The Piece of Silver

It was old, there was no denying that. Gerry turned the coin over in his fingers and looked at it more closely. Over the centuries, countless hands had nearly rubbed all traces of identifying features from the silver disc, but, if angled just right, he could make out what looked like a laurel wreath on one side and the profile of some long-dead king on the other. It felt slick in his hands, and for some reason, that made Gerry a bit uneasy.

Looking at the expensive display that the coin had been housed in, Gerry decided that in the old man’s collection, this was surely the most prized. If anything would hurt the old man, losing his pride and joy would be it. And Gerry definitely wanted to hurt the old man, especially after being betrayed as harshly as he had been. “A man shouldn’t have to go through that,” thought Gerry as he carefully retraced his steps out of the office and relocked the door.

It was just after midnight when Gerry finally got home. That uneasy feeling hadn’t left him since he had taken the old piece of silver and he vowed to get rid of it in the morning.

The dreams that plagued Gerry that night were vivid… brutal… and in all of them: Death. Bloody death. The last dream had the old man, covered in blood that wasn’t his own, standing over the wreckage of what was once another person. He looked different though… younger, and with more hair.

When he crawled out of bed, Gerry felt worse than he did the night before. The uneasy feeling was now a sense of dread. He had to get rid of that coin! He rushed out of his house, deciding to cut through the vacant lot at the end of his street and over to the pawn shop on Weston.

In his haste, Gerry tripped over a half-unearthed root at the back of the lot. He threw out his hands to save himself from the fall, but the impact was still hard enough to send the contents of his shirt pocket flying towards the street. He watched in horror as the ancient coin bounced twice on the sidewalk then rolled into the street. Without even standing up, he scrambled over the sidewalk and dove for the coin. He never saw the car that killed him.
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The car opened and the man within, despite having the sun almost directly in front of him, seemed to be bathed in shadow. He looked down and saw the flash of silver from the old coin. He reached out a thin hand and snatched it from the road with a movement almost too fast to see. He opened up a small leather bag beside him and dropped it in, where it made a pleasing clink against the other coins that were there. His voice rumbled out, sounding far too big to come from someone that thin, “Six to go.”

-Babaluzer
498 Words
July 26th, 2007