Bad Choices

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Sharon’s note: I love subversions of tropes. Hopefully, I did this one well. Warning: Getting involved with shadowy figures with strange agendas rarely turns out this well.

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This was how I was going to die. I was going to get murdered because I couldn’t pass up the chance for a free house. But it was a four-bed, two-and-a-half-bath house. With a monthly stipend. And the alternative was living out of my car.

Grandma’s lawyer, the mysterious Mr. Harbinger, sat in front of me and was possibly the devil. He was dressed to kill in a suit that hugged his skeleton-thin frame and was grinning wide enough to crack his face. His screaming eyes bugged out as he steepled his fingers over his untouched cup of coffee. As he waited for my answer, his right cheek muscle started to twitch. That was probably fine. 

“What’s the catch?” I asked, taking a long draft of my caramel macchiato. It was heavenly, and even better for the fact that he had paid for it. 

“There is a catch.” He chittered in a way that might have been a laugh. I glanced to my side to make sure I had an open escape route if need be. “The house and money are yours, as long as you never open the door.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What door?” 

“The door to the basement.” His eyes went wide, emphasizing how bloodshot they were. Whatever this guy was on, I didn’t want any. “To open the door means death for you, and suffering for the world.”

“Riiiight.” Well, he was nuts, but… free house. “What if there’s an electrical problem and I need to check the breaker box?”

He blinked and his voice was suddenly much more normal. “The breaker box is in the laundry room at the back of the house.”

“What about plumbing? What if there’s a leak somewhere?”

“What?” His mad grin slipped away and his frown said he was insulted by the banality of the question. “Look, there’s no electricity, plumbing, or anything else you need to deal with. It’s all unspeakable evil and death. That’s it. Do you want the house or not?” 

Taking the house would almost certainly result in death because this guy was going to murder me in my sleep or something like that. A new lease on life wasn’t worth much if it only lasted a day.

“Um. No. Thanks anyway.” I got up, grabbed my coffee, and started for the door. Harbinger called after me but didn’t follow. I still high-tailed it to my car just in case. 

I’d parked in an alleyway a street over to avoid the parking meters. It had been a risk, but I was rewarded with the car still being there. As I fumbled to get the fob out of my pocket a hiss that set my hair on end rattled out of a shadow behind a dumpster. I froze.

“He’s lying to you.” The voice was slithery, toneless.

“Nope,” I said and turned on my heel to walk right back to the sidewalk.

“Wh-wait. Where are you going?” Something like the silhouette of a head poked out from behind the dumpster. 

“Yeah, I’ve had enough weirdness today without disembodied voices. Bye.”

“No, wait! I have a body! And news about the house.” The voice changed to a painfully deep man’s voice and a seven-foot figure stood in a black cloak unfolded itself from what should have been insufficient cover.

My head tilted to the side. “What the hell was Grandma involved in?”

The figure started to chuckle weirdly but stopped when I started to walk away again. “She had a treaty with foul powers. The one you saw was lying to you. To open the door would bring you great riches and power.”

I raised an eyebrow. “How?”

“I-what do you mean, how?” Even beneath the heavy cloak, I could tell that the broad shoulders slumped.

“Is there a buried treasure down there or something? And how can I trust your word over his? You’re both creepy. Tell me one solid, uncrazy reason I shouldn’t run away from the whole situation.” I put my hands on my hips.

Shadow figure paused, fussed with something under its cloak, then held out a wad of bills. “I will pay you a thousand dollars to accept the house and open the door. You don’t even have to stay there.”

On the one hand, this was a bad idea. On the other hand, I had fourteen dollars to last me the rest of the week. “Fine.”

My hand was cramped from signing things but as soon as all the paperwork went through, I owned a house. A nice house too. The stipend wasn’t much more than it took for food and bills, but for the first time in a year, I didn’t have to worry about where my next meal came from. The forbidden door was even nicely marked with a bunch of weird symbols and was tucked out of the way in the corner of the kitchen. I didn’t open it right away. I figured I’d wait a while, get a job, and save up some money just… in case. 

Before I knew it, a month passed, and nothing bad had happened. Then there the note appeared. It was pinned to my mailbox with a sharp stick through the aluminum and said, “Open the door or give me back my money.”

I couldn’t really afford it, but… I didn’t want to open the door. I had a good thing going. I also didn’t want to stiff the big creepy shadow man.  I bit the bullet and drained my savings to put a thousand dollars in my mailbox, stuffed in an envelope addressed to ‘Dumpster jerk’. After that, I saved up money again to have the door bricked over and put up shelves in front of it. I took one risk to get a better life. I wasn’t about to gamble with what I had.