Sully's Watch

I walk up to the one story house with its meager front yard with a spring in my step. From its outward appearance I knew I wasn’t going to make any money off this visit, but I had done rather well for myself recently so that didn’t matter, the smile would be enough. I rapped on the thick wooden door and took a step back so that whoever answered  wouldn’t be surprised by a stranger standing in their doorway. A woman, bright red hair pulled back into a bun, big blue eyes, rosy cheeks and a little polite thin smile, answered. She was a cute little thing, wearing a nice blue and white checkered sundress tightly wrapped around her lithe form thanks to a white apron tied around her tight.

“Is this the home of a missus... Sullivan?” I ask politely, taking off my brimmed hat and placing it against my chest. I knew already who she was, I had been searching for her for a few weeks now.

“Why yes.” she said with a smile. “I am her but I am afraid I just cannot afford whatever you are selling.” she explained politely but dismissively all the same.

“Oh no, missus Sullivan, I am not here to sell you anything. My job is the retrieval and returning of goods. I have some items of your husbands, a mister James Sullivan?” I place the hat upon my head and pull from my pocket a few trinkets, an old timepiece, and some letters.

Missus Sullivan nearly shrieked, snatching the items from my hand. She looked them over, tears in her eyes, and then back to me. “How did you get them?” she asked, both relieved and a little suspicious before looking over the items. “Oh, Sully…” she nearly whispered, a sad smile on her pretty face.

She already knew that her husband had died, many had in the Civil War going on in the country, but it always took sometime to track down the next of kin in my business. “My job is too retrieve items off the bodies of fallen soldiers and return them to their next of kin. I would have been here sooner but the casualties are high, my company is stretched thin.” It’s a lie. This whole thing a charade. I just needed to be rid of these items.

“That’s morbid work.” she said plainly, not bothering to hide the disgust from her face. I simply nod and point to the trinkets.

“Before I depart I just need to confirm that those belonged to your late husband? Also, in my work it can be hard to track down some families. If I could have you look at a few more items, see if any of them seem familiar?” I smile politely, though I kick myself on the inside. I just needed to go. I don’t even have any other trinkets.

Missus Sullivan looked through everything and nodded. “These are definitely his. Don’t I owe you anything for these?”

“Nothing.” I say putting up my hands and waving them dismissively. “My company is paid by the government and I get paid by the items I return.” It was a lie, if I couldn’t find the owner of these trinkets I sold them. That’s how I made my money. Sometimes I asked for donations, especially if the family seemed well off, other times I might try and woo the lady of the house for an evening.

I catch myself staring at the pocket watch hanging from the lady’s wrist and dart my eyes back up to missus Sullivan. Again I note her lithe form, her pretty face, she really was a looker. My eyes catch hers, she is looking me over cooly with just a hint of a smile, well aware that I was giving her the look over. Well, I suppose I didn’t have to run off so quickly after all...

“Aherm, well miss, I am glad these items have found their way home at last, and I am truly sorry for your loss. Please have a fine evening.” I say quickly, pretending to be embarrassed, suddenly rushing to leave.

“Oh!” she says a little shocked at herself as she reaches forward and grabs my arm. She pulls away shyly. “I’m sorry, that was rude of me. Didn’t you have some things you wanted to show me? I was just about to make some coffee, why don’t you come in and have a rest and we’ll see if I can help you.”

Needless to say I went with the lady, had her coffee, then a fine dinner, and then some fine wine before taking her to her bed. The evening ended as it always had, I felt satisfied and the lady wept at the edge of her bed, feeling she has betrayed the memory of her husband. I stare at the pocket watch I had returned to her earlier that day, now sitting on the side table next to where she slept. I kept picturing the body of the man it belonged to. It didn’t matter how many times I tried to erase that scene from my mind it persisted.

It was souring my mood.

“I… I am sorry.” I say with empty sympathy. “If you’d wish I will wash up and leave you be.” She says nothing, but shrugs away from my touch. I say nothing more, leaving her bed and exiting the room, grabbing my clothes strewn about the floor and moving into the water closet.

I changed quickly, washing my hands with just the water. I looked into the mirror a moment and gave myself a plain smile before looking back down and gasping, throwing myself backwards into the wall and nearly falling into the tub beside me. The water, when I had looked back down, had turned thick and red. Looking to my hands to inspect them they were simply wet. I stood up and glanced at the sink, turning off the faucet, the water was still water. That was new, but I figured I was tired, simply tired. I just needed to go find an inn and get some rest.

I needed to get away from that damn watch.

I dried my hands and moved out of the water closet into the hall, missus Sullivan, Annalise I came to find out, stood at the doorway of her room in a nightgown.

“I’m sorry.” she said quietly. “I didn’t mean to make you feel awkward. Please stay the night, I really don’t want to be alone right now.”

I stayed silent a moment before nodding, what was one more night with that pocket watch? Especially if she was giving me a place to stay for free, and possibly... breakfast? We went back to her bed and she cuddled my chest and fell asleep silently crying. I just held her and looked at the pocket watch. Willing it to leave me be. I knew I was a horrible person, but I had returned it so now I could dream about something else for a change

I slept then, and it was all for naught as the scene that had haunted my nights for the past month played for me in my mind once more.

In honesty I wasn’t a whole lot better than the cutthroats I worked beside. We would wait, hiding always off from a battle, waiting for the victor to be decided so that we may come and pick through the corpses in the night. Many men weren’t always dead and while those who I travelled and hid with were happy to put knife to a half dead man's throat; I was not. I prided myself as not being a killer, only stripping goods from bodies that I knew were dead.

As we waited the boys were exchanging stories of horror that went from as commonplace as evading angry dogs and gun fire from nearby soldiers who caught them in the middle of their work, to true horror, of encountering ghosts of the newly dead.

“Have you heard of a revenant before?” asked one of them, a young man new to the business. He was a little too happy before the battle and always white faced and scared of every body when work was at hand. To answer his question, we hadn’t.

“They’re supposed to be dead men so angry about their condition that they come to life to find the people who have wronged them.”

The lot of us scoff at the young man. “There’s no such thing” we tell him. The deads dead, and that’s all there is to it.

However as night fell and our dirty business began, I admit I had kept the thought in the back of my head as we spread ourselves thin among the corpses. The bodies looked especially horrible this time around, and I was having a hard time looting, afraid they might leap up at me. I had to seriously shake the thought away and get to work, and before I knew it I had several greenback notes, a few time pieces and cufflinks even a few medals awarded from previous battles.  

Then I came across a familiar face. There, laying on the ground, looking like he had a little more life than the others around him, as James Sullivan, a man I grew up with. A good kid, when I left town it seemed he had his whole life ahead of him. He could of gone on o have done anything, instead he went off to die. I give a regretful sigh as I look him over. He must have recently passed, by the look of him.

“Sorry Sully.” I say as I use my knife to cut away several button from hi uniform I could sell for a snack, using the knife blade to flip open his jacket so I could inspect his inside pocket. A few greenbacks, some letters to his wife, and an old timepiece. His fathers originally if I recalled correctly, I’d keep the greenbacks, but I could return the goods, maybe for a little coin.

“Thanks Sully, rest now.” I say in farewell as I place his jacket back in a way to make him look a little more dignified.

That’s when Sully gasped, his eyelids flashed open to reveal angry, pained, bloodshot eyes, and he groaned loudly. Maybe the kid had gotten to me, maybe it was the timing, possibly both. All that was going through my head was that Sully had come to life once more to ill me for taking his things. I screamed, and then I became as bad as the rest of the looters around me, as I plunged my knife into his heart...a couple times… to make sure he wasn’t moving.

The blood pooled on his chest as it emptied from the several holes I had made. I looked at my blood soaked hands and knife and realized what I had done. I looked around the rest of the battlefield, several of the looters were watching from a distance, several giving me approving nods.

I was no better than them now. There wasn’t a difference between us anymore. The real kicker, in my time between that battlefield and returning that watch, was the realization that there never had been a real difference but the act. I was a little surprised as it didn’t take long for me to get over the guilt. I just hope that after tonight the dreams stop... It’s getting to be agonizingly boring.