Mr. Midnight

With Halloween just around the corner, I wanted to post some thematically appropriate original fiction. Below you’ll find a short story that I cooked up for the spooky season, though the idea to write this one has been floating around in my head for a little while now. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Today I met a strange man. I usually ride the bus to work, and today was no different. I woke up and was out the door, sitting by the bus step long before the sun had risen from its own slumber. The air was cold. Colder than normal. It was the kind of cold that would seep into your bones and freeze your very soul. I cursed my foolishness for not remembering a warmer coat. I was used to the October chill, but this morning was unnaturally brisk. And so I waited in the cold.

The bus lethargically pulled up to the stop at its usual 7:13 time. Its headlights cut through the morning dark like a lighthouse’s roving beam. It screeched to a halt, the shrill brakes grinding against something. The doors mechanically flung open. I stepped on and wordlessly tossed the driver his fare. He barely regarded my presence.

            Despite the early hour, the bus was full. Every seat I passed was occupied. Eventually I found a single open spot next to a man in a black suit with a red tie. His black hair was short and cleanly cut around the ears. It looked like some grease or gel held it slicked back. He smiled warmly at me as I approached.

“Is this seat taken?” I asked. I knew the answer but figured it was still polite to at least ask.

“Go right ahead; be my guest,” the man with a pearly flash. “May I have your name?” He extended his right hand out towards me.

“Theo,” I replied casually. I took his hand. It was alarmingly warm yet clammy. “And you are?”

“You may call me Mr. Midnight,” the man answered. His voice was a buttery bass and it struck me as the kind belonging to an announcer or actor of some kind. “Off to work I presume?”

“Yep. It was a good weekend, but just like all of them, it was over too quickly.” I tried to flash the man a disarming smile, but I immediately started kicking myself over how forced and awkward it likely looked.

The man laughed a deep, throaty laugh. “I know what you mean. Sometimes all we want is just a little more time. Maybe it’s just one more game with the guys before you all have to get off for the night. Maybe it’s five more minutes sleeping. Maybe it’s one more conversation with a friend or loved one; a conversation where you can finally say all the things you regret not saying. Regardless, the end’s the same. A simple desire for what we no longer have. Do you enjoy your job?”

“Eh it’s fine, I guess. Pays me well enough at least, even if the work can be a bit dull. Hours are pretty long too.”

“Let me guess.” He began stroking his bare chin with his fingers. “You work eight to six?”

“Yeah actually. How’d you guess that?” I asked incredulously.

“Your badge is right there.” He gestured towards the little slip of plastic clipped to my jacket. It proudly displayed my name, face, and the name of the company I worked at. “I’m intimately familiar with your company, so it wasn’t hard to figure out your shift time.”

“Oh you know Paulson-Chase Investments?”

“Quite well, actually. I’m a bit of a silent partner. You know, it wasn’t that long ago that I ran into Samuel Paulson in a similar venue. He was much like you actually, simply grinding away his days hoping for more.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow. Are you on our board of trustees? A client or investor of ours? One of our shareholders?” Something about this guy was beginning to unnerve me.

“I’m many things, but that’s not what interests me. What do you want most in life?” The words rolled so casually off his tongue, yet they reeked of poison.

I pursed my lips and thought hard. Part of me didn’t want to indulge this strange man anymore, but another part of me figured there was no harm. “I suppose I’d want to work my way up the chain at Paulson-Chase. Meet a nice girl, settle down, and have a family too. You know, the good old American Dream.”

“Why let it be a dream?” The man smiled. His hazel eyes stared intently at me. I couldn’t see a shred of humanity behind that gaze.

“Look, I know what you mean, and I’m working on it. I just installed a new dating app last night so I’m hoping that one ends up better than the last two. And yeah, I’ve been at Paulson-Chase for four years now, and I did get a little bump last year, but my supervisor said he’s retiring soon and I’m due for an evaluation in a week or two. I’m sure it’ll fall into place eventually.”

“God’s plan?” the man asked. He almost sounded sarcastic.

“Sure.” I eyed him slyly from the side. He seemed to be smirking. I looked over and out the window. We passed a nondescript gray building that wouldn’t have struck me as strange on any normal day, but this didn’t feel like a normal day. I continued staring out the window as I heard the man say something to me, but I didn’t catch it. I just kept staring at the gray edifices as they came and went like unwelcome people in your life.

I didn’t recognize this street. This wasn’t my usual route. I’d taken this exact same bus route for all four of my years working at Paulson-Chase, and for the year and half I did my internship there. Something was very, very wrong. The gray building kept passing, fog caressing the bus windows like fingers trying to pry their way inside. The buildings were endless. The man said something again, but I continued to tune him out. My heartbeat started racing. That building looked the same as the one we just passed. And so did that one. And that one. And that one. They all looked the same!

I felt my complexion growing whiter as the unease made my shiver. I went to stand up when I felt the man grab my wrist. His hands burned. If the weather was cold, his touch was scorching. I tried to pull myself away, but it was no use. I turned and looked at him. He stared at me, his head cocked to one side.

“Leaving so soon?” he asked, a hint of feigned sadness tainting his words. “I was so enjoying our conversation.”

“I’m sorry but I need to get to work. My stop is coming up,” I mumbled hastily.

“Oh believe me, it isn’t,” he replied flatly and with no hint of irony or humor. “You have all the time in the world right now. I’d suggest you enjoy it. I know you weren’t listening earlier, so I suppose I’ll just have to repeat myself, though I am loath to do it. What do you want from me? What wishes or dreams do you want me to grant for you?”

“None,” I answered quickly as I tried to pull away from him again.

The man chuckled. “You already gave me your name, the least I can do is grant you some paltry whim. Do you want a bride? Someone so beautiful she would make Helen of Troy seethe in jealousy? Someone so loyal she’d follow you into the very bowels of hell? How about a new job? You’ve been eyeing that promotion for some time, what if the process got expedited, and made more certain? Better yet, what if you skipped the entire promotion process and woke up tomorrow as a partner, just like Paulson?”

“I’m…” I hesitated. I can’t deny that his words were enticing, yet something within my mind screamed at me to run. “I’m not interested.”

“Oh believe me, I know you are. I know those questions piqued your curiosity.” He smiled at me, baring what I can only describe as perfectly white fangs. He let go of my wrist. “The seeds of desire were sown long, long ago. Would you really spit in the face of the gardener prepared to tend them and bring them to a bountiful harvest?”

“You said something about Paulson. Tell me about it,” I demanded quickly in the hopes of changing the subject.

“I met him, what, ten short years ago on a bus much like this one. He was traveling to work, just like you. He had been at Chase Investments for five years and was growing sick of sitting in the shadows. He was better than the menial tasks he was assigned every day. He deserved to work with more important clients than the average people he was seeing, like Mrs. Applebeen, the seventy-year-old widow who lived in an apartment off Bastion Street and didn’t use a smart phone and who was only there because her son kept nagging her to do it because he secretly intended to collect her investments after she tragically passed, which she did suddenly that winter in a car accident, though of course the son never knew about the car accident until it happened and he did succeed in getting her investment, but I digress. Paulson grew tired of the same, boring, soulless grind. Until I found him. He gave me his name, just as you did, and I asked him what he wanted. He immediately told me: he wanted Jason Nickels, the senior investment fellow who sat in the cubicle next to him, to disappear or mess something up so one of his accounts would end up in Paulson’s own lap, then he could use it as his ticket to move up. He was very eager, and I was happy to oblige. Nickels choked on a piece of his ham sandwich during lunch. He legally died for ten minutes, then miraculously came back to life, but he was still out of commission at the hospital for the foreseeable future. In a panic, Chase had Nickels’ clients divvied up amongst the other senior investment fellows, and Paulson by ‘happenstance.’” He made a gesture of quotation marks around this last word. “And of course, the account Paulson ended up with belonged to a young Miss Emily Gration. You see, Emily was Mr. Patrick Chase’s mistress, and oh how fond of her he was, or I suppose it was more accurate to say he was fond of her twenty-four-year-old body. Paulson made the connection when he noticed some remarkable discrepancies in her accounts, namely with wire transfers forming from a suspiciously familiar number, so he took it upon himself to coax the truth from Emily. What started as a simple seduction for information eventually became something more sincere, and Paulson used it as leverage over Chase. A few months later, Paulson married his new wife and became partners with Chase, leading to a change in the firm’s name. You could experience the same good fortune; all you need do is ask for it.”

My stomach dropped and I felt like I was going to be sick. The whole story horrified me and made me feel disgusted hearing it. “Go to hell,” I whispered under my breath.

The man frowned. “Only after our business is concluded. You gave me your name, now tell me what you want for it.”

His words washed over me in a wave of futile realization. “Oh God,” I croaked.

“Don’t invoke Him,” the man spat. “You haven’t been to Mass since you were fourteen. Do you really think He’ll be listening? That He’ll accept you back with open arms?” The man laughed. “No, no. Of course not. You’ve already made your choices. Remember Sally Lorkin? What About how you screwed over Rodney Chester? Oh how could we forget the lies and manipulation you used on Alicia Thorner to coax her into—”

“Shut up!” I yelled. “Yeah, I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to—”

“No, no, no!” the man screamed as he rose to his feet. I couldn’t help but shrink back as the very air around us seemed to darken. A red vein was bulging on his forehead. “You belong to me. You have for some time. I thought I would offer you a kindness, grant you some degenerate wish or vapid desire as I’ve been wont to do for your ilk before. I thought I would be generous. Men have given me their souls for far, far less than what I’m offering you. Don’t be like them. Your name is in my book, the least you can do is get something useful for it.”

“I want my name back,” I blurted without really thinking.

“That’s not how it works,” Mr. Midnight replied with an involuntary twitch and a scowl.

“Yes it is,” I pushed. “You said I could ask for anything. You said I could have any wish or desire I wanted. I want my name back. I want you to erase it from your book.”

He sighed. He closed his eyes and began massaging his temple and the bridge of his nose with his hand. “Look, when I told you I’d grant any wish or desire, I meant here. I can give you more money than you could ever spend in a thousand lifetimes. I can give you enough women that you’ll never be lonely for a single day more in your life. I can give you enough power to bring anyone or anything in this world to its knees. All you need to do is ask and I will grant it. Any one request here on this world, and I will do it for you.”

“I want my name out of your book and to never see you again,” I said defiantly.

“I already told you—” 

“I don’t care! I told you want I wanted. Grant this wish. Grant this desire. You said anything here on this world, any one desire. This is it. Remove my name from your book and I never want to see you again.”

The devil sighed for so long that it became a guttural growl. “Fine you stubborn ape. I’ll erase your name. It’s yours again. Take it and begone from my sight. Just know this: I cannot promise that you won’t end up in my arms again. Go and repent. I know that’s what your heart wants to do. But I’ll be here. Watching. Waiting. And the next time you slip up, I won’t be so generous.”

I blinked and he was gone. I found myself standing alone on the bus. It shuddered to a halt.

“Grand Street!” the driver called.

I robotically made my way to the exit. I thanked the driver and walked down the rubberized steps. The door opened and closed automatically. I stared blankly up at the building that housed my place of employment. I felt a twinge of disgust and sadness as I stared up at the sin-tainted edifice. Now that I knew what I knew, there’s no way I could go back there. This job wasn’t for me. This life wasn’t for me.

Suddenly I felt a man bump into me. “Oh sorry,” I automatically replied.

“No it’s my fault,” he said before rushing off.

I stared at the building until I felt a particularly cool gust of wind assault my unshielded face. I turned to the right and saw a little envelope on the floor. It was a plain yellow one with a simple name adorning the front in big black letters: St. Theophilus the Penitent Catholic Church. I heard the deep gong of a church bell in the distance tolling the hour: 8 o’clock.

I glanced back at the skyscraper before turning my back on it. The man had been walking to the right when he bumped into me. I needed to find him and return his envelope, and if that failed, I knew where to take it in his stead.