Page 3 of Installment Immortality

“That doesn’t sound like a request,” said the nothing.

“Long way to fall when you’re standing at the top,” said Bobby. “I saw them screen-testing this little punk last week. Face like a baby’s ass, waist like one of my wrists. Big blue eyes and a girl’s pout on his pretty lips. He’s not going to be my replacement tomorrow, but three years from now? Five? He’s younger than me. He can wait me out.”

“Ah,” breathed the nothing. “So you’re asking for an exemption from time.”

“She”—Bobby pointed at Mary—“told me it was possible. Said those routewitch freaks have a negotiable relationship with the shit. I don’t want to get old. I want to be young and pretty and perfect forever. Can you do that for me?”

The air grew heavy, thick as honey, as the figure in the nothingness drew closer to him. “I can do that,” it agreed. “If it’s what you want, I can do that. Only say that you agree, and everything will be binding.”

“There’s the matter of price,” said Mary hurriedly. “What will this cost him?”

“What is he willing to pay?”

“Anything,” said Bobby.

Mary shot him a hard look. “You don’t mean that,” she said. “You think you mean that, but you don’t. What if they take your talent, or your looks? Youth won’t do you a lot of good without those.”

Bobby looked momentarily alarmed.

“We’ll have his stardom,” said the nothingness. “What he’s made will endure—and endure better than most of his contemporaries, we’ll throw that in for free. He’ll be remembered for as long as there is a record of his work, and celebrated in festivals and reviews. Retrospectives of his career will be unending.”

“A retrospective isn’t the same thing as a new movie,” said Mary.

“No, it’s not. It’s better—a retrospective doesn’t disappoint. He calls himself diamond. We’ll make sure he shines forever.”

Bobby looked between them, frowning. “I stay young, I stay handsome, and I get remembered. I’m not seeing a downside.”

“What will itcost?” demanded Mary.

“Only his freedom. Only his place in the world of the living. He came here in a motor vehicle, and we’ll give him a better one—a car forged in the depths of the midnight layer of the afterlife, where the dead hearts of stars will serve as crucibles, and the ancient souls of sleeping beasts wait to be chained. It will be our gift to him, and with it, he’ll be able to drive through the twilight where the ghosts linger, and find them, and feed them into his fuel tank. As long as it never runs dry, time will never find him, and he will be eternal. Are we in agreement?”

“No,” said Mary.

“Yes,” said Bobby Cross, and the nothing reached out and grasped him and he screamed, the sound echoing across the desert and into eternity.

Mary, being a sensible dead girl, fled.

It had been well past midnight in the Mojave Desert, and the clock on the wall said that it was almost four o’clock in the morning when Mary appeared in the kitchen of the Healy family home in Buckley Township, Michigan. She was still wearing the black-and-red outfit she had donned to appease the crossroads, and although she’d been dead for years and couldn’t be physically ill, she had the distinct feeling that she was about to throw up. She clutched the edge of the sink to keep herself upright, waiting for her stomach to settle enough to allow her to change her clothes.

“Hard night at work?” asked a sympathetic voice.

Mary turned. Alexander was seated at the kitchen table with a mug of tea in front of him, looking at her kindly. She exhaled, still holding onto the sink.

“I had to broker a bargain,” she said. “It was a nasty one.”

“I know you can’t say any more than that, but Alice missed you tonight.” The crossroads had started calling her away during babysitting jobs as soon as Alice turned ten, demonstrating that their claim over her was stronger than her commitment to the child she cared for. They hadn’t been able to do that much when Alice had been younger, constrained by their agreement to let her protect her family.

Eventually, they’d be able to call her whenever they wanted to. There were crossroads all over the world, and there was always someone looking to make a bargain. The thought was the last straw for her poor, unsettled stomach, and she turned back to the sink, vomiting clear slime into the basin.

“Good thing I did the dishes when I couldn’t sleep, or Enid’d be furious with us both,” said Alexander, stepping up behind her. “She doesn’t care for ectoplasm in her teacups. You all right there, Mary?”

“All right as I ever am when I have to deal with my employers,” choked Mary, spitting to get the taste out of her mouth. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, sweetheart. This is your home and we’re your family, and family doesn’t get mad over a little sour stomach.” Alexander put a hand on her half-solid shoulder. “Come on. Let me make you a cup of tea.”

Sniffling, Mary nodded and let him lead her to the table. In that moment, the desert felt very far away, and the consequences of this night’s work were something that she would never be forced to face. Even though she knew that wasn’t true, as she sat and watched him fix her a cup of chamomile, sweet and comforting even to the dead.

The consequences of her actions would always come due. No matter how good her intentions had been. Someone always had to pay the piper.

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