THE COOKIE

My wife sent me to the grocery store at 8 pm to get some cough medicine and juice for the kids. As I strolled towards the juice aisle, I saw my favorite aisle — the dessert aisle. It was calling me, so I made a beeline straight to it. I was about to head to the snack cake section when the “Free Sample” table caught my eye. I side-stepped over to it and noticed a tray of chocolate chip cookies covered in a sugar glaze. My mouth watered. I felt drawn to these cookies like an addict to alcohol. I’m usually not this hard-up about free samples, but for some reason these cookies looked extraordinarily good. I barely glanced at the sign that read “Take a Cookie, Leave a Soul,” because I wanted one so bad. Forget one! I grabbed two and shoved them in my mouth. I thought I had died in ecstasy. I had never tasted anything like it. It was more than just chocolate and sugar. I was sure I had eaten a couple of slices of Heaven.

As soon as I was on cloud nine, I was plummeting from the clouds of Heaven to the darkness of Hell. I could feel ice-cold hands clutching my chest and pushing me down. I could see nothing, but I knew I was falling at an incredible speed. Just when I thought I would wake up from this nightmare, I slammed violently into my body. It was like a nuke had gone off inside my chest.

I snapped awake to see a creature with bleeding eye sockets staring at me. His leathery, white skin hung onto his skeleton so loosely that it was almost sloughing off. It smelled of death and decay in the summer heat. It wore something dark. I can’t say exactly what kind of garment it was, but I would best describe it as a cloak of fear, because that’s what I was—scared shitless.

He pointed at me and spoke with a low tone that exuded his hatred for me. “You owe me a soul. You have taken two cookies. One cookie for one soul. You must repay me for the other cookie!”

I trembled and said, “I-I-I’m sorry! Tell me how to fix this!”

“Your WIFE!” That was all he said before the darkness vanished along with him.

I lay there in a puddle of my own piss in the grocery store. People are looking at me strangely, while others are pulling out their phones to record me for their next viral video. I get up and look around. The Free Sample table is gone. I get out of there as fast as I can.

I can’t stop thinking about his last two words. Your Wife! My wife? Does he want me to kill her? I don’t know why I asked myself that. I know that is what he wants. Quickly, I find myself unconcerned with that thought, though. Now just a soulless husk, I feel driven to give the ghoul what he commands of me as if we are bound together — Master and servant.

As I got back home, I found my wife had sent the kids to bed, and she had fallen asleep on the bed waiting for me to get home. I stood there staring at her in the dark with only a sliver of moonlight dancing across her face. I felt nothing for her anymore, only a desire to complete my task. I grab my pillow and cover her face with it. She struggles against me, flailing about, but it is futile. After a couple of minutes, her movement ceases.

I thought I would feel this cold grip on my chest release when she died, but it seems to be the opposite. It only got tighter and more frigid. The kids would wake up in the morning and find their mother unable to awaken. Their lives would be destroyed. I felt nothing about that.

I could feel my body getting weak now that I had paid the cost for both cookies. My eyes were getting heavy. I collapsed to the ground, unable to move. In a flash, I was burning from an unimaginably cold flame in a darkness that seared the mind. All because I didn’t read a sign.

Mark Grace hails from East Texas. He is currently a student at Full Sail University. He has been married for 12 years, loves to travel internationally, and when he's not writing, he can be found slinging cards in Hearthstone and MTG Arena.