Evil Agreement

by Richard L Hatin

  “Pleased to meet you, Aaron.”

  Korie’s heart began to pump a bit faster now that she was speaking to him, face to face. She found him to be quite handsome. Whatever was making him sad also made him seem so vulnerable. She placed her left hand over his left hand. He didn’t pull away at her touch. Their eyes were now locked upon one another.

  “Is there something wrong, Aaron?”

  “Yes,” he whispered as his eyes began to water up again.

  “Uh, listen, why don’t I give you a lift home in my car and you can take a cab back tomorrow to get your car? I really don’t think you should be driving tonight.”

  “Your name is Korie, that’s a pretty name,” he said as he tried to force a smile.

  “You wait here, I’ll be right back,” she said as she stood up.

  She headed to the bar and whispered something to the bartender. He shook his head in obvious disagreement to whatever Korie was saying. Nevertheless, she quickly went into the employee’s locker room and retrieved her coat and purse.

  As she exited the locker room, she handed an envelope to the bartender. “There’s the last of my tips for tonight. I’ll check back for my share tomorrow, when I come in.”

  “You be careful.”

  “Thanks, you know I will. He just needs a lift home.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Korie slipped into her coat and headed over to Aaron’s table. She helped him to his feet and guided him to the front door. She had to struggle just to keep him up as he staggered between tables and chairs. Soon the two of them were outside standing next to her seven year old Honda Accord. She unlocked the passenger side door and helped him to sit in the front seat. He made a most ungraceful effort at this otherwise ordinary task. She had to lift his two legs and set them inside the car. She got into the driver’s side and soon she was pulling out of the restaurant parking lot. She never gave it a second thought. This Aaron just seemed like he needed more from her than a ride home. It seemed to her that he needed a friend. She had decided to take Aaron to her apartment and let him sleep on the couch for the night. If he wanted to talk, that would be okay If he didn’t, that would be fine too.

  They drove silently to her apartment, which was just a couple of miles from the restaurant. It was a small cottage that she rented from an elderly couple who were both retired physicians. The cottage was set behind their house, but it shared a view of the ocean. The rent was unusually cheap. The elderly couple liked her a lot, and she appreciated their generosity. She ran errands for them on her days off from the restaurant. But most of all, she appreciated the fact that they didn’t try to pry into her private life. They simply accepted her into their lives, and she would never do anything to hurt their trust and affection for her. She worried that bringing this man to her cottage apartment would upset them. She decided she would speak to them in the morning and explain that she just couldn’t let this man go home alone. She felt they would understand.

  Korie pulled her car to a stop alongside her cottage. She pulled the emergency brake on and turned the engine off. Aaron had fallen asleep during the short drive from the restaurant. He would have never made it safely home alone. She got out of the car and went to the passenger’s side of the car and opened the car door. She reached in and unbuckled Aaron’s seat belt. He was breathing heavily.

  She took his head in her hands and shook it back and forth.

  “Aaron, Aaron, please wake up, you’re home.” He slowly opened his eyes and looked at her and smiled a silly half-drunk smile.

  “Home?”

  “Yes, now let me help you get inside.”

  With that, she pulled his right arm and his whole body slowly followed along. He pulled his own legs out of car. She tugged at his arm. He grabbed on to the car door as he helped himself to his feet. After closing the car door, she led him to her front door.

  “Hey, I don’t recognize this. This, this can’t be my place.”

  “I know you are too drunk to drive, so I decided to bring you to my place to spend the night. I hope you don’t think I’m out of line.”

  “Naw,” said Aaron as he leaned against the front outside wall of the house. His head was spinning. He tried to hold his head with his hands, but as he tried to lift them they felt like they weighed a hundred pounds each.

  Korie put her house key into the front door deadbolt lock and unlocked the door. She opened the door and then reached around the left inside of the door and flipped an inside wall switch, turning on the foyer’s overhead light. Aaron squeezed his eyes shut in reaction to the sudden brightness of the light.

  “C’mon inside.”

  Korie took Aaron by the hand and led him inside. With her right foot, she managed to softly kick the front door shut. She led him into the kitchen first, where she had him sit at the table. She turned the overhead light on for the stove, which was the softest light in the kitchen. With his elbows on the table, Aaron buried his head into his hands.

  “Coffee?”

  “Sure,” said Aaron.

  Korie proceeded to make a carafe of coffee with her Mr. Coffee machine. She sat down at the table across from Aaron as the coffee began to drip into the carafe. The aroma of freshly brewing coffee filled the small kitchen. Nearly everything in this kitchen was white with sunflower yellow accents. Korie stared at this man she had brought home. As a young girl, she was always bringing home some hurt or abandoned animal. She would take care of them with a level of attention and affection that was uncompromising.

  Korie reached across the table and pulled Aaron’s hands apart. Their eyes met once more. They looked at one another for a short while.

  “Aaron, what’s wrong? Is there anything I can do to help you?”

  Aaron, without saying a word reached into his coat pocket, and pulled the papers out and placed them upon the white table top.

  “My aunt, who raised me all my life, died this summer. I didn’t know she had died.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah, thanks. Well, anyway, she named me in her will. So today I went up to Boston and met with her attorney, who is handling her estate,” said Aaron as he began to sniffle. Korie handed him a napkin.

  “Pheeeze,” as he blows his nose.

  “Go on,” said Korie.

  “Well, it seems that she left me a lot of money. In fact, she left me everything.”

  “She must have cared for you a lot?”

  “You don’t know the half of it. I decided to come down to the Cape and celebrate. That’s how I ended up at your restaurant. This is some celebration, huh?

  “Nothing wrong with that. Do you miss her, is that why you’ve been so sad tonight?”

  “Yes and no. It’s because of these papers the attorney gave me,” he said as he poked his right index finger down on the papers.

  “Go on, read them,” he said.

  “Oh no, I shouldn’t, they’re yours, I mean they’re private, meant just for you.”

  “I want you to read them.”

  “The coffee’s ready. Why don’t we have some coffee first?” she said as she rose from the table. She really didn’t want to read these personal papers from this man’s dead aunt.

  She poured them both a large cup of coffee. She set his cup down in front of him. She went to the refrigerator and came back to the table with a carton of coffee creamer. She put that on the table and sat back down.

  “There’s sugar and sweet and low in that bowl.”

  He took two packets of sugar and tried to pour them into his coffee. He spilled sugar all around the cup. He waved away the creamer when she offered it to him. She mixed her own coffee.

  “She wasn’t my aunt after all. She was my mother.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, my mother. It’s all in here,” he said as he again pointed to the papers lying on the table.

  “Korie, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Please read them. It’s a letter from my mother and a copy of my birth and baptis
m certificates. I want you to read them. Go on.”

  He pushed the folded papers towards her. Reluctantly, she picked them up. Her curiosity had been piqued. She unfolded the letter and began to read.

  The night was passing quickly. She finished reading the letter and she and Aaron got into a discussion about what it might have meant or what it really meant. They drank more coffee. She made a second carafe. Aaron told stories about his aunt. He still had a hard time referring to her as his mother. He and Korie laughed and cried at these tales. As the night passed, Aaron eventually began to speak of her as his mother.

  “Hey, thanks,” said Aaron.

  “Thanks?”

  “Yeah, for looking after me tonight, and for listening to me.”

  “Hey, it’s okay.”

  “What time is it anyway?”

  Looking over Aaron’s shoulder, she glanced at the kitchen wall clock. It pointed to three forty in the morning.

  “Well, it’s almost a quarter to four.”

  “That late?”

  “Yeah, look, I’ll make up the couch for you. It’s big and comfortable.”

  “That’s fine, I’ll help, if you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.”

  Soon the couch was set up with a blanket to serve as a bed sheet, and another to cover up with. Korie brought Aaron a pillow from her bedroom.

  Aaron was still a little wobbly, but he managed to organize the couch into a suitable bed. He felt dryness in his mouth that he wanted to get rid of. Too much wine followed by too much coffee had left his breath ten ways past raunchy. After Korie used the bathroom, she said goodnight to Aaron and headed straight to her own bedroom. Aaron went into the bathroom and took some of her toothpaste and applied a generous amount to his right index finger. He than applied the toothpaste vigorously to his teeth. He then rinsed a couple of times. His mouth felt better. As he was about to exit the bathroom, he noticed a small bottle of perfume sitting on the counter. He picked it up. He didn’t recognize the name, but his nose quickly identified the perfume as the same one he had noticed Korie wearing at the restaurant earlier. He took a deep sniff and let the fragrance fill his sense of smell. The odor was one which aroused a deeply sensuous reaction in Aaron. His memory kicked in. He could see her standing over him, that first moment, when she had approached his table.

  Aaron left the bathroom and took a step towards Korie’s bedroom. He stopped and glanced down at the soft light emanating from the bottom of her bedroom door.

  Don’t be a jerk, he thought. She’s just a nice person who helped you out.

  He shook his head slowly as he headed back over to the couch. He took off his sports jacket, folded it and laid it across the back of a wooden rocker, which shared the room with the couch. He then took off his shoes, leaving his socks on. He next took off his sports shirt and pants and carefully folded them as well, laying them over his sports coat. He climbed onto the couch and in a few moments he had fallen deep asleep.

  Meanwhile in Korie’s bedroom, she was lying in bed and couldn’t fall asleep.

  Had he approached her bedroom door earlier? Was he thinking of her? Did he find her attractive? What would she have done if he had come into her bedroom? These thoughts swirled inside her mind.

  Finally, how do you feel about him Korie? she thought.

  There was no clear answer. With that she reached over to the small nightstand light and turned it off. Sleep came moments later.

  Aaron dreamed of his mother Laura. She seemed to speak to him in his dreams.

  “Aaron, please stay away from Vermont. Go far away. Change your name. Hide, they’re coming,” said his mother as she looked over her shoulder. She was obviously frightened.

  “Who’s coming?” said Aaron.

  “The Keepers.”

  Aaron seemed to reach out for his mother in his dream, but the image soon faded away. Aaron drifted off to a deeper, dreamless sleep.

  Korie dreamed about Aaron’s mother as well that night.

  She also spoke to Korie from the dream world.

  “Please help keep Aaron away from them.”

  “From who?”

  “The Keepers.”

  “What do they want Aaron for?”

  “He’s the missing link they need to bring him across.”

  “Bring who across, I don’t understand.”

  “Him, the Prince of Darkness, the Lord of Sin, the Evil One, he goes by many names.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you are special, chosen.”

  “What do you mean, chosen?”

  “Please, help him.”

  “I still don’t understand.”

  The specter of Aaron’s mother that appeared to Korie in this dream looked over her shoulder and when she looked back at Korie a look of total terror had overtaken her. She opened her mouth to let loose a scream. Korie in her dream state braced herself for the sound of the scream. Instead the specter’s mouth was silent. The image broke up into wispy traces that seemed to collapse into the silent open mouth of the fading image. Korie’s mind froze that image in place. But something was happening to the traces of the image that filled the blackness of her mind. A new image was taking shape.

  It was soon apparent to Korie who or what this new image was. The sinewy muscular outline of a face filled her entire mind. The face was that of a Halloween Devil’s mask that she must have remembered from her childhood. It was a bright red. It glistened from out of the darkness it seemed to be suspended in. The plastic like mask began to evolve into a lifelike face, still bright red.

  “Korie, he’s mine,” it spoke.

  “No, no. No!” she shouted.

  Korie woke to find herself sitting straight up in her bed. She was drenched in a cold night sweat.

  From beyond the bedroom door, she could hear Aaron snoring.

  9

  The blinds were fully drawn in the windows that were on three sides of the large conference room. On the remaining wall of the large rectangular room was a large white board with some half-erased words scrawled across its face. To its left was a large bulletin board, layered with various papers and photos of houses from all around the greater Washington County. Next to the bulletin board were three small wooden plaques proclaiming Sutton Realty as the Real Estate Company of the Year for 1992, 1994 and 1995. Next to these smaller plaques was a larger one, which had a picture attached showing a women receiving the plaque from another woman. The caption inscribed in the brass plate below read “Vermont’s Woman Entrepreneur of the Year-1997, Phyllis Atkins, President, Sutton Realty, Presented by the Governor of the State of Vermont, Margaret C. Caron.”

  The door to the conference room opened and in walked several people who were engaged in conversation. They moved about the room, locating chairs at what appeared to be a prearranged seating arrangement. The conference table seats twelve, but at the moment only ten seats are occupied. A silence settles over the room as the people seated fidget in their seats, all but one person that is. Reverend Simon B. Mitchell is seated at the farthest end of the table from the door. His hands are folded in front of him on the table in a prayerful pose. To his left and going around the conference table is Bob Senecal, owner of Bob’s Garage. Next is Judge Arthur W. Fairchild and then Mrs. Lawless, office manager for the Governor of the State of Vermont. Next to her sits Charles Trainor, a popular local radio station disk jockey. To his left, sits Ed Foley, the veterinarian. To Ed’s left is a vacant chair. This chair is at the opposite end of the conference table from the Reverend. To the left of that chair is another empty chair. Continuing around the table is Phyllis Atkins, President of the Sutton Real Estate Agency, whose conference room they are now using. To her left is Judy Perillo, who owns a successful motel next to Interstate 89. Next is Ed Townsend, a retired FBI agent. Finally there is Shirley Carter, who owns Sutton’s one and only beauty shop.

  “Brother Foley, did you bring the ingredients?” asked the Reverend.

  Not wanting to challenge the o
bvious question, he answers, “Yes, yes, I brought everything.”

  “Good.”

  With that the conference door opens slowly and standing in its open space is young Sammy Porter. He is quiet and obviously nervous. His eyes dart about the room. He recognizes everyone in the room. He is wearing a clean white short sleeve dress shirt, clean pressed slacks. His hair is combed straight back. He is nudged into the room from behind. Following him into the room is Walter Yandow. Walter ushers him to the lone seat at the opposite end of the conference table. Walter then moves to the last empty chair and sits down. Sammy, not sure what to do with his hands, places them onto the table and mimics the pose of the Reverend. The Reverend looks at Sammy from across the table and breaks into a small smile.

  “Welcome to our humble gathering, Mr. Porter,” said the Reverend Mitchell.

  “Uh, thank you, sir.”

  “We are in your debt this day, Mr. Porter. Indeed, HE is in your debt as well. HE is most grateful and desires to reward you for your faithfulness. Are you prepared to accept HIS most generous gift?”

  Sammy had been coached on the way over to this meeting of what was about to take place and what to say by his escort, Walter.

  “Yes, Reverend, I am prepared to accept His gift and to take my place among His faithful.” He managed a sideways glance in the direction of Walter, who was revealing a slight smile.

  “Very well. Before we proceed, will Judge Fairchild administer the oath?”

  Judge Fairchild, an old man who wore his reading glasses at all times, while looking over them most of the time, pushed himself back from the conference table. He was wheezing as he stood up. His allergies had been bothering him. He was carrying a large book, which was black leather bound and resembled a large ledger book that an accountant might use. Its cover was embossed in gold leaf with the shape of a pentagram.

  At the very sight of the book, Sammy’s heart began racing even more rapidly than it had already. He had only heard about the book from others in whispered conversations. Sammy stood up.

  The Judge held the book in front of Sammy and then he reached down and took Sammy’s left hand with his own right hand and placed it on the book. The Judge’s hand was cold to the touch.