by Joshua Crets



As his face connected with the third of the cellar stairwell, his first thought was if he would die. Certainly not the way he thought he would go, not how he thought he would go at all. He thought it'd be a bullet, maybe a peaceful death in a prison cell, but dying because he lost his balance while running down a hill towards an open cellar? No possible way that could happen, or at least that was his thought.

His face smashed against the third, hard, stone step, defying the odds in his head, and causing a large gash to open up above his left eye. Blood began to run up and down his face as he tumbled to the bottom, smashing different parts of his body as he fell. First his arm, then his knee next, followed by his knee next (he was fairly positive that he had broken at least one rib, maybe more on the way down.)

Everything went dark for a moment, but what a frightening moment it was. What an encompassing dark that enveloped him. When light finally came, it was in the form of a bulb above him., which was then blocked by the form of a man.

He looked upward at the man. He had a very clean-shaven face and looked to be, at the very most, in his fifties. He had black hair with little graying. His eyes seemed to hold every color, or at least all the ones that are in eyes, in his. Brown, blue, green, and even red, they were all there and it seemed that one would sometimes win over the others, and become the dominant color for a short time. His clothes were fairly normal for the most part. He wore tennis shoes, blue jeans and a black, button up shirt, but when looking at that shirt the man who had fallen down the stairs felt like he was looking into pure darkness. Just looking at it scared him. If it was a gateway to another place, it'd be a very lonely, very frightening place.

He thrust his hand up to the man, hoping he'd help him up. He did not. The man just stared at him, making him feel uncomfortable. He stood up and decided to break the silence by introducing himself, but not with his real name just in case this man tried turn him in for the crime he committed. "Hello, I'm-"

"Danny Saunders," the man replied.

"How'd you know that," Danny asked.

"I know a lot of things, friend," the man replied with a Cheshire grin.

Normally Danny would have been freaked out that this stranger would know his name, but he had other worries, such as the possibility of going to jail. That was pretty high on his list of worries.

He stared upward out of the cellar's entrance, hearing the sirens and beginning to fear that the sounds were coming closer. "What are you looking for," the man in the dark suit asked.

"I'd rather not get into it right-," Danny answered as the man interrupted him yet again.

"You just robbed a grocery store," the man told him. "You ran two miles, And when you saw my cellar door open, you made a dash straight for it. That's where you met me. My seeing you with blood on your face.

Danny let out an exasperated gasp. "How'd you know that? How'd you know my name earlier?"

"Oh, I knew you before we met here. I've known you for quite some time."

Danny was about to answer when the man stopped him. He looked like he had an idea, and acted like he was about to say something, then said, "No." followed by a " maybe," which had a "yes," tailing behind it. "You know, Daniel. I could get you out of this little predicament quite easily."

"You could," Danny asked with a mix of curiosity and skepticism..

"Oh, most certainly. It'd be quite simple."

"Then do it, what do I have to lose?"

"Well," the man said, "I can't do it without any payment whatsoever."

There's always a catch, Danny thought. "Ok then, what do you want?

" It's simple. All you have to do is owe me a favor. That's all I ask. One favor to be repaid at any time."

"It's not like I have anything to lose," Danny replied and shook hands with the man. The man smiled at him, and without saying a word, sent him out of the cellar and back into the daylight. He walked towards the street, afraid someone would recognize him. He looked back to where he had just come from. In front of the cellar was a small shop, but it had been closed for years.

He continued walking down the street. The town of Dinstin in Missouri wasn't a very large town, but it wasn't a very small one either, and it could take some time to get from one end to the other, and through all that walking, Danny realized no one gave him anything more than a glance and a smile. He walked up to the grocery store he had robbed and even went inside. The place looked as though it was the most boring day of the year. It looked like it had never been robbed, and the people inside acted the same way.

But it had been robbed. Danny knew that because he still had the money he had stolen from them. He wasn't sure how, but that man had really done it. He skipped the rest of the way back to his apartment.

He spent the rest of the day looking at his money and watching the television.When he went to bed, he had a restless sleep filled with one continuos dream. In it, the man from the cellar kept telling him that it was time to pay up. When Danny finally woke up he decided that all it was, was a dream. But then, every night he had the same exact dream. He went through this for a week, before he finally gave in and came back to the cellar.

When he walked down the cellar, he could see no one. "I"m sorry I wasn't here sooner," he said. "Something came up." Then, a pain went in his stomach and he fell over. Next he was kicked twice in the side.

"I'm so glad you're sorry," a voice said, which was obviously the man Danny had met last time he was down there. "But you have to be on time." As Danny tried to stand up, the man kicked him in the face, causing him to fall over again.

"Why do you want me here," Danny said, in pain.

"Why else? Time to pay up. It's simple. I want you to kill this man," he said as he held up a picture of a man. Danny had seen him walking around before, and recognized him as his mail man.

"Why him? Why do you want me to kill anyone," Danny asked.

"You don't ask questions," he replied. "You just follow orders."

"And if I don't?"

The man looked at him than grabbed his arm. Danny screamed and kicked and flailed and did whatever he could to get the man to let go. When he finally did let go, Danny looked at his arm and noticed how burned it was. "Are you the devil," he asked the man.

The man looked at him and let out a small chuckle. "No, I'm not. If you'd made a deal with him, and welched on it, you wouldn't be here anymore. I'm much more leniant.

Now, I want you to do your job. I can't argue with you anymore. It's four o'clock and I must be off. Be sure that the job is done by today, son."

As he walked up the stairs he looked down, and there was a gun. This guy thinks of everything, doesn't he, Danny thought. He picked it up and walked outside. He walked for hours in a daze. He didn't know what to do. Then, the mailman walked past him, and all things in his mind that tried to keep him from doing something he shouldn't shut down. He walked up the mailman, and before he could even greet Danny, he shot him.

Danny stood there, for a good minute, while people around him just screamed.All he did was stand there, till what he had done had finally absorbed in his brain. He ran, as fast as he could till he arrived back at the cellar. The man stood there. Danny came up to him and yelled, "Ok! I've done what you told me to. I did it all. He's dead, and I hope you're happy about that! I hope you're thrilled! Now use that power of yours and make everyone forget it happened."

The man turned to him and said, "Fine, I will. But I'll need a repayment. All you need to do is promise to owe me a favor."

Danny looked at him in fright and finally realized what was going on. This man had caught him in a loop. It was a true Catch-22, just like the book. There was no way out.

He took the deal, and left, but knew things would just get worse.

When he arrived home he turned on his television, an changed the channel straight to the news. The news of the mailman's murder was the top story, and the they even said the man who did it had been caught. The first thing Danny noticed was that the man they had in custody was not him, but someone else. This other man had actually confessed to the crime. The man in the cellar had actually done as he promised. Again.

For the next few weeks Danny would be summoned by the man in the cellar, made to do a highly illegal favor, and then have to owe another favor to get out of all the trouble he'd be in.

It was a hard time for Danny. His doctor told him he was having stress problems, and he knew he was right. He knew he had to get out of this cycle, and he knew just how.

The man had sent him on another mission. This one was to set on fire the orphanage down the street from where he lived. He did as he was told, first barring all the doors, out of some instinct that the man in the cellar was obviously giving him. He stood out there In front of the burning building as the police came. He ran as fast as he could, and they almost caught him too but he made it to the cellar. He yelled out to the officers to follow him and they quickly obliged him.

When they finally made it to the bottom of the cellar where Danny was, he said, "I know it was I who burned that building down, but this man here," he said pointing at the man who'd been controlling his life for the last few weeks. "This man was the one who told me to. He's been blackmailing me and threatening me."

One of the officers, with a look confusion on his face said, "Hey buddy, there is no one there."

"Yes there is, " he screamed. It took both of the two officers present to grab Danny and take him away.

About fifteen minutes later, a man with a gun quickly ran down into the cellar behind the old building. When he got down there he saw the man in the black shirt and blue jeans. "Hey man, you gotta help me out. The police are after me, man. You have to help."

The man looked at him, smiled and said, "Don't worry, son. I'll help you out. You'll just need to owe me a favor, now won't you?"

Danny Saunders let his greed get the best of him. By robbing that grocery store in the beginning, he caused the events that followed. The man in the cellar was just the way to meet out the punishment that he rightfully deserved. He made his deal with the devil by just committing that crime and not facing his punishment, which would have been less severe.

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