Bob’s voice hit me like a physical weight, just as my hand landed on the exit door’s handle.
“You’ll probably need this.”
I turned around, and my eyebrows shot up to my hairline. The old guy was standing there with a 1911 in his hand and holding it out casually. I whistled and muttered, “maybe I’m not so fucked, afterall,” under my breath as I stepped back to the bar. I took the pistol from Bob and nodded my thanks.
“I would’ve figured you for a shotgun man, Bob,” I said. I nodded again, in approval, when I saw the old man kept the weapon in condition one—hammer back, safety on. Then again, if this was the work of my subconscious, I supposed I shouldn’t be all that surprised.
Sliding the 1911 out of the well-oiled leather pancake holster, I quickly dropped the magazine and counted seven brass cases peeking out at me from inside the body of the mag. I set the mag on the counter, then racked the slide. The live round that’d been in the chamber fell into my palm, and I set the gun down, reloading the loose round into the magazine. Bob looked on in silence as I went through a few exercises, familiarizing myself with a weapon I hadn’t handled in quite some time.
Almost every pistol I’d shot in the last ten years had been striker-fired 9mms, and the surprisingly heavy chunk of iron in my hand felt balanced all wrong. But at the same time, it was home. My grandfather had taught me to shoot pistols with his old 1911, and the feel of the slim grip, combined with nearly 40 ounces of steel, was like coming home to an old friend. The crisp break of the single-action trigger was something no striker-fired pistol could ever hope to match, despite what the various marketing departments will tell you.
After a few minutes of running dry-fire drills and getting my grip right, I finally slammed the magazine back home and racked the slide. I flipped the safety back on with a satisfying click, then re-holstered the 1911 and used the spring clips on the holster to slip it over the waist of my jeans. The weight caused my pants to droop, and I frowned. The cops had taken my belt, and this setup wouldn’t work for shit.
Bob sighed. “Take this, too.”
A brown leather gun belt appeared from beneath the counter, and I stared at the man.
“Do you normally make a habit of keeping pistols and gun belts under the counter?”
The old barkeep shrugged. “Call it your lucky day.”
“Uh huh.”
Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth—or think too hard about weird coincidences occurring in what I was now more or less certain was some kind of dream world—I took the proffered belt and quickly put it on. Once the belt, holster, and 1911 were all situated to my liking, I covered them up with my sweatshirt, then nodded again in thanks.
“See you around, Bob,” I said. Then I walked back to the exit. Before I stepped out, though, an idea struck me.
I closed my eyes and wished really hard for an army of badasses that could back me up in my coming fight with the specter. When I was certain I had all the details nailed down and burned into my mind’s eye, I turned around.
Bob looked back at me from behind the bar, unimpressed.
“Did you really think that was going to work?”
My shoulders slumped a little, and I sighed. “No, I guess not.” Then I threw the old man a jaunty wave. “See you around, Bob.”
I turned back to the door and pushed it open, then stepped out onto the sidewalk. I was ready to go make sure the specter was the one having a bad day, for a change.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
As the door to Bob’s Dive Bar closed behind me, something I can best describe as mental pressure hit me. It wasn’t like before, when my thoughts were muddled and hazy. This was more like someone or something was trying to force its way back into my head. If I wasn’t totally convinced, before, that I was in some kind of dream world—fighting against the specter from the song I’d selected, no less—I certainly was after stepping back out onto the pavement.
But this time, I was ready. I knew, more or less, what I was facing off against, and the realization that everything I’d experienced over the past month had been orchestrated to cause maximum mental anguish filled me with white-hot fury. There’s always a way to win, no matter what it may seem like. I forced the old barkeep’s words to remain front and center in my thoughts, keeping me grounded in the hostile world I found myself in. I was no longer the hunted; now, I was the one doing the hunting.
There was just one problem: I didn’t know where to start looking for the bastard.
I stood there on the street for a minute, scanning my surroundings. Considering the fact that it was going on mid-morning, the complete lack of pedestrian and car traffic was odd. It was almost like whatever entity had been tailoring the world around me to keep me immersed had given up on trying to make things seem realistic. The more I thought about my situation, the more little details that weren’t quite right stood out to me.
The lack of people was one thing, but there were other little things that most people probably wouldn’t normally notice. For example, there wasn’t any litter on the street or blowing down the sidewalk. There were plenty of leaves from the maples and oaks that were busy dropping their leaves under the onslaught of the fall’s chilling gusts, but no papers, pop bottles, cigarette butts… no trash.
The more odd details I noticed, the more a specific sound began creeping into my consciousness. It started out so low it was more like a memory than an actual sound, but it slowly built in volume until it was a constant whisper coming from the very world around me. Spectre. The music emanated from the very walls of the building, the pavement beneath my feet, and drifted along on the cold northern breeze. I mentally grabbed onto the song and kept it playing on a loop in the back of my mind.
I didn’t know how to force the specter out of hiding, but I did know where I’d seen it before. The police station was out of the question, for obvious reasons, but there was a chance my house would no longer have a police presence there—especially if the cops knew I wasn’t the one who’d killed Lynn. Odds are, they would have packed up and left, leaving nothing more than some crime scene tape to keep people out. So that would be where I began my search.
*****
It took me most of the day to get back to my house. The world around me had slowly become populated again, the farther I got from the Dive Bar, but it still didn’t seem right to me. There just wasn’t enough life to the people I passed. With no wallet or cell phone, taking public transportation or a cab was out of the question, so I’d tried my hand at hitchhiking—something that was significantly more difficult when your clothes were covered in dried blood. Eventually, an older gentleman had taken pity on me, and given me a lift after I’d spun him a story about having been in a car accident and losing both my phone and wallet somewhere in the chaos of it all. He’d still been skeptical, but told me I could ride in the bed of his beat up old pickup truck, as long as I kept my head down.
I had him drop me off a couple of blocks from home, which allowed me to move in on foot and do a little recon before I exposed myself too much. As I’d hoped, the house was empty, and there wasn’t a patrol car in sight. My truck was still parked in the driveway, and only a few strips of yellow crime scene tape stood between me and the inside of my home.
I approached on the other side of the street, keeping my hood up to hide my face. None of the neighbors were outside, and the only sign of life was someone running a lawnmower a block and a half farther down. When I was nearly even with my driveway, I stepped off the sidewalk and onto the street, angling straight for my truck. If I was really lucky, the keys would still be in it, along with my wallet and phone. My heart was hammering harder and harder against my ribcage with each step, but no one called out; no alarms sounded.
I walked up to the driver’s door and pulled on the handle. It opened, revealing everything just the way I’d left it last night. I reached in and grabbed my phone from the cupholder. The screen lit up with the motion, and my heart caught in my throat.
The lock screen background of my children playing in the backyard was gone, replaced with a black screen broken up only by two piercing red dots. I froze, terror clawing at my chest. As I looked on, a text message popped up—three words that shattered the tentative barrier I’d put up to block out the specter’s influence on my mind.
Cassie. Is. Next.