Sinister Solicitation

The boy came to the rusty gate and could see a light inside the house. He dreaded the silhouette walking past the window. He could see that it had stopped to look out the window once he put his hand up to knock on the rusty dilapidated gate.

It was night and the moon lit up the scene, making shadows dance when the wind blew. The boy saw the silhouette looking at him through the front window. The boy knocked on the gate as loud as he could. The silhouette moved away from the window and towards the door.

The boy looked back to see if his friends were watching from the corner, and they were. It was the end of the shift and it was dark. He just wanted to get this bet over with. He wanted to have the $10 dollars no matter what.

He looked back through the gate and saw the man of the house standing there on the porch. The man’s face hidden in the shadow as his white shirt was lit from the moonlight. With black pants, the man was peeling an apple with a peculiar looking knife. The boy did not hear the man stepping out onto the porch. It was quite amazing how stealthy he was.

“Hello, sir,” said the boy.

The man kept peeling the apple. It was art really, the way he peeled that thing. The knife sparkled in the moonlight. It was quite mesmerizing.

“Sir, I would like to talk to you about the word of God,” said the boy as he kind of cringed to himself. He thought that sounded a little aggressive.

The man stopped eating his apple. The boy could see the man throwing the apple to one side.

It was quiet.

As the boy went to open his mouth again, the man started walking forward.

“No one ever knocks here,” the man said.

The boy stared at the man’s face. The man had a scar over the left eye, as the moonlight clearly made that presentable.

The man reached the gate.

“I know I’m not pretty,” said the man.

“Oh…I just wanted to see…”

“You said something about the word of God?” the man interrupted.

The boy kept staring at the left eye. It was discolored a bit. The right eye was dark and it had a nasty glare. The man’s right eye was quite a champ at staring without blinking.

“Yeah, I wanted to see if you had time to talk about the word of God,” the boy brought out the Bible from his satchel.

“I would love to talk about this God of yours,” replied the man while stepping back a bit.

The boy looked up and saw the man’s eyes vehemently staring at the Bible he was holding. The boy put the book between his hands.

“I just wanted to bid a good day and to see if you are a follower of the gospel,” added the boy.

“I choose to be a wolf not a sheep boy,” replied the man.

“What do you mean…”

“See, you are just a servant of that book,” continued the man. “As for me, I have my own opinions about God. I have my reasons to think what I think about this God of yours.”

“He is your God too sir,” the boy tried to butt in.

“He’s no god of mine boy,” he nastily cut the boy short.

The boy tried to hold his friendly smile as the man’s one healthy eye slightly glowed under the moonlight.

“The words in the book of gospel are filled with light and will set any person who is lost straight and walk the right path, sir,” added the boy. Slightly inside, the boy knew that it was a statement that the man was going to burn.

The man cackled a bit and put his hand over his face.

“God is good,” the boy said.

The man put his hand down and started at the boy.

“Life is good if you follow God, sir.”

“Would you tell that to a boy who is dying of starvation in Africa?”

“Sir…”

“Would you tell that to my father who was a minister and mauled to death by a pack of dogs?”

The boy was silent. Oh my God the boy thought. Did this man’s father really die like that? He thought.

“Would you say that to the man who lost his family to an electrical fire?” the man asked while pointing his knife at the boy’s face.

“God has his ways in life and…”

“Shut the fuck up,” the man said in disgust. “Sure, God works in mysterious ways, right?”

“That is correct sir. God has ways to test people…”

“So, he sacrifices certain people to test others?”

The boy stood there unprepared.

“Yes, sir,” the boy replied. “It is the way the Lord works and one would have to read the book to understand him.”

“Him?” the man asked and stared with his wicked eyes.

“The Lord, yes sir.”

“Why don’t you come into my house and convince me about this precious God that makes people’s lives great.”

The boy was surprised by such a request.

“You know, I could come by tomorrow during the day since it is late and all.”

The man smile something wicked. His one eye glowed with the reflection of the moonlight. Drool starting coming down his bottom lip as his smile widened.

“Listen I’ll bring the book tomorrow for us to talk about.”

The boy held the book up as a gesture, and the man backed away from it, growling under his breath. The boy noticed this and put the Bible up against the gate. The man backed away even more.

“Sir?”

The man turned away and seemed to be talking to himself. He grabbed his head and seemed disoriented. He suddenly came to and looked straight at the boy. Both eyes were glowing now and looked fierce. The moonlight seemed to have fallen perfectly right were the man stood as his eyes glowed like cat's eyes do.

“Deus non despicit,” said the man with a deep voice. It was a different voice, as if it was not his.

The boy’s hairs stood and put the Bible down. It went back into the satchel and decided to leave the vicinity.

The boy walked away slowly backwards and kept staring at the man who was mumbling nonsense. The last thing the boy caught from the man was “homo relinquit putridum.”

It was quite nasty the feeling he felt from those words. The man’s eyes glared and deepened with a red hue as the boy made more distance.

As he backed away, the man’s eyes were the only thing that could be seen reflecting in the dark. The boy stared at them glaring red eyes from the distance as he kept walking backwards. Suddenly, the eyes jumped on top of the gate and the boy notice it was from a black cat.

The black cat hissed at him from the distance that was made at that point. It walked along the top of the gate towards him. The boy turned and jogged towards the corner where his friends were at. He was in a hurry as he just seen something very unusual.

He turned again to look at the house and it was just there. The house was an old house just existing under the moonlight rotting away as usual. No cat and no man in front of it or behind the gate.

The boy finally got to his friends. He was in a cold sweat. His friends looked a bit appalled as well.

“What the Hell Joshua?”

“What do you mean? I did it! I knocked on the forbidden house and talked to the owner,” Joshua said nervously.

“Who were you talking too?”

“What?”

“All we heard was a cat moaning while you stood there staring at the gate!”

By Bazooka Teaches