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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/nemmoph on 2024-09-11 16:40:30+00:00.

When I first met the Pale Man, he wore a suit of deepest black. There wasn’t a speck on it - not even a fleck of dirt from the muddy road he must have walked to reach my father’s pub. He stood out from our regular clientele, who struggled to go an evening without smearing gravy-stained fingers on their trousers or slopping beer down their shirts.

As I watched him effortlessly navigate his way across the packed room, and take a seat at the single empty table, my heart clenched. I’d kill for a suit like that, I thought. A suit that fit me perfectly. A suit made by a tailor instead of my mother cannibalising the clothes my brother had long since outgrown. A suit that would make people pay attention when I walked into the room.

As if I had spoken the words aloud, he locked eyes with me and smiled. Later, he would tell me that I might as well have whispered my desperation into his ear. He hadn’t read my mind - not exactly. “I could smell it from across the room,” he said. “The reek of your hunger.”

But that secret wouldn’t be revealed to me for many years. During the first few minutes of our acquaintance, I was thrilled by his sudden, unexpected attention. When he beckoned me to his table, I all but tripped over my own feet in my haste to reach him.

Up close, he was breathtaking. Auburn hair fell in heavy curls onto his shoulders, and his pale skin was almost pearlescent. His eyes, nearly as dark as his suit, seemed to laugh.

As I took the only other seat at the table, his smile grew wider. Through his parted lips, I saw that his teeth were stained black. It was not the usual decay that afflicted some of our neighbours - it looked as though he had tried to take a bite out of the night itself. I glanced away quickly, feeling ashamed somehow - as though I had peered through a keyhole and glimpsed something I shouldn’t. When I looked back again, I saw his teeth were straight and white. Relieved, eager, I dismissed it as a trick of the shadows.

“You like this?” He motioned towards his suit. I nodded, and he asked, “Would you like one of your own?”

The laughter bubbled out of me before I could stop it. “It matters little what I want - I’ve as much chance of affording one as a cat’s in Hell without claws.”

He tutted lightly. “A rather constrained attitude. In life, half the battle is deciding what you want. So tell me, Peter,” he propped his delicately pointed chin atop his laced fingers, “what do you want?”

Had I paused to question how he knew my name, I would have rationalised that he had heard one of our patrons summoning me back to the bar, demanding a fresh pint of beer. But I didn’t question. The Pale Man was too fantastical a sight - too rich for our humble village, too important to talk with the likes of me. I feared that, should I allow my attention to wander, he would evaporate before my eyes.

So I answered his question.

Of course I wanted the suit. More than that, I wanted one for every day of the week.

Every confession after that first one came easier.

Most people born into our village lived their entire unremarkable lives there. They were christened, married and laid to rest within the small boundaries of the same church and its yard. The thought of following that fate made me feel like I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to escape, to travel dusty roads and churning seas, to see anywhere other than here.

And I wanted to do it comfortably - luxuriously, even. My entire life, I had watched my parents hoard each coin. Usually, it stretched just far enough, but in leaner times they agonised over how it should be spent - one winter, my mother skipped so many meals that she scarcely had the energy to rise out of bed.

I wanted respect, and my own small stock of fame - a name associated with something other than pouring drinks in a dingy pub. Mostly, I wanted to be seen.

All of this burst out of me in a rush. I didn’t care that I might be overheard, and that if my father caught wind of it, he would try to knock such notions out of my head with a sharp clap around the ear. Only two things seemed important: baring my soul to the Pale Man, and keeping my eyes on the table while I did it. At the corner of my vision, I could see his smile growing wider and wider, and a voice in my head I refused to acknowledge even as I obeyed it warned me that should I look, I would see those black fangs again.

When at last I fell silent, the Pale Man said, “Excellent, Peter! See, you’re already halfway there. You know what you want - now you must decide what you’re willing to do to get it.”

For that, I had no response. Dreams were all well and good, but I lived in reality. For a young man of humble origins, the best hope was to strike out for the nearest town and try to forge a life there. But there would be no suits in that future - no ships nor accolades, perhaps not even anything resembling comfort.

The Pale Man leaned in close, whispering conspiratorially into my ear. “What if I told you I could give all that to you? A long life filled with anything you could desire. And not in some dim, distant future, but right now - you could walk out the door and step into a new life.”

I should have laughed, or accused him of mocking me. Instead I had an image of a serpent and an apple, and what our rector might say if he could hear this conversation.

Deep laughter rumbled in his chest. “You give me entirely too much credit! I’m not Him. I’m merely a talented individual in a position to offer you an excellent deal.”

I risked a glance at him. His teeth were thankfully still white, but his eyes had grown sharp - hungry. I wondered whether that expression was mirrored on my own face.

“And what would my end be?”

“Once a year, you will need to complete an errand for me.” He waved an airy hand. “Nothing outside of your capabilities, of course, and you will be able to discharge your duties in a single day. The other three hundred and sixty four days belong to you entirely.”

In my entire life, I hadn’t owned a single day. They belonged to my parents, my brother, and as soon as I was as tall as the tables, the pub’s patrons. Sacrificing one day a year seemed like -

“An excellent bargain?” The Pale Man supplied. “I quite agree. If you wish to accept, we need only drink on it - no, wait!” He plunged a hand into one of his pristine pockets and withdrew a fat, gleaming apple and a silver paring knife. Dropping me an exaggerated wink, he said, “We all must have our little jokes, Peter.”

When he sliced into the apple, I had a sudden suspicion that the flesh inside would be rotten and worm riddled. But it was as crisp and juicy an apple as I had ever seen, the aroma strong enough to make my mouth water.

He cut off two slices and held one out to me across the table. As I reached for it, he pulled it just out of my grasp.

“One more thing: you cannot exit our deal prematurely. We’re entering a contract, of sorts, and it must run for its full term. Is that acceptable to you?”

I plucked the slice from his hand and crammed it into my mouth. Grinning, he did the same.

“Go then, Peter,” he said once he had swallowed, motioning towards the door. “Enjoy your new life.”

Standing up so quickly my chair clattered to the floor, I strode to the door and yanked it open. Just before I stepped over the threshold, a voice whispered in my mind, See you in a year.

As I set out down the road, with nothing more than the clothes on my back, I had no doubts. A single, irresistible urge dominated me: head south. After a mile of following my new compass, I found a young woman stranded by the roadside. She gratefully accepted my offer to escort her to the next village, some three miles further. The walk gave us time to get acquainted. I learnt that she was wealthy and well-connected. She learnt that I was charming and funny - although that was as much a discovery for me as it was for her.

The next week, in the city, I was fitted for my first suit - a gift from the grateful young woman.

The next month, we were married with the blessings of her parents, who were surprisingly willing to allow their daughter to marry a poor man of no name. As a wedding present, they funded a six month tour of the continent. We wondered at ancient ruins and paintings so exquisite they near moved me to tears, slept in sheets softer than anything I could have imagined, and dined with the wealthy friends of her wealthy parents.

They also had friends at home, as I discovered when we returned. Everyone was so eager to help me find a path in life - something on which I could build my name.

By the end of that first year, I had a devoted, newly-pregnant wife, a grand home in the city, and I was in the exciting, early stages of building my reputation. I had all but convinced myself I had imagined the Pale Man, dreamed him up as a way of explaining my incredible good fortune.

But precisely one year after our first meeting, I woke suddenly in our warm marriage bed with the certainty that I was being watched. Unwillingly, I rose and went to the window. When I cracked the curtains, I saw the Pale Man standing with his hand on our gate, wearing his familiar smile.

I wish I could tell you what that first errand was. It appals me that I can’t, but you must understand - I spend the rest of the year trying to forget the one day that belongs to him, and those days he does own have blurred together over time.

Sometimes, the task is simp…

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