Devil's Advocate (Part Three of Three)

Part One at: https://www.abctales.com/story/marandina/devils-advocate

Part Two at: https://www.abctales.com/story/marandina/devils-advocate-part-two-three

 

Devil’s Advocate (Part Three of Three)

The line went dead as the receiver was replaced on its cradle. Frank stood shocked, a million thoughts racing through his mind. Dressing quickly back into his chequered shirt and black trousers that were still lying on the bedroom carpet, he locked up and squeezed into the driver’s seat of his Prius. The journey to the subway seemed to take longer than usual, every brake light in front preventing him from getting to the hospital sooner. Eventually, he found himself slipping through the sliding doors of a train bound for Queens.

After a brief wait at reception, Doctor Walker arrived and whisked Frank away along the sanitised corridors of the hospital. As they walked, the medic gave a summary of where things had got to concerning Ellen. Not that they encouraged such terms but, nevertheless, it seemed nothing short of a miracle. Entering the private room, Frank was greeted by his now coherent wife who was sitting up, smiling and appeared as lucid as anyone else. Her flimsy, patterned cotton top made her look vulnerable.

Husband and wife embraced, both animated with what had happened and the possible repercussions. Frank cupped his wife’s face and stared into her features. It was though he was looking right inside her. She took one of his hands away and placed it on the bed, holding it in her own.

“So what do we do now, doc?” Frank’s question was posed with his back turned to the standing Doctor Walker.

“We need to run some tests. Early signs are good. Obviously, we didn’t expect things to turn out as they have over the last few hours and, at this stage, we’re not sure exactly what’s happening but we’ll find out.”

“When can Ellen come home?”

“Maybe in a few days if everything stacks up. It’s early days yet. We want to make sure Ellen gets the right care.”

****

Things had gone well over the last week. Tests had shown Ellen’s cancer to be in remission and she was deemed well enough to go home. Frank was, once more, on a subway platform having stepped off a train near to the hospital. Recent days had been a blur but he had found himself thinking of the conversation with the vagrant. Surely it was just a coincidence that the man had said that he could fix things for just $20. It seemed to mirror the nightmares he had been having even if “bearded Jack” may be a curious symmetry rather than the literal demon of his dreams. He couldn’t recall seeing the down-and-out again since that fateful exchange.

Two beat cops dressed in dark blue uniforms with guns holstered on their hips were striding down the platform performing a sweep. Patrols had stepped up since Mayor Adams’s initiative to restore confidence in the subway system. Frank approached them as they walked towards him and held out a hand.

“Sorry officers. Can I ask you a question? I appreciate how busy you are.”

“Sure, fire away sir.” The reply came from a man with a jowly face wearing glasses and a cap.

“I was waiting for a train a few days back and got into conversation with a homeless man. He called himself Jack. Had a striking beard and was confident and outgoing. Just wondering if you knew him and where he might be.”

The officers looked at each and smiled.

“Yeah, we know all about old Jack.” It was the other cop that had replied this time. He was carrying a can of soda in his hand and appeared to be younger than his partner. Both men were heavyset and clearly liked their food.

“What business have you got with a local vagrant?”

Frank thought about the question. If he started wittering on about weird dreams and pacts with strangers he would lose any credibility he might have pretty quickly.

“Hey, look you won’t find old Jack around these parts anyhow. His friends, who also roam about down here, say that he left this world. They say he made a deal with the devil to save some woman uptown. Old Nick didn’t hang around in waiting for the price to be paid, I understand. They say he threw himself under a train….although this seems strange as no incidents of jumpers have been reported recently.”

Frank listened with morbid curiosity. Everything about the homeless man had been odd; how he looked, his manner, the things he said. Now this as well.

“Hey look officer….”

“Officer Jones”

“Officer Jones. Thanks for the information. I’ll just be about my business and let you busy men of the law continue your good work.”

The patrolmen grinned as Frank doffed an imaginary cap.

“Oh, by the way, if it does turn out that our mutual friend hasn’t made a pact with the devil after all and you happen to bump into him, we would like a word. There have been complaints from the public of him hustling them.”

The two public servants turned and carried on their tour of the platform.

Frank scratched his head absently then strode off in the direction of the hospital.

****

There were times when the subway station had felt like a nexus; like a fulcrum around which Frank’s life had revolved for a while. He found himself back there for, hopefully, one last time. Ellen has been discharged from Mount Sinai and was delirious and apprehensive at the same time. The future looked very different now compared to only a short while ago. In fact, it was nice to have a future to look forward to at all.

She worried about her husband. Now that she was on the mend, he had confided in her about his nightmares. As with dreams in general, they both wondered whether the whole thing was a metaphor of some kind. It was difficult to distil the meaning of a devil and Armageddon but it would have a meaning of some kind. The subconscious was a strange place for most people. Maybe the end of the world was her death. If so, the sequence had now been broken and perhaps that would bring the episode to a close. Frank had been sleeping without issue since her dramatic recovery which added fuel to the notion that his night terrors were at an end.

Wandering along the platform, Frank held a suitcase in one hand and Ellen’s hand in the other. He regretted not hiring the cab all the way home rather than to Astoria Boulevard. It was as though an invisible hand of fate was guiding him; making him do things he wouldn’t do ordinarily. The station was as busy as ever, scrolling updates overhead indicating the times and destinations of arrivals and departures. The smell of grease and oil wafted through the air; residue from metal tracks that carried heavy monoliths on their backs. The train due to take them back home was due in a few minutes. Frank decided to grab a couple of coffees from a store just along from the stairs near the exit.

With coffees in Styrofoam cups held in both hands, Frank bobbed and weaved through human traffic and back to the bench he had left Ellen sitting at. A man in a trench coat shuffled passed clearing his line of sight. He glared as the backs of two people swam into view. One was his wife, the other a wild-haired individual who was facing her, both appeared to be locked in conversation.

“….if you were to give me just $20 I would speak to the devil on your behalf..”

Frank was now standing in front of the bench occupiers staring directly at the vagrant he had encountered a week ago.

“Good ole cap’n Jack Sparrow, as I live and breathe. The man who talks to the horned-one for a fee.” The irony cut the atmosphere like a knife, bitterness diluted by the sweetness of Ellen’s recovery.

Frank squeezed in-between, separating his other half from the strange man in a mac.

He continued to look directly at Jack. The homeless man’s features began to blur and shimmer. Frank peered closer, unsure as to what he was seeing. Slowly, the beard evaporated and eyes, nose and mouth changed into different aspects entirely. Where once there were tired, beady bloodshot eyes there were now small pupils perched wide apart on both sides of his face. Two horns had sprouted from the top of the head and the nose and mouth of a goat had emerged at the end of a long, stretched-out skull. A wispy beard completed the transformation.

Frank recoiled in horror, jumping up and stepping backwards away from the bench. He took Ellen’s hand as he did, dragging her with him. She looked at him then at the strange man still sitting. To her, a genial down-and-out was grinning back rather than a malevolent entity in goat form.

“Ah, here we are, dear Frank. I knew we would meet once again.”

The voice was the same as the one from the nightmares, hissing and slick with deceit.    

“I do believe that we have a contract in place following the monetary contribution that came with your soul. As you can see by your wife’s presence here, I have fulfilled my end of the bargain.”

Frank’s head whirled. He thought of the recurring dream and the meeting on top of the Empire State Building. He remembered the expectation that he end his own life on the stroke of midnight. He recalled the start of Armageddon and how he had run for it against a backdrop of chaos. It appeared that his nightmare could be a vision of the future after all. Either way, at least he would get a few years more to share with Ellen.

 “And it’s a pleasant surprise to do likewise with your adorable partner.” The devil held a $20 bill in the air, savouring the look of it.

Frank turned to Ellen.

“Please….tell me you didn’t…”

 

Notes

My grateful thanks to anyone who read some or all of this story. It eventually ran across three parts and c.4,500 words having started out as a 1,300 word tale.  I guess the creative influences in writing this sit with Dennis Wheatley’s version of the Devil that appears as a goat-like Pan creature in books such as “The Devil Rides Out”. The author refers to the Goat of Mendes and there’s shades of Baphomet – the Satanic goat – a deity allegedly worshipped by the Knights Templar that became more prominent in lore in the 19^th Century.

In media terms, a recent episode of “Black Mirror” written by Charlie Brooker called “Demon 79” features a lurid vision of the Apocalypse which underscores Dante-like imagery.

The initial plot set at the top of The Empire State Building and then based in Queens with Mount Sinai hospital and the subway station at Astoria Boulevard become central to the flow of events that unfold. I have a soft spot for the ESB and New York having visited in 2004 and fell in love with the place.

As ever, the ending is ambiguous and for the reader to interpret what happens next. That’s not to say Frank and Ellen may reappear again in the future. I have a visit to a fortune teller planned soon where all may be revealed…

 

Image free to use at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baphomet#/media/File:RWS_Tarot_15_Devil.jpg