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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/cporpentine on 2024-10-05 04:10:43+00:00.
My mother was a gold digger, I was never under any illusions about that. I never knew who my father was--she always hinted that he had been a cultured man from a rich family and that he had simply run out on her when she got pregnant with me, never to be seen again.
I was a handsome, precocious boy (not to toot my own horn too much) and I knew from a pretty young age that she used me as a prop to draw wealthy, older men closer to her. The last time this happened was when I was 14, and she met a man named Nick.
Nick was younger and richer, I believe, than any other guy she had gotten her hooks into. He drove a black Benz and wore expensive looking slacks with button down shirts that fit perfectly. Handsome devil, too. Mom never got specific about what he did. "He's a speculator," she'd say.
Nick and I would sit and talk for a long time, while he waited for my mom to get ready to go out, and to be honest I really loved these conversations. We talked about literature we both liked, like The Telltale Heart and Neuromancer. Once I tried to talk to him about Kurt Vonnegut, but he just got furious and left before my mom was even finished putting her makeup on. He helped me with my algebra homework and we'd talk about music together although there we didn't have much in common, he just kept complaining everything I liked sounded "too Black."
To impress Nick, who I supposed must have been weirdly religious, my mom insisted I start going to Sunday school and reading the Bible. One thing I learned was that guys who fall for gold diggers always have one thing really weird about them or wrong with them. So I presumed Nick must have been a holy roller, which would also explain why he got so pissy about a cynical, atheist-humanist like Vonnegut.
I had a good memory and good brain and there was really not very much to Christianity, as far as I could tell. I memorized the Apostle's Creed and the Lord's Prayer and Psalm 22 and some Bible verses and I learned to begin prayers with "Dear God," and end with "In Jesus' name" and that as long as you got the form right the middle part didn't matter much because God was going to do pretty much what He wanted anyway. I prayed every night--it was a soothing thing to do after brushing my teeth. And I said the Lord's Prayer a lot in my head.
Nick started to say to my mom, and to me when she wasn't around, that I was such a smart and sweet boy I must surely be one of God's favorites already. "Really loves a scholar too, He does," he'd say, "And He always had a weakness for the pretty ones."
We would do fun things sometimes, without my mother around. He had fantastic season tickets to the Bulls, and he'd help me dress up and take me to French restaurants and steak houses and he taught me to eat sushi with chopsticks.
Because school work was so easy for me, he even started to teach me Latin from a very old book he had with a black cover festooned with gold stars and spirals and other symbols. He said that people didn't realize how useful Latin still could be and that I would especially need it.
And see, that last part seemed weird. The fixation on Latin was weird. Even as a 14 year old, that triggered some alarm bells. That and the way Nick smelled if you got close to him. Under his sandalwood cologne I could smell traces of an older, more noxious smell.
I asked my mother once if SHE knew why her boyfriend always smelled a little like rotten eggs and first she got mad, then quickly changed the subject.
So in the weeks leading up to my 15th birthday she started hinting that she had a special gift for me. She said that Nick and I were going to take a trip together and that when we came back we would all be a family.
I overheard them talking one night, after I had gone to bed. She said "But can't you just...transfer it or something? Why does it have to be complicated?"
And he said "There are ways these things have to be done. Old ways. You know that, we have talked about it ad nauseam."
"Well do I have to be there for it?"
"Yes," he said in a voice so scary it kept ringing in my head as I lay sleepless all night.
We were all sitting in our living room on my birthday, a hot day in April. The living room was hotter than usual, even though the A/C was on full blast. Nick and my mother kept giving each other conspiratorial glances and Nick said things like "Just look at our boy. Surely one of God's favorites by now. God must value him greatly."
This kind of talk had always made me uncomfortable, but up until recently I assumed it was just effusive talk from a religious nut.
Today they were both eager, and careless. After they offered me a glass of ginger ale, which I pretended to drink and then went in the bathroom and spit out, they got even more careless. I saw the burlap sack full of what I was sure were gold coins next to Nick's chair and I saw the way my mother kept looking at the bag, dollar signs in her eyes. There was a very old looking piece of parchment on the table beside my mother, and I was pretty sure I knew what that was.
I played a joke on them--I pretended I had really drunk the ginger ale and that I was getting weirdly tired and dizzy. I stood up and then sat right back down hard and fluttered my eyes.
"Prick his finger, now. Prick his finger and use it to sign the pact. Do it now."
Nick was completely done pretending now. The horns he usually covered carefully with his thick, dark hair were jutting up from his head and his eyes were glowing a feverish, red color. He kicked off his shoes and put his cloven feet on the floor and stood up, letting his tail slide out of his pants. He was grinning. "Yes, it really kills God to lose one like this."
And then I was off. Even though I had figured out what was going on, I didn't have any particularly cunning plan. I just pretended I was drugged and helpless and then, as my mother got close to me to prick my finger, I kicked her as hard as I could and ran the hell out the door while she yelped in pain.
I heard a sound all the way down the hallway, just before I threw the door open and kept running, that reminded me of a wounded lion. Nick, I assumed.
He didn't chase me, not right away. Neither of them did. I had the feeling that even if Nick didn't get the soul he had come to take, he *did* take a soul that day. I never heard from my mother again.
In the years since, I have done pretty well. The early teen years were rough. I ended up in foster care. But I was white, smart, good looking and did well in school. College was a lot of fun. I kept studying. Latin did come in handy.
One thing I have always been sour about. After I learned about God and how to pray and the words to say to worship him, I prayed like crazy that he'd save me from Nick and my mother. That he'd somehow change her heart, make her not be the kind of woman who would make a deal with the Devil for her own son's soul. You know what he did for me? Jack shit.
The summer between graduation and law school I brokered a deal of my own. I knelt at a cross road near a boneyard and I said some words and....it was like seeing an old friend.
Terms were discussed. Payments arranged. Time durations were set. We shook hands. He kissed my lips. I signed in blood.
When my time was up, I ran like hell again. Bought a new identity. Had plastic surgery. Moved to fucking New Zealand. And Nick let me be. He always did have a soft spot for me.
But I think my time is getting short. Lately, every time I go into a bar or a restaurant, that old blues song "Hellhound on my Trail" starts playing. I smell rotten eggs and sulfur everywhere. And every time I look in a mirror, I see very clearly a handsome man in the distance behind me, with a huge black snarling dog on a leash walking in front of him.
I've made the best deal I could, and I don't see a lot of point in delaying things. There is a crossroad near a boneyard just outside the town where I bought a little house for cash under a fake name and passport. Tonight I think I will walk there and kneel and wait. I hope it hurts god to lose a soul like mine, and I hope Nick and I still have such lovely, long talks.