Hey im new here and i would like to become good at something for once in my life so im gonna hone my skills at writing, heres my first short story i wrote christmas time, hope you enjoy feedback would be superb.
Young Deal
Bruce looked down over the cliff edge to the jagged rocks below. The sky lit up in a sheet of silver lightning and the thunder rolled over the hills and shook the mountains. Rain bounced off of Bruce’s cold blue face as tears slid down from his swollen red eyes. Bruce stared downward, this was to be the end of his miserable life. And good riddance too, he thought, turning around, setting his running distance for the triple jump from life to death.
That was when he saw it; the cloaked figure clothed in a golden robe gazing out from the jewelled encrusted hood with what seemed to Bruce at the time silver slips of eyes, as silver as the lightning racing across the night.
“Who are you?” Bruce shouted over the din of the rainfall. The figure stood there motionless, it’s sharp silver eyes never leaving their mark. “Tell me or leave me be!” he roared.
“Come over and see.” Bruce heard these croaked words on the whispering ferocity of the wind that didn’t seem to be coming from the hooded figure but seemed to be echoing around Bruce from all directions.
It seemed silly that Bruce should have thought that the figures eyes were silver because it was obvious that when you came right up close to the figure his eyes were a mellow shade of brown. On occasions the lightning would flash and those eyes would light up again, Bruce believed that must have been where he thought the tint of silver came into his mind but at the time there was no lightning to produce the colour, none at all.
Bruce looked in through the hood and beheld a sharp face with a strong white set of teeth smiling almost viciously back at him. Bruce stepped forward his eyes mesmerised by the beauty of the mans robe. His fists held up to his abdomen clenched in case of combat.
“Come Bruce there is nothing to be frightened of here, I won’t harm you.” the mans voice was soft yet Bruce heard it easily over the drumming of the downpour and his smile radiated a glow of trust, but there was something behind those brown eyes that unsettled Bruce’s soul.
“How do you know my name?” Bruce asked timidly, he was intimidated by this man.
“I know why you’re upset, we can fix that, I can fix that.” the man said, subtly ignoring the question.
Bruce laughed, “You don’t know what the fuck I have been through.”
The figure sniggered.
“You can’t change nothing.” continued Bruce.
“I can change everything for you!” the man stepped forward a touch as the lightning shot off once more.
“Like what?” cried Bruce through bitter tears. All he wanted to do was kill himself, he didn’t need some turd mouthed liar feeding him a spoon full of bullshit.
The man raised his head to the explosive sky and let out a roar of laughter that rivalled the thunder. The man brought back down his head and those shaded brown eyes pierced deep holes into Bruce’s heart. “Whatever you want my son, whatever it is that you want I can give.” Those gleaming white teeth shimmered at Bruce again as the man sneered. “I can bring you money.”
“Money!” Bruce jumped up in excitement, Bruce came from a poor family, his mother earned next to nothing at the diner and his dad was rotting in hell ironically the way he got there was the same way that Bruce was about to do before the interruption.
“I can give you your friends back. I can give you Lizzy.”
Bruce gulped, Lizzy would hardly look at him in school never mind be his girlfriend. And as for his friends they had either moved away, got booted from school.
“I can even give you the guitar skills to bring those songs in your heart to life.”
Bruce looked the stranger in the eyes, he believed him, on some crazy level he believed him. “How?”
The figure gave a sinister smirk, “Let me worry about that Bruce, all you need to do is promise me something.”
Bruce licked his wet lips, “What will that be?”
The figure moved forward with a dry smile stretched across his face. “Your soul!” Thunder rang out across the sky.
Bruce stepped back, his drenched arms hanging in the soaked through jumper broke suddenly out in cold Goosebumps. “You’re the devil.” Bruce’s teeth chattered and he wiped the rain from his brow. “Am I right?”
The man cackled upward toward the sky again and when he smiled back at Bruce, those once white shining teeth had turned into yellow rotted jags edging out from green gums. His eyes had shrunk; the pupils had contracted to miniscule dots with a shade of tainted silver swimming around them. “Say yes my friend and you will gain everything. For I need it from you now.”
Bruce shivered. Everything, he thought. Did he really believe in a soul, no he hadn’t before, but he hadn’t believed in the devil before either. “Yes!” he shouted.
The sky erupted into a symphony of madness and the rain crashed down to earth harder than ever. The figure’s voice rose into an unholy cackle and out from his arms came skeletal arms that outstretched to the sky, a blistering gust of wind soared past Bruce’s face. The man’s frame became larger till he was towering over Bruce, the shining robe held still in the wind. Those large skeleton hands tipped a bone white finger at Bruce and the monstrous voice echoed out, “Your desires will be answered and I will have your eternal soul!”
Bruce stood his ground, squinting his eyes and staring in a mix of utter terror and sheer shock and astonishment.
The huge silver eyed monster then exploded into an ember of fire before Bruce’s eyes and vanished.
The next week was surreal to Bruce. As soon as he came home he went straight to sleep and was woken up in the middle of the night by his mother; she had been promoted to kitchen manager by her bosses and they would be getting a £1000 bonus on top of an immense increase in wage. His mother was bouncing around the house like the floor was made of springboard. This was the realisation of a dream for what should have been both of them, but Bruce could feel no enthusiasm whatsoever, he assumed it to be from just having woke up in the middle of the night but was a little unsettled inside. He went back to a dreamless sleep.
The next day he woke up to realise he had a new message on his phone, which was unusual since he was about as popular as a dead fish. It was his old friend, Cash, he was coming back to the village. Cash and Bruce had been inseparable since the day they met at the skate park when they were nine years old, but about one year before Cash’s dad had been moved far away to keep up with work and thus Bruce was left completely alone. Bruce read the text and he felt only fine. He had hoped for this moment every time he checked his messages, but it came and he felt nothing but a sense of oh that’s good but I don’t really care. He was officially delighted of course he would tell his mother casually and lie by saying that he had been jumping around the room at the time he found out.
It was walking to school that morning when he had happened to remember the promise that the strange man had made the night before. He stopped and shivered before entering the school gates and wondered what the day had in store for him.
In maths which he always hated and dreaded going to because Steve Angelo sat by him and would usually deliver a strong jab to the stomach every five or ten minutes or so. But today was different he had no usual reluctance to go there he really could less care about big dumb Steve today and he wouldn’t have to either because he had taken a day and would be taking the month off due to a rather nasty case of the flu. Math was no different, miss bitch as she was known to Bruce rambled on about Pythagoras that and equation this. It was toward the end of the lesson when Bruce happened to drop his pen under the desk and as he tilted under to pick it up when who should be picking up her pen also but the beautiful Lizzy Micheals. They shot one another a smile and both went back to their work. Bruce came up from the table and expected his heart to start pounding like an uncontrollable jackhammer. But his heart remained the same, nothing had changed, he started to worry, you knew something was wrong when the lovely Lizzy Micheals looked at you and you weren’t having a near fatal stroke on the floor.
He finished the day and trotted despairingly home. He jumped on the bed grabbed his guitar and started to practice the song he was attempting to learn. He learnt the song with surprising ease and this lifted his spirit and before he knew it he was shredding licks that he never would have dreamed of even trying the week before. He felt excited for the first time in a week and started to believe the whole deal with the devil thing had no weight of rationality to it whatsoever and that it had just been an over imagining of his stressed mind to keep him alive. He got out a pen and a notepad and set on writing those melodies that were littered around in his head. He got them out in front him raised his Gibson and hit a mental block. He couldn’t think of one, not one. He was disheartened to say the least and was extremely downtrodden.
This lack of emotional state for Bruce lasted two days and then something happened that let everything come crashing down. He and Lizzy sat next to each other in English and got to talking and decided that after the lesson he should come for a smoke with her, he agreed. One thing led to another and as they were about to kiss, Bruce didn’t see the green eyes he had always imagined in his dreams but the silver ones that had been haunting him for three days.
That was it he left school straight away dropped at home to grab his guitar and headed for the mountain.
“Devvvviiilllll!” Bruce screamed at the tip of the cliff edge looking down onto the jagged boulders. “Devviiillll!” he bellowed once more.
“Yes?” the voice came from behind and a shiver rattle it’s way down Bruce’s spine. He spun around on the tips of his shoes and advanced on the same figure with the gold blazed robe.
“Give it back to me!” he asked quite politely for the mood he was in.
The man cackled, those silver eyes swishing around sickly in their sockets. “I knew this would happen.” he giggled to himself. “Unfortunately my friend we both can’t be happy at the same time.” the robed man turned around and started to walk away.
“No don’t walk away from me!” Bruce called. “I challenge you devil! I challenge you!”
The man stopped, he turned his head, an evil smirk stapled from one cheek to the other. “You been listening to too many folk tales Johnny boy.”
“I mean it give me a chance.”
The mans silver eyes shined and he sniggered to his self. He spun around, his robe swinging as he did. “I could use with a living person, one who could walk the earth .”
“Then accept my challenge, if I win I get my soul.”
“And if I win,” the devils skeletal hand pattered on his cheek, “You obey my every command, whatever I ask of you, you do it understood?”
“Understood.” sighed Bruce . Silence followed. Clouds had begun to form in the sky and a strong wind had begun to blow.
“What be your challenge mortal.” the devils voice rang out and echoed down the mountain, sheep turned their heads to listen, birds flew off into the distance away from the ungodly sound.
Bruce slung the guitar case off of his back and unzipped it. He hoped this would work. “Me and you, guitar jam of the century.”
The devil’s smiled a yellow smile. “Smart boy, I see your plan, you believe I gave you my own powers in exchange, well your wrong, this is going to be quite interesting!” Out of his robe he pulled an electric guitar that would normally have dropped Bruce’s jaw.
The devil went first producing one of the best solos Bruce would ever hear in his life, his ears burned with the madness that came out of those six strings. He produced the same tune himself but with slight changes afterward knowing that he couldn’t be outdone if he played on the same par as Lucifer himself, but not being able to think of anything better.
“You little cheat! We can’t go on like this forever.”
He was right of course Bruce knew that, but he had a small trick up his sleeve that would blow Satan back to hell. He began to play rocked up church hymns. As the clouds crashed together and the rain poured down Bruce began to feel the emotion in the notes he played; the devils power was weakening. Each note sounded passionate in his ears and he began to shred one of the greatest licks ever dreamed up by a musician. The rock melody brought peace to the sky and the mountains. Once he had finished tears streamed down his face. He had beaten the devil
The devil stood there, his guitar in hand, the once yellow smile replaced with a sour scowl. His silver eyes blazing with fury.
Bruce began to pant, he was so relieved, so relieved and he could feel it too in his heart and importantly in his soul. He stood up and laughed, “Can’t win em all. Can you devil?”
The devils eyes blazed with rage and he aggressively threw the guitar at Bruce. Bruce ducked and the guitar spiralled to the jags beneath. Bruce giggled nervously, he had never felt so scared in his life, yet he felt like he should cherish the laughter, he didn’t know what would come next. “Sour grapes.”
The devil exploded into a cloud of smoke which rose high into the afternoon sky over the mountains and just before it vanished, the devils wicked face appeared and on the sudden gust of wind, Bruce heard the devil swear his revenge.
Bruce got home and drifted off into sleep where he continued to dream his regular dreams.
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