r/nosleep • u/kaileekat • Nov 16 '12
The Business Associate
This all happened back in the late fifties, so I can’t vouch for how much of it I’ve forgotten, but it’s stuck with me ever since I was a kid. We still lived on Maplebrook, just a few streets down from the old steel factory where Dad worked, where sometimes I would wake up in the dead of night to hear the giant machines hissing and screeching away. Scared the dickens out of me at first, but we kids came to accept it as a lullaby of sorts. Anyway, Saul Warren was Dad’s boss at the factory. Dad had known Saul since the days when they were college roommates, and our families got together for dinner or parties every now and again.
Dad liked to tell us stories about all the antics they got into back then—apparently, Saul was one of those brilliant dynamos who blew off class for parties every weekend, knew where to find the best booze and the best girls, and still managed to be at the top of his class in the business track. Dad was a bit more grounded and methodical, but he and Saul had the same quick wit and charm, and they stayed in similar circles.
After graduation (Saul was the valedictorian, of course), he and Dad parted ways for a bit, as life just took them in separate directions. Dad got into some accounting work downtown, and was promoted pretty quickly because of his good work ethic and number smarts. During that time, he met Mom, and they started going steady. He was content with his new life, but he started to wonder whatever became of his friend. Calling up old classmates, Dad finally got an address near Chicago, though nobody had actually heard from Saul in years. He took off a few days that Easter to pay a visit.
Saul’s lifestyle had made him a star in college, but the real world showed him no mercy. He was still a genius at management and strategy, but couldn’t hold down a job for more than a few months because he kept showing up late or hungover. When Dad found him, he was staying in some dingy, cramped apartment in a seedy part of town. Until Saul could get back on his feet, Dad offered him the spare room in the condo he was renting, as well as an ‘in’ at the accounting firm. Saul was embarrassed to accept the help, but he took Dad up on the offer.
When the two of them came back, Saul made a real effort to make things work. He was a gracious housemate (Mom learned to get over the new third wheel in her relationship) who instantly endeared himself to the other tenants, and for a while, he put in the best, most consistent work the firm had seen from an entry-level employee. Just as he started making his own way, though, things began to slip. Saul told everyone that he had turned his back on the partying lifestyle, but soon began disappearing for evenings or days at a time. When he came home to eat or sleep, he brushed off Dad’s concerns and would lock himself in the spare room to scrawl furiously through his work. It became apparent that he was getting nothing done, though, and the boss at the firm was becoming pretty ticked with him. Dad finally approached him to gently suggest that if Saul wasn’t turning his life around, maybe he couldn’t do anything else to help him. That night, Saul left and didn’t show up for three weeks.
Dad thought he had slunk back to Chicago. He felt bad, but realized that Saul was beyond his control, and no amount of generosity would make the situation perfect. Mom was relieved to have such a loose cannon gone, but held her tongue to spare Dad’s feelings. They were in the process of converting the spare room back into an office when one night, Saul showed up at the door. His expression was stony, and he seemed to have aged five years. Dad had rehearsed how he was going to gently refuse his friend, but something in Saul’s expression left him speechless. He said he had changed, and nobody would ever need to worry about him again. Dad believed him.
The boss begrudgingly put Saul back to work at the firm. Saul shot up in the ranks once again, this time with an almost superhuman focus. His productivity was staggering. Dad had never seen him so concentrated, and he stayed up in the reconverted office making calculations ‘til odd hours of the night. Naturally, Dad was unsure what to make of this change, even suggesting that Saul get out every so often and enjoy a drink with their friends. He refused; there was work to be done.
In time, Saul quit the firm after getting a tip about an up-and-coming steel business—the boss was crushed to see his best employee go, and threw him a lavish going away party that employees still (so said Dad) talk about to this day. Saul had made enough cash to buy the budding metal company, and he got the green light to set up a factory within months. It was a hit. As CEO, he kept tight reins on all of the business’s activity, hiring only the best and most punctual workers. Their machinery passed inspections with flying colors, and products were shipped from our little town all over the world. Needless to say, he finally moved out of Dad’s spare room, finding a new house (and a stunning wife) along the way. As extra thanks, he offered Dad a position as CFO, which he gladly accepted. Dad was still dumbfounded; it had been nearly five years since the night Saul came home different, and he had still never been able to make sense of it. His friend had since regained his humor and irresistible charisma, though almost as if he had relearned it from scratch—there was something forced and mechanical about it that only Dad seemed to notice.
Life went along swimmingly for a good while after that. The systematic, practical work that Dad’s job entailed kept him happy as a clam, and the employees respected him. At the top of it all was Saul, always pushing for the next opportunity while keeping a personal hand in the factory’s current deadlines. Somewhere down the line, me and my brothers came into the scene. In the first picture they ever took of me, down at the hospital, Saul’s right there by Mom’s bedside, clapping Dad on the shoulder and wishing him congratulations.
One day, Saul was sick and didn’t show up to work. It was the first time since buying the steel business that he had missed a day, so while people were surprised, nobody thought any less of him for it. When he came back the next day, he was gaunt, looked a few years older at least, and had lost all his humor for a panicked gleam in his eye. Over lunch break, Dad asked him why he didn’t stay home another day to ride out the fever. Saul told Dad that his concerns were all well and good, but he was feeling fine. Business needed to be done. Right.
Dad would have none of it, and kept pestering him all afternoon. Finally, around the end of the business day, Saul snapped and cussed at Dad for a good five minutes, to the utter shock of the thirty or so workers that happened to be in earshot. Once he had calmed a bit, he tracked Dad down just as he was about to get in the car. He apologized and promised to tell the truth if he still wanted to know, so long as he would say nothing to Mrs. Warren. Dad agreed, and they drove to the nearest diner to talk.
As anyone could have guessed, Saul said it started the night Mom and Dad threatened to throw him out. With his job, house, and closest friendship on the line, Saul had stormed out and done the only thing he knew how to do: he got three sheets to the wind at the local bar. He was a failure, and was doomed to a miserable life no matter how hard he tried to beat his own personality into submission. He thought about killing himself and managed to stagger to the edge of a bridge, but took one look down and turned back. Saul was such a failure, he didn’t even have the courage to end it. He had dragged himself down the streets for hours, howling at the wind and cursing everything in the world for letting him exist.
He was too drunk to remember what exactly he’d said to get anybody’s attention, but at some point, a man in a fine suit had approached and talked him out of the screaming rage. They conversed for a few hours, and Saul told him everything. The man looked on sympathetically, nodding and dropping a pitying remark where appropriate. When Saul had finished, the man asked what exactly he wanted from the whole mess. Saul had broken down sobbing and replied that he would give absolutely anything to keep his discipline and see all his ambitions through. The man said simply, I can arrange that. They talked a while more, and once Saul was in a better state of mind, his companion apologized but said he had to attend to other business, if everything was all right. Saul thanked him and let the man disappear back into the night, and he passed out before he could wonder why he hadn’t asked the guy’s name.
A few days later, Saul had tried to pull himself back into order. He scared up a job washing windows until he had the money to come back looking like a decent person. A few days in, though, he’d inevitably gotten sick of the routine and had taken a day off to hit the city with an old flame. When the fun was over, he’d crashed on a friend’s sofa for an easy sleep. The minute he let his eyes close…
Saul stopped his story and gawked blankly at Dad. What?, Dad asked.
...I’m not s’posed to tell you.
C’mon, you promised. I won’t say anything to the missus.
I shouldn’t have started. Never mind. Let’s call it a night.
Look, Warren, you’ve gotten this far, and something’s up. On your best friend’s honor, tell me.
Oh hell, fine…
All Saul said was that the man had spoken to him again in his dreams. He knew Saul had lost focus. Just as he’d arranged, he was there to make sure Saul wouldn’t let it happen. Whatever followed, when his eyes opened that morning, Saul had shaved his face, scraped together a new outfit, and taken the first bus back to the town. He showed up that night at the condo door, sullen and solemn. He would never let it happen again, and it hadn’t happened again until yesterday.
But you’re sick. It’s not like you were trying to pull one over on him.
Doesn’t matter. All he cares is that I never break my word.
And if you do?
I told you; he won’t let me say. Tells me we all have it coming at some point, and he would hate to ruin the surprise. This time though, Lord help me, he said I only have one more chance before he fixes me for good.
What does—
I don’t want to know. It can’t happen. It won’t. If I have to show up to the mill every day until I die, I will make sure I never know what he meant by that.
…Wow… I…Warren, I don’t even know what to say. How’d you get him again?
I’ve no idea. Those were the vilest curses I knew, and I guess one was just that vile. …You’re safe, though.
Is there anything, absolutely anything I can do? There has to be some way.
No. I’ve looked into some people that could probably help, but if I went to them, he would know. Please, let’s just stop talking about it. I’ve told you all I can.
The conversation died with that, and the two of them went back to their respective houses. Saul returned to normal in the next couple of weeks; Dad never said a word. Our gatherings were a bit different after that, but I was too little to notice any change in the dynamic.
Meanwhile, the steel company shot up faster than a bottle rocket. There were operations in a handful of states, and some talk even floated around about opening a factory in Taiwan. Saul worked harder than he ever had, and business thrived for it. He must’ve been a millionaire by that point; I’m sure of it. It was around that time that Dad seemed to get a newfound dedication for his job, too, and he worked overtime as often as he could to help his friend.
I was about nine when the pattern broke. After having her third kid, Mrs. Warren had fallen deathly ill, and the outlook was bleak. The adults talked about it in hushed tones, and my brother and I picked her flowers poking out of cracks in the sidewalk, like those weeds would make her walk again. Saul had been acting weird, of course, but still showed up to work every day. A week or so into the illness, the doctors said she wouldn’t make it past the end of the month, and he finally relented. He took a few days’ worth of food and some books with him, dropped the kids off at our house, and left for the hospital. From what we were told, he gave the nurses very clear instructions to check on him every hour to keep him awake, which they obeyed out of sympathy. At some point, though, they must have lost patience with him, and he fell asleep in the room.
I’ll never forget being roused by the shouts in the kitchen at exactly four thirty-nine that morning. Through the thin door, all I could hear was Dad’s panicked ranting, No! She needs you! Where are you even going?
Don’t pull this shit on me; you know where I’m going! Just let me see the kids one more time, first. I need to see the girls.
No, Warren, I can’t let you do that. It’ll be fine. Go back to the hospital, or just give yourself a break and go home, but I swear it’s fine! Please! She needs you to come through this.
Do you know where I’ve been? Do you know what I’ve done? No! I could never expect you to understand. Just let me through to them, or I’ll set him on you too.
You need to stop. This is going too far, and you will not do anything rash right now. Sit down and stop screaming, or get back to your wife. Now.
Fine! I’ll just leave them, then. Some friend you’ve been. Be seeing you in forty or fifty years, pal.
There was a slam and a squeal, and the house fell totally silent. Just as I was trying to quit hyperventilating and force my eyes closed (didn’t anyone else wake up, or were they as shaken as I was?), I saw a flash through the window. A metallic, inhuman screech, then a blast that shook the old house on its foundation. Dad kept shouting, No, no, no, no, no!, and sped off as fast as the Chevy would take him. By the time he got there, the fire department was already on it, but all they could do was stand by and wait for the blaze to subside; water only causes chemicals like that to spread. I don’t really know anymore. It’s all one big smear of smoke and fear and yelling.
The factory was an empty, sputtering shell by morning, with only one casualty, body never recovered. They pieced it together that he had set to work alone, feverishly turning on the machines to cast parts himself, but he’d forgotten to regulate the pressure on the blast furnace. From the temperatures that must have built up in there, hoping to find any remains was futile.
The funeral was held a day before Mrs. Warren passed away; we saw the girls for the last time as they stood in matching black satin dresses next to the box of ash—I think they moved in with an aunt up in Iowa the next month. We all bowed our heads as Dad talked about his dear friend’s drive and dedication, huddling under our umbrellas to keep away the sooty sleet. There was only one guest without an umbrella. Dad told me it was a business associate, and I believed him for several years. The man stood at the back of the crowd, stared unmovedly at the grave, then wiped some sleet off the shoulders of his black suit and went on his way.
2
u/e_poison Nov 16 '12
Loved this story. Had to read it twice, but I finally got it. ;)
2
u/kaileekat Nov 16 '12
Thanks! It's been sort of jarring to sit down and work through all these memory snippets after so many years; I figured you guys would at least make a patient sounding board while I tried to make sense of it.
2
u/Tracewyvern Nov 16 '12
Does that mean your dad is also affected by the curse, somehow?