Penny for your thoughts.

 

Penny for your thoughts

“Got another smoke?”

Mickey pulled a pack from his jeans pocket, and after pulling one out for himself, handed it to Derek.

“Too bad your old man is home, I could go for something to drink,” Mickey said.

“Something like his new girlfriend?” Derek asked, around the cigarette in his lips as he flicked at his lighter.

When Mickey didn’t say anything, he added “You know, Tall, cold, and alcoholic.”

Mickey laughed.

They stopped at the light on the corner.

“Which way?”

Derek looked around. “What intersection is this?”

“13^TH and….”

Mickey looked up for a sign, but there was nothing but the stoplight. He looked up and down the intersecting road. It wasn’t as well lit, with only every third streetlamp seeming to be working.

 “I..uh..Dunno.”

“Weird,” Derek muttered. “I don’t remember seeing this one before…”

Mickey hissed at him. “Let’s go left. Someone is walking towards us.”

Derek took a drag and hesitantly nodded. They liked walking around at night, but some folks gave them the heebie-jeebies, and at night it was worse because you just never knew.

They stepped off the corner and started to walk briskly down the new road. About a block down, Mickey looked over his shoulder. The silhouette of a man had turned from 13^th and was now following them. They kept walking at a pace that reminded him of those mall walkers. He was getting ready to suggest that they just book it, when passing under one of the working lights, Derek stopped in his tracks and looked up.  

“Is that fire?”

Mickey squinted up at the light. Sure enough, there was the tell-tale flicker. He looked around. “Holy shit! Look at the road!”

For a moment, they both stared at bricks that made up the road.

“This is weird, man,” Derek said. “Does the air smell…clean?”

“Is it…Is it darker out?”

They looked up at the sky to see the open sky filled with stars usually hidden by the glow of the city. They backed up to get back into the light of the flickering light of the lamp post. They turned to begin to head back towards the intersection, being of the same mind to get out of where every this was, and came face to face with the man who had moments ago made them worried. That worry gone, they tried to go around him.

“Gimme your wallets, jewelry, and phones.” The man demanded, stepping right back in front of them. “Now.”

“Shit,” Derek muttered.

“We’re kids, man. We ain’t got anything in our wallets, and my parents don’t let me have a cell phone!”

“Bull shit! You have to have something!” The man demanded stepping towards Mickey.

“Penny for your thoughts!”

Mickey and Derek looked at each other before looking at the man in front of them. His own face was a mask of confusion as he stared back at them.

“What?”

“Penny for your thoughts?” The voice repeated. It sounded like a little old grandma.

The man with the knife turned his head to look behind him and jumped back in surprise. He stood beside Mickey and Derek as the stooped figure of a little old lady stepped from the shadows. She had a walking stick, horned rimmed glasses, and a puffed up, fluffy, and flowery sun dress on, as if she were the stereotype that all little old ladies were crafted from.

“Don’t be startled dearies!” She said with a smile, revealing her yellow and crooked teeth. “I am just out for a stroll and saw you stopping in front of my home here and thought I would say hello!”

The man and the two boys looked around the old woman to the shadows that she stepped from. None of them could see any house behind her. Mickey sure the hell wasn’t going to say anything about it, so he just stood there, waiting.

“Beat it…” the man with the knife started, before seeing the shimmer of her necklace in the flickering light of the lamp post.

“Give me the Jewel, lady!” He stepped aggressively forward and pulled it right off her neck.

“Mercy me!” She said in a shocked voice that didn’t quite reach her face.

She still stood there as relaxed as when she first walked up.

Mickey thought about running when the old woman reached into a pocket of her dress and pulled out a penny.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

The man laughed, but then squinted at the coin, the woman held.

“No way...” he said. He stepped forward and snatched it from her. “This is a 1943-D Lincoln Bronze Wheat Penny! You crazy old broad! Do you know how valuable this is?!”

He laughed and gave a whoop.

“Yeah, I’ll take your penny for my thoughts. My thought is that you just made me a very rich…”

His words were cut short as she flung her arm out way faster than Mickey and Derek would have assumed to be humanly possible and sunk her hand right into his face. She then yanked it back with a sickening squelch and the man fell at their feet.

Mickey looked down at the man, and back up at the old woman who was just staring at them, holding the dripping brains of the dead man in her hand. Maintaining eye contact, the woman sniffed the brains and took a large bite from it.

They watched her, seemingly paralyzed, before Mickey could will his feet to move. He grabbed Derek and pulled his arm as he took off from where they had turned onto the road. He looked over his shoulder as they ran. The old woman just stared at them as they ran away, finishing her oozing meal, before wiping her hand, and bending down to pick up the penny from the man’s hand.

As they hit the intersection, just before Mickey could decide to go left or right, a man on a bicycle nearly hit them.

“Watch where you’re going damn it!” He yelled.

Mickey stopped and spun around. The intersection was no longer an intersection, but a brick wall that faced a T intersection. He reached out and shakily touched the bricks. Solid, and cold.

“What the..” Derek asked, wheezing and coughing.

As the man on the bike got further away, and his cursing faded out, Mickey could just barely hear the little old woman’s voice.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

They took off running again, their foot falls echoing off of the cold brick walls.

© Jeremy L. Heath, 2025. All rights reserved