After Hours: Tales From Ur-Bar

by Joshua Palmatier; Patricia Bray

  Sometimes, as Tracy is walking in the dark, she wonders what that very bad thing had been. Murder, perhaps, driven by insatiable greed? Callous indifference? Something worse? She doesn’t know. And the longer she walks and opens doors that lead her to corridors filled with more doors, she doesn’t think it matters. She is here, in the dark, reduced to a bare handful of memories. She can open doors; she can walk; she can do nothing until she is bored or desperate enough to walk and open doors.

  That is the sum of her existence.

  Tracy stands before yet another door. She places her hand on the panel, leans in close, and inhales deeply.

  Once, she had performed this ritual with a sense of urgency; she used to hope it would indicate whether something, anything, waited for her on the other side. But time and again, there had been nothing—no sounds, no smells, no hint of anything other than patient darkness. Tracy no longer hopes for anything during the ritual; it has become as meaningless as opening doors in an endless corridor.

  But this time, as she presses her ear close to the door, she thinks she can hear a voice—his voice. Her true love. Muffled, yes, because of the door, but she knows that it’s him speaking on the other side. She listens, strains to hear his voice, his laughter. And a smile blooms on her face.

  This time, it’s the right door. This time, he’ll be there, waiting for her, holding his hand out to her, ready to wrap his arms around her and love her.

  Tracy takes a breath she doesn’t need and opens the door.

  And again, there’s nothing but darkness.

  She doesn’t feel the tears meander down her cheeks as the door closes silently behind her. With a bitter sigh, she puts one hand out in front of her and one hand out to her right side and she begins to walk.

  It’s a bad moment, one where hope is nothing but ashes adrift in a desert wind. She knows she has a name: Tracy Summers. That remains, even with the other memories reduced once more to daydreams of a life long gone, of a life that never was.

  Numb, Tracy follows her ritual before she opens a new door—and even though she presses her ear against the panel, she doesn’t hear any sound coming from within. Expecting nothing other than darkness, she opens the door.

  And everything changes.

  Before anything else, the pungent smells of alcohol and citrus and smoke, all mixed together into a heady aroma that makes her nose tingle and her mouth water from remembered appetites. Next, the tinny sounds of conversation and laughter and background noise, slightly off as if hearing them from the other end of a tunnel. And then, the colors—rich mahoganies, vibrant greens, startling whites, slowly resolving themselves into a picture of a bar with lamps hanging overhead, their shades like spring grass and the lights within dazzling white. Bottles and glasses glitter in tidy rows, lined up like star soldiers. There’s a man looming behind the counter—he’s almost godlike, with his black curly hair and braided beard, his imposing eyes flashing like heat lightning. That he’s wiping down the countertop does nothing to reduce the sheer presence of this man, this god.

  Tracy steps forward, one shaking hand over her mouth. Is this real? A dream? Will she see him here, whoever he is?

  The door slams shut, and Tracy jumps, startled. Darting a glance over her shoulder, she’s not surprised to see no hint of a door; it’s as if she has appeared in the room by magic.

  She turns slowly, gawking. She’s in the middle of a tavern, complete with stylized wooden booths and tables. The walls are brick face, with scattered plaques and neon signs and—she blinks—bottle-cap art depicting what looks like a cross between Egyptian and Greek images of warriors battling lion-like beasts. Tucked near the bar is another plaque, this one made of reddish stone and looking like a combination of hieroglyphs and dominoes.

  Around her, people are sitting at the tables, chatting and drinking, and yet their forms are blurred, almost faint, and their voices are oddly distorted. No one notices her, or reacts to her appearing out of nowhere. Frowning, Tracy stares at a couple seated near her, and even though she is close enough to touch them, they are smudged and indistinct, their banter nothing but a garble of sounds.

  As grateful as she is to be out of the dark, the pantomime of conversation makes her stomach pitch. It’s as if she’s surrounded by ghosts. Or memories.

  Has she been here before? She cannot remember. Biting her lip, she looks once more at the bottle-cap art decorating the walls, at the odd reddish plaque with its strange markings. Nothing feels familiar, but then, she can barely remember her name. For all she knows, she used to work here.

  Her gaze returns to the large man behind the bar—and she flinches as he stares at her. It’s not that he can see her when the other people at the tavern cannot; it’s the expression on his face, a mixture of condescension and boredom, that makes her feel dizzy. He’s tall—basketball-player tall—and his loose black shirt doesn’t mask the strength emanating from him. He could snap her in two as easily as look at her. He completely terrifies her.

  She flits her gaze around the room, looking for an exit. There, to the left: a door leading outside. Something in her chest flutters—not hope, exactly; more like anticipation, or possibly dread. She hurries over to the new door, the latest door, the one that will take her away from this strange pub with its distorted patrons and menacing bartender. Tracy reaches out to turn the doorknob—

  —and her hand is slapped away, as if by an electric shock.

  Eyes wide, she rubs the sting out of her palm as she stares at the door. Biting her lip once more, she reaches out again, and this time she can feel the build-up of energy just before her fingers would have grazed the metal handle. She jerks her hand back with a gasp.

  There has to be another way out. A fire exit, a back entrance. Something.

  But a circuit around the large room reveals only a bathroom door—which, Tracy learns, she can’t touch without getting shocked—and a curtained-off area behind the bar. The only way to the curtain is to go past the bartender, who’s looking at her as if she were a bug with too many legs ... which he’d be happy to remedy.

  She allows herself a moment of panic. She desperately wishes he were here—her nameless true love, the man who means everything to her. But wishes are wasteful; they do nothing other than make her hope for something out of her control.

  And she is tired of having no control.

  Tracy clenches her fists. She has not endured the darkness and its never-ending doors only to be trapped in a strange tavern with no way out. So what if the huge man in black intimidates her? What’s the worst he could do, when she’s already in Hell?

  Chin held high, she walks over to the bar and takes a seat.

  The bartender continues wiping down the countertop. Without looking up, he asks, “Help you?” His voice carries a faint accent, one Tracy cannot place.

  She opens her mouth, then closes it, uncertain of what to say. She wants his help, yes. But to do what? Escape? And go where?

  All right—she has a starting point. She clears her throat and says, “Could you, ah, tell me where we are?”

  “You’re in my bar.”

  Helpful, that. “Yes,” she agrees, “but . . . where is your bar?”

  “Here.”

  He’s probably a demon, sent to torment her, to give her a taste of freedom before casting her back into darkness. Tracy sighs, forlorn. “This is still Hell, isn’t it?”

  The bartender lifts his head and casts her a gimlet eye. “You call this Hell, little ghost? Why?”

  The question almost makes her laugh, it’s so absurd. “I’ve been trapped in Hell for as long as I can remember.”

  “Ah.” Something gleams in his green-gray eyes—understanding, perhaps. Or maybe just polite interest. He’s a bartender, after all. “And what do you know of Hell?”

  “Doors.” Suddenly cold, she wraps her arms around herself. “Whenever I open a door, I find other doors. But the last door brought me here.”

  He arches a dark brow. “Why do you think th
at is?”

  Pinned by his gaze, she replies, “I don’t know.” Her voice is small, childlike. “For the longest time, it was just me in the dark, with the doors. And now I’m here, in your bar.”

  “Indeed.”

  A pause, as Tracy waits for him to say more. But all he does is peer at her, as if he could read her soul. What could he possibly find there?

  Uncomfortable from his attention, she changes the subject. “The others here,” she says, turning to motion at the people seated in the booths around the room. “What’s wrong with them?”

  “With them?” The bartender lets out a laugh. It’s a rusty sound, as if it’s been a long time since he’s found anything particularly amusing. “Nothing, other than the usual. Daily stress. Daily dreams. Life brings its own set of expectations, and sometimes we bow under the pressure. So they come to drink in the company of others, and that eases their burdens for a time.”

  Tracy frowns as she stares at the blurred customers. “But why do they look so odd? And sound so . . . off?”

  Another chuckle, easier this time, as if he’s warming to the notion of mirth. “You don’t exist on the same level as they do, little ghost. You’ve moved past them.”

  “But I can see you. I can talk to you,” she says, turning back to face him. A notion strikes her, and the question rushes out of her mouth: “Are you trapped with me?”

  “Trapped?” He throws back his head and chortles—a full-belly laugh, the sound deep and resonant, like summer thunder. Soon his laughter slows to stray hiccoughs. He shakes his head and sheds the last bits of humor. When he finally speaks, his voice is solemn. “It’s my job to serve my patrons. All of them, from wherever they come. So here I am, serving you.”

  “I don’t understand,” she says, her brow furrowing. “Please . . . am I still in Hell?”

  Rather than answer her, he stares deeply into her eyes. Something passes over his face, a flash and then gone: a decision made. “You look so lost, little ghost. But you don’t have to be. Where did you come from?”

  Fumbling, she says, “I told you, the doors. . . .”

  “No. Before that. Before this. When you were the same as them.” His turn, now, to gesture to the others in the tavern. “Who were you?”

  She notices the past tense, but she ignores it. “Tracy. I’m Tracy Summers.”

  “Welcome, Tracy Summers. You may call me Gil.” He offers her a meat-platter hand, one that completely swallows her own. “Who were you, before you opened doors?”

  For a long moment, she says nothing as she tries once again to summon memories of her life. Nothing comes, other than once, she had been in love. “I don’t remember,” she admits, her voice faint.

  The bartender—Gil—nods. “Not completely unexpected. Well, I’m guessing you have no money on your person, given your condition. But that matters little to me. In my time, barter made the world go ’round.” He grins, his teeth sharply white in contrast to the black of his moustache and beard. “I’ll give you a drink to help clear the dust away, and in return, you’ll tell me whatever you remember about who you were. What’s your poison, girl?”

  Tracy suddenly remembers the taste of semi-dry Riesling on her tongue; the smell of amber beer, tickling her nose; the warmth of blackberry brandy hitting her belly. She and her love would go out to the local pub on Friday nights, sometimes with friends, sometimes just the two of them, and they’d drink and laugh and listen to the local band going through the motions of budding rock stars. She remembers all of that with the abruptness of a gunshot.

  “Water, please,” she says, her voice cracking. “No ice.”

  Gil gives her an appraising look before he fills a large glass for her. He slides the drink to her, careful not to brush his fingers against hers. “Here,” he says. “No ice, as requested.”

  She thanks him and lifts the glass. It feels wonderfully real in her hand, solid in a way that all of those doorknobs never had. She takes a moment to simply marvel over the weight of the glass, and then she brings it to her mouth and takes a sip.

  The cool—not cold, no, she’s always hated it when drinks were too cold—liquid slides down her throat, tasteless and yet filled with something stronger than mere taste. She swallows, and swallows more, and as she slakes a thirst she had not known was there, she remembers his lips on hers for the first time—hesitant, nervous, a gentle press that slowly blooms into something more passionate. She drinks, and when she finishes, she can still feel him on her lips.

  Paul. His name is Paul.

  More images flash, and she gets the barest glimpses of her life in auditions, of Paul’s hand in hers.

  Hints of the very bad thing, all reds and oranges, fury given form.

  “Now then, Tracy Summers,” says Gil. “Tell me the story of your life.”

  The words come slowly at first, hesitantly, as she tries to summon stubborn memories. She soon gives up trying and instead just talks, the sentences in free form, ideas scattered amidst bits of dialogue. Tracy talks, and Gil listens.

  She’s always wanted to be a dancer, ever since her parents took her to New York City to see the Rockettes. Bright costumes and painted faces made just as strong an impression as lines of dancers kicking high in their fishnets and heels. She took dance classes in school and at camp, but when it came time for college, her parents insisted she stay local and major in something that could actually land her a job. She became a philosophy major to spite them.

  College wasn’t so bad. That was where she met Paul, the boy who would later become her fiancé. He was huge and she was small; whenever he’d hug her, she’d feel him holding back a little, as if he thought she would break. They started as friends sharing notes in freshman poli sci, and by sophomore year they were dating. By junior year they were exclusive. By senior year, Tracy couldn’t imagine her life without him.

  But he never knew about the bad thing she had done once, long ago.

  “What bad thing?” Gil asks.

  The memory is there, just beneath the surface, but she can’t reach it. She has impressions of fire licking along the walls, charring the patterns of roses and poppies, but more than that, she just can’t say. She thinks there might have been a girl—no, a baby. A baby in a crib. A baby, a fire. Yes. Tracy did something, or didn’t do something, and it had to do with a baby and a fire.

  Oh God.

  Sweat beads on her brow as she tries to force herself to remember, to discover whether she did something horrific, something unforgivable. But just as she thinks she can touch it, the memory slips away. She hears a soft keening, or maybe a baby cooing, and she whimpers.

  “So this thing you did or didn’t do, this bad thing,” says Gil. “It’s been with you your entire life. With you enough that when you died, it shaped your circumstances.”

  Died?

  Gil must see the question in her eyes. “Don’t you remember dying, little ghost?”

  She shakes her head violently—denial, refusal. Desperation.

  “Of course you do,” he says.

  And she does.

  She’d lounged in bed, even after Paul had left for work. It had been a lazy morning for her, and she’d taken her time getting ready for her morning run. The sun was tearing through the clouds; she remembers the way streamers of light pierced through the otherwise overcast sky. She remembers straining to feel that sunlight dapple her cheeks as she jogged easily down a side street, warming up before she’d get to the park where she’d do her run. She caught a sunbeam and she closed her eyes, basking.

  She remembers something slamming into her and lifting her into the air, even as she heard a thump of contact. A moment of flying, soaring—then surprise gave way to pain so intense that words have yet to be invented to describe it. She crashed to the ground, and her body rolled like a piece of trash caught in the wind.

  She remembers the sound of the car’s tires squealing as the driver sped away.

  She remembers thinking of him, her love, her Paul, wishing she coul
d tell him goodbye.

  And then she remembers waking up in the dark, propping herself up in front of a door.

  She’s shaking now, and she rubs her arms as she sits at Gil’s bar, her empty glass in front of her. Bits of memory cling to her mind—distorted pictures of Paul, of dance shoes, of something that could be a crib or a coffin.

  “Hit and run,” Gil says with a tsk. “Some people will do anything to escape consequences.” He pauses, then adds gently: “And others will make sure they’re bound by the same.”

  Tracy shivers.

  “Little ghost,” says the bartender, his voice no longer gentle. “You told me you thought this was Hell. You’re wrong. You haven’t been in Hell. Not properly, at any rate. You were walking in the Endless Caverns.”

  The darkness that went on forever, the infinite number of doors—that wasn’t Hell? Tracy’s stomach lurches.

  “Despite what many think,” Gil says, once again wiping down the countertop, “Heaven and Hell aren’t in a competition. It’s all very orderly. Paperwork and whatnot. Every person is judged by his or her actions. The good are claimed by Heaven. The evil are claimed by Hell. And those in between, well. Those are the tricky ones.”

  Tracy swallows thickly.

  “Those unclaimed spirits go to the Endless Caverns until, after much examination and deliberation and other such things, a claim is filed by one side or the other.” Gil shrugs, his massive shoulders rolling beneath his black shirt. “Not as simple as stepping on a scale and being weighed against a feather, but there you go.”

  “How....” Her voice breaks on a sob. Through the sting of sudden tears, she asks, “How do you know this?”