The Stuff of Nightmares (6 page)

‘Look at it this way, Jeanette,’ said Rosa. ‘Another year and you’ll have your MBA. Then the world will be your oyster.’

‘What I’m looking for is a rich man. I wasn’t born into the “proper” social circle’ – Jeanette’s tone, though mocking, had an edge to it – ‘so this MBA will move me through the proper business circles till I find what I’m looking for.’

Rosa eyebrows almost touched her hairline. It’d never even occurred to her to use her MBA in that fashion. She was doing it to further her education and as a way of introducing the teaching of business administration at her school.

‘But with an MBA, you won’t need a rich man,’ Rosa pointed out. ‘You’ll be able to—’

‘Miss Wells, is there a problem?’ asked the lecturer from the front of the class.

‘No, Mrs Dyer. I’m sorry,’ Rosa said quickly, her cheeks burning. She looked around to find she was the centre of attention, the very last thing she wanted. Even more embarrassing, Tod was looking at her. He smiled sympathetically and winked. Rosa immediately looked away, her cheeks flaming. Groaning, she closed her eyes and mentally berated herself for not smiling back or even acknowledging Tod’s gesture of friendship. What was the matter with her?! Why was it that she could make conversation with any man on the planet as long as she wasn’t attracted to him? She taught boys in a co-ed secondary school, for goodness’ sake! And she’d been known to go toe to toe with some of the toughest pupils in the school. Not for nothing was her nickname ‘Miss Well’ard’! But the moment attraction raised its ugly head, look out! She’d struggle hopelessly to find something to say, while her tongue invariably tied itself into the Gordian knot. Rosa sneaked a look at Tod. She could only see his profile as he’d turned back to face the lecturer. She sighed.

It wasn’t just the MBA course that had Rosa unsettled. She’d fallen in lust with Tod from the first time she saw him. Desire twisted into longing as the term went on. And longing coiled into burning infatuation. She was beginning to fall in love – for all the good it did her.

During the break Rosa sadly regarded her reflection in the broken mirror in the ladies’ room.

‘He’d never fall for me,’ she told herself, the truth aloe-bitter in her mouth.

Rosa was short, five feet four in her highest heels, with mousy brown hair and mousy brown eyes. Her face, her height, her body, they were all average. She wasn’t ugly but she was no oil painting either. Strictly average. And Tod was far from being Mr Average. Rosa had watched him, course day after course day, with enough unconscious yearning to know that for a fact.

‘I don’t stand a chance.’ The phrase became her mantra, but each time it entered her head, it passed by her heart to inflict tiny little cuts all over it. And her regrets were like lemon juice dripping relentlessly onto each and every wound.

‘I’ve got nothing going for me,’ Rosa agonized to her reflection in the dress-shop window on her way home that evening. ‘I have no conversation. My skirts and shoes are never too high. My language and my tops are never too low. I shop on Saturdays. I go to church every Sunday. I’m not witty or pretty. Even my boobs are only a thirty-two A. I don’t stand a chance.’ And with that melancholy thought she plodded down the high street, avoiding all further glass-fronted shops.

After a few months something happened to prove to Rosa that infatuation had indeed turned into love. It happened at Tod’s birthday party. They all went to a wine bar. Tod sat next to Rosa and actually had
a
proper conversation with her for the first time. Even more amazing, Rosa managed to talk back. As jazz music swirled deliciously around them, Tod asked her which films she’d seen recently; which plays she’d enjoyed in the past; what kind of music she listened to when she felt lonely or lively. The major plus which sealed Rosa’s fate was that he listened to her answers! His responses followed on from her replies. Dialogue twisted and turned into stimulating conversation. Rosa only had eyes for Tod as the rest of the group – the rest of the world – had slowly slunk and shrunk away. The music was no more than a pleasant background hum. The voices of those around were no more than underlying noise, almost welcome, like winter rain heard and spied from the comfort of a warm haven.

Until Jeanette spoiled it all.

Jeanette. Even her name was glamorous. Five feet eight inches in her bare feet, raven-black hair, brown, sultry eyes and boobs that would keep the rain off a small child standing in front of her. She arrived at the wine bar late, then made a beeline for Tod. Tod’s attention wandered immediately. Rosa was bitterly disappointed but not at all surprised. Within five minutes she was more miserable than she’d ever thought possible. She had been forgotten. It took only a few more minutes for her to back away and leave. At the wine-bar door she turned to look back at Tod. He hadn’t even registered her departure. Jeanette had his full attention.

When Rosa got home she threw herself on her bed.

‘I’m just tired!’ she tried to tell herself. But as soon as her head hit the pillow, her tears flowed. She beat her fists into her bed linen. She could feel her heart straining and cracking beneath her breast.

‘I wish … I wish … Oh, I would sell my soul to the Devil if Tod would love me. Oh, I would, I would, I w—’

‘Would you? Would you really?’

Rosa froze momentarily before she spun round and struggled to sit up. She said furiously, ‘Who the hell …?’

‘Who the hell indeed!’

Rosa stared, stricken and terrified, at the thing in the room with her. It was a deep boiled red, as if its top layer of skin had been peeled away and salt rubbed into the raw, sensitive flesh underneath. It was a man – of sorts. His voice, like his stance, was arrogant and sneering. The stench of the rotten and the dead and the dying assailed Rosa’s nostrils. But what made her shrink back in mindless terror were the thing’s eyes. His … its … his eyes were as red as his skin. The irises and pupils were blood red surrounded by intense white.

The Devil.

Rosa recognized him immediately. She’d read enough of her Bible to know him.

‘Go away,’ she croaked.

The Devil was annoyed. ‘You’re the one who called
me
– remember? I’ve got better things to do than pop up here, there and everywhere uninvited.’

‘I never invited you – I never.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said the Devil, in high dudgeon, ‘but you said – and I quote – “I would sell my soul to the Devil if Tod would love me.”’

‘But I … I didn’t mean it.’ Rosa’s whispered protest set the Devil frowning.

‘So you don’t want Tod to love you?’ he asked patiently.

‘No, that’s not true. I do. I do with all my heart,’ Rosa replied. ‘But …’

‘But what?’ the Devil prompted when she fell silent.

Still she said nothing.

‘Rosa, do you want my help or don’t you?’ The Devil’s neck suddenly stretched until it was two metres long, dipping and coiling in Rosa’s direction until his face was only inches away from her own. Rosa shrank back, terrified. She felt as if her whole body was being swallowed up by her eyes, which stared at the Devil, too petrified to even blink.

‘
Do you want my help or don’t you?
’ the Devil boomed.

Rosa struggled desperately to think of Tod, her love. Once she had Tod’s smiling image in her mind, she clung to it. It felt like clinging to her sanity. Tod … She loved him desperately, passionately, hopelessly. Rosa nodded at the Devil. The Devil’s neck shrank back down to its normal length with a sudden snap.

‘That’s all right then,’ he replied. ‘Sign here please.’

A long scroll suddenly appeared in Rosa’s lap. She picked it up and started to read.

‘No need to do that,’ the Devil cajoled. ‘It’s my standard boilerplate contract. I give you your heart’s desire. You give me your soul. It’s all very straightforward.’

‘I’d still like to read it,’ Rosa replied diffidently.

She didn’t want to offend him but she’d read enough stories to know the Devil always tried to include a catch in his contracts. She turned her attention to the contract and read aloud.

‘“I, Rosa Maxine Wells, do hereby state that I do of my own free will and without coercion agree to give up my soul upon my death to the Devil in exchange for marriage to Tod Powell. Signed—” Hang on. It doesn’t say anything here about him loving me.’ Rosa frowned.

‘That’s your department. I can arrange for him to be with you, but that’s all,’ the Devil replied.

‘But I want him to love me.’

‘Perhaps you haven’t heard, but I don’t deal in love,’ the Devil pointed out.

‘But it’s all pointless if he doesn’t love me.’

The Devil scratched his head. ‘I’ll tell you what – I’ll make it so that he’ll never want to leave your side. He’ll want to be with you for all eternity. How’s that?’

Rosa smiled for the first time since the Devil’s arrival. ‘Sounds like heaven,’ she breathed.

The Devil flinched. ‘There’s no need for bad language.’

‘Sorry,’ said Rosa quickly. But then a frown visited her face and made itself at home there. ‘Hang on. How do I … how do I know that you won’t try something funny when I sign this?’

‘What do you mean?’ the Devil asked indignantly.

‘How do I know you won’t … er … do something to dispatch me before my time is up?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I mean, how do I know you won’t claim me the moment Tod and I get together for good. I’m not saying you would but—’

Slowly the Devil’s head swelled up, expanding widthways until the sides of his face were touching opposite walls. His body remained the same size but his face was now an obscene, grotesque mask. His eyes narrowed, he asked, ‘Would you like a guarantee written into your contract?’

‘Well, if you wouldn’t mind …’ Rosa answered.

‘It is done.’

Rosa glanced down at the contract in her hand. After Tod’s name, a new section had been added:

‘“The Devil hereby guarantees that he will not claim the aforementioned soul until Rosa Maxine Wells takes her own life,”’ Rosa read. ‘You mean you won’t claim my soul unless I commit suicide?’

Rosa was amazed at the generosity of the new clause. The Devil’s head shrank down to its normal size.

‘I mean, you won’t die unless you commit suicide,’ the Devil replied.

‘Does that mean that if my head gets run over by a bus, I’ll have to live as a vegetable for all eternity?’ Rosa asked warily.

The Devil began to tap his foot. ‘Those damned fantasy books! They’ve made everyone so suspicious of the most innocent clauses,’ he raged. ‘It means that your soul will be mine when you commit suicide. It means no more or less than that.’

‘But I won’t commit suicide. It’s against everything I believe,’ Rosa replied.

‘Then you have nothing to worry about, do you?’

‘And what happens if I’m badly injured. Will I have to live for ever even if I’m brain dead?’

‘Would you like a clause in the contract about that as well?’ asked the Devil.

‘If you’d be so kind.’

‘It is done,’ said the Devil. ‘No matter what life throws at you, you will never suffer anything more serious than a cold. Happy now?’

Rosa examined the new clause very carefully indeed. It seemed to be OK, but the Devil was a trickster – and not a benign one either.

‘All right, I’ll sign,’ she said slowly.

‘At last!’ The Devil grinned.

‘Wait a minute though.’ Rosa glowered at the Devil. ‘You just said I wouldn’t die unless I commit suicide.’

‘Oh give me strength!’ The Devil lowered his eyes hellwards. ‘So?’

‘So does that mean that if I don’t commit suicide I’ll live for ever?’

‘Work it out for yourself.’

‘Wait a minute … I get it now. I’ll live for ever and Tod won’t. I’ll be alone and kill myself. That’s your plan, isn’t it? I’m not signing this …’

The Devil sighed deeply. ‘You and Tod will be together for always. He’ll exist for as long as you do. And your soul is eternal. Now that’s it. I’m not wasting any more time with you. Either you sign the contract or I’ll take my business elsewhere.’

‘If you put in that bit about Tod living for as long as I do then I’ll sign,’ Rosa said.

‘Done! Now get on with it.’

‘I don’t have a pen.’

‘Hold out your left hand,’ the Devil ordered.

Rosa did as instructed. Immediately she felt a sharp stabbing pain at the tip of her ring finger. Drawing back her hand, she was surprised, then not surprised, to see her fingertip covered in blood.

‘Now you can sign the contract,’ the Devil said.

Though it was awkward to sign with her ring finger, Rosa proceeded to do so, thinking it was lucky she was at least left-handed.

‘Why that finger, as a matter of interest?’ she asked.

‘Heart blood,’ the Devil replied, satisfied.

Barely had Rosa added the usual self-conscious flourish under her name than the contract disappeared. With a grin of the purest evil, the Devil sat at the end of Rosa’s bed. Inwardly Rosa trembled at the sight of him. She’d been trying not to take too many long, drawn-out looks in his direction. He really
was
the ugliest, most grotesque entity she’d ever seen. Even now his foetid smell assaulted her nostrils and burned the back of her throat. Rosa’s stomach clenched in revulsion.

‘You must love’ – at this word the Devil spat with distaste on Rosa’s short-pile carpet – ‘this Tod very much to give up your soul to be with him.’

‘I do,’ Rosa said simply. She peered over the side of the bed. Where the Devil had spat, the carpet was now singed.

‘So what’s your plan then?’ asked the Devil.

‘Plan?’

‘For the future?’

‘Tod and I will finish our MBAs. And once we’ve both graduated, I’ll give up my teaching job and we’ll maybe travel for a year, then get married and have a child right away, followed by another after three years. Tod will get a fantastic job that makes us lots of money before he sets up his own successful financial consultancy. That’s where the money is. And we’ll buy a house in the suburbs and have two cars and I’ll stay home to look after the children until they’re old enough to go to school. Then I’ll return to teaching part-time and—’