m good at what I do.”
/> “There’s more to your story then that,” Alex pressed on. “I want to know how a man gets to the point where he could take the life of another human being as easily as taking out the trash.”
Jack’s eyes saddened as he gathered his breath. He poured himself another glass and peered into his liquid reflection. His image grew distorted in the ripples of the brown liquor. He downed it without hesitation, cleared his throat, and began his story.
***
“I grew up on a chicken farm on a modest little patch of dirt deep in the south of Mississippi,” said Jack. “To say the least, we were poor. So poor we couldn’t see three feet in front of our faces. So poor we were gasping for air with every breath. And when you’re that poor the only way out is through the end of a bottle or the end of a gun. My daddy took a liking to both. Desperation has a way of taking hold of a man and never letting go. It wouldn’t even give my old man an inch.”
“I remember the first day I saw my old man sin. I remember the cool breeze of the autumn winds across my face that morning as I played in the backyard. The sun was so bright I almost missed that stranger inside our chicken coop. He must have been starving. He had already eaten half of one. Must have been still alive when he took his first bite too. It was at that moment I made the biggest regret of my life. I screamed.”
“My old man came barreling out shotgun in hand. That chicken thief was just too slow on the get go. Flopping around like the chicken he had just eaten. Others had done it before and he always forgave, but today was different. Something inside my old man snapped. I could tell in the way his hands shook, like two tiny towers of Babel riveting with the wrath of God. I guess he saw all the wrong that he had suffered all his life in that man’s face. Desperate men do desperate things as the old saying goes. Unfortunately for my daddy that man he shot was white.”
“I’ll never forget that blank expression on his face as he sat in that police car. It was something I had never seen before. It was like he was empty from the inside out. Head to toe. There was nothing left. Whatever he had kept bottled up inside him was gone now and only a husk of a man remained. Since then, I have only seen that same look twice: once on my mother’s face just before she died and once again in the mirror.”
Light spilled out from underneath the bathroom door slicing the darkness like a razor-sharp knife.
“So, what’s the moral of the story?” asked Alex.
“Moral?” asked Jack.
Red-stained footprints lined the floor in messy patterns. Drops of dark blood splashed onto the tile collecting into a small pool.
“Yeah, every story has a moral, otherwise what was the point in telling it?” asked Alex.
A bloody towel hung from a silver polished handle. A pale naked body lay behind the flower printed shower curtain inside a white bathtub. A plastic bag rested tightly wrapped over the head, part of it still sucked inside the mouth from the last breath.
Jack smiled. “In this town, there’s no such thing as morals.”
***
There was a knock at the door. Jack pulled out his gun.
“Keep your ass seated,” he told Alex as he got up, stalked over to the motel door, and peered out through the door’s peephole. A devil in a red striped suit and black tie smiled back. His image distorted, being filtered through the fisheye lens. Jack pulled back the door latch, unbolted the lock, and let the Devil in.
In his right hand the Devil gripped the handle of a large black suitcase made of hard thick plastic. Wrapped around his other arm was a woman in an old fashioned emerald green flapper dress, sexy but not too revealing, and dark fishnets that covered her slender feet and ran up past her inner thighs. Her face was hidden behind a plastic fox mask with slanted eyes and on her head a red fiery wig that completed her foxy motif. Alex was attracted to her almost immediately, finding her curves to his liking. She was his type entire though he preferred his women far more conservative in attire. She leaned most of her weight against the Devil’s shoulder, her head swaying back and forth like a bobble head doll. It was obvious she was on something.
Jack shut the door behind them. “A little late for Halloween, don’t you think?” he asked the Devil.
The Devil plopped the suitcase on the couch, unlatched it, and the suitcase popped open like a hungry clam. “But just in time for Christmas for I come bearing gifts,” joked the Devil.
Alex inched out of his seat and over to the couch to get a glimpse of the suitcase’s innards: stacks of neatly folded trash bags as black as sin, a jug of generic bleach, a slender black briefcase, and a couple of bone saws rested inside.
He turned to the Devil.
The Devil turned to him. “Who the fuck are you?” he asked with a hiss.
Alex lost all the air in his throat.
“My intern,” Jack cut in. “Relax, you can trust him.”
“Alex Greenhorn.” Alex offered up his hand.
The Devil just stared it down.
Alex stuffed his hand back inside his pocket.
The Devil pushed his woman down on the couch, took out the briefcase, and walked over to the table. He poured himself a drink. He tilted his plastic mask slightly off and above his lips and slowly poured the shot down his throat, savoring the taste and kick. Then he slapped his briefcase down on the table and turned to Alex. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Alex. Please allow me to introduce myself,” the Devil said grinning. “I’m what you would call a traveling businessman of sorts, a middleman, a problem solver in times of need, and a supplier in times of want and desire. So, tell me, Alex. What do you desire?”
Jack observed from the shadows like a spectating ghost grimly watching the events unfold.
“My money,” Alex said dryly.
The Devil popped open the briefcase and plucked out a small stack of cash, gliding his finger across the top like a deck of cards, fluttering the bills the way angry bees flutter their wax paper wings desperately against a raging forest fire. He tossed the money to Alex.
Alex counted and his face grew pale and full of panic. “Five grand? That’s only half. We were promised twenty grand for this job.”
“You were. Minus my fee of course… for body removal and disposal. Unless you’d like to hide our late friend in the bathtub under your mattress for the remainder of decomposition,” said the Devil.
The Devil pulled out another stack of cash, bigger this time, and handed it to Jack. Alex counted as Jack did, eight thousand.
Jack smiled over to Alex. “Seniority.”
“You get seven grand just for dumping a body?” Alex protested.
“One grand for each deadly sin,” the Devil replied.
“It’s not enough.” Alex’s breaths were erratic. “I need more. I have to have more. This won’t cover everything.”
“There’s always Las Vegas,” Jack said, “though the odds are against you.”
“What a splendid suggestion, Jack,” the Devil said pulling out a silver revolver from the briefcase and setting it down on the table. The revolver was a custom model with a six-chamber cylinder with engraved flames and serpents slithered up the handle and down the barrel. The gun looked more for decoration than for shooting. “Are you a gambling man, Alex?”
Alex just stared.
The Devil held up a single bullet. He slid the bullet down one chamber of the gun and spun the cylinder. When the chamber stopped, the Devil turned the briefcase around. Alex peered back at more money lying inside that briefcase then he had ever seen in the flesh since his tragic birth.
“Three hundred and fifteen thousand,” said the Devil. “All yours if you point this gun to your temple and pull the trigger five times.”
Jack smiled. “What, you don’t believe in banks?”
“I don’t believe in anything,” said the Devil. He shifted his gaze back to Alex. “What do you say?”
Alex just shook his head, unable to verbalize words, his sockets filled with ghost eyes.
“Tell you what,” said the Devil. “With
one click I’ll double your money there. One click and you’ll get your ten grand.”
“What’s in it for you?” asked Alex.
The Devil smiled. “If you die I keep your share so it’s double or nothing.”
Alex put on a fake smile to mask his fear. “Desperate men do desperate things,” he said quietly to himself. He picked up the gun and pressed the barrel against his right temple. He clenched his eyes shut, held the breath in his lungs, and squeezed the trigger… click and nothing more. Alex let out his air.
The Devil added another stack of cash to Alex’s pile.
“Looks like I win,” said Alex.
“Whoever said the game was over?” asked the Devil. “Just one more squeeze and that ten turns into a twenty.”
Alex stepped back. “I don’t think so.”
“You chicken?” The Devil laughed as he dropped another stack of cash down on the table matching Alex’s.
A year’s paycheck was now staring back at Alex. The temptation was too great, the greed too strong. Alex put the gun to his head and squeezed the trigger. Nothing. He grinned down at the Devil as he collected his loot.
“Why stop while you’re ahead?” The Devil dropped twenty grand on the table.
Alex didn’t hesitate this time. He pulled the trigger and gathered up another twenty grand.
“You’re on fire,” said the Devil.
Alex, dripping wet in a mad feverish sweat, pulled the trigger a fourth time and won eighty thousand.
“Now comes the fun part,” said the Devil. “One more click and I’ll quadruple your cash. Three hundred and twenty grand for five minutes of a little ball sweating. You can’t beat that. Just a flip of the coin and you walk away a rich man.”
Alex wiped the sweat from his brow. “No way you’d let me walk away with that much.”
“You’re the one with the gun.”
“You’re right, I am.” Alex turned the gun on the Devil.
The Devil stood still as a statue. “Of course, I have another gun in my pants pocket. If the next click is false, I won’t give you another. You won’t be improving your odds.”
Alex lowered the gun. “I’m finished then. There’s no way I’m betting my life on a fifty, fifty gamble.”
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