When She Comes Calling

Quick story I just wrote. I appreciate feedback. Still needs a few more read throughs and a bit of polishing up.

When She Comes Calling

 

Coffee and chocolate pie.  Every week it was the same thing.  Ryan had become what most servers call a “regular” and that was a label he was comfortable with.  In fact, it was the only label attributed to him that had middle of the road connotations.  He started coming to the little diner about four years ago.  Word of mouth had told him that the place was a struggling small business, and he felt the need to support it.  He was glad to come there anyway, otherwise he wouldn’t have met Julie.

Julie was a waitress, and he was her “regular”.  Ryan thought that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.  Sometimes, he would catch quick glimpses of her leaning against the bar counter talking to her co-workers.  He loved the way she twirled her index finger in her golden, shoulder length hair.  Her eyes were unusually large and of a stunning shade of blue.  Even though he had yet to strike up a conversation with her that lasted more than thirty seconds, the sound of her voice sent chills up his spine.

“Here’s your check,” Julie said to him in a cheery voice, as she placed a small black folder on the edge of the table.  “I’ll take it whenever you’re ready.”

“Thanks,” Ryan stuttered, shooting her a quick glance.

“No problem.”

It took him but a second to pull out his debit card and place it in the folder.  Like usual, he paid without as much as a glance at the bill.  He could have been overcharged, but, in his mind, there was no way someone as sweet as Julie could ever do something so devious.

A minute later she was back at his table to collect the bill.  She gave him a warm smile as she picked it up and walked away.  Ryan watched her walk back behind the counter to run his card.  He took notice of a small stain on the back shoulder of her uniform, a stain which he had noticed for the past two weeks.  He watched with a longing desire as she smiled at something a female co-worker said to her.  He wished that he could come up to something clever to say to get that reaction out of her.

The sky was darkening as he left the diner and got into his small car.  As he drove down the country road towards home, the oncoming storm crept closer.  The occasional flash of lightning hinted at the storm’s intensity.  The increasing wind swept against his car, pushing towards the side of the road ever so slightly.  The trees swayed along with the gusts.

Ryan knew home was getting a little closer when the road switched from asphalt to gravel.  As he neared a crossroad, he stopped his car long enough to look at the clouds in the sky being lit up.  Just as he was getting ready to press his foot down on the gas pedal, he noticed a woman sitting on a stump just off the side of the road.  She was a brunette, with mocha colored skin.  The woman looked rather comfortable sitting down in a tight, black cocktail dress. 

He got out of his car with the intention of making sure she was okay.  Seeing him getting out of the car, the woman shot him a seductive smile and motioned with a finger for him to join her.  Her high-heeled foot swayed side to side at the wind and lightning started to pick up.  In the distance, Ryan could hear the unmistakable clap of thunder with each flash.  Looking both ways for any signs of other cars, Ryan realized that there were no vehicles around.  How did she get all the way out here?  He thought while cautiously crossing the road.

“Hello there Sugar,” the mysterious woman said uncrossing her legs and standing to meet him.

“Hi,” Ryan said hesitantly.  “Are you okay?”

The woman smiled and inched a little closer.  “Why sure I am.”  Her eyes moved up towards the black sky.  “I just love storms like these.  All that electricity in the air just sends shivers throughout my body.”  With that, she ran her hands slowly over her body, teasing Ryan the entire time.

“Right, I agree with you on that, but why are you in the middle of nowhere?”

She reached out, touching his arm, “Why, I’m out here waiting for you.”

“What?” he said taking a small step back, breaking the contact of her touch.

“Let’s just say that I know the desires that you have in your heart,” she said, once again closing the distance between them, and touching his chest.

“And how would you know that?”

With a devious smile she retorted, “Let’s just say it’s a gift I have.  You have love for someone in your heart.”  She walked behind him, trailing her hand across Ryan’s chest.  “Love that isn’t being returned.”  He could feel her warm breath on his neck.  “I can help you fix that,” she said with a whisper in his ear.

“And how is that?” Ryan said turning to look her dead in her deep brown eyes.

She returned his stare, “All you have to do is wish it.”

“A wish?” he said, chuckling.  “Isn’t that a little hokey?”

“It’s only hokey if you don’t believe in it,” the woman said, as she turned and started walking to his abandoned car.

“Wait!”  He trotted over to the woman, who was now leaning against the side of his car.  Thoughts raced through his head.  He even started to believe that what she was promising could come true.  Images of Julie ran on loop in his mind.

“About time.”

“You can really do everything you said?”  She nodded.  “You can convince her to love me?”  Another nod.  “If you do this for me, what exactly am I supposed to do for you?”

Another smile formed on her face.  “Nothing much, I only want your soul.”

Ryan couldn’t help but to laugh at her request.  “Yeah, sure.  I didn’t know you were a wish granter and a jokester.”

“I have your request, and you have mine.  All I need you to do now is make your wish.”

The moment was like a vortex, completely sucking him in.  His surroundings were gone.  The wind, lightning, and the increasing rain didn’t faze him one bit.  He stared deep into her eyes and wished that Julie would fall in love with him.  They sealed the deal with nothing more than a handshake.

Lightning struck somewhere close by, distorting his senses with a flash of light and a deafening roar.  It only took a few seconds for him to recover and realize that he was alone in the middle of the crossroads.

Like clockwork, Ryan showed up at the diner on the same day the following week.  This time though, Julie came over and sat down in the chair across from him.  She struck up a conversation with him about a book she was reading, the same book that Ryan brought in with him a couple weeks before.  Unlike every other time, he finally had the courage to look into her gorgeous eyes and articulate coherent thoughts to her.  For hours the two sat in the diner talking, the conversation finally ended with Julie taking control and asking him to join her at the annual art festival.

Casual dating between the two quickly turned serious, and before he knew it, Ryan was standing in a church across from Julie.  They were so happy, and so in love with each other, causing the years to fly by in a blink of an eye.  Before he knew it, they were both in their late forties.

The quick flight of happy years came to a sudden end when Julie became seriously ill.  Years of casual smoking had caused an aggressive form of cancer to develop in her lungs.  The doctors were doing everything possible to treat her, but Julie’s cancer wasn’t responding to anything they tried.

Their child came home every weekend from college to spend time with her and offer any type of support.  In private, their son poured all of his fears onto Ryan.  While Ryan felt the same things, he never waivered in front of his son, he put on an act to try and reassure him.  Even as Julie’s condition got worse, he put on a happy face and only talked about good memories.

A week after their wedding anniversary, Julie gave up her fight.  She was buried a few days later after a huge ceremony with all of their friends and family gathered to say goodbye.

A few days after the funeral, the family and friends stopped calling and stopping by.  Even their son forced himself to go back to school and resume the normal schedule of his life.

One evening, a couple of light knocks on the door roused Ryan from a flashback of that first time he met Julie in the diner.  A few more knocks sounded from the door as Ryan pried himself from the couch and stretched.  He walked over to the door, plastering a fake smile on his face before opening it.

Standing in the doorway was a beautiful young woman.  Her likeness to the Julie of years ago was striking.  She batted her striking blue eyes at Ryan and gave him a warming smile.

“Can I help you?” Ryan said, staring at her long blonde hair as it swirled in the breeze.

“You sure can, Sugar.”

Something about the way she talked struck up a familiarity, but he couldn’t quite place it.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Aw, don’t tell me you don’t remember me,” she said inviting herself into the house.  “Sure the wrapping is different from the last time, but the filling is still the same.”

Ryan searched his memory for any sort of clue, but was coming up with nothing.  The blank expression on his face indicated to the woman that he was drawing a blank as to her identity.

“Well,” she said walking into the living room and sitting cross-legged on the couch.  “I can see the advancing years have made things a little slow upstairs, so I’ll enlighten you.”

Ryan closed the front door and sat down in the recliner next to the couch.  An intentional drawn out pause from the woman gave him time to think a little more.  Her resemblance to Julie was distracting him from the mystery at hand.  The strange woman even twirled her index finger in her golden hair like Julie use to do back when she was a waitress.

The woman leaned in a bit and with a whisper revealed the answer to her identity.  “I met you many years ago.  You were a lonely, shy man with a wish to win the love of a certain girl.”

“Oh God,” he said as the memory of that night came rushing back.

“There we go,” she said laughing.

“What do you want now?”

“Well, I made a deal with you, and now I’m here to collect my payment.”

“But…”

“No,” she interrupted.  “You thought my request was a joke, but I was completely serious.  Someone comes along promising to grant a wish and you didn’t even stop to think about it.  If I was serious about making your wish come true, then why wouldn’t I be serious about my price?

“I know I didn’t, but you have to cut me some sort of break,” he pleaded.

The woman told him that there was no way she could leave without collecting on his end of the deal.  She had a boss to answer to, and he would do horrible things if she didn’t get paid for her services. 

He continued to vainly plead his case, “But it isn’t fair, Julie passed away, and I’m lonely all over again.”

“Dear,” she stated, “the deal was never that you two kids would live happily ever after until you both died together.  She loved you, right?”

“Of course.”

“And that was all that you ever asked for.  You asked, and I gave.”

Before Ryan could say another word, she reached out and reassuringly stroked the side of his face.  He squeezed his eyes shut as her other hand came to the other side of his head.  In one quick motion, she twisted Ryan’s neck, snapping it.

She then waited on the couch as Ryan grew cold.  Finally, a minute later, she felt the room get colder.  Rolling her eyes, she let out an annoyed sigh as an agent of Death showed up.

“About time,” the woman groaned.

“Can’t be everywhere at once,” said the toga clad man.

“Right,” she said sarcastically.  “Can you just get on with it?”

Without another word, she watched as the agent harvested Ryan’s damned soul.  With the deed done, and Death’s agent gone, she looked down upon Ryan’s corpse.  Another happy customer.

Reviews

[Old Heathen]

Damn those sexy women at crossroads. They're nothing but trouble. Great read!

[bablioe223]

Wow great story! loved it so much. Also great ending.

[NCalebD]

Good story, i liked the length and characters a lot.