by Chris Bostic
“Looks like we go right,” I said, seeing no point in taking off through the woods again. Despite the foreboding ghost town feel of the complex, it seemed preferable to use the complex’s roads to find our way to the highway rather than get lost in the woods. “Follow the road to home, or Oz, or whatever.”
“Alright, Dorothy.” Vic broke into song. “Follow the cracked asphalt road, follow the cracked asphalt road.”
“That’s my munchkin,” Vince said, drawing a sharp look from her. “What? If the boot fits….”
She harrumphed and took off toward the rack houses. I trailed behind her, gladly switching places so someone else was in the lead.
I glanced over my shoulder only once to make sure the others followed. Unfortunately, that included the two soldiers. I didn’t feel a thing like Dorothy, though it was possible we had some heartless tin men along for the hike, a brainless scarecrow or two, and some cowardly lions. I considered counting myself among the latter when the wind picked up again.
“It’s just a matter of time before the storm brews up a tornado,” Pete said.
His nervousness wore on me. I swallowed down a lump of stress and tried to put on my best face. Ultimately, it was better to stay quiet and focused.
I watched my feet pound the pavement and made a game of skipping over the big cracks. Some spots were completely shattered like a pane of glass; others more like gravel than a hard surface. In a few places, there were bigger patches of solid, bleached asphalt. The patches were like hopscotch, with foot tall weeds and grass brushing against my legs.
It was easy to resist the urge to skip, though I kept to my game especially well in this area. While maintaining a grip on Pete’s hand, I staggered my steps, leaned to the side, and successfully avoided breaking my momma’s back on any of the cracks. Then the driveway reverted to gravel again.
I looked up to see Vince veering off hard to the right at the next rack house. Rather than say anything, I caught Vic’s attention and pointed to him.
“Oh, great.” She stopped to shout over the wind. “Vince!”
He didn’t answer. I wondered if he was purposefully ignoring her, though he did seem a bit lost in his own world, much like I had been seconds earlier.
The shutters on the old rack house banged as the wind whipped across the parking lot again. Despite everything being saturated, it seemed to pick up dust off the ground, pelting us like a sandblaster.
I shielded my eyes and looked back to find the others twisted to the side to keep the wind out of their faces.
I exhaled sharply. We had gone barely fifty yards, and we needed to find shelter again. Vince was ahead of us on that account.
Vic reached him as he was trying to open the door to the rack house. This one wouldn’t budge either.
I brought Pete over to them and pressed up against the sheet metal to rest while the guys worked on the door.
“It’s not gonna happen,” Pete said.
“We’ll get it.” Vince banged his hand on the door, which set off an echo that rivaled the thunder from earlier.
Having not seen any lightning yet, and not really wanting to see another rack house, I said, “Let’s just keep going.”
“Not yet,” he replied, still looking over the door for a crack to leverage.
“Why not?” Vic grabbed his arm before he could beat on the door again. “Let’s just go.”
“I want to see what’s in there.”
“It’s a rack house, dude,” Pete insisted.
“It could have different stuff.”
Through a frosty window next to the door, I reported, “It’s just more barrels.”
“Oh, Grace,” Vince said somber as a judge. “You of all should know better than that.”
I felt such disappointment in his voice that I paused for a moment. His eyes pleaded with me. For a second, I thought he wanted me to break the window to get us inside. Then I realized it was a test.
“Every barrel is different,” I said. “Shorter or longer aging, different location, different mashbills means-”
“Different flavor!” he said with a grin.
Vic threw up her hands. “For the love of God, what’s wrong with you two?”
“Every barrel tastes different, babe,” he said to Vic, but I got the weird impression that it was directed at me—friendly nickname included. “We need to find out.”
“We need to go home, bro.” Pete wasn’t having our little detour, not that I could blame him.
I had no interest in sampling more barrels on that particular day. “Maybe some other time,” I told Vince. That provoked a pout, so I threw him a lifeline. “We’ll come back soon. Maybe do our own barrel pick?”
“Hmm….” Vince rubbed his chin while Vic cowered against the side of the building. “What would we get?”
I needed to get him moving. The soldiers, along with June and Mike, had kept walking. They were already past us, heads down out of the wind, hiking toward the main complex with purpose. I probably should have changed the subject.
“So what would we get?” Vince repeated after he’d come over by me to stare through the foggy window.
“I dunno. Knob Creek?” I pushed off the building to head back out into the rain. “Let’s get going.”
He ignored the last part to scoff at my drink choice. “Knob Creek is good if you like that big corporate bullshit. I mean really, Grace? You would say that.”
“And you’d want Blanton’s.” I grabbed him by the wrist and gave him a gentle tug. “C’mon, Eddie.”
“It doesn’t have to be Blanton’s. We probably couldn’t even get a pick of that anyway.”
“That’s true,” I admitted. “You can’t even find it.”
“That’s why I can be down with anything.”
“I’ve noticed,” I retorted. “You’ll drink abandoned liquor straight from the barrel. I’m pretty sure you’re not picky.”
Vince glanced down at my hand, which was still wrapped around his forearm.
“Shit,” I whispered under my breath. That was a mistake. I let go as casually as I could and wrapped my arms around my chest like I was freezing. That wasn’t far off seeing how the wind whipped a cool breeze right down the road and between the buildings like a wind tunnel.
“We’re going with or without you,” Vic chimed in from behind me.
“To pick a barrel? I’m definitely goin’.”
“No, Vincent.” Vic strained to keep her cool. “After this trip, I’m not at all fired up about coming back.”
“Ooh, fire,” Vince almost purred. “Hot coals, cool night, tall drink.”
“We get home and we can do that,” I told him. “Let’s hurry up.” I looked ahead and found no trace of the rest of our group. “We need to catch up to the others.”
“Let’s do it,” he said, and shoved off the building. He strode across the parking with purpose. Wobbly, but steady enough to make tracks.
“Well, I guess I should say thanks,” Vic told me as we trailed behind. “You got him moving.”
“You gotta speak his language,” I whispered. “Especially when he’s wasted.”
She sighed. “Maybe he shouldn’t get wasted all the time.”
“True, but that’s kinda like telling a teenager no. You get the opposite.” I wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Sorry. I’m not making excuses for him…or me.”
“You’re fine,” she said. “He’s the one with the problem.”
“Then I shouldn’t talk about drinking with him. Maybe that’s part of the problem.”
“If it’s not you, it’s somebody else.” Vic looked across me at Pete. “Isn’t that right?”
“I guess that’s kinda what we do, right?” Pete stared ahead at the wreckage of the old distillery. “We’re here, in bourbon country, on a drinking trip. Not just because he wanted too.”
I swear he side-eyed me when he said that.
“Maybe we need a new hobby,” Vic said.
I bristled a bit at th
at statement, and said, “Yes and no.”
That drew a rebuke from the other two. Vic wriggled out of my embrace, so I tried a little damage control.
“I just mean that it was still a pretty fun trip up until today.”
“I guess,” she said.
“I’d come back, that’s all I’m saying.” I looked to Pete for confirmation but saw nothing. “I wasn’t totally bullshitting Vince. I’m wanting to pick our own barrel for the wedding. You know? Signature drink.”
“What a souvenir,” Pete scoffed. “Like I’d want to remember this.”
“Once we’re back home, you’ll forget about all this in no time,” I suggested, but he wasn’t convinced. “Come on. It’ll be cool to pick our own barrel. Have a couple cocktails for the guests, definitely serve some neat.”
“I didn’t even plan on having alcohol at the wedding,” Pete said softly. “Especially after this.”
“Say what?” I stopped in the middle of the road. We were about halfway to the complex with the smokestack, and there was still no sight of the others. However, this little revelation seemed a bit more important. “Who ever heard of a wedding without booze?”
“My family,” Pete replied. “You don’t need to drink to party.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a party.”
“Okay, Vince.”
“Hey, that was…” I let the retort fade away since Vic stood there watching us intently. I needed a bit of clarity, though. “So what were you thinking then? You know for a small, intimate venue? I was thinking of renting that sweet clubhouse at Buffalo Trace. Or maybe on the grounds at Maker’s Mark.”
“It’s like I don’t even know you,” Pete replied.
“C’mon. You’re fucking with me.” I thought he was joking at first, but it turned out not to be the case.
“You know my parents,” he said. “Drinking is not something they’re cool with.”
“Not even at my wedding?” I quickly corrected that to say, “The biggest day of our lives.”
“Is it really that important, Grace?”
“Does the pope shit in the woods?” Vince interjected, having heard at least part of our conversation.
I quit talking at that point. Definitely a solid idea. With Pete sinking deeper into a full-on brood, and Vic staring at Vince swaying side to side like the pontoon boat, I realized I had lost the day.
Besides, when Pete had put it that way, I couldn’t help but think maybe not. We didn’t absolutely need liquor to have fun. However, it wasn’t what I had been expecting. Nor would most of our friends.
Then again, maybe he was right, since most of our friends were more his buddies than mine. Plus, I had no family.
Rather than dwell on that, I decided to save that talk for another day, and simply said, “We need to catch up.”
“Before he falls over,” Vic said.
As if on cue, Vince staggered. He almost went down to a knee, but saved it. Pete took one shoulder and Vic got him on the other side, leaving me as the outcast to trudge on behind them like a scolded child.
And think more about what I really wanted. My mind spun in circles while we closed on the building.
CHAPTER 13
“Where’d they go?” Pete asked once we reached the side of the structure.
Having already looked around, I stared up at four stories of moldy gray siding. The metal hummed in the breeze. Not a lullaby.
The mood remained dark, as did the building. Black, glassless window openings peppered the side of the building, but there were none on the first floor. Not even a door.
I looked toward the back side and found little more than a cracked concrete sidewalk ringing the building. Off in the distance, I thought I caught the sound of rushing water. With the woods closing in on the path, that left only a narrow opening between the sheet metal and the brush. I shook my head. No thanks.
“Guess we try the front door,” I quipped. It had to be closer to the road and my way out of there.
“So we get to go in this one,” Vince said, and I couldn’t tell if that was sarcasm or the liquor talking. Possibly both.
I ignored him to head back to my left. An old propane tank came into view behind an unkempt shrubbery as big as a school bus. We stuck to the sidewalk, walking under sagging powerlines that ran from the other rack house we hadn’t explored over to the corner of this building.
When I rounded the corner, the architecture changed significantly.
“Oh, boy, they really classed up the front of this place,” I said, stopping to admire the façade. “I did not expect that.”
“Whoa.” Pete whistled. “It’s almost like a castle.”
“I thought that was a different place?” Vic said, scratching her head.
“That’s Citadel Station, like a literal castle,” Vince explained. He stepped off the path to get a better look and almost twisted his ankle.
“Easy, pal.” I helped straighten him up with Pete’s help, then investigated the building further.
The front façade was all hand cut stone, basically boulders of faded, fungus-covered white limestone cut into the shape of oversized bricks. Along the top, the wall stepped up gradually higher to a peak where an oversized arched window was nestled underneath an ornate circular window of stained glass—emphasis on stain.
Chiseled words in faded limestone were barely visible above the circular window, right under the roof peak.
I squinted and couldn’t make it out. “Anybody read that?”
We got a little closer until eagle eye Pete could figure it out for us.
“Old Raven Distillery,” he announced.
“Well, at least we made it to the right place,” I said. “Not much of a place, but we know where we are.”
“I think it’s impressive,” Vince said.
The wind continued to howl. It rattled the shutters of the big window below the sign. Below that window, we found the front door right where I’d expected. It stood nearly two stories tall and was made of solid wood like an old church door.
Unlike the rack houses, this door was slightly ajar.
“Reckon they went in there?” I asked.
Pete shrugged. “Probably.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance. I glanced at a dark sky, then back around the vacant grounds. “Guess we’ll make ourselves at home. I don’t think anyone will care.”
“Just the spirits,” Vince said with a bizarre chuckle.
“Not the ghost stories again,” Vic said. “Let’s just go.”
I thought she might have meant for us to keep going past the building, and I considered that for a moment. But she moved to the doorway, dragging Vince along. Not that he fought it. I could tell he was completely onboard with the plan.
I grabbed the oversized door handle and pulled with all my might. That wasn’t necessary, as I nearly threw the door into Pete. He ducked out of the way as it slammed into the side of a building with a thud.
“Whoops, sorry.”
“I got it,” he said, kicking a big rock on the sidewalk into place like the perfect doorstop. Perhaps it was. “Might as well keep it open for a little light.”
“Good idea,” I said, and let him go through after Vince and Vic.
Thanks to Pete’s quick thinking, it didn’t take quite as long for our eyes to adjust. But I still couldn’t see very far inside. Despite the huge door opening and big window rattling overhead, the interior was all shadows and dark places.
“Spooky as hell,” I mumbled.
“Say what?” Pete asked.
“It’s like a haunted house or something,” I said. “Like a really dusty, creepy, haunted museum.”
The howling wind played along. Though quieter inside, the wind whistled around corners and vanished into the cavernous lobby. Windows creaked.
“Maybe we should go,” Vic said.
“Nah,” Vince insisted. “It’s dry in here. Let’s check it out.”
The building shuddered under a burst of wind. I swea
r I felt the floor move even though no one else had taken a step beyond the lobby area.
“It won’t be dry when it collapses,” Vic replied.
“We’ll be fine,” Vince insisted. “Look.” He pointed to a long, wide desk of solid wood off to the right.
He put on a fake posh accent. “It’s a positively lovely reception area for us distinguished guests.” He walked over to lean on the desk. “Why, yes. We’ll take the tour today. VIP, of course.”
As we stood there dumbfounded, he continued carrying on a conversation with an empty chair. “Complimentary, you say? Wonderful.”
“You better take a seat, man,” Pete said. “You’re losing it.”
“You can’t lose what you never had,” Vic added.
I chuckled at that. “So now what? I don’t need the tour.”
“Come on, Gracey.” Vince pushed off the desk. “I can give you fine fellows the grand tour.” He made a sweeping gesture that extended well past a narrow hallway coming off the back of the room. “Whoops.” Then he hiccupped and correctly pointed back to the hallway. “This way, ladies and gents. Yeah, that’s it.”
Vince walked off while the three of us stood there.
“Are we seriously doing this?” I asked.
“I don’t know, Gracey,” Vic said. “Are we?”
While I stood there trying to decide if I should stick up for Vince and further irritate her, Pete jumped in. “I don’t think we should let him run off alone.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Vic gave what seemed like an exaggerated smile. “Let’s go, Petey.”
When she linked her arm in his, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to turn around and leave or hurry after them to start a ruckus. Neither was preferable.
I let them take a few more steps on the creaky floor before deciding that standing in the lobby by myself sounded like an even worse option.
“Oh, you’re coming, Gracey,” Vic said. “I knew you wouldn’t miss this.”
I held my tongue to its limit. One more swipe and I was liable to lose my cool.
Pete turned around to look at me, and I shot him my iciest stare. At first I thought some of the effect was lost by the dim lighting, but after a couple more steps he extricated himself from Vic’s grasp and came back to me.