Death goes door to door these days and a pale parade follows behind. Don’t forget to use protection!
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“All around that point of light, that final star, is a deep darkness. So cold that it binds limbs you can no longer feel in chains of ice. So black that you can’t even see yourself, remember yourself, tearing even the strongest down to nothing but fluttering shreds and mindless howling.
“But if you buy Oblivex today, you can protect yourself and your loved ones from an eternity of binding and torment!”
Frank nodded at the old woman in her moth-eaten paisley dress. She pursed her thin lips and puffed at a cup of steaming tea.
He sat back on the couch to let his words sink in. A stiff doily tickled the back of his neck, smelling of old perfume. Miss Loretta smiled sweetly at Frank.
“Honey, it’s sweet of you to worry for me, but there’s really no need,” she said in a wheezing old voice that exactly matched the upholstery. “I’m not going to become a ghost.”
Frank groaned inwardly. Old ladies were the worst. They inevitably believed they had somehow managed a life without regrets.
“Miss Loretta, Oblivex studies have shown that there’s a ninety percent chance of spiritual retention in your demographic,” Frank said. He turned on the bright, Oblivex trademarked smile. “You might be in that lucky ten percent, ma’am, but why take that risk? A small investment of nine dollars and ninety-five cents, you can be certain! An Oblivex’s Light Guide cards guarantees a peaceful transition. I never go anywhere without my card.” Frank patted his breast pocket.
Her toothless smile didn’t waver. “Thank you for stopping by, but I don’t think I’m interested.”
Frank stood and tipped his hat to the old witch. “Thanks for your time, Miss Loretta. If you ever change your mind, don’t hesitate give Oblivex a call.”
He showed himself to the door and back out to his car, a polished sky-gray Crown Victoria with the Oblivex logo painted on the doors. Frank leaned against the trunk, shook a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. A few puffs soothed his irritation, but not his anxiety. He flipped open the silver case labeled Light Guide.
Five left. Frank fanned the cards and counted them again, just to be sure. Five more. Damn. The ember-red sun was setting. He had to sell the rest of his inventory or risk losing his top sales ranking and use of the company car.
Frank flicked the case closed and took a long drag off the cigarette. There was almost an hour left before full dark. He dropped the cig and ground it out under his heel.
It ain’t over till it’s over, even when you’re dead.
The next house was only a hop, skip and a jump away, so Frank walked. It was a cheerful little place with a dry shake roof and black painted shutters over the windows. A boy in a striped shirt stood on a stepladder in the door, balancing on the top rung as he replaced the warding roses. Frank stepped through the gate with a shiver and tipped his hat to the lad.
“Evening, son. Is your father in?” he asked.
“Sure is, mister,” the boy answered. He gave the bundle of white roses a testing tug, decided that they were secure and climbed down off the ladder. “He got home from the office about ten minutes ago. You want to see him?”
“If it’s not too much trouble,” Frank said.
“You’re from Oblivex, right? Come in,” he invited, folding the stepladder and showing Frank inside.
“Thanks, son.”
The boy showed Frank to the living room. A middle-aged man sat in a dark leather armchair, reading the paper. Blue smoke from his pipe drifted lazily around his head and dispersed as the fellow looked up at Frank.
“Dad, a guy from Oblivex wants to talk with you,” the boy said. His father folded his paper and stood. Frank shook his hand.
“Evening, sir. I’m Frank Ares, from Oblivex.”
“Steve Laran,” the other man introduced himself. “Have a seat.”
He gestured with his pipe to a matching chair just a few feet away. Steve and Frank seated themselves. The boy bustled off into some other part of the house, leaving the adults to their business. Frank nodded to a polished zodiac disc hanging over the mantle, turned obediently display to the Libran season.
“You’ve got a very observant household, Mister Laran,” Frank complimented.
“My wife lost her parents in an accident a few years back,” Steve said. “Both of them turned specter. They curdled the milk, broke all the windows and made Sarah Beth miscarry our twins. Drove us out of our house in the end. We have to salt the gate every full moon to keep them out.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” Frank said, and almost meant it. It was a common story and one that usually meant a good sale. “I felt them at the post. You already know all too well what can happen without the proper protection.”
“I bought cards for Sarah Beth and Mark before the haunting started, but we had to cross meridians when we moved,” Steve told him mournfully. “What do you use here?”
Frank grinned. Finally, an easy sale. From the pocket of his twill blazer, he produced the Light Guide case and clicked it open, holding them out to Steve. Each card was a pure, almost blinding white marked in the center with an eight-pointed star that shone in the firelight.
“Oblivex’s patented formula uses a mixture of treated iron, silver and dried lily in a solution of virgin tears and equinox-gathered dew from right here in Barlow,” Frank said. “We print our Light Guides on one hundred percent pure beechwood stock to assure the highest standard of spiritual cleansing. All the protection of a full circling and it still fits in your wallet.”
Steve carefully examined the cards and nodded. “Do you take personal checks?”
“Yes, sir, we do.”
“I’ll need four, then. We’re expecting a little girl this December,” he said.
“Congratulations, Mister Laran.”
The check changed hands and Frank counted out four cards. They shook hands again and Steve showed the salesman out. Just before the salt-strewn gate, they stopped.
“You’ve still got about a half hour before nightfall,” Steve said. “If you’ve got the time, you might want to stop by Mister Erra’s place. He runs the office where I work. He’s getting on in years and hasn’t carded yet. I know he wants to leave a clean house for his daughter. Poor girl.”
“Where can I find Mister Erra?”
“His house is down at the end of the block. Big red brick place, you can’t miss it,” Steve told him.
Frank thanked him and made his way back to the Crown Victoria with a spring in his step. Perfect! If he could sell the last card by the end of the evening, he would almost certainly make top seller this month.
Twisting his keys in the ignition, Frank drove to the end of the block and parked again. Just as Steve had said, the place was easy to find: a tall old brick manse deep in shifting shadows. Light shown through the drapes of a single window on the third story.
Frank straightened his tie and made his way to the front door. He grabbed the big bronze ring and banged it three times. A moment later, a round-faced butler in a starched vest opened the door.
“Evening, my good man. My name is Frank Ares and I represent Oblivex. Is Mister Erra in tonight?” Frank asked.
“Master Erra has retired to his reading room,” the butler said. “I’m certain he would be pleased to speak with you. This way, Mister Ares.”
He stepped back and made a welcoming gesture. Once inside, he lead Frank through a labyrinth of foyers, curving mahogany staircases and libraries. Finally, they stopped on the third floor at a wide set of French doors. The butler pushed them open, revealing a velvet-draped sitting room beyond. A withered old man reclined on a divan with an ornately carved frame. Sitting on a couch across from him was a young woman in a high-necked dress. She would have been beautiful, all golden hair and milky skin, but for the despair that weighed down her otherwise youthful features.
“Mister Frank Ares to see you, sir,” the butler announced. “From Oblivex.”
“Thank you, Stewart. Show him in,” Mister Erra said. “Will you excuse us, Carolyn?”
The woman inclined her head and brushed past Frank as he stepped into the room. He offered up a smile, but Carolyn didn’t look at him.
“Your daughter?” Frank guessed.
“The apple of my old eyes,” Erra confirmed. He coughed deep in his throat. It didn’t sound healthy. “Forgive me for not getting up, Mister Ares.”
“Not at all, sir,” Frank said. He gently clasped hands with the old fellow before sitting down on the couch Carolyn had just vacated. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with me.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” Erra told him. “I’d heard that an Oblivex salesman was in the area and had hoped you would stop by.”
“Oblivex is always happy to serve,” Frank said. Another easy sale, he thought elatedly. I’ve got the sales bonus in the bag!
“I never bothered buying a card myself,” Erra was saying, shaking his head. “Only had a few ghosts in the family. We’ve always been lucky that way. But my daughter’s husband bought the shroud, so they say. Came back with a vengeance. Tore out Carolyn’s throat. She barely survived.
“She came back home to recover and now she’s too frightened to go anywhere. Worries that she’ll go like her husband did. I can’t bear the thought of not going into the light, Mister Ares, and coming back to haunt my little girl. I just can’t risk it.”
“All it takes is one Light Guide card to guarantee that you’ll move on, sir,” Frank assured him. “Only nine ninety-five and you won’t have to worry any more.”
Erra bobbled his head in agreement. “Not just for me, but for my girl. I hope that if she’s carded, she won’t be so scared. Carolyn’s still a young woman. She should be out and about.”
Frank blinked.
“Two? You want two cards?” he asked.
“I do, Mister Ares.”
“I’m sorry, sir, I’m only carrying one more. I’ll have to wait for the factory to restock me before I can sell you the second one. It’ll only take a day or two, I assure you.”
Erra sighed and looked down at his vein-laced old hands. “I don’t want to wait, but I guess I don’t have another choice.”
Frank hesitated only a moment before he simply could no longer pass up the opportunity. “Well, I wouldn’t do this for just anyone, but I’ve got one extra. My personal card.”
“You’d be willing to part with it?”
“It’s a great personal risk, you understand,” Frank lied easily. Oblivex kept their agents carded; he would be carrying a replacement within a day at no cost. “It’ll cost you a little more, Mister Erra.”
“Name your price.”
“A hundred dollars.”
“Done,” Erra said. He gestured to the butler, who still stood attentively in the doorway. “Stewart, bring the money for Mister Ares.”
“Yes, sir.”
Frank was amazed. That was three times his top sales bonus! Stewart returned a moment later with the money; a stack of gray-green bills and tarnished coins.
Frank pulled the last card from the Light Guide case and gave it to the old man. He pulled his wallet from his breast pocket, pushed the thick wad of cash inside and withdrew his own card, handing it over to Erra.
“A pleasure doing business with you,” he said with a grin.
“Indeed so, Mister Ares. Stewart will show you the door.”
Frank let the butler escort him out. They passed the pale shape of Carolyn lurking in a shadowed alcove. She watched him go with sad eyes.
Stewart bade Frank a safe drive and locked the door behind him, leaving the salesman alone in the deepening gloom of the evening. The sun was gone, leaving only a bloody smear in the sky to the west and a cold wind was rising. Frank pulled his blazer tightly around him and hurried through the manicured lawns of Erra’s estate to his car.
Full dark fell as Frank opened the door and sat down behind the wheel. The memory of the hundred dollars in his wallet warmed him, but he would have to hurry home before the ghosts came out. He started the car, flicked on the headlights and pulled away from the curb.
The sky was black now, endless ebony unmarked by stars or moon. Frank kept his eyes on the road, but thoughts of money were not enough to push away the pale flickers at the corners of his vision.
Wails, screams and bits of discordant song drifted on the icy wind. Frank turned on the radio, but it only filled the car with hissing static. His hands were sweaty on the steering wheel.
A colorless thing picked itself up off the pavement, a skin sack of broken bones and oozing viscera, and staggered in front of the car. Frank screamed and swerved, tires screeching. The ghost’s blank stare followed him as he raced past.
It was only another mile back to his house, Frank reminded himself, pushing down heavily on the accelerator. The houses that lined the street were closed and shuttered against the night, families safely tucked away, leaving Frank alone on the dark street. The streetlamps flickered, buzzed and went dark. Frank’s headlights dimmed and died a hammering heartbeat later. But he knew the roads well. Half a mile.
An old woman warped by disease and rot wailed in a gutter as a man with barbed hooks for fingers ripped at her body. Frank didn’t stop to stare. The Crown Victoria screamed past it all.
There was his house, just up ahead. A twisted serpent, coiled vertebrae and dripping intestine capped by a flaking, decaying skull, slithered from a storm drain, glowing with a sickly, baleful light. The thing snaked across his driveway, rearing up and shrieking at the empty sky.
Frank slammed on his brakes, stiff with terror. His car skidded and spun through the ghost. He could feel it slipping like a freezing knife through his ribs, making his heart shiver and stutter.
He wrestled with the wheel, but his sweaty fingers slipped. The car crashed into the side of his house. Frank’s head cracked sharply against the windshield.
There was light. Warm white light full of inviting peace. Frank reached, stretched and strained… but it was retreating into the distance. He began to shiver as the icy blackness moved in. The light vanished and Frank knew only darkness. He tried to scream, but all he could hear were his own words.
I never go anywhere without my card.
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The Card placed 9th in the 2008 NYC Midnight Short Story contest.
