Body Count

Very short fantasy/thriller type story.

-Body Count-

A woman walks into the smoky office. At the end of the room, she sees a man sitting at his desk, hat pulled over his eyes. Both people stand in silence for what seems like an eternity. 

Then, she speaks. 

“So, I hear you paint houses.”

“Used to.” The man says, still refusing eye contact. “But not anymore.” 

“So I don’t suppose you could do just one job for me?” The woman asks hopefully.

Finally, the man tips the brim of his hat up, just enough that he can see her face. She’s pretty. Very pretty. But that won’t be enough to change his mind.

“No.” He says softly.

“You know, I don’t normally hear about men in your line of work just giving it all up like that. I assumed once you get to a certain point, there’s no going back.” She says, clearly disappointed in his answer.

“Most guys, maybe that’s true. They just get used to it, learn how to cope.” He mutters, before letting out a quiet cough. “But you wanna know why I hung it all up?” 

He pauses.

“It gets a hell of a lot harder to cope when the bodies you put in the ground stop staying dead.”

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“I guess I’ll start at the beginning.” The man says reluctantly. “You might want to take a seat.”

“I remember… I was sitting at this very same desk, when somebody walked in, and asked ‘How’s your day going?’ Right away, that struck me as a little odd. See, this isn’t a job you get into expecting people to be especially polite. But I indulged them. 

‘Well, no one died.’ 

‘Those are your standards?’ I remember them asking me.

‘As a matter of fact, that means it’s been a pretty slow day.’ I tried joking, but when I looked up, they were gone. I never saw their face. Looking back, their voice did sound familiar, but I didn’t think anything of it. Now though, I think they may have been the first.

“The first what?” The woman interrupts. 

“I’ll get there!” The man snaps. “Anyway…”

“Where it all really got started was the next day. I was on a job. Not a little job either, like when I get hired to take out a cheating partner or something. Nah, this was high profile. A lot of money was resting on this going right. I’ll spare you the details, but it was pretty late in the evening. I was in position for the hit. Everything was going just fine. And then…”

The man pauses.

“And then what?” The woman asks eagerly.

“And then I saw him. Frank Douglas. Another high profile target of mine. Only problem was, I’d put a bullet in his head five years ago.”

The woman gasps.

“But it can’t have been him...” she says under her breath.

“Well of course that’s what I thought too, but the thing is, he was standing two feet behind me, and there was no possible way anybody could’ve gotten that close without me noticing. That’s all he was doing, too. Just standing there, staring. He looked just the same as he had that day, but his eyes…” 

The man stops speaking and shivers. After a moment of silence, he continues.

“There was something in his eyes. Can’t put my finger on what it was, but deep inside I knew one thing for certain. I was looking into the eyes of a dead man.”

“I just stared for what felt like forever, with those dead eyes looking back at me. Then I blinked, and he was gone. I still don’t know exactly how much time passed while he was there, but it was long enough that I’d missed my window of opportunity for the hit. It was the first time I’d ever failed a job.”

The man gets up, not saying a word, and pours himself a cup of coffee.

“I’m going to need this if I’m really telling you the whole story.” He says as he slowly sits back down.

“That was 7 months ago. Back then, that’s all they did. Stared. Never said a word.” 

“You mean there were more?” The woman asks.

“You bet there were more. Every damn job there were more. First one at a time, then in groups. All just staring. Staring with those cold eyes. I thought I could handle it. I was right, for a while. Never failed another job.”

“At least, Not until the kid.”

“I know I said I didn’t let it bother me, but that’s not completely true. It didn’t get in the way of the work, sure, but after a couple months, it was starting to mess with me. Where it became too much though, was about a month back. I wasn’t on a job. I wasn’t even out of the house. I was sitting right here in this exact chair, drinking coffee from this exact mug, when I see him out of the corner of my eye. The kid.”

“But that means…” The woman says, a mortified look appearing on her face.

“You think that means I took a job to kill a kid. No. I wouldn’t do that. But he was… collateral damage. Years back, one of my hits went bad. Real bad. I had to make a getaway, and couldn’t let anyone stop me. But I swear I didn’t know it was a kid. I couldn’t have known.” 

As he speaks, the man places his head into his hands, letting his shame wash over him.

------------------------

“This one was different, too. This one talked. Nothing ominous and spooky either, like you might expect a ghost to do. He talked like a kid ought to talk, and I think that’s what made it all the worse. I’d imagine what he was saying to me is what he would’ve told me if I hadn’t…”

The man raises his head up from his hands, his eyes showing a pain far beyond his years.

“These ghosts. I regret most of them. They hurt, but I can hide them away. The kid though… that was it. I didn’t need a reminder of that. I remember after the kid disappeared, just like they all do, I called up one of my “coworkers”. I wasn’t in a good state, so I’m not even sure I can remember everything I said, but I remember asking ‘How many? How many have we murdered!?’ I needed to know how many more of these ghosts I’d have to face, how long it would be till this was over, but I didn’t even wait for an answer. I just hung up. I knew inside that the number didn’t matter. I knew there was no way this would end soon. Not unless I did something about it…”

“Do something about it… you mean…” The woman trails off.

“Yep. Not an hour after that phone call I drove to the bridge over the river, fully intent on ending this whole goddamn thing. You know what stopped me? It wasn’t some ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ moment. No, as I looked down into those waves I realized that when dealing with the dead, death wouldn’t get me away from the torture. So here I am. Coping. Hoping maybe someday I’ll run out of ghosts.”

The two people sit in silence for a moment, until the woman asks: 

“What do you think they want?”

“Hell if I know. If I had to guess, I’d say they want me to stop killing. Looks like they did a pretty good job if that’s the case. Or maybe the afterlife is boring, and they just want to torture the a*****e that put them in the ground. Heh, I suppose I had this coming. Can I ask, why was it that you came to me?”

“Oh…” The woman says shyly. “Don’t worry about that.”

“Well in that case I think you should be on your way. I can’t get into the habit of giving every random person who walks in here my life story.”

The woman gets up without saying a word, and heads for the door. As she exits, the man calls out:

“Wait. One more thing.”

“Yes?” The woman answers.

“9-21-1964.”

“I-I’m sorry?” The woman stutters.

“You really thought I didn’t remember? September 21st, 1964.  Five years ago today.”

“That’s the day I killed you.”

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-The End-

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Author's Note

Pretty much came up with this in 3 days for fun, so it may be a little sloppy, but feedback of any kind is appreciated.

Reviews

[Vectra Mendonie]

I thought it was really good! I enjoyed the read, even though it was a bit rushed, but that is bound to happen with a story as short as this one. It was handled well and the dialogue wasn't forced, which is hard to do. Good job!