The Deal

Pay the price – Flash Fiction [#09]

I woke up to the noise of heavy traffic. The sharp stench of piss and the pungent stink of pollution clung to me like a sick, second skin. My face felt hot. I blinked, raising a hand to shield my eyes against the sun above. Vision blurred, I stared into the hazy sky as the world came into focus. With effort, I sat up, touched the back of my head and winced. Looking down, I realised I had soiled myself, lying in a ditch, tall buildings in the distance and small, makeshift huts across the street. It all came back to me. The deal, the money, the artefact… gone, all gone.

Fragments of images flashed before me. A black SUV, a dark-skinned, tall man, a woman’s face, she opened the suitcase, smiled, took the item, a gun, blinding white light then darkness, searing pain, and I was back in the ditch. A child was playing in the rain puddles next to the road. Where am I? I remembered a phone call, getting on a plane. Rain. Heavy rain, stuck in traffic for hours. Traffic gila—crazy. The taxi driver—a mark on his wrist—

“Bule.” A boy, no older than five, was squatting next to me, looking at me with curious eyes. I mustered a weak grin and waved, only to howl in pain. My left shoulder burned like fire, and my shirt was soaked in blood. The kid ran off, shouting “Bule” as I passed out again.

Suddenly, I found myself perched in the back of a tiny Tuk-Tuk, all out of breath, dripping with sweat, clothes soaking wet. The rattling noise was deafening. I couldn’t hear myself think. I wanted to tell the driver where to go, but he kept nodding with a toothless grin, mumbling “Hujan” and pointing skywards.

I came to, soft drops of rain on my face, staring at a cloud-laden sky above me, the sound of the engine still ringing in my ears. A draft of wind carried the scent of fried shrimp and oil, mingling gingerly with the lingering smell of despair around me. Too weak to sit up, I looked at the clouds drifting by when I heard the child, joined by older voices, mixed with the clanging of pots and pans. The voices approached.

In a moment of clarity, I remembered a name. Beaumont. My client. The deal no doubt had gone south, and I had gotten the short end of the stick, dumped in a ditch beside the road and left for dead. Born in Jakarta but growing up in England, I had never returned to my birthplace until now. Warm summer rain started to fall as big hands reached down and lifted me. I was floating with the clouds before I drifted back into darkness.

When I woke up, I was in bed, my shoulder bandaged and my mouth as dry as a camel’s ass in a desert storm. A woman in black, her face veiled, sat beside me. She put a cup to my lips. I drank in large, eager gulps and croaked a hoarse “Thank you.”

“Sama sama.” Her voice was gentle, and before I could reply, she stood up and left. I heard whispers followed by footsteps. Heavy, unmistakable footsteps. The kind made by shoes worn by someone important, someone marching with swift strides of confidence and determination.

“Selamat Datang, Mr. Thorne. So considerate of you not to die whilst in our care.”

The deep voice paused. I squinted against the light. There stood the shape of a man in the doorframe, and for a moment, I thought I saw dark wings as the curtain fluttered behind the silhouette. He crossed the space between the door and the bed, sat in the chair, reached out with his bony hand and touched my forehead with his cold, slender fingers. I shuddered.

“Still running a bit of a fever. No matter. You must go.”

“Go where?” I heard myself say.

“Retrieve what is yours.”

“The artefact? I have no idea where it is now.”

“Gunung Padang.”

“How do you know?”

“Do you feel it?” The man ignored the question.

“Feel what?”

“The hollow inside you,” deep sunken eyes bored into me. I could smell his foul breath as he leaned closer.

“Someone give this man a Tic-Tac.”

“You must regain what you have lost. There are powers at work that go beyond the realm of man.”

“Yeah, alright, whatever. I am butt naked and would like to regain some pants now, thank you very much.”

“This will grant you passage.” The man gripped my right arm tight and pressed something hot against my wrist. My skin sizzled. I was too shocked to scream. He got up, went to the door and turned. “Hurry. Before it’s too late.”

When I arrived at the excavation site, there were guards everywhere. I approached them with raised arms and showed them the mark. Fear in their eyes, they let me pass without a word. That was seven days ago. Since then, I have barely slept or eaten, my rations were running low, and although the fever was gone, I felt more feverish than ever the deeper I climbed. A hollow feeling, a burning hunger, was gnawing away inside me. Lost in an endless labyrinth of tunnels and shafts, my hope of returning alive waned with every step. I had passed the last mapped passage days ago, the point of no return.

On the ninth day, I came upon steep, narrow stairs hewn with astounding precision. Deep into the earth, I went. Deep into the Mountain of Enlightenment. Did I find enlightenment? No. I found something else altogether. I found myself. And I don’t mean spiritually. I found myself floating within a sphere of pure light, identical in every way, right down to the last freckle, except for the mark—and something else. Regain what I have lost. I then knew. Only one of us could exist. That was the deal.

Author’s Note

This week I found myself torn between a tie-in story based on Spherean vs. Carter. The latter won at the last minute. If you have read The Chronicles of Samuel Carter, you may have recognised a name or some other details.

The Chronicles of Samuel Carter

Will Carter meet this Thorne character in Part Two? Will he travel to Gunung Padang? Do you know about the “Mountain of Enlightenment” in West Java, Indonesia?

Fascinating. Albeit, there is no evidence that this megalithic site is over 20,000 years old but if it were… so much to speculate about.

TFTD Community

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