“Babe, I am so sorry! Please don’t go-”
“Don’t follow me!” I growled. I tried to sound as venomous as possible to discourage him, but the grief of betrayal caused my voice to crack.
“Please, nothing happened, I swear! He was just in there and I didn’t want to be rude. It was a coincidence.” Justin, my husband, continued to beg me not to leave the bar, but the truth was that I still hadn’t forgiven him for what he originally did. I stormed out of the bar and he joined me, but he stopped just outside the door to honor my wish to not be followed.
“Allen, I am so, so sorry.” I could hear the heavy regret in his voice. He carried on, his voice growing fainter as I increased my distance. When I rounded the corner at the end of the street and was sure I was out of Justin’s sight, I leaned against a wall and wept. A good several minutes passed, and I had cried so much that I was emotionally and physically numb. The first thing I noticed was the fluorescent cascade of the street light, which turned into a fluorescent pillar as my eyes crawled upward to the pitch dark night sky.
With a deep breath and a wipe across my cheeks, I began the short trek home.
“Please, can you help me?” I could hear a shrill, weak voice call to me from just a few feet behind me, so I turned to face a frail, homeless woman. “I need help.” The poor woman was emaciated, nearly a skeleton. Her eyes were hollow and her hair was incredibly thin. She looked as if the slightest breeze would knock her off balance. What was odd to me about her appearance was that for a homeless woman, her clothes, which nearly swallowed her, were very expensive-looking, albeit tattered and dirty. She also wore jewelry that looked like authentic gold. I knew it was wrong to assume that homeless people couldn’t have nice things, so I banished my judgemental thoughts.
She took a shallow step toward me. “Please?” her pitiful eyes searched my face for a trace of compassion. I dug in my pockets. I remembered that Justin handed me a twenty earlier in the evening, so I pulled it out and handed it to her.
“Oh, thank you!” she croaked, and she gently took the bill from me. Before I could retract my hand, she held something above it. “Please, take this.” It was a dull, partially rusted pocket watch. It was gold, but lacked even a fraction of luster.
“Oh, I couldn’t.” I sighed. I didn’t want to take something from someone who had so little, and I also found the watch horribly unattractive.
“It’s not much to look at, but it’s magic,” the woman nearly whispered. “ It grants three wishes,” she assured me. She held it out to me like it was a wound that I could bandage. I hesitated for a moment, but I took it from her. It was almost as if I saw a wave of relief sweep across her face, but she began to weep. Deep, guttural wails bellowed from her tiny body.
“B-B-be c-careful,” she sobbed. “I-I am s-s-sorry.” She took one last glance at me and ran as fast as her thin legs would allow in the opposite direction. I was stunned by the transaction, and I watched her as she disappeared from the fluorescent shroud into the darkness of night.
‘Poor thing,’ was all I could think to myself as the woman haunted my mind on the walk home. She was deeply heartbroken, and it pained my heart to think of the guilt she felt for asking me for help. I’d have gladly given her more cash if I had it.
The woman didn’t occupy my mind for long, as the images of what went down just before our interaction took over. My heart dropped from my chest to my feet as I remembered walking into the restroom to see Justin merely inches away from Cameron. I saw the brilliant smile on Justin’s face shift to horror when he realized I had walked in, and he paced backward, staring at me.
Two weeks before that night, I found out that Justin had been seeing Cameron for several months behind my back. I get that monogamy isn’t for everyone, but for the months he was cheating on me with Cameron, I was under the impression that we were only sleeping with each other. I felt constantly like a burden during those months for wanting him to spend time with me, for wanting to feel like a priority in times that were reasonable. The breaking point was when I contracted an STI from Justin, which is a form of sexual assault. He had to admit his affair, and had been doing everything in his power for the past two weeks to mend our relationship.
Now there I was, crying in the streets because on the day that I took my final antibiotic, I caught him smiling inches from the very person he betrayed me with.
I squeezed the pocket watch, still clasped in my hand. I held it to my face to study it while I walked. It was broken with a cracked face and the short and long needles were stuck on the number three. It was heavy for its size, and engraved on the back of the watch was a skull, which had almost faded because of decades of scuffing. The poor woman was delusional to think this piece of garbage would possess magical abilities, but to humor her I knew exactly what to wish for.
I held the watch close to my chest and whispered the words.
“I wish that Justin will never speak to Cameron again.” I felt foolish as soon as the words left my mouth, and I buried the watch in my pocket.
I made my way to my front door and let myself in. I checked my cell phone. Four texts and two missed calls from Justin. The last text said he was on his way home, but only if it was okay with me that he came home.
‘That’s fine. I’m sleeping in the living room,’ I texted. My phone buzzed as soon as the text was delivered.
‘Please can we talk when I get there?’ I just ignored his last text.
I showered, got comfortable on the couch, and turned the TV on. I thought about my husband.
‘That’s fine. We can talk. I love you.’ I texted him an olive branch, which he immediately accepted.
‘I love you, too,' he sent with a heart emoji.
I watched a crime documentary while I waited for Justin. I really did want to talk to him. The past two weeks he had been the most attentive and genuine partner ever. I wanted to believe him and forgive him, and I wanted to sleep next to him. I stayed awake as long as I could, but I passed out.
**********
I woke up the next morning mad at myself for missing Justin’s entrance. It was just like him to allow me to rest and not wake me up. I went to our bedroom to slide under the covers next to him, but he wasn’t there. I checked my phone, but there were no missed calls or messages from him.
There was no trace that he had been there: no coffee in the pot, his dirty clothes weren’t in the hamper, and there were the same amount of bagels in their package as there were the day before. It was Saturday, which meant he didn’t have to go to work.
I tried calling him several times, but I kept getting directed to his voicemail. I began to worry. I called all of our mutual friends who were out last night, but everyone said they saw him leave the bar and had no clue what happened beyond that. Despair was beginning to grip my soul, but my heart leapt when I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket with a phone call. Surely it was Justin, I thought to myself.
The number was unfamiliar, but I answered it. “Hello?” I cautiously asked.
“Hello, is this Mr. Allen West?” a man’s voice asked.
“Y-Yes,” I stammered. It was a strange phenomenon hearing my name spoken by an unidentified stranger.
“Mr. West, this is the coroner’s office. I am afraid we have some tragic news regarding the death of your husband.” My heart broke as the coroner explained that Justin was in a horrific accident. There was an apology for the delayed notice, but the effects of the accident made identifying Justin very difficult.
The coroner politely told me the morgue would reach out when his body was ready to be released to me. I had the daunting task of letting both of our families know. The rest of the day was spent in agony as I cried on the phone with his parents, my parents, my sister, and his best friend.
I showered and wept some more. I slid into our bed and held his pillow to my chest. I could smell his shampoo. I cried some more. I stared at the wall, paralyzed by grief, and then something sent a jolt of terror down my spine. From the corner of my eye, I could see the pocket watch sitting on Justin’s nightstand.
I didn’t remember putting it there, which made me recall the woman’s claim that the watch was magic. And I remembered her face when she left, how upset and sorry she was. I began to consider her truth, and I began to feel unease from the watch’s presence. And then I remembered my wish. Was I responsible for Justin’s death?
‘No, it wasn’t possible,’ I reminded myself. ‘I was overcome with emotions last night. I set the watch on his nightstand and forgot doing so,’ I convinced myself. I picked up the watch. Two things were clearly different about the watch: the crack on the glass face had vanished, and now both needles pointed to the number two. As I noticed the watch’s repairs, the room became increasingly cold, and from the corner of my eye I swear I saw a dark figure, but when I turned my head, the figure disappeared. I set the watch in my drawer, which made the room warm again. To say I was creeped out was an understatement.
I spent the rest of the week at my sister’s place to deal with Justin’s passing, and I was grateful to be away from the evil relic.
**********
A gloomy, cloudy sky appropriately shrouded us from any sunlight on the day Justin’s funeral came. At that point, my eyes were perpetually swollen from crying. I could only go a few minutes without a reminder of Justin’s absence, or a fond memory of him breaking my heart into more pieces. I listened with a heavy heart as the people who loved him spoke about his goodness. Despite faltering one time, Justin had been a good man.
We had a closed casket funeral, so I kissed his picture as I exited the chapel.
I made peace with reality that day. His mom and I were the last people at the burial. She hugged me and begged me not to leave her life, as she couldn’t bear to lose ‘another son.’ We sat together in silence for an eternal evening.
As the sun set, I stepped away from his grave, vowing to him in heaven that I would be back the next day. As I neared my car, I noticed a strangely familiar figure lurking in the distance. My eyes widened when I realized who she was. She resembled the woman who had handed me the watch, only her clothes were clean, her hair was thick, and her figure was fuller.
She bowed her head in shame as we locked eyes, and she tensed up as I strided toward her.
“I am so sorry,” she whispered. Her gaze fell to the ground and she slouched into a defensive stance.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded
“That's not how it works.” She looked me in the eyes again. “You can only get out of it if you hand it to a willing recipient.”
“I could never do that.” I stared at her in anger.
“I didn’t think I could, either. My first wish was for money. The next day, my mom passed and my husband died, both of them went in horrific ways. A week later I got large settlements from both cases.” My jaw dropped. “The watch is evil. Have you seen it yet?” she asked, her voice dropping an octave.
“The dark figure?” It was nice to know I wasn’t hallucinating, but it was terrifying at the same time. She nodded. “So what? Do I just hold onto it and not make any more wishes?”
“I don’t know. I was told that the curse is lifted only when you can pass it off, or if you complete your third wish.” Tears began falling silently down her cheeks.
“Can I just get rid of it? Destroy it somehow?” I asked.
“NO!” she shouted. “Remember the way I looked when you met me? The watch retaliates when it’s mistreated.”
“Did you make another wish?” I asked.
“Y-yes.” Her silent tears evolved into hysterical sobs. I wanted to have compassion for her, but the woman ruined my life.
“What did you wish for?”
“I-I c-cant s-s-say,” she blubbered. I stood there for a few minutes, waiting for her to calm down. As soon as she gained her composure, she looked up at me. “Whatever you do, please be careful.”
We parted ways without a word. I drove home thinking about the similarities I had with the woman’s losses. I had wished for my husband to never speak to someone, and the watch responded by murdering him. It was a death trap, and I had to figure out a way to stop the watch’s curse without passing it to someone else.
**********
That night I studied the watch. One thing I hadn’t noticed was that in addition to its other improved appearances, the faded skeleton had become more boldly engraved on the back. Its jaw twisted upright into a sinister grin, and its eyes seemed to glow. I very carefully lifted it and gently placed it on the nightstand, remembering the woman’s warning about mistreating the watch.
I spread across the bed, inhaling Justin’s pillow to breathe his scent, tearing up thinking about him. I hugged his pillow tighter to my chest, and that’s when I realized that I could make an innocuous wish, one that wouldn’t have fatal consequences for anyone.
“I wish I could hear Justin’s voice one more time,” I declared. I stared at the watch and cocked my ears, hoping to hear my husband.
A faint ‘click-click’-ing sound came from the watch, and it continued without ceasing. My heart began to race. The room had become eerily cold. I could see my breath take the form of a cloud when I exhaled. There was a sensation in the air that I was not the only being in the room. I closed my eyes and held my breath, but I could feel the intensity of a stare fixated on my back, and I instinctively knew that if I were to turn over, I would get mauled. The woman’s dark utterance of ‘it’ flooded my memory as did the carnal fear in her eyes, and I was too afraid to share her experiences with the entity. I prayed and prayed, taking shallow breaths to not provoke whatever was lurking behind my back.
The clicking stopped. In an instant, the cold evaporated and a feeling of safety swept over me. I exhaled with relief, sitting up and blinking the soreness from my eyes.
I checked the watch, and an astonishingly polished luster had replaced its rusted coat. The hour and minute hand pointed to the number one. I stayed up hoping to have my wish granted, yet Justin’s voice never called to me.
**********
The next day I met my friend, Greg, at a popular coffee shop in our neighborhood. Greg worked professionally as a grief counselor and offered to help me process my loss, so I took him up on it. A few minutes into our conversation, I noticed Cameron enter the shop. Thankfully, he didn’t notice me. I sunk into the booth.
“Hey, do you want to leave?” Greg asked.
“No. I am fine,” I whispered. I’m not sure why, but I felt compelled to stick around. To my horror, Cameron joined a friend in the booth directly behind mine, still oblivious to my presence.
“I’m so sorry,” his friend consoled him.
“I loved him. We were supposed to be in California together this week,” Cameron bawled. And my stomach sank at the realization that they were talking about Justin. I remembered that this week he was supposed to be on business in California.
Justin never stopped cheating on me. The realization hit me like an angry brick. My throat tightened and I suppressed the urge to vomit. I gritted my teeth as Cameron relayed every intimate detail he missed about my husband, and how he hated me for being in the way of their happiness.
“He sent me this the night he died,” Cameron sobbed. And he pressed play on a video recording. I could hear Justin speaking, and I could hear the whirring of his car on the road.
“Listen,” Justin spoke. My eyes welled at the sound of his voice, and it dawned on me that the watch was granting my second wish. “I just need a little time to get him to trust me again. Then I will take him on one last trip to end things. Then it will just be you and me, babe.”
Greg stared at me in shock. I rushed out of the shop and vomited as soon as I reached a safe distance, not wanting Cameron to know I was there. Greg helped me get home.
I played Cameron’s video recording over and over in my head. It was a violating feeling sitting in a home surrounded by Justin’s things. I was beginning to resent him. I fixated on his voice in the video Cameron played, how he called Cameron ‘babe,’ and how weird his phrasing was.
I crawled into bed, ready for unconsciousness to take over, and that’s when I heard the ‘click-click’-ing of the watch in the distance. I glanced at the nightstand, the last place I left it, but it wasn’t there. The temperature didn’t plunge, and I didn’t feel fear; both were things I associated with the clicking. I got up and followed the sound until I stood in the middle of our closet. I pulled a box from Justin’s side of the space, and when I held the box, the clicking stopped. I opened the box to find the watch sitting atop a pile of papers.
I gently placed the watch on a shelf and I pulled each sheet of paper out, only to find ‘Allen West,’ my name, written over and over on each side of each sheet. The signature was familiar as it looked exactly the way I wrote it, only I didn’t remember writing any of these signatures. At the very bottom of the box, I found a document. According to the pages, Justin had set up a large life insurance policy for the both of us, a generous payout for the surviving partner being the center of the policy. And on the final pages of the document was Justin’s signature, as well as mine. My stomach turned as I realized this was fraud. I never knew about this policy.
The ‘click-click’-ing resumed. I checked the shelf on which I had placed the watch only moments earlier, but the watch was gone. The sound was coming from the floor at the back of the closet, which led me to one of Justin’s shoe boxes. I opened it to find the watch resting against a pistol. At that moment, I realized that the “one last trip to end things” Justin promised Cameron was my death, and that he was planning on getting an insurance settlement.
I grabbed the watch, and as soon as I held it in my palm, my phone buzzed. I checked it to find I was receiving a call from another unknown number.
“Hello?”
“We need to talk,” a familiar voice demanded. It was the woman who handed me the watch in the first place.
**********
Of course, the woman would insist on meeting up in the middle of the night in a vacated park. Was she not familiar with coffee shops or daylight?
“Do you have the watch?” she asked. I pulled it from my pocket and noticed a beam of pride radiating from her face as she looked at it. “I couldn’t tell you before you knew. The only bad thing about the watch is that it requires heartbreak to learn the truth.”
“I thought you said the watch was evil? This thing saved my life.”
“It is evil,” she assured me. “But I can’t tell you anymore. Go home, draw a bath. When you’re in the tub, kiss the skeleton. He will tell you everything.”
“Okay,” I nodded my head in agreement
“Call me as soon as you learn the truth.”
I got home and did exactly as she told me. I put the gold back of the watch to my lips, and as soon as the skeleton was pressed against my face, visions took over my mind.
I was standing in the middle of someone’s kitchen. Based on the furniture and appliances, it was sometime in the 1950s that I was glimpsing into. In the next room, I could hear a gurgling, bubbling sound accompanied by pained moaning. I stepped into the living room to discover the source of the noise, and to my horror a mother and two children were strewn across the floor covered in blood. I began to gag and panic, but I quickly realized that one of the children, a little girl, was still alive. Coughing and spitting blood, she reached for me. I rushed to her side.
“It’s okay,” I soothed. “Just be still and try to stay calm.” I held her bloodied hand and stared compassionately into her terrified eyes. I could see two puncture wounds in her abdomen. From films and television, I knew I should apply pressure to them, so I left her side to find a towel or cloth.
As soon as I stood, I was transported to a large room full of children. In the corner, there were adults speaking about a girl in the center of the room. I saw her and realized it was the bloodied girl from the living room. ‘She survived!’ I rejoiced internally, but the sad expression on her face banished the joy from my heart.
“Susan, can you please come with me?” one of the adults called to the girl, and slowly she made her way out of the room with the worker. Walking through the halls, I realized we were in an orphanage.
We made our way into a small office. Susan sat across from the worker, a perky woman with a southern drawl. The lady took a deep breath and with a sorrowful expression delivered the news.
“Susan, the man who murdered your mother and your sister escaped the police. They are doing everything in their power to catch him, but until they do, we will need to place you into protective custody.”
The woman explained what that meant to the small girl. Tears rolled down her tiny cheeks.
I was shown the rest of the girl’s childhood. It was an isolated existence, spent mostly with books. Eventually, as a teenager, the girl developed an affinity for the occult and demonology. I watched as she went from a student of the dark arts to a powerful conjurer.
The final scene I saw will forever haunt me. We were standing in a dark bedroom, hovering over someone’s bed. Susan, now an adult, lit a candle, startling the old man awake.
“Who in the hell are you?” he demanded. “Get the hell out of my house!”
Susan merely stared at him with a snarl. She waved her hand toward him, confining him to the bed. As much as he struggled, he wasn’t able to budge, causing him to panic. She delighted in his fear.
She began speaking a language that I had never heard, and the fire on the candle wick intensified into full flames. The room became sweltering hot.
“Please, stop!” the man begged, visibly peeing himself. Susan only chanted louder as she looked around the room. Her gaze fixated on an object sitting on the man’s dresser. I saw it, too. It was the very pocket watch I was afflicted with.
“This will do nicely,” she purred. She snatched it up and resumed chanting. The sweltering heat gave way to an icy cold, and the burning flame above the candle changed to a purple hue. In the far corner of the room, a presence towered, the very presence I saw from the corner of my eye in my own room after my first wish.
Susan’s eyes gleamed when she saw the demon, and she brandished a giant knife.
“Asmodeus, the wrathful. The demon prince of vengeance. I bind you to this pocket watch. You shall be summoned by wishes to claim the souls of those who would murder the innocent, and I seal your bond to this object with the heart of the man who murdered my family."
“No, please! I am sorry! I’ve changed! I have a family now.” The man begged for his life, but it didn’t faze Susan. She climbed atop him and hoisted the knife in the air.
“Earl Camden, I damn your soul to hell,” she shouted, and with a feral growl she plunged the knife deep into the man’s chest, twisting it and digging it deeper as she screamed. Earl died quickly, but painfully.
Susan, now covered in Earl’s blood, turned her gaze to me, and I almost turned to stone.
“No need to fear me, child,” her voice was arresting. “You are a survivor. It is your turn to pass Asmodeus’ curse to the next person.”
“How will I know who to give it to?” I asked, afraid of the answer.
“You have a third wish. Use it.”
I woke up from the vision, sitting in the water of my tub. Enough time had passed while I was entranced that the water was cold. I dried off and found the watch. I called the woman.
“Now you know,” she said.
“Yes.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“She said I needed to use my third wish.”
“Do it quickly,”she advised, her voice grave.
“Why?”
“Look in the mirror. It’s called the touch of Asmodeus.”
I did as I was told. I nearly screamed as I saw the hideous face of my reflection. Gone was my youthful, mid-thirties body, and in its place stood a ragged skeleton of a man with hollow eyes, thin hair, and wrinkled skin.
“GIVE ME THE WATCH.” a demonic voice boomed from behind me, nearly giving an end to my frail heart. I searched the mirror, but no one stood behind me. “GIVE IT TO ME.” It commanded.
I realized it was Asmodeus. The third wish. It was what bound him to the watch, but I innately knew that if he could possess the watch before I made my wish, he would be free of his bond. I held the shiny talisman to my ribbed chest and spoke the words.
“I wish I could find someone who needs this curse.” In an instant, I was transported to a street, fully clothed in tatters. My arms and legs somehow looked even skinnier, and it took great effort to move.
A man was approaching me.
“Sir are you okay?” he asked with great concern.
“Here, take this,” I said, struggling to hold the watch toward him. “It grants three wishes,” I managed to say. Though I was nearly blind I could see that the watch had reverted back to the dull, rusted state I received it in.
“Oh, my god. Allen? What happened to you? I’m calling an ambulance.” To my horror, I recognized the voice. It was Cameron. That was all I remembered before I fainted.
***************
I woke up the next morning in my bed. For the first time in a long time, the sun was shining and there wasn't a trace of sadness in my body. I looked around the room and took a deep sigh of fresh air. The experiences I had the past few weeks should have destroyed me, but I was grateful for my life and that I was in a better place.
I bolted for the mirror and let out a joyous squeal at the sight of my reinstated youth. I felt confident that I would move forward and learn from the lessons Justin had taught me, that the watch had taught me, too.
My only regret was that the watch went to Cameron. I hated his guts. I remembered the curse and wondered who on earth was trying to murder him.
The room went icy cold and all the light vanished. I could sense Asmodeus lunging behind me, and with a panic, I realized deep in my heart that I wanted Cameron dead.
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