"Check, Please" by James Andrew Bowers

Check, Please



        A dry creak sounds as a man dressed in jeans and a leather coat sits back in his seat.  Glancing around him he notices three grubby figures stooped over the bar croaking back and forth about little of consequence, at least what minute bits and pieces of sentences he can pick out.  Also he notices a not-so-nicely-built woman in her forties, his waitress, wink at him as she skitters from behind the bar to bring him the drink he had ordered ten minutes ago.  Displaying a wide grin, she saunters up to the table and places the drink down on the napkin in front of him.  His hopes that a polite "thank you" and a smile would turn her back to her other customers are dashed as she gives him a smile back that can only be interpreted as a failed attempt at seduction.  When the gesture wasn't acknowledged, she grabbed a hold of the chair across from him and slid it up next to him.  He noticed her violet painted nails, each had a black stripe down them, and that they were far too perfect to be anything but press-ons.  Showing little grace, she plopped herself down next to him.  Her chair made a scratching sound followed by a low creak as she scooted herself yet closer to him.  During those few seconds, he had already drained half of his glass in one large drought and taken time to work up a quick plan to cut her visit short.  Slowly he lowered his glass and turned to face her; his gaze met her ice grey eyes and froze.  Some tiny alarm bell rang in the darker depths of his mind.  Quickly he raised the glass back to his lips. 
        "My name's Sarah...You need to talk?"  Although it was intended as a question, it could have been just as easily misinterpreted as a simple statement of fact.
        Placing his empty glass down on the table, he replied, "Mine's Jason, and what I really need is another drink."
        "I'll get you another drink; however, you won't get off that easy.  I've been watching you since you came in here, and you've been sipping your bourbons the whole time; I doubt you drank that one so fast just to look good in front of me."
        Before Jason could even consider whether to reply or not, she had his glass and was on her way back to the bar.  He was left watching her chestnut brown hair bounce away.  When she reached the bar, the trio of grubby men decided it was time to even themselves up with the house and make their shambling exit. This affair added on to the time it took Sarah to return with his next glass of what he liked to call "the only decent medicine."  He took the extra time to reflect on how to relieve himself of the flirtatious older lady politely.   He came up with a simple solution - finish the drink he had ordered before making his escape and move on to another bar.  What he was looking for was a place to sit surrounded by people and drink without any other distractions.
        Believing the problem with the waitress to be solved, he drew his mind back to his main problem.  He had done something he knew he should probably not have done.  Tampered with things that were not for men to play with, and it was because of this that he wished to have people around.  He was afraid to be alone, or more appropriately, afraid of being found alone.  That fear had everything to do with why he was scared to go home.  He knew he would have to eventually.  If he was to survive he would have to, but he was not going anywhere near there until he figured out how to undo last night's potentially harmful curiosity.  The phrase, "Curiosity killed the cat," popped into his head and drew forth a lonely chuckle.  But was it purely curiosity or was there something else, he wondered.  "The book," his mind whispered.  Some kind of outside will being pressed on the fringes of his soul just enough to lead him too far without his having realized it was even going on?  "The book," his mind pressed again.
        "Yes, the book," he thought.  He suddenly remembered the unearthly draw he had felt to its musty worn pages; the desire he had to understand the bizarre symbols that adorned its pages.  Amazingly, for the first time, he began to wonder how he could have absorbed enough from the book to perform the rites and rituals necessary to...
        "Where the hell is that waitress with my drink," screamed his conscious mind, however his unconscious mind would not let him off so easy.  "Remember that night," it said, "How it all began..." 
        He was back standing in his newly modified study.  He had the worn book spread open before him, candles and incense burning throughout the room, and his sacrifice waiting tied and properly drugged on the alter.  He raised the ornamental dagger and plunged it in without hesitation.  He made a series of cuts as described in the book before making the final long cut that spread wide the stomach cavity.  He remembered the belated whimper his dog made as its intestines were being strewn upon the coarse stone.  Stone as unyielding as his determination.  Finally, he remembered removing the bladder.  He placed the bladder in a nearby wooden bowl, then he...       
        He was startled back to the present by the sound of a glass chinking against the table in front of him.  Without a word, Sarah sat herself back down beside him.
        "I got you your drink, so start talking," she said with a slight wrinkle of a smile on the left side of her red-lipped mouth.
        Lifting the glass to his lips, he took a long slow draught before answering.  "I guess I'm just under a lot stress lately, then again, who isn't?"  He involuntary smirked as he said the last part.  Set to carry his plan through, he hefted the glass up to finish his bourbon.
        "Well, if it'll relieve some stress you can take me home with you tonight," she said in what was actually an enticing voice that, rather than enchant Jason, made him even more determined to make his get away.
        Finished, he began to stand up.  Sensing what he what he was up to, Sarah sprung to her feet and grabbed his empty.  "One more, but this one's on the house," she said scooping up the glass on her way to the bar.
        Feeling his plan was only partially thwarted, he sat back down, resigned to gulp down the freebie, decline her company for the rest of the night, and take his leave.  At this point he was completely sure he was going to need to hit another bar, though he knew he would be best off if he tapered off on his drinking for a while.  
         He had yet to come to grips with last nights actions, which were somehow thoughtlessly premeditated, let alone formulate an idea as to how he was going rectify the situation when he realized he was already on the verge of being considered "two sheets to the wind".  On top of that, he looked up to see Sarah standing in front of him with a fresh glass and a fresher smile.      
        His eyes went to hers as his hand extended towards his glass.  This time, rather than a clicking in the back of his head, he felt an odd sensation start in the deepest reaches of his bowels and inch its way up.  As much as he would have liked to have told himself that the feeling came from the alcohol he'd consumed, there was no denying what the true origin was, or who.  There was something in the way she looked at him, as if she knew exactly what was troubling him, and that it was all fine and dandy to her.
        Even though his intuition screamed at him to get out of the bar immediately, or sooner if possible, he managed to keep a calm outward appearance. He raised the cool glass to his lips.
        "How would you like to come to my place for the night?" she cooed, however, her words were wasted on oblivious ears.
        As he had tipped the glass back to take a drink, the ice cube brushed against his lips.  Though this in itself was not strange in the least, there was something definitely oddly different about the way the ice cube felt.  For one, it wasn't even remotely cold, but on the contrary, a touch warmer than the bourbon.  Secondly, it felt soft, almost like skin.  He quickly lowered the glass and stared into it.  In the dim bar lighting he had not even noticed the slight yellow tint of the cube.  None of this surprised him more than what happened next.
        An eyeball opened up on the top of what Jason had thought was an ice cube.  A glowing crimson iris stared back at him.  Then tentacles from underneath the thing began to reach for the sides of the glass.
        Without a thought, Jason dropped the glass, which, in turn, shattered on the table.  In one abrupt motion, he was on his feet and running.  He made a beeline for the door.  Glancing back, he saw a grin on the waitresses face.  Shocked horror erupted in him as he ran.  He didn't know what she planned to do to him, and he didn't want to. 
         As he burst through the door he was wondering why she wasn't chasing him.  Just then, three grubby men jumped him and beat him to the ground.  As the last couple seconds of his life ebbed from him, Jason felt two greasy hands grab him and start to drag his limp body. 
        Three hunched figures, the one in the back dragging a mutilated body, crept into the alley behind the bar.  A couple moments later an older looking lady with brown hair came out of the bar with two feet protruding from her armpits.  The two feet belonging to a woman wearing a name tag that read "Thelma" pinned on a shirt that boasted "Larry's Bar And Grill...Drink 'Til You're Trashed."