Price Tag
Price Tag
75¢ and a piece of grape Bubblicious. That's how much I paid for my first soul.
It started as a joke.
The summer spot was a tiny arcade in the back of the Pins Over bowling alley. There were eight games crammed into a corner, one of which was a claw machine. Most of us spent our time huddled around Mortal Combat, or if it was crowded, Street Fighter. Only one kid ever played the claw machine. His name was Timmy Glass. He never actually won anything, but it didn't matter. As far as Timmy was concerned every quarter was just another down payment on a gold watch impossibly wedged under a pink stuffed-elephant.
He was always one quarter away.
And when he ran out, he'd just beg and beg until someone would give him 25¢ to go away. As soon as he had another quarter he'd run back to that dumb machine and drop it in. He'd grab the joystick—and just like he'd done a thousand times before, position the claw over the elephant's head—and press the button. And every time it'd come up empty. This happened everyday, over and over and over.
Eventually the older kids started making him do dares for the quarters.
It didn't matter what it was. He never even hesitated.
No fear.
No embarrassment.
Just the watch.
We used a napkin from the concession stand. It read, I Timothy Glass sell my everlasting soul to Tiffany Martin for 75¢. He signed away his soul with one of those little golf pencils used to keep bowling scores.
I noticed a difference almost immediately. On the walk home I felt confident, focused.
Timmy's confidence.
Timmy's focus.
To this day it's my favorite soul. I had framed in Milan. It's hanging on the wall above my desk.
The sad truth is that everyone has a price. Find out a person's price and you can own them.
My parent's price was actual money. They problem was they never had anything to trade for it.
I learned early that nothing's worse than being poor.
I had Tim's confidence and focus, but I needed more. I needed charm, charisma, something to help me get my way.
Principal Daley was the most charming person I knew. All the parents and teachers, even some of the students, couldn't wait to tell you what a great guy he was, and how the kids were lucky to have him.
It took me a week to sneak into his office. In the bottom drawer of his desk I found a hollowed out Bible. Inside was a stack of photos no principal should ever have.
He asked what I wanted.
He thought it was stupid—hey all think it's stupid—that a piece of paper can somehow transfer ownership of a soul. It's easier when they think it's silly.
He wrote the contract on the back of a hall pass.
My newly acquired skills carried me through most of freshman year, until some of the other girls developed their own set of skills.
Stacey Brash was not only the head cheerleader, she was seduction incarnate.
Teachers and students alike bent to her will.
A superpower.
Beautiful women are suckers for confidence and charisma. I had both in spades. She said she'd never been with a girl before. I recorded the whole thing on my phone.
She would've done anything to keep her father from seeing that video.
It's not about the paper—or the signature on the paper. At least I don't think it is. I'm pretty sure it's the act itself, of relinquishing your very existence to another person.
Each new soul came easier than the last.
Abilities piled up.
Acquiring intelligence was easy. Most professors get into academia for one thing: SEX—kinky, embarrassing, sex—with students.
Three tenured professors, all married, all with IQs north of 130, signed their souls away with the same red pens they use to grade papers.
It doesn't take a genius to see that money makes the world go round.
Introducing: Clark Comstock. The CEO of Bloodstone inc
A real shark.
Clark turned a single corner hot-dog cart into a hundred-million dollar business in under a decade. He owns the largest fleet of food trucks on the planet, and has won the World Series of Poker twice. I had to file a mock patent for food preservative technology that he'd been working on for years just to get a meeting.
Going in I knew seduction wouldn't work.
Clark's gay.
Charm got me nowhere.
The only thing Clark Comstock cares about is the deal. It started with bargaining over the patent, which somehow eventually led to a high stakes game of Monopoly. In the end it cost me the rights to a worthless patent and my right pinky toe. No anesthesia, no disinfectant, not even a swig of whiskey. Just a quick chop of a decorative hatchet. Clark just wanted to win—said his soul was worthless anyways.
As I attempted to tie a makeshift tourniquet around my tiny stump Clark leaned in asked me if wanted to know the real secret to getting filthy rich. Before I could respond he whispered these three words: abandoning all emotion.
Finding an actual sociopath wasn't as easy as you might think. It's not like I could post an ad in the paper. I thought about trolling the dark web for sadists and pedophiles but there was no way to differentiate the scumbags from true sociopaths.
In the end I didn't have to post an ad, I simply had to respond to one.
John's Hopkins' University was conducting a study on the effects of impulse control in serial murders. The ad said they were looking for clinically diagnosed psychiatric patients with borderline personality disorder and/or extreme sociopathy. There was a phone number.
Darrin J Elkins got off the bus and entered the imaging lab. I caught him on his way out. Mr Elkins was impervious to charm. He didn't want money. He wasn't interested in sex. His deepest desire, what he wanted more than anything in the world, was to kill someone. He said it didn't matter who. I told him I could help.
I picked up a homeless guy under a freeway overpass—someone no one would miss. He smelled like an old urinal cake. I lured him to an abandoned house with a pint of Smirnoff. Darrin J Elkins was waiting inside with a lead pipe, or a knife, or a garrote—I didn't ask.
He stumbled his way up to the front of the house. It was getting dark. The front door had been kicked in long ago. He mumbled incoherently as I coached him forward with the promise of booze. Moments after he disappeared into the doorway I could hear him being beaten, or stabbed, or strangled to death. I lit a cigarette and waited for it to end. By the time I stubbed the butt against the bottom of my shoe and returned it to the pack I knew something was wrong. It was taking way too long. I stepped through doorway and waited for my eyes to adjust. A heap of roiling limbs coalesced into partially discernible shapes. Darrin was on the floor, half dead, in a pathetic attempt to fend off a hobo with a lead pipe.
Annoying.
I slid behind the urinal cake and looped my purse strap around his neck. I twisted the purse until blood came from his eyes.
I had never heard a death rattle before.
Just so you know, the best way to dispose of a body is in eight separate pieces.
Even before Darrin's soul was officially mine I felt nothing.
After he signed the contract I bludgeoned him with the lead pipe.
Sixteen separate pieces.
Souls came easy after that. Psychics, hypnotists, comedians, athletes, generals, senators, and priests. I have wall-to-wall filing cabinets full of souls. There isn't anything I can't do just by thinking it—and I'm fucking miserable. Every time I stub my toe a tsunami destroys another third world country.
I've taken to sleeping outside recently. I like looking up at the stars. At this point there's nothing left to do. There's not a single person who's truly happy that'll sell me their soul. And so every night I close my eyes and wonder strange things, like what if God was just an ambitious little girl who grew bored with her abilities? And if I'm lucky I'll fall asleep for a couple of hours.