The Interest On Time

Thump.

Patrick froze. The sound came from the trunk. It was a dull, impossible shift of weight that he had triple‑bagged and tied off himself. He turned down the music, listening for another sign that the day wasn’t going to go the way he planned.

Satisfied, he pressed on.

Soon, the paved road gave way to dirt as he took a sharp right down a secondary trail, one wide enough for his precious Corvette. It was covered in solid foliage that choked every bend and every turn. Each slow twist that caressed down the hillside grew thicker and thicker.

The river’s edge appeared through the trees after a couple of miles, he could feel the cool mist hit his face as he drove closer.

The water moved swiftly along the bank, surging down into a deep gorge that promised to be the perfect burial ground for his work. No. Sacrifice.

Search parties wouldn’t dare traverse this land. What was lost here stayed lost, and no one would suspect a man like Patrick anyway. If things went according to plan, no one would even know he was gone for the day; he was supposed to be tucked away in his office, working on matters the board considered far more important than his private acts.

He looked around his surroundings. The fog was rising from the gorge, drifting unnaturally. It coiled high in the air before dissipating in the summer heat. Patrick blinked hard, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. He hadn’t slept well in weeks, but this felt more than exhaustion.

He tried to take a deep breath, but the air was thick that day, almost tacky, like he was wading through a deep mire. Even the sunlight seemed to pause, catching on the edges of the trees before releasing in a shimmer against his face.

For a moment, Patrick wondered if he’d taken a wrong turn, not on the road, but in reality itself. But he shook the thought away. Stress did strange things to the mind. And with a billion-dollar company to keep above water, he was under more pressure than most men could survive.

You’re better than this. You’re stronger than this. Patrick liked to reassure himself.

He pulled slightly off the dirt road and onto the grassy bank, stopping ten feet from the water. The road was clearly deserted, if it was used at all, he’d be surprised. There were no tire tracks or signs of human life. Even the birds were disturbingly quiet, like they were watching him with anticipation or judgement.

No matter to Patrick, though. He could handle a little judgment.

Patrick took a moment, letting the car idle so he could enjoy the view, and more importantly, the sound of his success. He listened to the low, hungry growl of the engine. It was confident, like him.

Taking his father’s place in the company, he didn't view it as a gift, he viewed it as a throne. While the world saw a brilliant scientist capable of mapping genomes in his sleep, Patrick knew his true talent lay elsewhere.

He was a ruthless businessman first, a man who understood that progress wasn't made in a sterile lab, but instead in the boardroom where he shined on high-stakes and late nights. To him, the science was the fuel; brutality was the engine that actually drove the world forward.

Turning off the engine and stepping out of the Corvette in Italian leather loafers, he moved with a delicate gait, careful not to let the dust and silt ruin the finish of his perfectly polished shoes.

He had to sacrifice some things to get better things, he reminded himself.

Patrick stood by the trunk and placed a hand gently on top.

He said a small prayer, though he was a man who didn’t truly believe in anything greater than himself, crossed his chest and said Amen.

He popped the trunk and peered inside. The space was cramped, hardly large enough to accommodate a single small body. He stared at the bag, his gaze unwavering as he processed the gravity of what lay within.

He remembered the waitress for a brief moment. Her polka-dot skirt and whimsical hand gestures. He could still imagine her faint perfume on his clothes. Quickly, he brushed the memory off with a scoff and a light head shake.

Closing his eyes against the brilliant afternoon sun, he smiled. This was supposed to be his reset, his chance to learn from the wreckage of his past mistakes and build something fresh. Maybe he was ready for something less risky.

But that was absurd. This was who Patrick was meant to be.

He pulled out a black, durable trash bag. It felt nearly weightless in his grip as he lowered it to the dirt, leaning it against the rear bumper before quietly clicking the trunk shut.

Sometimes, late at night, he wondered who he might have been if he hadn’t inherited the Biotech company, the expectations and the legacy of a man who’d taught him that survival meant taking what you needed before someone else took it from you. But those thoughts were luxuries he couldn’t afford at the moment. Regret was a weakness. Reflection was a liability. And Patrick had spent his entire adult life outrunning that version of himself who might have cared about either.

Reaching down to finish this once and for all, the contents shifted and with a thump, toppled sideways against the tire. He noticed a thick, sugary smell waft upward.

So it had moved, he thought.

That assured, careless approach to the day vanished in a heartbeat, replaced by a survival instinct he didn’t know he had. If the contents of that bag got out and if the seal broke in the open air, he was done for. The legacy, the company, the arrogance, it would all dissolve and he would dissolve with it. He needed to finish this today before the world caught a glimpse of what he was trying to bury.

Shit! Patrick scrambled.

He bent down to double-check the knot. His hands were shaking so badly, he almost tore it open in a self-induced panic. Or maybe it was a self-destructive panic, the same damaging act that killed his father. He had been smart enough to use three heavy-duty bags for safety, and he was satisfied with the security of the plastic seal after careful inspection.

Patrick knew the severity of what he had done. These were not the kind of mistakes a sorry or a half-hearted bedtime prayer could fix; they were calculated and sinister enough that every move afterward had to be carried out with perfect accuracy. If not, his beautiful life would be cut short.

He inhaled then flung the load over his shoulder as gently as possible, wincing as the squish of the contents hit his back. Patrick didn't have a queasy stomach, but the sound was a faint chirp followed by a muffled, pathetic moan, which caused the blueberry bagel he had for breakfast to churn.

Patrick cringed again.

One step after another, he began the descent down the short but steep bank. He found himself wondering if he had chosen the wrong footwear for the task. They said the shoes made the man, and Patrick was the man. He wouldn’t be caught dead in tennis shoes or rugged boots, even here.

But the mud was sticky, refusing to let him go. As the sludge threatened to ruin the expensive leather, he realized he was losing his grip.

The water was a flow of white and grey that made his head swim. He gripped the dense plastic bag tighter, forcing himself to breathe, desperate to get a hold of his splintering composure.

As he closed his eyes to regain what little balance he had left, the weight of the bag appeared to grow, acting like an anchor pulling him downward toward the deep, dark water.

Recovering his footing, the unthinkable happened: the bag spilled open, the knots loosening as if something inside had undone them, unraveling under the strength of a force he couldn't see. He dropped it to the ground.

It should have been impossible. This act was meant to fix a mistake, not create a new one.

Another shift and the bag rolled onto its side.

It didn’t just twitch. It convulsed. A ripple of shifting mass that traveled from the bottom of the bag to the top like a shockwave, as though something inside was stretching after a long slumber. The plastic tightened, then loosened, then tightened again.

Patrick stumbled backward, his heel skidding in the mud. For a moment, he thought he saw a handprint press against the inside of the bag. Five dreadfully long, spindly fingers dragging downward in a slow scrape.

The sound of the river dipped, its roar shifting into a low rumble.

Patrick had always believed he was in control. Of his company, of his legacy, of time itself. But as the bag shuddered again, he experienced something he hadn’t felt since childhood.

Fear.

* * *

He quickly recovered the bag and approached the river, his loafers began sinking into the shore as if to swallow him whole right then and there, everything working in tandem against him.

The plastic hissed as something inside fought for air, wishing to see the panic of the man on the outside. He stood paralyzed, torn between two distinct urges: did he dare try to re-tie the knot, or should he abandon everything and run for his life?

In moments of importance, he had always been a quick thinker, a man of action. But now, his mind was a scrambled mess of how’s and what-ifs, and the silent woods offered no answers.

Then Patrick broke.

He knew he had to look in the bag to make sure his sacrifice wasn’t going to turn on him. Make sure he could incapacitate this thing once and for all and send it back to hell. Maybe step on it, drown it, run it over with his damn Corvette. He didn’t know. He only knew the situation had grown dire.

Looking down into the dense black folds of the plastic, he realized he had not made one simple mistake. He had been repeating the same pattern for years, tracing the footsteps of a dead man and extending a cycle he should have broken long ago, or perhaps never started.

A swell of bitter self-loathing sank him as the gravity of his choices hit home. How stupid could he be to believe he was any different from the man who had come before him? A man who also thought he was invincible.

He remembered the first time he’d done it and how easy it had been and how natural it had felt. Something like that shouldn’t have been so shockingly innate.

A single vial of extracted time, a life siphoned into his own veins, and suddenly the world had sharpened and he felt alive. His mind had become untouchable. His body was invincible. He’d told himself it was temporary, a one-time correction and a way to buy himself the clarity he needed to save the company. But clarity was addictive. Power even more so.

The moan came again as light shone into the bag. The thing inside was swollen and monstrous. Patrick was not only filled with greed and vanity, but he was also filled with stolen time.

The 22-year-old waitress at the Midtown diner, so pretty and vibrant. The 18-year-old football star of the high school team, so athletic and strong. The missing hikers from the Beargrass Valley, seasoned professionals, confident and calm. The victim list went on and on, treating people like spare parts to keep him running smoothly like a well-oiled machine.

But time demanded something in return, and Patrick’s subconscious knew it was coming. The waste had finally come alive, the biological clock had ticked enough to gain consciousness, and it wanted revenge.

To complete his transaction of staying young, the old, discarded parts had to be returned to the earth. If he didn’t bury his mistakes in a place where no one would find them, the debt would remain alive.

For Patrick, the gorge wasn’t a hiding spot he returned to time and time again, it was a void where the stolen years couldn’t find their way back to him and reclaim what was rightfully theirs. But he never got so careless. He never let the waste get so full and so predatory.

As Patrick reached into the plastic, his fingers trembling, he didn't feel a rush of wind, he didn’t feel the warm sun on his face. He felt a tether. A rope so strong, his shoulder pulled from its socket with a quick thwack. The pop and heat rushed through his joints.

And just like that, he was no longer a man in his 30s, but a man quickly approaching his senior years. He felt time take its toll in an instant.

A second hand, slick, translucent, and terribly old, now regaining its vitality like some magic trick, snaked out of the bag and latched onto his Italian loafer. The leather he had been so protective of didn't just scuff, it began to dissolve under the creature’s touch. The stolen time wasn't escaping, it was coming home, and it started with Patrick’s pride.

The monster was a hideous specimen of discarded vitality, the biological residue of his theft, as it rose from the bag, unfurling like a frond. The skin was layered with calcified veins and long yellow nails protruding from indistinct body parts.

Then Patrick noticed the letterman jacket still clung to its back, number 95, a hiking pole was fused to its right thigh.

He tried to pull away, but the mud was no longer just sticky, it had now grown hungry, pulling his expensive shoes into the earth.

He didn't fall because of the wind that had picked up, almost cheering on the sentient being. He fell because his own knees turned to brittle, 90-year-old bone. His class ring slid from his bony finger and vanished beneath the water.

The debt was being reclaimed faster than he could comprehend. Though lives could never be returned, their balance could be paid off.

He tumbled backward into the sand, lying silently on his back as time flashed before him. But this wasn’t his final resting place. His last sight would be the creature emerging from the black bag as he slid into the tidal flow, the bag now empty and expanding into freedom as it reclaimed every second of youth he had ever taken.

He tried to scream, but the river swallowed the sound as the water filled his throat and drowned his lungs. And as the shadows closed in around the corners of his eyes, Patrick understood the truth he had spent years refusing to face.

Time was never his to steal.

Bio: Natalee Licciardoni is a horror and speculative fiction writer from Northwest Montana. Her work explores psychological collapse and the darker edges of human consequence. Her fiction is forthcoming in Creepy Podcast and Kismet Literary Magazine. She holds a master’s degree in biology and is currently assembling a short story collection.

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