Spooktober 2024- writing Prompt #5

I'm Putting out a Halloween / Spooktober / horror / paranormal / creepy

FIRST LINE or PROMPT every week in October leading up to Halloween.

Feel free to give them a try and share the results if you're feeling it.

This is week 5

HAPPY HALLOWEEN !!!!

TIME: 35 mins

PROMPT:   ‘Long ago, when he was a baby, a mother made an unwise deal in order to bring her son back from the dead…’ 

Charlie had been on this case for just over a week. The infant that had been brought back was now thirty. Charlie watched the man from the bar of the cafe. His name was Donovan. He sat with his laptop and an Americano at one of those small circular tables that these cafes all seemed to have in common. Donovan was handsome with dark hair and grey eyes, lean and broad-shouldered. His mother had basically raised him by herself. Dad hadn't stuck around, gone before Donovan’s first birthday. 

It might surprise the average human to know that these kinds of deals are not as unique as one might think. It's not to say that these deals to bring someone back happen daily, but there have been hundreds throughout human history.  

It requires three ingredients: One- a means to reach out or contact and speak with someone on the other side, Two- something valuable enough to offer as payment or barter with and Three- a scenario of relatively clear plausible deniability (ie: You can't have a decapitated, mangled or disemboweled body just knit back together and stand up like nothing ever happened. 

In the case of Donovan, his mother was a witch, so she had know-how. It had been an infection that had flooded her baby’s lungs. Mom had been awake in the middle of the night fussing over the feverish, hacking one-month-old. She had left him for just a few minutes to make a tea. She had raced back when her exhausted brain realized the coughing had stopped to find him not breathing. Having taken a class while pregnant she’d immediately attempted infant CPR. A clever woman, she knew it was too late to even bother calling 911. Wild with panic and grief she had frantically grabbed the necessary tools and ingredients and had summoned a soul broker within minutes. She made the deal and tiny Donovan had started breathing again. 

That was thirty years ago. Charlie had been called in on the case because thirty years was the length of time of the contract and payment was now due.