Chapter 20

Abraham Black

Midnight

The front door of the Wagon Wheel swung open, a window to the cold darkness outside. A gust of cold wind rushed into the bar, surprising the few men inside. A dark figure appeared in the doorway, a black outline against the blackness beyond. The figure slid inside, appearing as nothing more than a dark delineation against the dim light within the bar.

Behind the bar stood Daniel Mayman, proprietor and bartender. About the Wagon Wheel sat five other men, all of them mentally steeling themselves to head out; the bar was closing. The dark figure possessed the full attention of all of these men as he glided through the room up to the bar. Although he walked, his booted feet flickering out in front of him with each step, he slid forward at an eerily steady pace. Nothing obvious about his movement was wrong, but it was unnatural, and it made the men watch.

The long, shredded coat of the stranger dragged on the ground behind him, and his face was fixed in an eerie grin. His eyes blazed with an insane fire. His lips bled over his teeth, and some dark liquid speckled the rest of his face. One of the men in the bar noticed that the trailing strips of the stranger’s coat left dark smears on the floor. And there were dark footprints in the shape of boots.

The man approached the bar. Daniel Mayman swallowed, licked his moustache, and said, “I’m sorry, sir, but we’re…closing…”

The stranger reached the bar and stopped. He leaned over, resting his elbows on the varnished wooden surface. “Surely you can shpare a shingle glash? For a thirshty man.” His cracked, bleeding lips smacked together when he spoke, sending tiny flecks of blood spraying to the countertop where some of his grungy hair had pooled. The lips resumed their unnatural strained smile when he finished. A drop of blood began to trail down the stranger’s chin. Some of the men in the bar found something odd about the stranger’s posture. He leaned over the bar, but the contour of his back and legs, draped by the dark coat, made a single smooth curvature, uninterrupted from his heels to his neck.

“I’ll take a cup of the besht shtuff in the houshe!” the stranger declared, his eyes turned on Daniel the bartender.

Daniel knew a druggie when he saw one, although he had never seen anything this extreme. He knew at once that he would have to have this man forcibly removed from the bar. Then he noticed the revolvers. His plan instantly changed: someone needed to call the police.

“Some nice firearms you have there,” he said, his voice shaking slightly. This got the attention of some of the other men, all of whom still sat transfixed by this unprecedented stranger.

“You think sho?” said the stranger. He straightened, and his arm flickered in a movement nearly too quick to see. He held one of the gleaming silver firearms up in the air.

He twirled the revolver in his hand. It did not spin normally. It whirled with such speed that it became, for a brief moment, a solid silver disc in the stranger’s hand. Daniel heard a machine-like whir and felt the breeze from the spinning firearm stir his hair. The stranger brought down his arm, and with a click the gun stopped moving. It aimed, rock-steady, at Daniel’s right eye. At a distance of about two feet, Daniel could look into the darkness of the barrel. It seemed huge. He tried to speak, but could not. He noticed that the music had stopped.

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The other men in the bar stood. Daniel’s eyes anxiously sought them out. Mark’s hands worked furiously, silently, on his phone. Tyler stood near the door. He practically fell against it, stumbling out into the night. The stranger did not react.

“Sho,” he said. “The besht shtuff, if you pleashe.” The drop of blood making its way down his chin pooled at the bottom and dripped onto the counter, between the stranger’s fingers. The fingernails were yellow and chipped. One finger wore a featureless black ring.

“C-certainly,” Daniel said, attempting to smile. Just keep him happy until the police arrive. Sweat dripped into his eye. When had he started sweating? The best stuff? He turned to the cabinet behind him. He didn’t dare ask what the man thought was the best stuff.

Daniel simply chose the most expensive drink offered at the Wagon Wheel—a hard bourbon. He placed a whole bottle before the stranger with trembling hands. Then he realized a glass was also necessary. He turned to get it when a loud cry sounded from outside: “Jesus Christ !” It was Tyler, who had just left. Incoherent, muffled screams followed.

The other men in the bar took this as their cue to get the hell out. Daniel could not blame them. They rushed out of the bar. Their own shouting soon joined Tyler’s. What was going on out there? Please let the police arrive soon…

But the stranger never reacted, and he never took his eyes off of Daniel, not even to check the bottle of bourbon. “It’sh a shtrange thing,” he said. “That’sh not the besht shtuff.”

Daniel opened his mouth to ask what was.

The stranger struck.

Minutes later, two police officers entered the Wagon Wheel, their trembling firearms trained on the dark figure by the counter.

The stranger faced them, leaning casually back against the bar. He held a glass of some thick dark liquid, and the same liquid ran down the corners of his mouth. The stranger held up the glass of liquid to the light, swirling it like a fine wine. “It’sh the right color,” he said to himself, “but hash no fire. How shad…It’ll do for now, I shupposhe.”

The bar was silent for a moment. Then one of the officers said, “Where’s Daniel?”

The stranger’s head cocked sideways in a way that was not quite anatomically possible. “Who’sh that?”

“The-the bartender.”

The stranger twisted his torso around to look back down behind the bar. He seemed to stretch out in doing to. “He’sh in a shorry shtate, I’m afraid. A shticky shituation, you might shay.” He smiled at the officers. The lights flickered. The stranger’s tattered coat stirred in the breeze. But there was no breeze.

The stranger set his drink down on the bar, hard enough to crack the glass.

One of the police officers opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by thunder.

A moment of silence followed.

And then, more thunder.