Voices From The Other Side Read online

  “Who are you? I can’t figure that out on my own.”

  “At one time, I was a silent partner in this”—he sneered, his fedora brim moving like a turret as he surveyed his surroundings—“establishment. It’s all yours now. As soon as I collect my dividends, that is.”

  “My father didn’t have any partners. He opened his shop with his own blood, sweat and tears.” He realized he sounded like a human recorder, spitting out his father’s tired spiel verbatim.

  “Again, if Big Eddie said it, then it must be true.”

  This guy was crazy. That’s all it was. Simple solution for that, though. “Look, I don’t know you, and I don’t buy your BS. You’ve got to go. I’m calling the cops.”

  Not taking his eyes off the Man in Black, he scooped up the receiver. The screams from the phone could be heard before it even reached his ear.

  “Don’t give me to him, son. If you ever loved me, don’t give him the stone. Please!”

  Eddie slammed the receiver back on its cradle hard enough to crack the plastic casing. The stranger chuckled. It was a low, slow-paced grumbling, like gears ticking in a huge clock.

  There was no fighting it. No more denying that something wasn’t right here. This was beyond the scope of an off-his-rocker customer. This was supernatural. Evil.

  Eddie snatched the pump-action shotgun from the catch beneath the counter. “You’ve got five seconds to get out of here.”

  The fedora cocked to the side; the expression beneath the brim was nonplussed. “You’re throwing me out? I thought you wanted to know my name.”

  “It’s going to be Victim if you don’t roll up out of here.”

  The stranger held up his clenched fist, knuckles down. The fingers uncoiled, and two red shells the size of C batteries bounced onto and then rolled off the counter. “You may wish to load it first.”

  Eddie worked the pump. No shells ejected. The gun was empty.

  He dropped it and ran for the back of the store, slipping the stone in his pocket. At the exit door, he twisted the thumb latch and lunged into the alley. Only . . . it wasn’t the alley.

  His hips collided with the countertop, bruising them. The stranger’s open hand was inches from his face. Somehow, some way, he was back where he had started, at the front of the store.

  “My name is R. S. Skinner.” The stranger lowered his hand. “I met your father long before you were born, helped him accomplish select goals. He, in turn, made a promise. I imagine you can guess what the promise was, and you understand what it is you hold in your hand.”

  “It’s a rock. That’s all.”

  “Let’s stop this game, Little Eddie. You know what it is.”

  He looked at it, really looked at it. It wasn’t the bright, shimmering red of Dorothy’s slippers. The ruby was murky, the color of large scabs. Yet, clear enough for him to see his father inside.

  It wasn’t his father, though. Not exactly. Men of flesh and blood don’t shrink and fit inside jewels. Men of flesh and blood die and rot in pine boxes. But, what of their spirits?

  Like the stranger—Skinner—had said, he knew what it was.

  It was his father’s soul.

  “Are you”—he took a deep breath and forced the question that had to be asked—“are you the devil?”

  “Hardly. But we do deal in similar goods.” He huffed. “The devil. Maybe you are as dense as Big Eddie claimed.”

  Eddie felt an indignant stab in the pit of his stomach. “Well, whatever you are and whatever your game is, you ought to know that if you met my dad before I was born, then there’s no way he could’ve said that about me.”

  “If? I have no reason to sully your father’s name. He did that well enough on his own, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Eddie said nothing.

  “I met him before you were born, and we spent much time together since. Often, it was in Atlantic City where our paths crossed. Blackjack was his game. Whenever he went on a losing streak, he’d bring you up. Funny, he always equated you with bad luck.”

  Nice try, buddy. “You’ve got the wrong guy. My dad never gambled. He said it was just another way for fools to part with their money.”

  “Poor Little Eddie, still clinging to your father’s word like a buoy in a storm. Tell me this: What kind of business trips does a sleazy pawn-shop owner like Big Eddie Wilson need to take? Since you’ve taken his post, have you been invited to a Pawnbrokers of America convention?”

  Eddie opened his mouth to utter some other feeble defense for his dad, another lie. But, almost involuntarily, his jaw snapped shut. He could not force another untruth past his lips.

  “Another question for you, Little Eddie. If your father was so great with finances, where’s the money now?”

  Eddie lowered his eyes, not out of fear of R. S. Skinner—though he was afraid—but because he thought the man was reading his mind. He’d asked himself the same questions dozens of times in the last few weeks.

  “I’m making you uncomfortable, aren’t I? Let’s talk about something else.”

  Skinner turned to his right and glided to a display case full of a hodgepodge of items. Everything from Walkmans to old smoking pipes. He passed his pasty fingers over the glass with a whisper. “What a gorgeous pistol. Your father planned on selling it to a man named Lance Dartin. Lance works for a criminal group known as the Organization. Kills people, in fact. He can’t buy a gun in most places because of his lengthy criminal record, but your father didn’t judge a man by his colored past.” Skinner’s fedora rose. “It was all green to him.”

  “Dartin used to pay Big Eddie double for the . . . convenient shopping. Unfortunately, your father died before he could put this baby in Lance’s hands.”

  “You can’t know that.” His voice sounded small.

  “Oh, but I can. Just like I know you don’t doubt what I’m telling you.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Doing what? I just want my stone.”

  Eddie was tempted to toss the stone into the black shadow beneath his hat. He wanted Skinner gone. Forever. But, something still gnawed at him. As wrong as this whole conversation was, there was something else not right tugging at him.

  “Now that I’ve met you, I think you would’ve done all right at Commonwealth University.”

  “What? What’s that supposed to mean?” Eddie noticed Skinner’s grin had returned.

  “Big Eddie used to tell me over the roulette wheel about your desire to teach, that’s all.”

  A low heat burned in Eddie’s chest. When he was in his junior year of high school and he brought college up to his old man, the response was always a grunt followed by, “Waste of time and money.”

  Never mind that he always made the honor roll and his guidance counselor pushed him in that direction. Dad didn’t want to hear it. All he saw in his son’s future was pawnbroking.

  After a while, his college dream had faded like every other dream he had had outside of this damned shop.

  “My dad talked to you about my schooling?”

  “Only that you wanted to go,” Skinner said. “Personally, I thought it was a good idea.”

  “Yeah. Well, I already know what he thought about it. So don’t bother with the mudslinging.”

  “You’re right. No need to open up old wounds. It’s a shame, though.” He turned his back to Eddie to examine an electric guitar slung up on the far wall. “You’d think if he was willing to pay Terri’s tuition, he would’ve paid yours.”

  Eddie was in motion before he knew he was. He rounded the counter, crossed the floor and yanked Skinner around by his coat sleeve. From this close, he thought his initial estimation of six-foot-six might have been conservative; Skinner seemed closer to Shaq’s height. And the air surrounding him was cold.

  It did nothing to cool Eddie’s anger. “Who the fuck is Terri?”

  “Merely your father’s friend. A female.”

  “He had a mistress?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, Littl
e Eddie. Your father’s tastes weren’t like those of a young man’s. He enjoyed being a spectator more than a participant. From what I understood, the young lady was an excellent entertainer.”

  “So, you’re telling me he paid some stripper’s way through school?”

  “Little Eddie, don’t sound so put out. It’s not like anyone was going to leave her a claim on the family business. I believe she’s a teacher now. Isn’t that what you wanted to be?”

  “That mother”—he stopped, snatched the stone from his pocket and directed his anger toward it—“you mother fucker. How . . . how could you? I’m your son.”

  “Don’t take my word for it,” Skinner said, breathing icy breath on him. “I’m a stranger, remember. You don’t know me from Adam. I could be making all of this up.”

  He wasn’t, though. That was the thing. Eddie’s father was capable of everything Skinner had just said—the lying and the cheating. He had a black heart and bottomless soul, and didn’t care about anyone but himself.

  But, a slithery voice in the back of his head hissed, who’s got his soul now?

  The little man inside the ruby continued to pound on the walls of his prison.

  “Are you going to give me my merchandise now, Eddie?”

  Something flared in Eddie’s mind. Something small and bright enough to be visible through the angry fog that clouded his mind. His mental recorder—the same one that had sucked up so much of his father’s bullshit propaganda over the years—played back what Skinner had just said.

  Are you going to give me my merchandise now, Eddie?

  It rewound further, to when he’d attempted to call the cops and heard his father’s shrieking, fearful voice through the receiver.

  Don’t give me to him, son. If you ever loved me, don’t give him the stone.

  That word. Give.

  “Mister Skinner, I have another question for you.”

  “You want to know something else about daddy dearest?”

  “No. My question’s about you,” Eddie said, shaking his head. “Why haven’t you just taken the stone from me?”

  Silence.

  “You’re not a man, I know that now. Why try to outsmart one? That is what you’re trying to do, isn’t it?”

  Skinner spoke then, his voice shaky and tense. “I wanted to open your eyes, Eddie. Your father’s been cruel to you in ways you couldn’t even see. I just wanted you to know the truth.”

  “I thought you just wanted your stone.”

  The air changed. It was still cold, colder than before. Now, it crackled with unseen electricity. The hairs on Eddie’s neck and arms rose like quills on a porcupine.

  Mister Skinner’s coat suddenly seemed too small for his frame. Where he was slim before, he now appeared stockier, with protruding areas beneath his coat’s fabric that didn’t seem quite natural. The fabric flexed and bulged like a bag of snakes.

  “I’m going to give you one more chance to hand it over.”

  He stood his ground. “If it were that simple, you would’ve done it at first. You can’t take it from me, can you?”

  “Be done with my stone, boy,” he spat. “You owe your father nothing. He’s trapped you in a meaningless existence and erased your future. Give him to me, and he’ll pay for what he’s done to you and your mother. If anyone deserves the torment I have in store, it’s him.”

  The guitar fell from the wall. Two display cases exploded. The shotgun shells on the floor went off, spraying a wall with stray buckshot. Through the display window, Eddie saw a car veer off the road onto the sidewalk and back onto the road, barely missing a telephone pole.

  Still, he did not budge. “I’m not giving you this stone.”

  Skinner’s chest heaved for a few scary moments, then his breathing steadied. He shrank back into his previous form and tugged on the lapels of his coat as if to signify that he was back to normal. “Even after all I’ve told you and all you already knew, you won’t hand him over to me?”

  “I don’t know what you are, Skinner. But I’m not giving him to you. He’s a messed-up guy, but he’s still my dad.”

  The brim of the hat shook side to side. Skinner lowered his head and spoke to the floor. “You’re still a cheat, Big Eddie. Even in death.”

  Little Eddie didn’t know what that meant, but when the fedora brim rose again, he saw Skinner’s eyes for the very first time.

  They were two rubies like the one in Eddie’s hand. Umbra stones. In each, he saw his father shrieking and pounding, trying to fight his way out.

  Skinner raised one hand and flicked the fingers. The stone in Eddie’s hand became so hot so fast that it caused a second-degree burn on Eddie’s palm before his brain could send a signal to drop it. Eddie let the umbra stone fall to the floor, where it shattered into a thousand clear pieces. It had turned to glass.

  The Man in Black turned for the exit.

  “No, wait.” Eddie ran to grab him, but he spun, spotlighting Eddie in those blood-red eyes. Eddie backed away. It felt like he was shriveling under that gaze. “You can’t take him. I didn’t give him to you.”

  “I already have your father, Little Eddie. From the moment his final breath left his worthless carcass, he was mine.”

  “That’s not true. Why’d you come here then?”

  “You stupid little man. You don’t get it. A man like your father doesn’t have the power to trade his soul for the meaningless things he desired. His willingness to barter on that level already guaranteed that someone like me would lay claim on his essence when he died.”

  Skinner, apparently done with the conversation, turned to leave once more.

  Eddie pounded on his back with his good hand. “No. You came here for me to give him to you. You can’t just take him.”

  Skinner didn’t look back when he spoke. “I came here hoping you would be willing to give him up. I’d been counting on it. When I met Big Eddie, he was single, with his life in the toilet. He told me he wanted a business, money and women. In return, I needed something that he was capable of coming up with on his own. The ingrate couldn’t even get that right.”

  An invisible rubber band drew taut and snatched Eddie off his feet. He was slung backwards and collided with a wall. A rainstorm of merchandise followed, showering him, causing bruises, nicks and cuts. From his position beneath all the junk, he could see Skinner step onto the sidewalk. He watched Skinner’s black elbows piston as he undid the sash at the front of his coat. The thing that was Skinner shook off the garment, revealing no body, no true arms or legs. There was only a swirling mass of shadow and blood. An inky tendril yanked off the hat and tossed it. The shadow split into blotchy winged shapes and flew away.

  The wind from their wings sounded like his father screaming.

  What had just happened?

  He couldn’t honestly say. The event was rising and fading from the surface of his mind, like cigarette smoke from an ashtray. He pulled himself up, his eyes watery, and went to the glass shards on the floor. Before he could kneel and examine them more closely, a snatch of yellow caught his eye.

  On the counter, Skinner’s claim ticket spun like a top in the draft from the open door.

  Eddie snatched it up and read the print. It was different from before.

  Wilson’s Pawn & Loan

  Item 1

  Wilson’s corrupted soul

  Qty: 2

  Quantity: two?

  With that, Eddie understood. His father hadn’t sold his soul to R. S. Skinner. He’d offered it as a down payment. The balance was a soul that had yet to be corrupted.

  A soul that didn’t even exist at the time of the deal.

  A soul that wasn’t supposed to care—let alone fight—for a loved one.

  You’re still a cheat, Big Eddie. Even in death.

  Eddie understood Skinner’s words now. He crumpled the yellow slip in his seared palm and mumbled the most horrible truth of the evening: “Dad sold me.”

  The Light of Cree

  Chesya Burk
e

  Cree had become a woman exactly five days ago.

  Twelve years old and already a woman—who knew? She didn’t feel like a woman; didn’t particularly look like one, with the front of her blouse clinging to her chest like a flat piece of paper. But she was a woman. At least, that’s what Momma said. And Momma was never wrong.

  “You’ve come on your period, baby.”

  That’s what Momma called it. Period. Which meant that Cree would leak every month like a broken water main. And that was how she felt—broken. Like something was wrong with her. Momma had explained to her that every girl has to go through this, but that didn’t matter. She still felt . . . different. Like something was off. As if she had become a completely different person overnight. But of course, she had . . .

  You’re a woman now, she told herself to no avail.

  Now, that feeling of change could have less to do with the fact that she had come on her period and more to do with the man she had seen the other day—the strange one.

  She had been walking back from the cemetery with her grandmother when she had first seen him. She and her grandmother would go there every so often, clean the stones and pick the weeds. “We’ve a lot of people buried here,” her grandmother would say. “We gotta take care of ’em. You’ll do the same for me, I hope.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she’d say.

  That’s when they saw him. A man, perched with both feet on a single fence post, staring at them. A big, wide-brim hat covering his face, a long black coat, draped over the post that he crouched on, flapping in the wind. Though she couldn’t see his face, she saw his eyes. They were bright, like a shining sun, staring at them from under that hat.

  She’d grabbed and squeezed her grandmother’s hand, scared, and the old woman had pulled her onward. She’d wanted to stop, to turn and walk the other way, but the woman wouldn’t let her.

  The man hadn’t moved, his coat swaying, cracking in the wind, his hat shadowing his dark face, his eyes fixed on Cree and her grandmother.

  “Keep walking. Don’t even look at him,” her grandmother had said.