Equivalent Exchange

Katherine sat at the kitchen table, staring at the landline phone on the wall. It was only 6:00 PM, but now that winter was approaching the sun was already beginning to set. Diagonal rays of orange sunlight slipped through the windows and illuminated the beige telephone.

The room was silent enough for Katherine to hear a pen drop, but she wished it was louder. She had been expecting a call for an hour now. Every now and then she stood up and paced around the empty house, fiddling with the worn hems of her shirt sleeves, then rushed back to the kitchen so she couldn't pick up the phone a second too late. Yesterday at school, she’d finally managed to give her crush her number, and he’d promised to call her. Maybe he was busy, or maybe someone else was using his house’s phone. They weren’t very close at all, so Katherine couldn’t know for sure.

Ten more minutes passed, then fifteen, then thirty. It dawned on Katherine that her crush would never call. After all, he was fairly popular and well-liked, good at school and pretty athletic too — and she was just a random black girl. The random black girl, in fact; she was the only one in the entire high school. It pained her to admit it, but if he didn’t see her as an exotic catch she was a social burden. Katherine knew he wasn’t worth crying over, but she couldn’t help it. Tears ran down her cheeks and she let out a sob or two.

Suddenly, the phone rang. Katherine hurriedly wiped the tears from her eyes and pulled the receiver to her ear. To her surprise, the phone kept ringing. Its metallic cry dug into her ears, and she slammed the receiver back onto the base.

If anything, that seemed to make it worse. The ringing morphed into something twisted and cursed, like tinny screeching mixed with out-of-tune violins. Desperate to make the racket stop, Katherine picked up the phone again. The noise came to a halt, but it was replaced by static-y white noise, a low whine that refused to go away.

Katherine's voice trembled as she demanded, “Who's there? What is all of this noise?!”

A deep voice, slightly warbled but still understandable, answered, “Hey. I need you to do me a simple favor.”

“Who am I talking to? What do you mean, do you a favor?”

“You're worried, but you don't have to be. I just need you to hold the phone away from your ear, okay? And turn the receiver away from you. I need some space.”

Katherine's instincts told her to hang up immediately, but as she motioned to do so the demonic ringing began to return. This time the sound seemed to contain a taunting voice, jeering, “Don't do something you'll regret.” At this point she just wanted the noise to stop, and if following this creepy stranger's command was the only way to do it, then so be it. She did as he instructed, holding her free hand over her ear to try and block out the noise.

The receiver hissed and trembled as a viscous, pitch-like substance dripped out of the speaker and onto the floor. The drops coalesced into a lumpy mass and rose up into the shape of some kind of humanoid thing. It looked like a black man, but its eyes were pitch-black with white pupils. The skin under its eyes was covered in black cracks like shattered pottery. It was dangerously gaunt, and it peered down at Katherine with a hungry gap-toothed grin.

Katherine screamed and stepped back, bumping into the table. She wanted someone, anyone, to come save her, but she was just a latchkey kid with no siblings. Obviously calling the police was a no-go, and the neighbors wouldn’t believe that something out of a slasher was in her house — if she could even make it that far without getting killed. She crawled under the table and curled up into a ball out of desperation.

The creature bent down to look at her, still grinning. The short dreadlocks that framed its face dangled in the air. “Thanks for letting me in. You’re going through a lot right now.”

“Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me,” Katherine chanted to herself.

“Oh, killing isn’t my thing. I just want to make a deal.”

Katherine switched her chant to, “I won’t make deals with the Devil, I won’t make deals with the Devil.”

“You feel bad and your shirt’s getting worn,” Satan continued. “So how about this: I fix up your shirt, and as payment you let me calm you down.” He had a long wooden box slung over his shoulder with a leather strap. He took it off and opened it to reveal an array of high-quality sewing supplies, from needles in all sizes to colorful spools of thread. Everything was perfectly organized, and Katherine was mesmerized by the box’s beauty for a second.

But wait — that’s how the devil got you. “No! You’re going to steal my soul and take me to Hell! Leave me alone!”

Satan laughed. It sounded crooked and hysterical, like a hyena’s cry. “I don’t steal souls, I feed on emotions. I’m just asking for food as payment instead of money. It’s how I run my business, you know?”

“I’ll give you regular money! I have a lot saved up,” Katherine begged.

Satan seemed to consider her offer for a moment before shaking his head. “Nah. I’m not in the mood for money right now; I’m too hungry.” Despite his words, he suddenly stood up and began walking around the kitchen, looking at the furniture and opening up cabinets.

Katherine scooted to the other side of the table so she could watch him. “What… What are you doing?”

“Checking the place out until you say yes. Where are your parents?”

“I’m not agreeing,” Katherine insisted. “And they’re at work. They’re busy working real jobs instead of preying on innocent people.”

“Cool. It must suck being alone for this long, right? I’ve met a couple other kids like you and they don’t like it either.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being busy!”

Satan was finished investigating by now. He strode back to the table and crawled under it, sitting right in front of Katherine with his spindly legs pulled up to his chest. He was wearing brown boots that were covered in splatters of dried mud, and they left specks of filth on the floor. His neck was bent a little too far to his right so that he could fit properly. “I really get why you’re hiding under here. It’s so comfortable.”

Katherine screamed again and buried her head in her hands.

“Anyway, you do think there’s something wrong. Beneath all the fear and sadness, there’s some betrayal in there. If I had to guess, you’re upset that your parents are working boring nine-to-fives instead of being here to save you — you know, not that you need saving. Am I right?”

Katherine didn’t understand how the Devil’s guess had been so accurate. She was tired of coming home to an empty house every other day, cooking TV dinners and doing homework in her room with no one to talk to until it was late. When her parents got new jobs and moved to this neighborhood, that became the new norm. Why did it take meeting the Devil himself to realize how much she hated it?

She felt something tickle her arm. She looked up and saw that Satan was offering her a tissue. “I make my customers cry a lot, so I always keep a few of these handy.”

He was right; she actually was crying, for the second time that evening. She wiped her tears and blew her nose. “Why are you doing all of this? Scaring the daylights out of me, then acting like a therapist… I don’t get it. Since when has the Devil done that?”

Satan laughed again, even harder this time. “Look at me, neglecting to introduce myself. I’m not the Devil, I’m just a simple demon and a travelling tailor. Call me Landon Reed.”

“That’s a… normal name.”

“A normal name for a normal guy,” Landon said with a wink. “Now, why don’t you go get changed so I can fix your shirt?”

Katherine hesitantly got out from under the table and speedwalked to her room. She returned with her pastel yellow shirt in her hands, now wearing an old gray t-shirt instead. She also wore the cross necklace she kept in her jewelry box. Usually she wore it every day, but she’d been in a rush to get to school this morning and forgotten it. Hopefully it would be able to protect her from the demon, just in case. She stood awkwardly in front of the table, waiting for Landon to take a seat in one of the chairs.

Landon poked his head out and motioned for her to come under the table instead. “I meant it when I said it’s comfortable down here. C’mon in.”

Katherine gulped and crawled under the table again. Landon had his box open in front of him and was already preparing a needle and thread. “You don’t look comfortable. Your neck looks broken.”

Landon smiled as he got to work on her shirt. “Oh, I can’t really break my neck. I don’t have real bones. Nice necklace, by the way.”

Katherine’s stomach dropped and Landon added, “Was that scary? That’s the one thing I don’t understand about humans. It’s just a basic fact and a compliment, yet it smells like your stomach dropped.”

“In my defense, you nearly burst my eardrums, came into my home uninvited, nosed through my kitchen, the Lord doesn’t intimidate you, and you look like you’re half-dead. Who wouldn’t find you scary?” Katherine gripped her cross in her hand, desperately hoping that the power of Jesus would save her in case Landon took serious offense to her jab.

Instead, the demon hummed. “Good point. There’s nothing I can really do about any of that stuff, though.”

Katherine scoffed and decided to watch him work instead. His wrinkled fingers, dexterous despite their large size, worked quickly at putting her shirt’s hems back together. Landon seemed to work inhumanly fast, and in just fifteen minutes the shirt looked as good as new. He handed the shirt back to Katherine and said, “Here you go. Now it's time for the payment.”

Katherine shivered. She'd almost forgotten about how Landon expected her to pay him. “Are you going to hurt me?”

“The process is harmless. I'll give you a quick rundown of the rules. I’ll touch you, and your emotions will flow into me. It won't hurt at all, but you'll feel exhausted afterwards. This is just a temporary fix, so at some point you’ll feel sad again. I reserve the right to visit you again at any time if I'm in the mood for your sadness or any other of your emotions. Did you get all of that?”

“I don't want you to come back and I don't want to feel sleepy. I want you to leave me alone.”

Landon's grin grew wider, and the faint sound of static clouded the air. “Oh, don't get me wrong. I will be feeding on you and visiting whenever I want. I just like to have my customers’ agreement first. So, once again: did you get all of that?”

Somehow, now was the most frightened Katherine had felt all night. “I-I get it.”

“Great. Hold out your hands for me.” Landon took Katherine's small hands in his. His flesh felt oddly soft, and Katherine understood what he’d meant about not having bones. His grip tightened and he seemed to stare right through Katherine. Her eyes fluttered, and her breathing slowed. The angst surrounding her crush seemed to fade away, being pushed to the back of her memory — or rather, pulled out of her mind altogether. Why had she even been upset, again?

Landon’s voice, low and dreamy, made its way to her ears. “See? It’s not so bad. I’m going to put you to bed and…”

Katherine was fast asleep before he could finish his sentence. She came to hours later and found that she was lying on her side on the couch in the living room, which was connected to the kitchen. She felt groggy and her mouth tasted like drool. There was no sign of Landon, but her shirt was laying neatly folded on one of the couch’s arms. Her father was digging through the fridge for a snack, and her mother was sweeping under the table. “You’re finally awake, Kat. What’d I tell you about tracking dirt in the house?”

“Sorry, Ma. Won’t happen again.” Unless Landon comes back, she thought. She picked herself up, grabbed her shirt and returned to her room so she could start the homework she’d put off.