by Caleb Casey
Emily, before getting in, points down at the overturned car. “That’s what you get.”
V. Sunglasses
Arica is on her bed, reading. Emily nudges the door open, poking her head inside.
“I can’t study anymore. Let’s get some food and a brew.”
“Okay,” Arica says, closing the book, “but we can’t go to The Hops House.”
“Why not?”
“Felicia might be there again.”
“Good. Maybe she’ll start a fight and we’ll get to see Kira snap her in half,” Emily says.
“That’s not funny,” Arica says, sliding off the bed. “She could actually do that.”
“I know,” Emily says. “Let’s go make it happen.”
The three girls are sitting at a booth in the corner next to a chirping pinball machine, Kira on one side, Emily and Arica on the other, inside of Monroeville Bar & Grille. Kira’s wearing a pair of black sunglasses, sitting motionless, Indian style.
“I think it’s a lot better,” Emily says. She takes a sip from her bottle of Corona.
“What is?” Arica asks.
“The sunglasses.”
Arica shakes her head, stirring her drink. “I don’t like this place. It’s too smoky.”
The air above the drinkers and the billiards players is, indeed, hazy with cigarette residue.
“And we should have left Kira at home.”
A group of college-age girls walks in, goes straight to the bar. While ordering, one nudges another and points toward the corner table. Emily and Arica, their backs toward the group, hear Felicia before they see her.
“The Hops House wouldn’t let us in, thanks to you bitches!”
Emily rolls her eyes; Arica takes a huge gulp from her glass; Kira stays still.
Feilicia is already at their table, bottle of beer in hand, leaning in toward Kira.
“A little dark in here for sungl…”
Felicia doesn’t finish. Kira reaches out, clutches the other girl by the throat, and removes the sunglasses with her other hand. She blinks, bringing life back into dead-looking eyes, and stares directly into the face of a wide-eyed Felicia Banks. Kira’s smile looks feral and hungry.
Arica: “Oh no…”
Emily tilts her head toward Felicia’s friends. “I’d stand back if I were you.”
Kira mumbles a few words that sound like gibberish and releases her hold on the girl’s neck. Felicia staggers backward and her friends, terrified looks on their faces, all of them, keep her from falling down completely. Felicia composes herself, guzzles the rest of her beer, hands the empty bottle to one of her bewildered friends, and strips off her winter coat. She walks toward one of the men sitting at the bar, a grizzled, bearded boozer with a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and an empty shot glass upside down on the countertop in front of him. Felicia cozies up to him and whispers something in his ear, flipping his stained baseball cap around backwards. The man chugs the rest of his beer and drops the cigarette into the empty bottle, the lit orange end hissing against the moisture. Felicia starts kissing him, her hands caressing his chest and abdomen, pushing and pulling at his shirt and jacket. Her friends offer horrified gasps in response.
It’s not until Felicia’s hand reaches downward past the man’s navel and into his pants that one of her friends pulls her away. Felicia, staring at the bearded man, looks horrified. The man smiles, a crooked grin filled with black teeth.
“Fuck! This homeless guy just tried to rape me!”
Felicia vomits, splattering her partially digested dinner and twelve ounces of beer onto the worn wooden floor of the Monroeville Bar & Grille.
The bearded man’s mocking laughter is a smoker’s hack cackle.
To the bartender, a big bald man who’s also laughing: “Another beer for me and my new girlfriend, Tom!”
Bartender Tom, still laughing, to one of the cooks in the kitchen: “George, go find a mop and clean this crap up.”
The girls in Felicia’s posse turn toward Kira, whose only response is to slowly slip the sunglasses back in place. Some of the girls offer scared, mumbling gibberish. One asks, “What did you do to her?”
Kira is silent.
Emily answers for her, sounding more weary than angry. “Psych 101. She hypnotized her. Go back to the dorms, stupid cunts.”
Emily turns away from Felicia and her group, takes a drink, and goes back to looking bored. Arica is staring at Kira with a mix of horror, curiosity, and disbelief.
A sweaty man in a stained white apron emerges from a back room with a battered bucket and a mop, frowning when he sees the mess on the floor.
The girls, pulling Felicia along with them, flee the bar. The bearded man, lighting up another cigarette, is still laughing.
“I hope you got her number, Jed,” Bartender Tom says.
“I’ve lost my appetite,” Arica says.
“I was kind of hoping she’d rip that cunt’s head right off her worthless neck,” Emily says.
“This has gone far enough. Too many people saw that.”
“What would you have us do, Kobi?”
“I have two exams tomorrow,” Arica says. “How am I going to concentrate when all I can think of is my possessed friend who can throw cars and hypnotize people?”
Emily: “Just take her with you and have her hypnotize your professors. Or throw them.”
“This is serious!” She tries to whisper it and fails.
“Again, what would you have us do? A doctor isn’t going to be able to help her.”
“How do you know? We haven’t even tried.”
“Okay, let’s go to the ER then. ‘Hey, we think our friend’s possessed, maybe you could confirm that for us with an x-ray and prescribe some exorcism pills to get rid of it? Thanks.’” Emily pauses and takes a sip of her drink. “I wonder if health insurance would cover that.”
Kira shivers, a short, violent spasm. Blood starts to drip from her nose, leaving crimson streaks on the front of her pink jacket. Her head tilts forward and the sunglasses fall off, clattering onto the table. She mumbles something in a foreign language.
Arica: “Oh no…”
Kira’s forehead plummets into the table with an audible thump. Emily and Arica stare down at the chaotic mass of blonde hair and blood in front of them. Arica opens her mouth to speak but no words come out. Kira’s head snaps up, her face smeared with scarlet, her eyes blinking rapidly, her hands flailing.
“What the fuck is this?” Kira asks. She feels the liquid from her nosebleed on her upper lip and wipes at it with one hand. “Who punched me in the face?”
Arica: “Kira?”
“Where are we?” Kira asks.
Arica shivers, suddenly cold. Emily sees something on the wooden wall above Kira, a familiar black scuff that looks like a face. She nudges Arica with her elbow and points it out with a nod and a silent glance in the precise direction of the mark. Arica follows her friend’s eyes and sees it. She pushes against Emily. “Let’s go!”
Emily stands and Arica slides out of the booth, moving past her. Emily grabs Kira by the jacket sleeve and pulls her up.
“Hey! I’m bleeding here!”
Emily grabs a napkin from an unoccupied table nearby and hands it to Kira.
“We have to go. Right now,” Emily says.
Kira’s trying to wipe the blood from her nose and mouth while Emily and Arica lead her through the bar, navigating around the tables and the man with the mop and Felicia’s vomit. Arica rushes forward and opens the door.
“What’s going on?” Kira asks.
“Nothing,” Emily says. “I’ll explain on the way home.”
Emily gets her out the door and into the parking lot. It’s snowing. She clicks the automatic car locks with a device on her keychain.
“Quit pushing!”
“Just get in the car,” Emily says.
“Why am I bleeding?”
“I punched you in the face because you fucked my boyfriend back when we were freshmen,
” Emily says. “Now get in before I do it again.”
Emily shoves her into the vehicle and shuts the door, muffling Kira’s protests. Emily turns to Arica.
“See? I told you the possessed version of the girl is better,” Emily says.
Arica tries to muffle a chuckle; instead, she bursts into laughter. They get into the Jeep.
Emily drives them home.
More from C. Casey:
The Insomniacs
A girl, found bleeding and freezing in a snow bank. A guy who can’t sleep. No one else around… except for the things wearing masks.
The Winged Things
A hellfire sky, no power, winged things prowling. A strange apocalypse? Something worse? Hole up, or make a run for the nearest church?
Visit C. Casey’s Facebook author page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/C-Casey/260391567356340
Table of Contents
I. A New House
II. Bar Fun
III. Possessed
IV. Syrup
V. Sunglasses