The Pacts We Make For Love: A Dark Contemporary Fantasy Read online

  THE PACTS WE MAKE FOR LOVE

  A DARK CONTEMPORARY FANTASY

  S.K. NOVA

  Copyright © 2022 by S.K. Nova

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Art by Creative Paramita

  CONTENTS

  1. James

  2. A Debt is Owed

  3. A Brush with the Fantastic

  4. Confined

  5. The Blunder Years

  About the Author

  1

  JAMES

  When the moon is right and the marsh fog strangles like the hangman’s noose, the haints caper down the streets. Follow the witchlights through the fog and down to the marsh. Bring a sacrifice—something you hold dear, be it a child, pet, loved one, or cherished memory. Give it to the marsh and be gifted in return.

  Ware their haggish claws and spell tossed tongues! Say a silent prayer. When the marsh lights dance and the moon is dark, the haints abide.

  On a foggy night beneath the waning moon, James Brown stood on a dock at the end of the marsh. Despite the chill autumn air, sweat trickled down the nape of his neck. His heart thumped hard enough to move the fabric of his light t-shirt. To enter or not to enter, that was the question. His situation was dire, but was it this dire?

  The track marks on his arms and legs suggested it was. Broken veins and bruises littered his skin.

  His cheating boyfriend suggested it was. Fuck Jack. What an asshole. And sleeping with someone still in high school? Fucking scum.

  The cat he’d run over last night while driving home drunk said it was.

  Was his life over at the young age of nineteen?

  His parents said it was. Word of his woes got around to his dear old mom and dad. Did his loving parents care that he was a heroin addict with a depression problem? Nope. Couldn’t give two shits—the only thing that mattered was their talk radio and how the liberals in Washington were destroying their way of life.

  Discovering that their eldest son was gay after all these years? The end of the fucking world. They thought he was joking at first. When he didn’t laugh, their amusement curdled to disgust and shame. His dad couldn’t even make eye contact with him.

  He saw two ways out. One, he could kill himself. He didn’t have the guts to do it; he was a fucking cockroach. His desire to live, no matter how debased his condition, outweighed everything.

  Two…well, Camberbury had its secrets and those secrets sometimes whispered to a person in a distressed state of mind. They’d spoken last night and told him to come to this foreboding place at the edge of town. They promised relief, with a price. Honest whispers, they were. Very upfront. Nothing gained without payment in this world, no matter what anyone said. They were so very reasonable. He figured, why not take the deal?

  Still, he couldn’t quite bring his feet to leave the dock. He wouldn’t even have to jump. A convenient set of stairs descended into the murk. Had that been there before? He didn’t think so. Stairs leading into the mud didn’t make much sense.

  He should’ve brought a flashlight. The darkness vacuumed up the moonlight.

  “Descend.” One single word, a hoarse whisper in his ear. He spun. There was no one there.

  What was it that bothered him so much? The silence. Frogs should be croaking, insects should be buzzing, deer should rustle the reeds, the wind breeze should tickle his ears, and the mud should be gurgling.

  This dead silence was an unnatural thing.

  “Descend.”

  He whipped his head around, searching for the source. There was only the empty dock behind him.

  “Descend.” From in front of him this time. The voice had an urgency to it, like time was running short. He backed away from the edge. The situation wasn’t vibing with him. Yeah, his parents might disown him and kick his ass to the curb, but that was preferable to the dank, dark murder-marsh with its disembodied ghost voices.

  Cold, clawed hands shoved him forward. He screamed and tumbled down the stairs, bracing himself. Ice cold mud sucked at his face and body. He thrashed around, trying to bring his head above the mud, but his efforts only drove him deeper. His burning lungs gave up. He opened his mouth, gasped for air, and gelid, gritty mud poured in, shoving itself into his esophagus and lungs like the grimy tendrils of an octopus.

  The mud invaded his gut, then burst into fluid filled interstices, tearing through the fibrous connective tissue anchoring his organs in place.

  There was no difference between him and the mud. From the mud he came, and back to the mud he went. Down, down, down into the viscous abyss. He didn’t lose consciousness. His awareness expanded with the vast dark. Down in the mud beneath the earth, what was the difference between him and the worms crawling through him? Or the trillions of methane producing bacteria in every cubic inch of decaying organic matter? He was made of the same stuff as they. The only real difference was one of scale and spatial configuration. His existence in the great cosmic game was of no more consequence than the existence of bacterium id # 6.23498736*10^13 located in marsh mud interstitial space 3856265.367*10^5. Instead of horrifying him, it provided an apathetic comfort. If he died, it meant nothing, yes. But if living meant nothing on the grand cosmic scale, then why not live his life as he desired? His parents meant nothing. His friends meant nothing. Nor his drug addictions or the bigoted idiots of Camberbury. The realization granted him a solipsistic liberation—he could do whatever the fuck he wanted, and in the end, what did it matter? Journey before destination.

  “It’s freeing, isn’t it?” asked a creaky, age-worn, genderless voice.

  James blinked. He sat at an old battleship of a desk, like the kind you’d see in the office of mid-twentieth century executive. Claw-like scratches marred its surface. On the other side of the desk was an old woman. He blinked again. Now they were an old man. Another blink and they shifted to something…oh no, oh no, his senses frayed what was this?

  “Best not to look too hard. Might see something you don’t like,” said the voice.

  “Am I dead?”

  “Almost. You’re right at the edge. That’s the only way to visit a place like this. Or trespass.”

  “Place like this?”

  “A place on the edge of death. Or the edge of life—it’s really a matter of perspective.”

  He stared at his hands. They were certainly his. Scar from a fight with Bobby on his left index finger. Scar from an ocean kayaking incident on his right hand.

  A single light bulb hung over the desk, dangling from a wire that stretched into the darkness. James imagined it stretched on forever. Beyond the sphere of light provided by the bulb was the deepest darkness. Just like the mud. Was he at the bottom of the marsh?

  He spared another glance at the person across the desk. This time, they looked like a woman. With a dread certainty in his gut, James knew that this was no person. She—he didn’t know what other pronoun to ascribe—had a vastness to her that belied her fragile body. Almost like she was a dangling appendage, attached to something that defied comprehension. Like the tip of an iceberg. Or the lure of an anglerfish.

  When she next spoke, he imagined shifted piles of coils in the darkness beyond. Her true body must be piled atop itself in a writhing mound. She snapped her fingers.

  “Attention here. You’re letting yourself get distracted.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. He didn’t know why he was apologizing, but it s
eemed prudent. “What was the question.”

  “I hadn’t asked one.”

  “Oh.”

  She smiled. Her teeth were tea-stained. Or blood-stained. “As I said. Don’t look too close. You came here for a reason. What was it?”

  “No reason at all.” He’d had quite enough of this. “Can I go?”

  “You cannot. You came here for a purpose. What is it?”

  “Don’t you already know?”

  “Yes, but protocol must be observed. Tell me.” The last words were said with an air of command like a punch to his solar plexus.

  “Sorry about that,” she said. “I sometimes forget how I affect your sort.”

  “What if I try to leave?”

  “Then you’ll be trapped in this liminal space for an eternity. Your existence will be one of infinite repetition. Every thought you think will be thought again. Every memory retrod and remade and retrod and remade until you lose all sense of self. After eons, yourself will return as something different, then the process will repeat, and one day, trillions upon trillions of years from now, your personality will return to its current state and wonder why you refused to tell me your plight. And there will be one crucial difference—I will not be here, and so you’ll begin another cycle. Forever. What will it be?”

  He gulped. “Soooo, yeah... I’m in a tough spot right now. I have a drug problem and I’m trying to get clean.”

  “What else?”

  “That’s it,” James said. His Adam’s apple bobbed like a fishing lure.

  “An eternity awaits, James. Tell me the rest.”

  The rest came in a deluge. “Well, my thirty-five-year-old boyfriend, who’s cheating on his wife and has three kids, cheated on me with this senior in high school. It cut me to the core, so I sliced up my inner thighs. I started using heroin again and my drinking would kill ten normal men. I spilled my story to a bartender who told my parents, and now they’re set to disown me. Not because of my fuck ups. That I’d understand. But because I’m gay. That’s about it.”

  “You’re leaving off an important detail.”

  “Oh. I drove home drunk and ran over my neighbor’s cat. Add that to my pile of fuck ups.”

  “It feels good to unburden yourself, does it not?”

  “Not really. Rehashing my failures doesn’t help me forget them. What can you do for me? Can you change the past? I’ve heard rumors about this place. That devils and angels dwell here, and things fouler and holier still.”

  She chuckled. “Angels and devils? I’ll let you know if I ever see one. I cannot change the past. It’s obdurate. But your future…that I can help with.”

  “You’re leaving out the cost. What is it?”

  “I don’t know yet. But there will be one.”

  “What the fuck? You’re asking me to sell my soul for a blank check?”

  Her eyes burned. They seared his soul. “Remember where you are and who you are. I’m offering a lifeline. The chance to make something of yourself. Souls are bullshit. They don’t exist. This is a quid pro quo. I give you the life you desire. In return, I get to ask you a single favor one day.”

  “Like what? My firstborn?”

  She shrugged. “I deal plainly. Maybe. I do not think so. But maybe.”

  “Seems real convenient that you deal plainly when the alternative is an eternity of suffering.”

  “I don’t know if it’s an eternity. But it will be a long time. And you won’t be tortured. But you will get very, very bored.”

  “Might as well be torture,” James spat. “Ok. Fuck it. What can you give me?”

  “What do you want?”

  “That’s for you to decide.”

  He chewed the inside of his cheek. Bad habit. A string of dead mouth skin peeled off. He swallowed it. What disgusting creatures we are. “I don’t ask for much. Career success. A comfortable income. A shot at love. A child. Freedom from my addictions. A reasonable shot at a good life.”

  “You don’t ask for much, eh? Many people on this earth would kill for the items on your list.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Hey, I could’ve wished to be dictator for life, with a harem of nubile young men. If you can’t do it, I get it. I thought you were a powerful, wise genie, but I see I was wrong.”

  She smirked. “You’ve got a mouth on you, boy. But what you’ve asked is within my power. Go forth and live your life. One day I will call in my favor. I don’t know when. But I expect you to promptly obey. There will be consequences if you don’t. Severe consequences. Understood?”

  “I have a question before I accept.”

  “Good. Most don’t. Ask.”

  “What do you get out of this? If you can grant me my heart’s desire, then why do you need me to do me a favor?”

  “An excellent question. In short, because that’s the way it works. I’m limited in my ability to affect the world at large, and when I must take direct action, I require assistance. Which is why I will grant you your boon. For when I require assistance.”

  “But what’s your purpose? Why do you sit at the bottom of a smelly old marsh?”

  Her face split, revealing pointed teeth and a gullet that went into eternity; here was a mouth that swallowed stars and galaxies. He covered his eyes with his hands and shuddered.

  “Not a pretty sight, eh? Some purposes are difficult to fathom. Mine is not. But I will not tell you for I prefer a bit of mystery. Do you accept my offer?”

  He thought about telling her she was aping the dime store novel genie bit a little too hard, but wisely decided against it. He chewed on his lip some more. “Fuck it. I do.”

  “Begone.”

  He found himself on the edge of the dock. The first rays of dawn speared the horizon. Mud stained his shoes. Cautiously, he peered over the edge. Stale, brown marsh water pooled below, but that fulgin darkness was no more, if it ever had been. Every single Moment of the past night stood out in sharp relief. He’d tripped before, but this was something different.

  His stomach growled. It was nearly a whole day since he’d eaten, yet he felt better than ever. For the first time in ages, the persistent, gnawing voice in the back of his head was silent. Usually, his first thought was where can I find my next fix? It came before eating, drinking, pissing, and shitting. No more.

  He went back to his car, drove to his local diner, and ordered a massive stack of pancakes soaked in a mixture of brown syrup and butter. He washed it down with an unhealthy amount of coffee.

  When the check came, he realized he didn’t have any money. Any cash he scrounged went straight into his veins. Well, this wouldn’t be the first time he pulled a dine and dash.

  Just as he was about to make a run for it, the waitress returned.

  “You’re all paid up.”

  “How?” he asked.

  She rolled her eyes, as if doing anything outside of taking orders was too much to ask. “Fella over there pulled me aside. He said he owed you a favor.”

  She pointed at a balding man eating alone in a corner booth. His back was to them.

  “Thanks,” James said. The waitress left without replying.

  James knew the back of that head. He’d seen it plenty of times. Most recently, this past weekend. He marched straight for the table.

  “What are you doing here?” James demanded.

  “Am I not allowed to eat breakfast?” asked Matt O’Hare. He shot James a crooked smile, revealing a mouthful of veneers.

  “Don’t try pulling your bullshit on me. It won’t work. Doesn’t Kim have soccer practice?”

  Matt’s smile dropped. “She does.”

  “Then why are you shoveling down two short stacks and a rasher of bacon? You should be with her. And you don’t need the extra calories.”

  Hurt flashed across his face. “You always said you liked how I look.”

  “I changed my mind after I found you fucking Chase. Stay away from the jailbait, eh?”

  “No. He’s eighteen and I’m not a teacher. I came clean
with you because I couldn’t bear to hurt you. I wanted to rip off the band-aid.”

  “No, you came clean with me because you couldn’t handle a guilty conscience. Don’t try and make it sound noble or some bullshit. I’d rather you have kept it a secret. You’re good at those—you’ve kept Vanessa in the dark for what? Fifteen years?”

  Matt’s eyes slid to the side. He placed his hands on the table and fidgeted with his napkin, tearing it into tiny pieces.

  “Oh shit,” James said. “Vanessa found out.”

  Matt inclined his head the slightest amount, as if he still couldn’t admit it to himself. “Now you know why I’m shoveling down two short stacks and a rasher of bacon.”

  “Does she know about…us?”

  James snorted. “No. Of course not. I’m careful. She discovered some…compromising material.”

  “Christ. Are we talking porno mags?”

  Matt swallowed.

  “You fucking idiot. What’d you say?”

  “I said they were someone else’s. She didn’t buy it. So here I am. If only it’d been big tits instead of big cocks in between their pages…oh well. Such is life.”

  “Is she leaving you?”

  “I don’t know.” He buried his face in his hands. “She told me to get out. I didn’t argue. The kids don’t know why I’m gone.”

  “At least you have Chase to comfort you. I’m sure he’ll be real supportive. Thanks for the breakfast.”

  As James was leaving, Matt grabbed his hand. “Don’t be like that.”

  James shook him off. “Don’t touch me. You’ve lost that right.”

  Matt sighed and his eyes shimmered. “You’re all I have left.”

  “Are you seriously about to cry? You’re the one who fucked up your life. You’re the one who cheated on me. You’re thirty-five for Christ’s sake. You’re supposed to have your shit together!” He was shouting by the end, and the other diners were gawking in the way only small town folk can gawk. Would his parents put it together when the gossip got back to them?