I don't know why I'm posting this. I'll update Slowly, Silently... I don't know. Like, this week. But I like to juggle fics -it keeps me from writers block- plus, I seem to be on this weird supernatural kick and I'm afraid if I don't post this, the muses will revolt. Hey, it's a bit different at first, but stick around, even if the beginning is a bit confusing. It clears up by the end of this first chapter, I think. Remember, I own nothing, except Johnny and May Black. Don't sue. It's not worth it.
Out of the Blue
By Eileen Blazer
May 2005
First chapter dedicated to my friend, melancholic, a fantastic writer on the site who cheered me on. Definitely check out her stuff when you're done here!
The X-Men learn some debts are harder to repay than others, when someone comes to claim something that belongs to him –Remy LeBeau.
Mississippi 1984
Johnny Black wiped his sweating hands roughly on his jeans and peered over the top of the soda stack to get a better view of the cashier, a thin, nerdy boy with acne and curling wisps of blue hair. The cashier boy strummed his hands along the edge of the counter and kept the beat of some punk pop song playing on the radio. He was maybe seventeen, only a short distance from Johnny's nineteen years, but he sure wasn't carrying the weight of a world on his shoulders, not like Johnny had been doing ever since May Klass told him she was seven weeks late.
That day, he'd been playing shortstop for his high school baseball team, the future set up so nice for him. Nine months later, Johnny was married, living in a trailer, wondering desperately where he was going to find the money to feed his family. The baby was only a month old, and May should've been able to give him milk, but the doctor said she wasn't healthy enough for that.
His job at the laundry mat just wasn't enough. He needed money or else none of them would survive. Johnny Black wiped the perspiration from his brow and took a deep breath. Something heavy weighed down the bottom of his pocket. Mick said it was untraceable, but Johnny figured there was a fifty-fifty chance the older man was lying. But his family needed food and their options were running out fast.
He had to do it. Johnny hardened his heart and steeled his soul. It wasn't easy; his mother, rest in peace, had brought him up right, like he wanted to do with his own child. But she'd never been in his position. He stepped around the island of soda, and shoved his hands deep into his pockets, where one coiled around the silver. His eyes scanned the area one last time and found it desolate, save him and the cashier. The sound of a hungry baby's cry echoed in his mind. He had to do it.
The boy looked up, raised an eyebrow at the sweating man. His eyes were blue, the color of sorrow and tragedy. His mouth turned up at the corners. "Can Ah help you?"
"Yeah," Johnny said quietly. He licked his lips and nodded, "Yeah, you can give me all your money." He pulled his hands from his pockets to reveal the shimmering gun. "Right now." His voice didn't crack like he thought it might. He was better at this than he'd hoped.
The cashier's eyes went wide and his jaw slipped open. His back found the rack of cigarettes, where it knocked several packs of Marlboro to the concrete ground. They made a light crunching sound on contact. "Aw man Ah don't want no trouble-"
"There ain't going ta be no trouble," Johnny insisted. "Just give me all your money an' Ah'll leave here quietly. That's not so hard, is it? Just open up that register an' hand me its contents."
"Don't hurt me," the cashier whined softly, like a kicked puppy. "Please man."
"The money," Johnny demanded harshly. His resolve was weak glue; it wasn't going to hold him together forever. He gestured with the gun. "Let's go."
"Can't move…" the cashier cried out, "Please. Don't hurt me. Please. Please."
"Damn it!" Johnny roared. He had to get that money and get away fast, that was essential to the Plan. He slammed his fist against the counter in frustration and a shot rang out, shocking both him and the boy. He looked down at his hand, at the smoking gun, and at the boy, whose mouth was dribbling red fluid…
Oh God. Blood. Oh God Oh God oh God. Johnny gasped and craned his neck to see the boy better. His hands were wrapped around his stomach, but the wound was clear enough: the center of his shirt was stained dark red and spreading fast, like a plague of locus across an open plain.
"Look what you've done now," the voice was cold, and hit Johnny like a crushing wave of ice, so that he felt like he might never feel real warmth again. The world around him seemed to shift into slow motion. He yanked his hand away from the gun as his eyes turned to see a tall man in a black suit smiling at him, pleasantly.
"Ah didn't…"
"Oh, you did," the man assured him, as he moved to check the boy's pulse. He shook his head. "Uh oh. He's fading fast, Johnny. The ambulance will never get here in time. You've gone and killed a boy."
"How do you know my name?"
The suited man didn't respond, just dipped a slender, pale finger into the pooling blood. The red was a stark contrast to the man's impossibly pale complexion. It seemed dark enough to stain the skin forever. "What will May think when she catches your picture on the evening news, Johnny?"
"We have ta help him," Johnny insisted.
"Medicine won't say his life." The man shrugged, as he brought the painted finger to his mouth, where he sucked on it, lightly. "Do you know what this tastes like? It tastes like failure. You've never done anything right. You didn't make the college team like your mother wanted. You weren't the best husband for May. One month you've been a father and already you're going to go to prison; your son will never know you except through a glass window and a telephone line. Are you happy with that?"
Johnny blanched and took a step back. "Who the hell are you?"
"My name is inconsequential, Johnny. You're the one that matters. So many poor decisions you've made. Wouldn't you like to make one good one, just once?" The man grinned. He had sharp, pointy teeth, as he pushed himself away from the floor. His black pants should've been sullied, but weren't. They were like distant space, untouchable, and depthless and unlike any fabric Johnny had ever seen.
He approached Johnny and slid two arms up his chest, linked them around his neck. Nothing about the suited man was superficially unpleasant; his looks were fair, his breath like peppermint, and his voice a soothing baritone. Nonetheless, there was something very wrong about him: the twist of his smile, the beady eyes that peered deeper than Johnny wanted anyone to see, his cavalier attitude, despite the boy lying dead on the floor. "Get away from me," Johnny commanded.
"I could do that," the man whispered, as he fingered Johnny's hair. "I could step away right this minute and leave you to your fate. But I'll tell you what. For a price, a small, meager fee, I can fix everything. The boy, the money, and every worry you've ever had. Just snap, that's all I have to do, Johnny. You can have your life just the way you wanted it. Doesn't that sound… nice?" He adjusted Johnny's collar and patted him gently on the head.
"Who the hell are you?" Johnny repeated.
"Anyone who want me to be. For a price, of course."
"A price," Johnny scoffed.
"Don't be a baby about it, everything costs something. And for what I'm offering you –not only your life, but this boy's, too- my charge is tiny. You're trading pennies for gold." The suited man ran a hand along the base of Johnny's neck, and shut his eyes at the contact. "Johnny, don't say no. Please?"
Later, he would read about Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and blame everything past the shot on that. He couldn't have been in his right mind; there was no explanation for his behavior, none whatsoever. There was no reason for him to swallow hard, like he did, and ask, "How can ya do that?"
"It's not for you to question," came the easy reply. "Just say yes."
"What's the price?"
"Your soul."
Johnny blinked. And maybe he got a bad feeling about the man, but his presence was starting to become intoxicating. Like a drink that tastes foul at first, but gets easier to swallow each time. And maybe he didn't quite believe that someone was actually asking for his soul. That just didn't happen in real life. "You're kiddin'."
"No. Not kidding, though I do accept trades." The man in black released him and stepped away. He yawned suddenly. "You have a son."
The baby. Johnny nodded. "Yes."
"I'll take him, if you'd rather it be someone else."
"You think Ah'm going to sell you my son's soul?"
"How is baby Black going to survive with his daddy in jail?" The man wondered. "I don't collect until the eve of his eighteenth birthday. That's eighteen years of no worries at all for your family. Wouldn't you like that, Johnny?"
"Ah can't do that," he said.
"Don't forget this other boy you've cut down. He'd like a second chance, too."
At least his son would have food and a father. The cashier would live. Johnny shut his eyes. He was talking to a psycho about selling his son's soul and- "Do it." After he said it, his mouth clamped shut, in some belated effort to catch the mistake. But the words were said, and the man in black smiled, charmingly.
"John Phillips Black: welcome to the rest of your life."
Johnny blinked, and went he opened his eyes again, he was standing on one side of a soda isle, watching the blue-haired, breathing cashier drum his hands on the counter. But the weight in his pocket was replaced with something else. When he dug his fingers in, they met with hard plastic. He frowned and pulled out a shiny gold credit card. Johnny passed a hand over his mouth and didn't know what to think. The words 'Thank God' came to mind, but he had a desperate, sinking feeling that God had nothing to do with it. His hands trembled as he shoved the card back in his pocket and fled the store.
"Ya did what?" May cried out, when Johnny explained the choice to her in their small home, the smell of bacon wafting in the air. Her eyes went wide and her pretty pink mouth slacked open.
He shook his head. "No, it's goin' to be okay, May."
"Someone asked if ya wanted to sell our son's soul an' you said yes?"
"Ah didn't think it would happen. He looked like-" Johnny let go of his sentence, because it didn't say what he needed her to hear. He had to explain until she saw it like he did. "Look, May, eighteen years old is a long time away. We can talk to people until then. Priests. Theologists. And in the meantime, Ah checked out this credit card. It's good, May. It's good for a lot of money. We can buy a house, a better car, a vacation in Europe…"
May Black rubbed her hands across her face and groaned. "Our son," she said. "My baby is in danger because o' you. How could ya do it?"
"May…"
She moved past him, and took the opportunity to shove him violently aside as she made her way towards the crib, where the sleeping child lay. She bent over and moved the swaddled blanket aside to get a better view of her child and… screamed. A terrible, frightening, screech that reached inside of his heart and twisted. "When he's eighteen?" May cried, both hands curling in her hair.
Johnny frowned. He too bent over the crib and looked at his child. A great pressure settled in his chest and the bile rose up his throat as he stared down at his baby boy, whose eyes had once been an attractive light brown.
The devil had lied. He'd claimed the baby early, ownership made plain by the change in appearance –for the child now had red and black eyes, the colors of Hell.
The next day, a nun stepped outside a cathedral in New Orleans, into the warm spring air and heard a baby's cry. She looked around and found him swaddled like Moses in a basket, adrift in a sea of concrete. His eyes were startling, to say the least, but it was not for her to turn away any child of God.
He was christened after St. Remaclus.
And thus ends chapter one. I wasn't sure at first how much I liked this story, but it wanted to be told and whenever that happens, I just go with the flow. You know? Okay, I'll stop with the rhymes. Seriously speaking, this story got its inspiration from a Steven King short featured in his Everything's Eventual. Well, that and Rapunzel. If you'd like, review. Otherwise I'm going to let the bad man have Remy.
Questions? Comments? Coconuts? I'm Eileenblzr at Yahoo.