It’s fiction Monday! This piece is a bit along the lines of what I have written previously, The World’s Last Night. It is divided into two parts, because of its length. It ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, so next week will come the exciting conclusion. (At least, I’m hoping that adjective will prove true.) As always, thanks for reading!
“In the Fullness of Time – Part 1″
The pickup spat dust from behind its wheels at it pulled along the dirt drive up to their house. Annie Ruth had her arm dangling out the passenger window, feeling her skin break against the humid summer heat. Her other hand was resting on her husband’s shoulder. Sawyer had his eyes trained hard on the road ahead. He had felt a quiet agitation all morning. Something had stirred him to wake well before the sun had risen and would not let him fall back asleep. He had lain in the bed listening to Annie Ruth’s soft, murmuring breaths and the limbs of the pine trees bending low as they grew and aged.
“Momma, can we have ice cream tonight for my birthday?” Daisy, from the back seat leaned up and looped her arms around Annie Ruth’s neck, kissing her cheek. She smelled of sunshine and wildflowers, exactly how a girl of six should smell in the summer. She held tightly to her mother’s neck, as if she could keep her there for an eternity. Sawyer studied them both from the rear view mirror, watching the smile on his wife’s lips and the way Daisy buried her face into her mother’s neck. It was beautiful in an almost terrible way.
“Who’s that?” Annie Ruth asked suddenly, leaning forward in her seat so that Daisy’s arms broke their hold and she was tossed back into the cab. Annie Ruth was looking toward their house, which had a small, screened-in porch at its front. On the bench next to their front door sat a man, holding a cane in his right hand. He wore a dark grey three-piece suit with a navy tie. On his head was a bowler hat, which matched the color of his suit. Far away as they were, Annie Ruth could see his eyes and knew they were the same, dull grey as everything else he wore, except for the tie, which was the deepest, most haunting blue she had ever seen.
Sawyer stiffened. His fingers strained against the steering wheel as he gripped it tight. “Listen to me, Annie Ruth,” he nearly hissed, slowing the pickup as they approached. “You take Daisy ‘round back into the house and you pack a suitcase. Go to your mother’s. No matter what happens, you take Daisy and you go to your mother’s.” His jaw was set, his eyes fixed on the man who watched the pickup coming to a stop. Sawyer’s eyes never moved from the cool, grey orbs that held fast to him.
Daisy murmured something from the back but Annie Ruth waved a hand at her to be quiet. “What’s going on, Sawyer?” she demanded, looking from him to the man on the porch. “You tell me what’s going on. Did you get mixed up with them Miller boys again? I swore to you I would walk right out that door if you spent one more night in jail.”
Sawyer swore and threw his hand hard against the steering wheel. Daisy, ignorant of the conversation but overwhelmed by the tone began to softly cry. He clenched his teeth and exhaled heavily through them, barely parting them as he spoke. “Just do as I say, Annie Ruth. Just do as I say.” Then he looked over at her, throwing the pickup into park and turning off the engine. The way his eyes seemed to sink back into his head and want to hide from her own but yet were forced to keep looking at her, to prove that he could still meet her gaze, broke Annie Ruth’s heart. She had never seen him so defeated, so she said nothing in response. Only a nod. Agreement.
“Hush now,” she whispered back to Daisy, opening her door and sliding out of the cab. She pulled the seat forward and scooped the girl into her arm, carrying her away to the back of the house, while Daisy squinted toward the front door and the man, who she could see through blurry eyes had stood and was leaning hard on his cane.
Sawyer swallowed thickly and then opened his own door. He set one foot heavy on the earth, then another, slowly making his way toward the front of the house. “Can I help you?” he called, well before he had reached the screen. The man simply looked back at him, without blinking. He seemed to be evaluating Sawyer’s rugged face, the battery it had taken from summers in the fields under the merciless sun.
“I have come to collect, Mr. Price.” The man spoke with an unfamiliar accent. Northern, perhaps British, but regardless certainly refined. He drew his left hand, which did not hold the cane, up under his suit jacket to withdraw from his vest pocket a small pocket watch that was attached to a silver chain. He studied it for a moment, then placed his eyes to Sawyer, returning the watch to its place. “It is the fullness of time.”
Sawyer licked his lips. He hastened forward, opening the screen door and stepping into the enclosure. The man did not move except to slightly tilt his head to one side as the door opened. “Now look here,” Sawyer put his finger in the man’s face, “What I said back then was nothing more than talk. I was scared, I didn’t know what I was saying.” He dropped his finger as he stiffened, “And you were talking nonsense, crazy things that couldn’t be believed. Of course I agreed to what you said!”
“And you received the terms of that agreement,” the man concluded, raising his head back to level and shifting his body weight back so that he rested on his heels and not as heavily on his cane. “Now it is time for you to make payment.” He was about to say something else, but he noticed Annie Ruth and Daisy hurrying toward the pickup. Sawyer turned and saw them too, saw the small bag and realized that Annie Ruth must have taken little, scared by the way he had commanded her so sternly. “I’m afraid,” the man gravely murmured, “That we shall need the mother and child to remain with us until the transaction is complete.” With that, he gave a nod to the pickup. When Annie Ruth got into it, pulling Daisy up and then dropping her into the passenger seat, she put the key in the ignition and shut the door as she turned it to start.
Nothing happened.
She turned it again. Still nothing.
Curious eyes looked to Sawyer from driver’s seat, while Daisy kept her own fixed on the man. Sawyer swallowed hard and Annie Ruth felt tears begin to collect in her eyes. She didn’t know why she should cry, but there something in the air, a presence within the very breath she took, that chilled her bones with a dull ache. The horizon was greying. The same grey that was the color of the man’s suit. A storm was rolling in.
“Mrs. Price, Daisy,” the man called, remarkably loud and yet quiet at the same time. “Won’t you come join us, please?”
Annie Ruth instinctively reached over and collected Daisy into her arms. The girl squirmed, murmuring something into her mother’s chest. She pushed back, twisting her head around to see the man. Annie Ruth took her hand and placed it over the girl’s eyes, which earned her a loud rebuke from Daisy in the form of a wale. She didn’t know why she didn’t want Daisy to look at the man, but everything in her being had come to fear him. But she could see from Sawyer’s face that there was no refusing what had been asked. She slowly opened the door of the cab and slid out, keeping Daisy close. The door shut with a weak thud as she carried her daughter across the sparse, dead lawn toward the screen.
“Inside, if you would please,” the man encouraged, offering a particularly unsettling smile as he indicated the porch.
“We really don’t need to involve them,” Sawyer suddenly broke in, stepping between the man and where Annie Ruth stood holding Daisy on the other side of the screen. He moved to try and corner the well-dressed man, but in a flash the cane had been lifted and it was suddenly being struck again and again against Sawyer’s face and back. Annie Ruth screamed in fright and then hid her eyes in Daisy’s head as she began to sob, hearing Sawyer cry out in pain as he was beaten until blood began to spill onto concrete floor.
The man never stopped smiling. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and raised his cane. Slowly he cleaned Sawyer’s blood from the shaft and then returned the cane to rest on the ground, his weight gently pushed onto it. He offered the handkerchief down to Sawyer, whose bottom lip had split open, a tooth cracked in two. He looked up at the man, then down to his polished shoes. Sawyer spat blood onto them.
“Come now,” the man replied, unaffected. “I was only defending myself and seeking to complete the transaction.” He looked back to Annie Ruth, who was peeking just slightly up from Daisy’s head. Daisy kept her face buried in her mother’s chest. “Won’t you come join us now, Mrs. Price? I would so hate to have to strike your husband again.”
Annie Ruth nodded, slowly. She walked toward the screen door and opened it a crack, wrapping her hand inside to pull it open hard, swinging it back so it caught against her hip as she slipped inside. Sawyer had pushed himself back onto his knees before slowly rising to his feet.
“Baby,” Annie Ruth gasped, rushing to his side and putting her hand on the side of his face. She stroked it softly as she saw the brutality of the wounds, Sawyer’s deep eyes falling hard on her own smooth face. Daisy squirmed between them and the man approached. On instinct Annie Ruth moved to back up, to keep Daisy from him, but she suddenly found her limbs had frozen. Her fear held her tongue to the roof of her mouth and it tasted like rotten sage.
The man reached out a hand and touched Daisy’s hair; she squirmed slightly under the touch and then slowly turned to look at him. “There we are,” he whispered, “Now to sleep.” Daisy went limp in Annie Ruth’s arms. She yelled in alarm, her limps suddenly filled with life. She called Daisy’s name repeatedly, shaking her softly to try and wake her. Tears welled in her eyes and terror struck at her heart mercilessly, Sawyer standing in bewilderment, calling out his daughter’s name and rubbing her limp arms.
“Now, now,” the man interjected, looking slightly exasperated. “She is only asleep so that we may complete our transaction in peace.” Thunder rumbled in the distance. “Shall we go inside and settle the debt?”
Annie Ruth looked back at him, a crazed violence in her gaze. “What have you done to my daughter!”
“Please, Mrs. Price,” the man replied softly, gently holding up the hand that did not rest upon his cane. “I have done nothing here. This was not my choice. Let’s settle the debt. All shall be well then. Once we have completed the transition, Daisy will awaken.” He straightened. “For now, you may tuck her safely into her bed and we may speak in your kitchen to complete the exchange. It is the fullness of time and it is time to collect.” He gestured toward the front door. “If you please.”
Sawyer let out a gruff sigh, a small trickle of blood trailing down the side of his mouth. “Do what he says, Annie Ruth,” he whispered, raising himself up to look at the man firmly. “Let’s go inside and make things right.”
Annie Ruth watched Sawyer’s face for a moment and then looked back to the man. She cradled Daisy tightly to her. She nodded. Sawyer opened the front door of the house, which they never locked, and she carried Daisy inside. He followed after her, until he was stopped by a soft, polite cough from behind him. Turning around, Sawyer could see the man standing expectantly outside the doorway.
“Mr. Price,” the man smiled, “I need you to invite me into your home.”
Sawyer stared back at him, unable to even open his mouth. Hatred was in his eyes, met by the unfeeling and unmoving grey that met his gaze.
“Please come in,” Annie Ruth suddenly interjected, spitting it out, standing midway down the hall, looking back toward the front door, Daisy still held close to her, bundled into her arms. She turned, thunder once more echoing in the distance, though closer, a gentle rattle of the picture frames on the walls as Annie Ruth passed them to carry Daisy into her bedroom, to tuck her into her bed.
The man smiled, appreciatively, and stepped inside. He took off his hat, which revealed a short, ordinary haircut, the strands of hair as grey as the suit and hat. He looked to Sawyer, waiting. Though at one point he did considered something and reached into his pocket, pulling out the handkerchief once more, offering it to the other man, who still refused to take it. Instead, Sawyer turned his back on him and walked toward the kitchen. There he sat down at the table, heavy and quiet, one hand resting on its surface.
The man followed behind, his cane quietly crunching the carpet as he walked, until it clicked gently on the linoleum in the kitchen. He took a seat across from Sawyer, gently set his hat on the table, leaned his cane against it, and reclined back, quiet as well. He kept his gaze fixed on the bloodied face, but the other did not look at him once. After a moment, Annie Ruth, tears still slowly falling down her cheeks, entered the kitchen and sat down next to her husband.
“Ah,” the man smiled and sat up straight in his chair, “We may now begin.”
Thunder. Closer. Close enough that the glasses in the cabinet clinked slightly and the plates rattled.
The man’s eyes seemed to flicker, as if for a moment he wasn’t as collected as he had been previously. But it passed as quickly as it had come. He reached into his vest pocket and set the watch on the table, following it by pulling out a small notebook, which he carefully opened and turned several pages in until he found what he was looking for. He studied it, while Annie Ruth felt for Sawyer’s hand under the table and squeezed it tightly, Sawyer’s frame stiff and resolved.
“We shall review the account, Mr. and Mrs. Price.” The man looked up at them for a moment, then back down at his notes. “Six years ago on the afternoon of July the 23rd at approximately 3:47 in the afternoon your daughter, Daisy Grace Price, was born, is that correct?”
Annie Ruth’s eyes grew wide, she made to say something but Sawyer cut her off. “Yes,” he replied heavily, his mouth set firm.
“And when she was born she was found to be dead when she was delivered, correct?”
“Yes.”
Annie Ruth trembled. She remembered screaming at the doctor, demanding to know why there had been no cry.
“And is it also correct, Mr. Price, that you met me outside of the delivery room when you excused yourself due to your emotions and I offered you a trade for your daughter’s life?”
Annie Ruth gasped.
“Yes.” The word fell hard between them.
“And were the parameters of this trade that sometime in your life, on the anniversary of this agreement, I would come and collect from you the price agreed upon?”
Sawyer took a shallow breath. “Yes.”
“And was the agreed upon payment, Mr. Price, the vision of your wife?” The man looked up and held Sawyer’s gaze. Hard.
Annie Ruth sharply inhaled and looked to her husband. “No,” she whispered, disbelieving. “No, Sawyer. No this isn’t real. This isn’t right. They told me she just had fluid in her mouth. That was all. She was alive the whole time. What’s he sayin’,” she looked back at the man, suddenly crying out, “What are you sayin’!”
The man did not look at her. “Mr. Price? Is this correct?”
Sawyer slowly took a deep breath and then nodded. “Yes,” he exhaled and Annie Ruth slumped back in her chair.
The man nodded gravely and shut his notebook. He returned it to his pocket, then reached into the other and produced a small awl. He set it on the table in front of them, then pushed his chair back and rose. “You have approximately a half hour to complete the act.” He took the pocket watch off the table and returned it to his pocket, picking up his hat and tucking it under his arm. The cane he pulled back, leaning gently against it. “I will wait outside. When you have successfully blinded your wife, your daughter will rouse again from her slumber. I will then depart and you shall never hear from me again. I wish you both a good day.”
Annie Ruth let out a soft cry of disbelief. She buried a fist into Sawyer’s chest and he responded by grabbing her arms and pushing her back. She cried out, flailing in horror as she called after the man, “Why are you doin’ this to us? What did I do to deserve this? I had no choice in this!”
The man turned, looking back at her with unaffected disdain. “Mrs. Price, do not mistake yourself or me. I am that thing which must be invited into a home. I am that thing that infects. I am that thing that takes for itself not only those who call upon it, but those who touch those who call upon me. Your choice does not matter.” He turned his gaze to Sawyer. “You have twenty seven minutes, Mr. Price. Now is the fullness of time. The debt must be paid.”
Thunder. The house shook.
“Quickly,” he added. He turned, walking down the hallway and out the door, his cane making soft clicks on the linoleum, then a soft crunch on the carpet, as he left.
© 2011, Preston. All rights reserved.
