The Man in the Dark Suit

Sarah hesitated and thought about not going to see her mother at the hospital. It wasn’t that she didn’t care, but her head wasn’t in the right place. There had been too many mistakes in the past year and today all those mistakes culminated with the news that she was pregnant.

She walked towards her little blue Corsa stumbling slightly as the heel of her boot caught the gravel. A single, solitary tear sprung from the corner of her eye and laid a trail down her cheek. What will I do, she thought, how will I tell Mum? God this will break her… the shame. She fumbled with the key in the lock, hands trembling, such a simple and yet arduous task. “Get a grip,” she told herself and then opened the car door and slipped inside. She checked her appearance in the mirror. “Ugh!” Her eyes were red from crying all day. Her eczema flared, blotching her face and neck like a boiled lobster. She slammed the mirror shut and turned the ignition. The engine roared into life first time as she was heavy on the petrol. The car rolled down the drive and out onto the street. By 7:15 Sarah was on the Killen road heading out of town.

*

Joe came home from work tired and irritated. Michelle as always was curled up on the couch still in her pyjamas. Their only acknowledgement of each other was a cold, censorious look. He made his way into the kitchen. Of course there was no dinner ready. Sink filled with dirty dishes. Yet what had he expected? Michelle had been on sick leave now for three months. He cleared a space on the kitchen table for his motorcycle helmet.

Michelle followed him in looking pale and haggard like Bette Davis at the end of ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane’. “Did you get any Prozac?” she asked.
“No, I didn’t get any fucking Prozac,” he said.
“How dare you speak to me like that,” she spat back at him.
“I tell you what… why don’t you get dressed and go get it yourself.”
“I’m sick and you know it.”
“I’m going out,” announced Joe, reaching for his helmet and knocking over a half-filled cup of coffee in the process.
“Great, that’s just great,” she shouted after him.
The door slammed shut behind him.

There was a slight chill in the air as Joe sped away from the house, away from the misery of his wife, on his Honda Fireblade. A sight his neighbours were getting used to as the engine cut and roared into the night air.

*

Sarah held the steering wheel with one hand and touched her stomach, not for the first time this day, with the other. Her mother will know right away. Not by any female or maternal intuition but quite simply because it was obvious even to a stranger that she was sick with worry. And when her mother asks her what’s the matter, she’ll probably break down and cry and tell her the whole sordid affair. She shuddered at the mere thought of it - mummy’s little girl sleeping with a married man. With any luck I’ll miscarry. She realised it was a terrible thought but one she couldn’t suppress.

The car picked up speed. Sarah barely noticed the road in front of her as her thoughts dwelled on that dark place. After the doctor confirmed her worst fears she wanted to call her boyfriend. She wanted him to tell her everything will be okay. But she was afraid to in case he rejected her. He wasn’t a boyfriend in the normal sense of the word. Christ, he was a married man. What was I thinking?

The angry sound of a car horn and the full beam of its lights snapped her from her train of thought. With a sharp intake of breath she swerved, narrowly missing the oncoming vehicle and then fought with the steering wheel to steady the car. A cold sweat broke all over her body as she regained control of the Corsa. “Jesus Christ, Sarah!” Sarah glanced in the rear view mirror expecting to see the tail lights of the other car. Her heart almost burst through the top of her chest when she saw the stranger sitting back there.

She jerked upon the steering-wheel. The car skidded to the left. She spun the steering-wheel to the right, a reflex action. The car turned almost at a ninety degree angle. The back wheels made a terrible screeching sound as she jumped on the brakes. Suddenly the car seemed to take off as it rolled onto its roof and onto its side again and then back onto its roof. Glass shattered on either side of her. She was thrown forward then sideways clinging to the steering wheel for dear life. Sparks rained through the broken windshield on top of her as metal scraped against concrete and the bonnet buckled then ripped in two.

Sarah was still conscious when the car finally grinded to a halt. She waited for death’s cloak. Instead a cold numbness gripped her. The silence that followed seemed to hurt all the more. She managed to turn her head around and look at the back seat only then did she lose consciousness.

*

The Honda Fireblade raced along the back roads, clocking 130 km/ph on the straights. Joe always felt good on the back of his motorbike. It was the only real escape he had. The wind rushing against his visor, the noise of the exhaust and the fact too that he had to focus on the road, or else he was dead, helped clear his mind. There was no better way to relieve tension. He came to a tricky bend, dropping down the gears with impeccable ease to 50 km/ph. Once he had cleared it he gunned the engine and took off feeling the Gs as the bike climbed to over 100km/ph within seconds. Joe knew these roads like the back of his hand. The next corner wasn’t as sharp. Once more he dropped through the gears to sixty-five. Leaning to his right, balance perfect he released the clutch a second before he saw the car lying on its roof in the middle of the road.

*

The man in the dark, three-piece suit climbed out of the car looking immaculate. Not a scratch or a single hair out of place. He turned to survey the ruined car and the broken body that lay inside. He was pleased with his work - another entry in the great book. He consulted the silver watch he kept in his waist coat. “Huh, I’m a couple of minutes early.”

Everything was meticulously planned; life, the universe, even time itself, but a couple of minutes here and there wasn’t going to affect the grand scheme of things. “What to hell, I’ll wait, its not as if time won’t wait for me.” He chuckled.

*

Sarah’s eyes opened slightly. She couldn’t move her body. The cold tightened around her like a vice. A burning smell of motor oil filled her nostrils. She could almost taste metal on her tongue. Her neck hurt the most taking the weight of her body in this upside down position. Tiny shards of glass had embedded themselves in her face.

“Hello, Sarah.”

She looked up at the stranger who greeted her and once again gasped. It was the same man, if that’s what he is, who caused her to crash in the first place – only now he was hunkered down at the window. The sick bastard was grinning at her.

She winced at the terrible burning pain in her stomach. It was as if someone had cut her open with a knife and put a hot lump of coal inside her and then stitched her up again. Sarah was all too aware of the gooey liquid creeping down the back of her inner thighs. She thought it was urine. She hoped it was urine but she knew it wasn’t even before she looked. It was too dark to tell though. As if reading her mind the stranger reached a long claw-like hand inside the car. Sarah didn’t want him touching her but was powerless to prevent him as his fingers crept under the belt of her jeans to the soaked cotton of her knickers. His touch seemed to sting her like nettles. She jolted slightly. He withdrew his hand and showed her the bloody tips of his bony fingers, confirming her worst fears.

“Tut, tut,” said the man in the dark suit, “you should always be careful what you wish for.”

“Help me, you bast-” she managed to croak before a cramp in her stomach took over telling Sarah her womb was spewing out her unborn child. The pain was so intense she would have welcomed death at that very moment.

Said the man in the dark suit; “never worry, it will all be over in a few minutes.”

Tears began to flow from Sarah’s eyes. The man in the dark suit was uninterested. Something else now distracted him. A distant sound. Another vehicle, approaching fast. He stood up and backed away from the overturned car.
The man in the dark suit watched the drama unfold before him with a glint of excitement in his otherwise empty eyes.

Sarah was only vaguely aware of the oncoming vehicle. Suddenly there was a tremendous explosion of metal against metal. The impact of the motorbike sent fresh bolts of pain like electricity through her body. The smash turned the car almost ninety degrees. The motorbike bounced back from the vehicle as the rider was hurled spectacularly through the air. Joe hit the road almost ten feet beyond impact. He rolled over and over eventually coming to a halt on his back.

“Oh, that’s bound to have hurt,” rasped the man in the dark suit.

Joe wasn’t aware of any pain as he stared up at the stars through the cracked visor of his helmet, he had shock to thank for that, but it was coming alright; like a tidal wave.

*

The road felt like ice. The stars above were soothing. Joe heard footsteps. He turned his head and watched Mr. Shiny Shoes in the dark suit approaching. The man was singing in a low, serene voice. ‘What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and grief to bear.’ It seemed tasteless under the circumstances but this man could be his saviour.

Perhaps it was just Joe’s prostrated line of vision but the man in the dark suit looked to be all of seven feet tall as he towered over him. The man’s dark face had only one distinguishable feature, his eyes. His tiny pupils bobbed up and down and shone momentarily like a photocopier, Joe thought, as if processing data.

“Hello Joseph,” said the man at last.
Joe found he couldn’t answer him. Just breathing was difficult enough. “That’s okay, Joseph, you’re a little winded right now, I understand. That was quite a leap through the air. But let me tell you the extent of the damage. You’ve broken six bones in your body… three ribs, the radius above your wrist, your right temur, and your left fibula. Oh and you’ve a hairline fracture on your pelvis. Nothing that will really kill you except you’re haemorrhaging inside and by my reckoning you’ve got just over an hour.”

The man in the dark suit winked at Joe before turning away.

*

“Hello again.”

Sarah, floating on a sea of unconsciousness, turned her weary eyes to the stranger.

“Sarah, I realise we haven’t got off to a good start this evening but I need you to set aside any ill-feeling you may have toward me-”

“Please-”

“Ah, ah, ah… don’t interrupt, it’s not as if I’ve got all night. So much pain and suffering in the world and only one me,” he said and then to himself, “God, I love my work.”

Pain... He used the word pain. If only he knew what it meant; that pain is a constant thing. Yes, a constant reminder of our mortality. Sarah knew that now more than ever and wanted only to be free of it. Her mind carried her towards the threshold of eternity. She was aware of the man’s voice but she couldn’t decipher any meaning from his words and yet the distance between her and the stranger was lessening. She couldn’t understand why especially as the gulf between her and the world - the living, breathing world – was widening. All she understood was pain.

“Are you even listening to me?” asked the man in the dark suit. He snapped his fingers and Sarah jolted awake as if someone had touched her with a cattle prod. “Now then that’s better. I was about to tell you-”

“Who are you?”

The man in the dark suit sighed. He didn’t like to be interrupted. Somehow Sarah knew this but risked his wrath anyhow. The pain had subsided - this was his doing – but it hadn’t gone away completely.

“My name, if you must know it, is Samael, but you can call me Sammy; although you probably know me better as the Grim Reaper. Now I know that look in your eye, I’m nothing like what you imagined but let’s face it… that whole hooded cloak and scythe thing is from the dark ages. You see people have the wrong idea about me. No really, I’m actually a nice guy. Just doing my job is all. So a few years back I decided to get a nice new suit and shiny black shoes. What you think? The shoes are Italian but the suit I bought on Savile Row.”

Sarah couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“In London,” he prompted.

Clearly this man was insane or else she was in the throes of a really bad dream. Either way she didn’t respond.

“You don’t like it, do you?” said the man in the dark suit, unable to conceal his disappointment. “Anyway, enough about me, lets get down to business. You are scheduled to die here tonight at 7:38 pm.” He consulted his watch once more. “That’s exactly twenty-two seconds from now, however there’s a bit of a spanner in the works so I’m going to give you a stave of execution until the matter is resolved. You see, Evel Knievel over there isn’t meant to be here. In fact by my calculations he’s supposed to live to the ripe old age of seventy-four. So that leaves us with a bit of a dilemma because I’m only allowed to take one of you. Don’t ask me why. It’s something to do with the equilibrium of the universe and all that malarkey. Mostly it’s the powers that be that decide these things. I’m just a-”

“Messenger boy,” said Sarah, blood trickling out the side of her mouth.

“Administrator, I was going to say. I’ve no delusions of grandeur. I’m a down-to-earth kinda guy. Like I said earlier it’s just a job, nothing personal.”

“Well, you’re not very good at it, are you?”
She spat blood from her mouth. If she’d the energy she would have spat in the direction of Mr. Death and his fancy new suit but the pain was starting to come back on all sides, in all parts of her body.

“I don’t think you realise the uniqueness of our situation here,” said the man in the dark suit, slightly irritated. “The last time something like this happened was four centuries ago, have you any idea how many billions of people I have visited in that time? Can your tiny brain even fathom such a number? I don’t think so. So don’t start criticising my work. Your worthless little existence is so damn insignificant I can’t even begin to tell you. So you just mull that over in that tiny, pea-sized brain of yours while I go and talk to Mr. Stunt Rider.”

*

“Hi Joe, it’s me again.”

Joe’s pain came in waves with each new wave hitting harder than the previous and the time between them getting shorter. Right now it had receded, leaving Joe deadened but alert. “What’s going on?” he muttered.

“Well… you’re still alive, it doesn’t take a genius to work that out, but that could all change.”

“Did you call an ambulance?”

“Joe, Joe, Joe.” The man in the dark suit hunkered down next to him. “I don’t call ambulances, it’s not what I do.”

“For God’s sake can’t you see I’m in-” Suddenly he yelped as the pain returned licking salt across the sores that tightened like ropes around his broken body. “Please help me,” he cried amidst the agony.

“Listen to me, Joe, very carefully. Are you listening?”

Joe nodded.

“Good, because this is important. Our meeting up like this is a little premature, in fact forty-three years to be precise. Now ordinarily I could just fix you up, erase your memory and send you on your way but where would be the fun in that? You know, I don’t want to go off on a rant here or anything but all I ever do is work. Work, work, work. You know what I’m saying. I never get a chance to have any fun. So don’t begrudge me the next ten minutes or so.”

The last wave had passed now. Joe couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Shut up,” he told him. “Shut up!”

“Now, now, Joe, don’t be such a poor sport. All you have to do is convince me to take little Miss Piss Pants over there in that wreck of a car instead of you.”

“Go fuck yourself!”

“Now that’s not a good start. Seriously Joe, think about this, you’ve got a whole life ahead of you. You’ve got forty-three years credit, so the stakes are high.”

Joe felt beaten for the moment. He leaned his head back against the hard road and rested his eyes. The pain would be here again soon.

“If that’s not motivation enough, then I don’t know what is,” said the man in the dark suit.

He can read my thoughts.

Of course I can.

Joe opened his eyes again. He wasn’t sure if the stranger had spoken those last words or simply put them there in his mind. The man in the dark suit opened his visor for him.

“Please,” said Joe, “I’ve got a wife and kids…”

“You little cockroach, you don’t have any kids.” He looked at the car and then back at Joe. “And you’re never going to have either,” he smirked. “And don’t give me that line of bullshit either about your wife because you’ve been a dirty boy, haven’t you, dipping your wick elsewhere.”

“No, please, you don’t understand, I love my wife-”

“Then why cheat on her?”

“I was going to sort things out with her.”

“You’re a liar, Joe, a cheat and a liar! You don’t deserve to live, do you know that-”

“Please…” Joe started bawling.

“Just listen to yourself. You’re pathetic. No wonder your wife is sick, knowing she married a lousy, pathetic, weakling of a man like you.”

“I’m sorry, Michelle, I’m really sorry,” he continued to cry.

“You’re gonna have to do a lot better than that, Joseph.”

The man in the dark suit consulted his watch.
Joe couldn’t bear to look at the moonlit eyes of his accuser any longer and turned his head away.

“You think about it, Joe, and I’ll come back to you in a few minutes.”

Suddenly the pain felt like barbed wire as fresh spasms strangled his body.

*

Sarah had tried to crawl out of the car but she found she couldn’t move her legs. She tried turning her body in an attempt to find a little comfort but it wouldn’t have mattered if she had found two king size mattresses to lie on, the pain would still be with her. All she could do was wait and hope and pray. Someone’s bound to come along this way soon. She wondered if her child had been a boy or a girl. Then she tried not to think about the dead person inside her.

“It was a boy.” Sarah met his dark gaze for a moment. “How are you holding up?”

“Its cold,” she answered him.

“Yeah, you’ll catch your death.” The man in the dark suit burst into laughter. “Who says the Grim Reaper can’t have a sense of humour?” By now he was in raptures. “I mean why does Death have to be so miserable all the time?”

Sarah didn’t see the joke. A severe cramp was biting into her legs adding to her discomfort. Despite her earlier sentiments Sarah’s first concern was for her unborn baby. Now she was starting to fear for herself. Death was imminent; especially standing so close. In fact death was a certainty. But she couldn’t afford to think like this, she had to convince him otherwise. Appeal to his better nature. “For the sake of my unborn child-”

“Oh please, is this the same child you wanted to miscarry not five minutes ago? To use a ploy like that is really low. I’m disappointed, I have to say, I really am.”

Sarah dropped her head back in shame. He was right. For all that he’s a murdering, sadistic brute, he was right. “Just leave me alone, let me die in peace.”

“Oh come on, Sarah, you’re not playing the game properly.”

“You think this is game, you bastard!”

“Of course, Sarah, remember I can only take one person with me and it doesn’t necessarily have to be you.”

“You’ve already killed my baby, isn’t that enough?”

“No, that doesn’t count, because the baby was unborn therefore it hadn’t tasted life yet… real life.”

Sarah tried to give him a look then realised it was more than futile. Death wasn’t someone you could intimidate.

“Listen, Sarah, let me give you the heads up. That guy lying over there is a dead beat. I mean I’m not impressed by him at all. You’ve a great chance of surviving this but you’re going about it all wrong. You just have to look deep into your heart and convince me you’re more worthy of a life than he is; it’s as simple as that. He’s got forty-three years credit I can give you.”

She felt Death’s gaze weighing heavily upon her as she considered this. “I’m having trouble convincing myself, never mind you,” she responded.

“You really are a self-deprecating, feeble-minded little girl,” said the man in the dark suit in a fractious voice. “So much for the power of positive thinking and all those self-help books you read. I mean I read them too and I know they haven’t done me any good, but God are you needy.”

Sarah went to retort but the sight of his face - which had been hidden in shadow until now - debilitated her completely. His almost perfect-white skin was taut against the bone as if it had been pinned back. His unearthly, thin smile revealed a tiny row of razor sharp teeth and his eyes burned like a hungry cannibal’s eyeing its next meal. His whole façade left an icy chill in the pit of her stomach.

“Perhaps, I’ve been a little unkind to you, Sarah, after all you must be emotionally drained but you have to understand, the pain your feeling, the trauma, it wont go away unless I make it. So think about that while I sit over here but don’t think about it too long.”

Sarah perceived, with total clarity, the lunacy of this man as he crossed over to the side of the road and planted himself down.

*

The stars seemed duller. Joe thought he recognised the constellation Orion but he couldn’t be sure. He’d been staring at the night sky for what seemed like aeons. He was afraid to close his eyes in case he never opened them again. He could turn his head only a fraction. Anytime he tried to move sharp pains crippled his body. Joe knew he didn’t have much time left. He thought about screaming for help but the effort would hurt all the more and seemed pointless anyway. From nowhere an unwelcome voice resonated in his head. Joseph, it’s me again.

“What do you want?”

I have a plan to get you out of this.

“Go away.”

Don’t be like that, I only want to help. But don’t thank me now, thank me later.

“Just say what you have to say then leave me alone,” said Joe.

Okay, it’s quite simple… all you have to do is drag yourself over to the girl lying in that car and smash her skull in.

“Are you insane?” asked Joe then winced for being too vocal.

Not at all. Think about it, afterwards you can get on with your life with a clear conscience because I’ll erase your memory. God, but I’m way too nice for this job. I should be cupid instead, although he makes me kinda sick.

“Go away.”

Come on, Joe, I know you have it in you.

“I can’t do something like that. And besides I can scarcely lift a finger.”

I’ll relieve the pain just enough so that you can reach her.

“No-” Joe started to protest but then he felt a strange tingling sensation that was almost euphoric as some of the pain slithered away into oblivion. He was able to lift his hands and turn his head without any repercussions. He was able to roll over onto his stomach and although this triggered another paralysing ripple of pain it quickly passed. Joe looked up. The smashed car lay on its roof on the centre of the road yet his gaze went directly to the man in the dark suit. Two gigantic black wings perched on his back and his face was scarred and ugly yet his eyes were almost angelic as they met with Joe’s.

That a boy, Joe, you can do it.

Joe clawed his way across the bumpy surface of the road toward the upturned car. It took every last ounce of strength to drag his broken legs behind him.

Come on, Joe, I have faith in you.

But the hurting, by far, outweighed Joe’s grit and determination. Finally he collapsed on his face.

The man in the dark suit jumped from his perch to be by Joe’s side. “Oh, come on, you can do better than that,” he said. “I know your insides are burning up, arteries bleeding. I know you’ve lost two pints of blood already and pretty soon it will be coming out of your mouth as well as your arsehole but just two metres and your home and dry. That’s all I ask... two metres, then you and I go our separate ways.”

“I can’t”, wheezed Joe, “I can’t.”

“You disappoint me,” said the man in the dark suit in a mellow yet dangerous voice.

Suddenly Joe was incapable of speech. His throat closed up as blood seeped into his lungs. He was drowning in the open air.

*

The man in the dark suit turned his winged back on Joe and went to Sarah. He hunkered down at the window as usual with his long claws dangling between his knees. “O gentle Love, that with a smile dost cloak thee, but you’re not smiling, are you Sarah?”

Sarah regarded him laboriously and with her final breath came her final act of defiance. “Go fuck yourself!”

Suddenly he could contain his rage no longer. “You foul mouthed, little whore. What in heaven’s name was God thinking when he pulled you off the assembly line. I’ve had it with you, both of you.” He stood up and spread his wings to their max eclipsing the moon and the stars. The darkest of dark nights threw itself to the ground. Joe and Sarah were lifted up and cast down in its wake.

Epilogue:

Sarah hurried to the little blue Corsa waiting on the driveway. She fumbled the keys in the lock then slipped behind the steering-wheel still reeling from the news that she was pregnant. Her reflection in the mirror spoke of deep regret and much anger at herself. She turned the key in the ignition – the engine coughed and coughed but failed to find its voice. “Damn it!” Sarah thumped the steering wheel in frustration. The car had too many birthdays behind it. She waited a couple of seconds then tried again and then a third time before the engine obliged. The car rolled down the drive and out onto the street. By 7:16 she was on the Killen road heading out of town.

Joe’s mood was bleak as he took off round the back roads outside Bridgetown. The Honda Fireblade cut through the night air like a bullet through the barrel of a gun. He rounded a bend at a 45° angle then straightened the bike up again. The faster he drove the more it lifted his spirits. Yes, he was a genuine speed-junkie. Rising over the brow of a hill he met the full beam of a car’s headlamps. The lights dipped as the car sped by him with the wind. Was that Sarah’s car? He glanced in the side mirror as the familiar blue Corsa disappeared from view. Joe looked up. What the…? The last thing he saw, before swerving and hitting a tree, was a man dressed in a dark, three-piece suit standing in the middle of the road, grinning at him.