The ‘Gift’

CW: Gore, death

The knock at my door was loud. Deliberate. Demanding.

I walked towards it, muttering about the money wasted on the doorbell.

When I opened the door, no one was there. I peered down the street. Empty. Too far to run. Nowhere to hide.

I looked down.

A small box sat on my doorstep. It was wrapped in newspaper, with a string tied neatly into a bow at the top. The label on it said my name.

TO MAISE,

Written in all capitals, as if it really needed me to know it was for me.

I thought about shutting the door. Leaving it there.

Actually, I thought about thinking about shutting the door. About wishing I was the type of person who could just leave the thing, that was a huge ominous red flag, alone.

I picked it up, brought it inside, and shut the door.

Obviously.

The box smelt of rotten eggs. A better version of me would have chucked it straight back outside, but I am not a better version of me. I have accepted that. Is it something I could change? Yes, of course. Could I be bothered? Not in the slightest.

Even with the odour, I started tearing it open before I reached the sofa.

Inside was a wooden box. It felt warm in my hands and was definitely the source of the stench. The lid was attached with two small hinges, elaborately decorated with tiny images of bodies burning and people being tortured by large horned monsters. The details were graphic despite their size.

Though I could barely make out what was happening, my throat began to dry. I coughed, which only encouraged more coughing, until I gagged. My stomach was not quite sure what it was seeing, but it knew it wanted to taste my takeaway pizza again.

I grabbed a glass of water and drank, trying to drown the disgust scraping up my throat.

I closed my eyes. Breathed.

And, needless to say, continued.

When I opened the box, the smell and heat made me stumble backwards. My face stung, tender, as if the air inside had burnt it.

Inside was a single piece of paper, dancing as if engulfed in flames.

I reached for it. My fingers recoiled. The paper was ice cold. When I picked it up, frost formed along its edges and stung my skin.

The words looked scorched into the page. They smoked, despite the freezing temperature.

It looked like a collection of words that screamed not to be read aloud.

Come on. What was I supposed to do? Not recite the incredibly ominous note that smelt of sulphur and had apparently materialised on my doorstep? Have you learnt nothing?

I read it out loud. Loud enough to make sure every demonic arsehole in earshot could hear.

Why not, right?

I wish to enter into an agreement.

Please hear my want.

In return, upon my death, I offer you my soul.

Instant regret has never been so swift.

I should not have done that. I made a mistake.

Nothing happened.

I held my breath.

Still nothing.

Just as I lowered my walls enough to let relief seep in, all the air drained from the room. I gasped, but nothing filled my lungs. I fell to the floor, clawing at my throat, begging for oxygen that was not there.

Then the air came rushing back all at once, flooding my lungs and forcing me upright.

I looked up and stumbled backwards.

Someone was standing in my living room.

His clothes smouldered. His skin sizzled. He wore a smile stretched unnaturally wide, shuddering and flailing with every breath.

“Hello, Maisie,” he hissed. “So, you would like to make a deal?”

Each word fired from his mouth, striking my eyes and face.

“No,” I shook my head. “I do not.”

His eyes shrank in confusion, just for a moment, before swelling back to their full, intimidating size.

“You summoned me!” he bellowed, spit and ash flying. “You offered your soul!”

“No, I didn’t,” I snapped, irritation bleeding through my fear. “I read a scrap of paper someone left at my house. Hardly a binding contract.”

He looked down, composing himself. When he looked back up, his eyes glowed orange with flame and fury.

“I can offer you everything!” he thundered. “I can make you whatever you want.”

I laughed.

“You don’t even know what I want,” I said.

“Of course I do,” he replied, softer now. “You want rest. You want to stop bracing yourself for the next disappointment. You want one morning where your chest doesn’t feel like it’s already apologising.”

I opened my mouth to mock him.

Nothing came out.

“Right,” I said eventually. “Well. That’s creepy. And wildly inappropriate.”

He peered at me with a mixture of hatefulness, and genuine surprise.

“Did you bring the box round yourself?” I asked, “is business that bad? You’re doing door to door now?”

“Silence!” he howled. The room shook.

I pulled a face of guilt so fake it bordered on offensive.

“Sorry, Mr Grumpy Pants,” I said. “But you can’t go around cold calling people and not expect a bit of agitation in return.”

His mouth opened to respond and kept opening.

Inside were hundreds of people screaming in agony. Flames licked flesh from bone. Giant horned creatures tore limbs apart, drinking greedily from every wound they inflicted.

His voice boomed through the carnage.

“I am every slice of pain inflicted upon mankind. I have destroyed empires, started wars with a whisper. Civilisations have ended because of me!”

The bodies twisted together, folding into one writhing mass that reshaped itself into something familiar.

My parents.

Their faces burned red with rage and disappointment, staring out at me from the darkness. Their screams were silent, but venomous.

The walls trembled as he inhaled to speak again.

“I’ll stop you there,” I said. “I’ve spoken to professionals about my childhood.”

The words came out fast. Practised.

“I know my parents were awful people,” I continued, before he could speak, “and I know they were to blame.”

I waited for the relief that usually followed saying it.

It didn’t come.

“If you’re trying to get into my head,” I said, louder now, “believe me, it’s been poked and prodded so much you’re just pissing in the wind.”

His face slipped like a mask and fell to the floor. Beneath it were features of rock and bone, thin skin blistering and bubbling, never settling.

“Do you have any idea who I am?” he shrieked, the sides of his mouth tearing, as black ooze leaked from each new hole.

“Yeah,” I shouted back. “You’re the bloke who stormed into my house stinking of old eggs and dropping faces on my floor.”

“It’s not eggs,” he snapped. “It’s sulphur.”

I howled with laughter.

“No one’s smelling you and thinking sulphur,” I said. “Trust me.”

“Enough!” he roared. “I am the Prince of Darkness. The Dark Lord. I will not stand here and be mocked by an insignificant worm.”

“Have you tried sitting?”

I had the distinct feeling that I should probably stop now. That feeling was mainly coming from the burning pitchfork he held in his hand. The flames screamed in agony. They reached out, trying to claw at my face. I really should have stopped.

But I was fed up with people telling me what to do, only for me to scurry around trying to do my best at tasks I never wanted in the first place.

So I carried on.

“Listen,” I said, despite myself, “I don’t know how you have managed to keep this racket going for as long as you have, but surely people are starting to realise how one-sided your deals really are.”

He wanted to scream at me. Tear me limb from limb. Devour me and my sarcasm just so he would not have to put up with it anymore.

But he did not.

Encouraged, and dangerously so, I continued, feeling like I might actually be getting somewhere.

“I get to be a movie star for, what, thirty or forty years,” I scoffed, “and then you get to punish and torture me for eternity? No VIP area or mansion in the Hollywood Hills is going to turn that into a bargain.”

He looked genuinely crushed. Like every doubt and insecurity he had ever had had just been verbalised by an insignificant worm.

“Honestly,” I added, “even if there was not the torture, and I just had to hang out with you for eternity, I would still rather stay as irrelevant as I am now.”

“Your mind is so puny and pathetic!” he roared, trying to intimidate me.

There was, however, a very slight squeak on the first word. Like a pubescent boy attempting to scare his older brother.

“Look, mate,” I interrupted again. “I’m not interested in any of the snake oil you’re selling. I’m happy with what I have, and I’m more than happy with whatever I get moving forward.”

“I am offering ultimate power!” he bellowed.

“You know,” I said helpfully, “when you start shouting that loudly, you have really got nowhere to go. Personally, I find it much more intimidating when a big bad monster man like yourself whispers his demands.”

He stared at me, not with anger, but with a smugness that swallowed his features.

A noise slithered in from my bedroom.

“You’d better go and check on him,” he sneered. “Just in case he gets hurt. Again.”

My heart dropped into my shoes.

It was Jake.

Even after all these years, I recognised that small, wet gargle. I started towards the bedroom. I needed to see him. Just once more. I wanted to see his face.

I stopped almost as soon as I’d moved.

He wasn’t going to be in there. Jake wasn’t here anymore.

I breathed through the pain and the guilt. Wiped the tears from my eyes. Met his festering gaze.

“It wasn’t my fault,” I said calmly.

“But you were supposed to be looking after him,” he replied, my mother’s words echoing behind his.

“I was only five years old,” I said. I breathed in, then out again. “We should never have been left alone.”

“Shall we go and see little Jakey?” he cackled. “You can tell him you’re sorry.”

I knew exactly what he was doing. That didn’t stop the begging inside my head. The desperate, shameful part of me that wanted to see him just once more.

Even if it only looked like him.

It would help.

I clenched my fists.

“I have nothing to be sorry for,” I said.

I straightened, rising out of a hunched posture I hadn’t realised I’d folded myself into.

“This isn’t going to work,” I told him, bitter and steady. “My parents were to blame for what happened to Jake. They should have been there.”

His hubris began to wither. Slowly. Noticeably.

“The next time you see them down there,” I spat, “tell them I said fuck you.”

The self castigation soaked into his now slumped frame. His eyes dulled from raging infernos to those of a small boy who had lost his mummy.

“I command you to tell me your desire!” he thundered, summoning what sounded like newly discovered bile and malice.

Too little, too late, big guy.

“Yeah, well,” I shot back, “I command you to stop being an annoying twat, and go all the way away!”

“I will not leave until we have made a deal!” he demanded.

I think he meant it to sound intimidating. To me, it looked like a toddler refusing to leave the soft play.

By this point in my life, I was fed up with being the doormat. The people pleaser. The pushover.

So I waited him out.

He has not left my house in almost five years.

He is there constantly, day and night, demanding I make a deal. There is not a moment of my life where he is not present. I have not pooed alone for nearly seventeen hundred days. He is there when I sleep and when I wake. He watches me eat. He will not even let me shower by myself.

Though, to be fair, he has reluctantly agreed to turn his back.

We have good days, and deplorable days.

I think I would have given in a long time ago, but since he has been stuck in my house twenty four seven, he has not had much influence on the rest of the world.

Every day I watch the news.

Some days, the world gets a little better.

Other days it just finds new ways to disappoint me.

But he is still here.

And as long as he is stuck in my living room, pacing and bargaining. Watching me hang my washing up, or brush my teeth, he isn’t out there whispering in someone else’s ear.

I don’t know if that makes me good.

I just know it makes me stubborn.

So I continue my dance with the devil.

You would have thanked me.

I think.