Beers and Fears

by Tim Meyer

  Jackson tipped the container to pour more beer. It was empty. He’d finished it and felt lightheaded and tipsy. And damn good. He went to the radio and turned it on but all he got was static. Not a single station would come in. He’d forgotten to take it back to the store and either get it replaced or his money back.

  He turned it off and took two steps before it suddenly began playing music.

  Jackson smiled. It was the song “Heaven” by the 80’s band Warrant, one of his favorites. Despite real music of the 80’s now drowned out in the dark and self-absorbed music of the 90’s, it was good to hear a good song somehow get past the awful stuff radio played these days.

  He began to sing along, loudly, miming the moves he remembered from the video. This was real music to Jackson. Not the crap Trevor listened to, with the singer ignoring the crowd and the guitarist with his back to…

  The redhead was back, standing in the stockroom. She still wore the tight jeans and the Lost Demon Brewery shirt. The overhead light made her hair glow, but Jackson couldn’t see through her. She was real. Solid.

  Most of the junk had been removed from the stockroom and she stood in the very center, right near the spot where she’d stood the last time he’d seen her.

  “Hi,” Jackson said.

  She smiled.

  Jackson didn’t know what to say or do. He could ask her what the fuck she was doing in his building and where she’d gone the last time… Jackson looked down at her feet. There was no bloody tarp on the floor.

  He also noticed she had left no footprints in the dust and dirt not yet swept up by Trevor’s crew. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Tina,” she said quietly, which sounded way too loud to Jackson, who wasn’t expecting her to speak. He thought she was a ghost, or he was hallucinating. His drunken stress-filled mind fucking with him.

  She took a step forward and her eyes were locked on his. She put a hand in her back pocket and the other touched her neck.

  “What do you want?” Jackson asked. “Why are you here? Are you real? Where did you go the other night?”

  Tina chuckled and the sound was real and sent shivers through Jackson. She was beautiful. He’d never realized until this moment how attractive an older woman could be. The things she could teach him in bed.

  “None of that matters now, Jackson,” Tina said, unbuttoning her jeans but keeping them on. She knelt on the floor and pulled off her t-shirt. She wasn’t wearing a bra and her full tits bounced once before settling. She dropped onto all fours. “I want you to get behind me and do me doggystyle. Slide my jeans and panties off slowly. Savor the moment.”

  Jackson was hard. His head was swimming with more than just alcohol. He felt… fear.

  The tarp was underneath Tina. Not bloody, but he knew it would be soon enough.

  Jackson turned to run out of the stockroom, out of the building, never to return to this haunted place, but instead he ran straight into the wall and knocked himself out.

  ***

  A screwdriver head wouldn’t fit in the crack between the door and the wall. Trevor could see the thin line where they met but, no matter how small a tool he used, he couldn’t wedge it in.

  “How’s it going?” Jackson asked, coming down the stairs. “You’re in early.”

  “I needed to figure out this door. Didn’t sleep last night.” Trevor glanced at Jackson. “Looks like you didn’t, either. You slept here?”

  Jackson nodded and pointed up. “On the floor. I don’t suggest it.”

  “Next time I’m out I’ll find a cheap couch or a futon. We can use it to crash if we work late,” Trevor said.

  “That’s what I’m thinking.” Jackson leaned against the bar. “I need coffee.”

  “So do I.” Trevor also needed a break from fighting this door problem. He’d done a delivery in Spanish Harlem last night but knew he was too wired to sleep, and the door was bothering him. He’d come straight to work and had finished his coffee hours ago. He took out his wallet. “Grab a couple dozen donuts, too. The crew is coming back at nine to get the last of the stockroom cleaned out and start on the basement.”

  “I got it,” Jackson said.

  Trevor smiled.

  “Shut up. I’m trying not to be a cheap fuck.” Jackson grinned. “I appreciate you kicking in, too. I won’t forget any of this. I swear.”

  Trevor squinted. “Holy shit, bro, is that a bruise on your face?”

  Jackson turned away. “I walked into the wall with the lights out last night. Another thing I don’t suggest.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  Jackson shook his head. “I wish.” He was smiling and his face was red from blushing. The bruise started at his forehead and worked down his right side to his jawline. “Can you bring back aspirin with the coffee, too?”

  Trevor shook his head. “I buy means you fly, bro.”

  “You’re right.” Jackson looked wiped out. “Be back soon.”

  Trevor knew from the look on Jackson’s face, not to mention the bruise, something else had happened. His brother would tell him when he was ready. Maybe it was Alli and she really had punched him in the face. Trevor smiled. How funny would that be? Alli was awesome but really weird. Trevor knew she didn’t like him. At all. She’d commented about his bad aura and he’d made fun of her, which didn’t endear him to her even further.

  Some chicks are too smart for their own good, Trevor thought.

  His initial idea, when Jackson had left, was to go out back and smoke a cigarette, but he knew Jackson would be pissed he’d started up again. These late-night deliveries meant he needed lots of coffee to stay awake and smoking to give him something to do while waiting for the job to be completed.

  Besides, he needed to open this fucking door. Its position made no sense. He’d even had the sheetrock on the other side, in the stockroom, damaged on purpose. He’d blame one of the workers if Jackson asked and he’d hire a guy today to come in and fix it.

  There was nothing odd on the other side and definitely no doorway. It looked like there’d never been one, either.

  Trevor decided to bust down the doorway on this side and see what happened. He’d fix it. The guy he hired to do the sheetrock on the other side could bring two sheets. It couldn’t be that hard to figure out.

  He selected the biggest sledgehammer from the massive amount of tools Jackson had in the office behind the bar, where they were currently storing anything of value or anything they’d need.

  “See ya later, asshole door,” Trevor said with a grin and lifted the hammer over his shoulder. As a kid, he’d read a comic book, Thor, and he’d pretend he was the superhero, using anything he could find to use as his magical hammer.

  Channeling his childhood comic book hero, Trevor took a swing and connected… with nothing. The hammer and his arm went through the wall and doorway without touching it.

  He felt heat on his hands and arm and pulled back. His skin was hot to the touch, like he’d been in the sun all day or under a heat lamp.

  Trevor put his hand back out and touched the cool surface of the door. “What the fuck?”

  Had he imagined it? A hallucination? Did he do a shroom last night and forgotten about it?

  Trevor slapped the wall. It was solid and real.

  He looked at his hand and arm, which had a slight suntan to it.

  “Oh, shit,” he said. The sledgehammer was gone. He spun around but it was missing. Had he dropped it? Trevor went around the corner into the stockroom and laughed.

  The sledgehammer was on the floor.

  He grabbed it and jumped back. The metal was so hot it left a mark on his palm.

  “This is some crazy shit.” Trevor was excited now. It made no sense. He went to the bathroom and filled a bucket with water, going back to the stockroom and dumping some of it on the sledgehammer, which steamed the air with the heat coming off it.

  Satisfied he’d cooled it down enough, Trevor lifted the hammer and went back into the other room. He hefted the h
ammer, still a bit warm, and struck it again.

  His momentum carried not only his arm with the hammer into the door but his head and shoulders.

  Trevor held his breath when the noxious stench assailed him.

  It was dark but there was a soft red-orange glow in the distance. He felt a massive amount of space, like he was in the bottom of a canyon.

  The heat wasn’t unbearable, but it felt like he was under the direct sun in Arizona in the middle of July, yet he couldn’t see an actual sun in the darkness.

  “Hello?” Trevor said, and his words were flat. No echo like you’d expect in a canyon or a big space. “What the fuck is this place?”

  A darker red object appeared on the horizon, moving at a fast clip.

  Trevor watched as it grew in size and felt an anger emanating from it.

  He decided he’d had enough and tried to pull back into the building, but he felt a grip on his shoulders. Whatever the fuck it was approaching was somehow holding him in place.

  It was… a demon? No fucking way, thought Trevor. This is an illusion. I’m high again and on a bad trip.

  It was red with darker crimson splotches, nearly eight feet tall, with three massive horns on its head and large, floppy ears. Three rows of teeth. Three eyes. Naked with a huge member between its legs. It stopped ten feet from Trevor and grinned through thin lips.

  Trevor freaked out and tossed the hammer at it.

  He closed his eyes, telling himself this wasn’t real, and fought mentally and physically to escape, but he couldn’t budge.

  You are mine.

  “Fuck you,” Trevor yelled. “I want out of here.”

  The heat went away, cool air rushing onto his warm body. Trevor opened his eyes.

  He was back in the stockroom.

  “I need to buy Jackson a new sledgehammer,” he thought before running out the door and puking on the sidewalk.

  ***

  Jackson kept glancing into the stockroom as he worked, expecting to see Tina again. He’d freaked out when she’d gotten down on all fours and invited him to fuck her.

  It was too surreal.

  Even as drunk as he was, he knew he hadn’t imagined it. She was real… in a strange way he couldn’t figure out. He’d watched enough horror movies to know she wasn’t the nice girl from next door and was either a ghost or a monster. He pictured her mouth hinging back like an alligator and biting him in half.

  Trevor had been really quiet when Jackson had returned. He’d gotten sick on the sidewalk and had to use a few buckets of water to wash it into the gutter, leaving a stench.

  “You giving up on the magic door?” Jackson asked with a smile.

  Trevor didn’t return the smile, looking annoyed. “It’s not a door. Leave it alone. We need to redo the wall and add another layer… for soundproofing. I’ll hire someone to help me do it.”

  “You suck at construction shit.”

  Trevor grunted. “I said I’ll fucking do it and I’ll fucking do it. Back the fuck off.”

  Jackson threw up his hands and nodded. “My bad.”

  After another hour of neither really working, even when the cleanup crew arrived, Jackson decided he needed to go to the library. He’d looked into the stockroom about fifty times already, looking for Tina.

  He didn’t want to leave. Not with all these guys hanging around. What if she showed up and one of them fucked her?

  You’re the biggest asshole… what about Alli? Jackson shook his head. How soon he’d forgotten about what was probably the true love of his life. None of this would mean anything if he couldn’t get her back. He’d given Alli space, hoping she’d come around and see how he was doing. At least a phone call to check in. Something.

  Jackson sat down at a computer terminal at the library and began using Ask Jeeves to search for the history of the building, if there was anything online to find.

  After an hour and finding only a few mentions of Bayberry Bluff and Lost Demon brewing companies, he switched to HotBot for the searches.

  Jackson found quite a few pages, a couple being police reports. Missing persons. An apparent murder. No, wait. Two murders twenty years apart. At one point, the owner of the building had tried to burn it to the ground and had failed. He disappeared. When it was abandoned a few times over the decades, it had become a squatters retreat, Satanic rituals had been performed, and, for a brief period, a crack house.

  The most disturbing was the fact it had been an insane asylum at the turn of the century. Countless patients had died. There was an article about a forced closing when doctors were arrested for experimenting illegally on patients and nurses for selling body parts to the local universities.

  “This is all horror movie shit,” Jackson said too loudly, and the librarian at her desk frowned and shook a finger at him.

  Sorry, he mouthed and went back to researching. In the past few days, since working in the building, he’d thought about horror movie tropes. They were happening all around him.

  Jackson read more news articles and blog posts about paranormal groups, in and out of the building, talking about ghosts and restless souls.

  One article talked about a ghost-hunting team, filming a documentary, disappearing. The footage was found but no one had ever seen it; although, a snippet was given to a family member and in the article the question is posed: who was Tina and what did she do with my Billy?

  Jackson froze. Tina? No way was that a coincidence; although, there was no more information. It was a copied article posted in a forum and not all of it was available.

  He copied down what little information there was and rubbed his eyes. He’d been on the computer for hours, having to give up the spot every hour and put his name down for when another was available. Jackson tried using the card catalog and the reference books, but he wasn’t much of a student back in the day. Microfiche was alien, too.

  “Sir, we’re closing. We reopen at nine,” the librarian told Jackson, who had a dozen pages with scribbled notes but nothing solid. A lot of names and former businesses that meant nothing to him. He’d found a list of the owners of the property, but nothing jumped out at him.

  He worried it had been a dead end and he’d lost a day of getting the brewery up to par. He needed to open as soon as possible and stop bleeding cash, even with Trevor chipping in and saving the day each day this week.

  Jackson was hungry but he took the long way home, passing by Alli’s apartment building. It looked like her light was out. Was she not home? Had she gone to visit her mother? Was she on a date already?

  He punched the wheel in frustration. What if he went to her door and left a note? Maybe went home and called her, leaving a message on her machine? Just check in. See how she’s doing.

  The last place he wanted to go tonight was the building. Not at night and not alone. He’d get up early, get coffee and donuts and be in before Trevor.

  Jackson thought of Tina, on all fours, and he got hard.

  ***

  This should’ve been another delivery. In and out. Easy as shit. Trevor had done what he’d done every other time: pulled up, parked his car and took a walk.

  An hour later he came back, expecting the packages to be gone from the false bottom in the trunk and an envelope of cash under his front seat.

  He’d driven for ten minutes before pulling over and reaching under the seat. No envelope stuffed with twenties and hundreds.

  “Fuck me,” Trevor said and got out, popping the trunk. The packages were gone. He’d been fucked over. “No fucking way.”

  He drove home like a maniac, lucky not to have gotten pulled over by a cop this late at night. As soon as he went inside, he knew something was wrong.

  A shadow moved in the corner. Trevor hit the light switch, but the light didn’t come on.

  “I unscrewed the bulb. It’s more private this way,” a voice said. Not the shadow he’d seen, either. There was more than one person in his apartment. “Trevor, we need to talk.”

  “Uh… sure.
” Trevor stayed where he was, in reach of the door. He was trying to act casual, but his heart was hammering in his chest. He decided to speak first so there was no mistaking what had happened. “I parked the car like always. Took a walk. Came back and the packages were gone but there wasn’t any money for me.”

  “You looked in the trunk even though you’ve been told time and again not to.”

  This is bullshit. “I was confused. I never look in the packages. I don’t even handle them. The guy who does it, whatever the fuck his name is, does all that in the car. I just drive. I’m loyal. I’ve been loyal, too.”

  “It seems you and two other drivers have been stealing from The Family. We can’t have that. The other two have already been taken care of,” the voice said. “You understand, of course, this isn’t personal.”

  Trevor was pissed. He’d been set up. No way had two other guys stolen money. He knew all three of them were getting bumped for someone else. “Who’s taking over? That’s really what this is about.”

  “I am,” the shadow said and moved to Trevor, inches away and pressing Trevor against the door. “If you turn around and go quietly, it won’t hurt. If you fight me, I’ll make it hurt for a long time.”

  Trevor didn’t see the blade, but he knew it was in the man’s hand.

  “Fine. Just make it quick,” Trevor said and turned slowly around. “You both suck, just so you know.”

  The man chuckled, which is what Trevor was hoping.

  Trevor turned and grabbed at where the hand with the blade should be, found it, and turned the wrist, plunging the knife into the man’s gut.

  “Fuck you, asshole,” Trevor whispered as he took control of the blade and dropped to his knees, plunging the blade over and over into the man’s crotch and stomach.

  As the man groaned in pain, Trevor saw around the guy, just as he fell forward into the door, the other man fired two shots. They were both high, where Trevor should be standing, illuminating the room.

  Trevor now had the dead man on him, but, before pushing him off, he frantically went through his pockets and found his weapon.