Last Call

Gene Lass

          The room was small and bright, lit from a window behind the bed. The girl was in her late teens, pale with short blonde hair, dressed in a white tank top and cutoff jean shorts. Her eyes gleamed as she slashed lines across the tops of her arms with a razor blade.

          D.J. lunged forward to grab the blade from her, but she wriggled away and switched the blade to her left hand, using it to slice a pentagram into her exposed stomach while laughing. He grabbed her right wrist and tried again for the razor. Still laughing, she started slicing on his forearm and the back of his hand.

          “Stop! Stop! Give me, ow! Stop!”

          Sacrificing his right hand, he shot it out to close around the hand that held the razor. The blade sunk into the palm of his hand, but he held her tightly. She wriggled and bucked as he gripped both her wrists in his left hand so he could pull away his right, pulling the razor out of his palm with his teeth.

          He looked in her eyes. There was only frenzied madness there. Bright spots flitting behind her blue pupils like insane fireflies in the daytime sky. Still holding her wrists, he put the blade down on the table next to her bed.

          “Why do you want to cut yourself?” he asked.

          She twisted in his grip, but he held her wrists tight.

“So I can let my real self out!” She laughed.

He looked again at her arms and stomach. The cuts on her arms were just slashes, not symbols or writing. Like the pentagram on her belly, they were sliced just deep enough to bleed and scar. But he wondered what she would do if allowed. Looking at the pentagram gave him chills.

Twisting again, she pried one blood and sweat-slicked wrist free and produced another razor, seemingly from nowhere. Before D.J. could stop her, she sliced it into the tip of his right middle finger, through the flesh and well into the nail.

          D.J. hissed in pain and pulled back, involuntarily letting go of her other arm. The girl grabbed the wrist of his injured hand and pulled him closer, pressing one of the cuts on her other arm against his finger, binding them in blood.

          “You want to help me?” she hissed, then laughed again “Let’s be friends!”

          D.J. reached for the hand holding the blade but she twisted it out of his grasp, then moved past him, swinging her arm under his. He felt searing pain in his right side, just below the ribs, as she sliced through his shirt and deep into his flesh. She tried to slash the razor across but the razor was lodged in his flesh.

          Feeling faint, D.J. fell forward with his head on the mattress, the top of his head against the side of her hip. As blackness came down over his consciousness, he wondered if he would die. She wasn’t cutting him anymore, but would he feel it if she was? There might be a faint burning on the back of his neck and shoulders, but he wasn’t sure. Was she laughing and cutting him more? It was so hard to tell.

          Before he slipped away, he started to pray, partly for himself, but mostly for the girl.

          “Help me, Jesus. Help this girl. Help this girl.”

          Light flooded in and D.J. sat up. He still felt the pain in his side and finger, but they were fading. He looked at his hand. No cuts at all. He was in his room. It was a dream. Relieved it was over, he thought of the girl and her madness. And he knew Bud was coming.

          Three days later, D.J. was home in his living room, contentedly watching the same Gary Cooper Western for probably the twentieth time, still marveling at how Grace Kelly could look good even in a frumpy-looking bonnet, when the phone rang. His stomach lurched. It had to be bad news. His phone rarely rang, and when it did it certainly wasn’t at 9 o’clock on a Sunday night. He thought of how many relatives he had left who could be dead or dying and answered the phone.

          “Hello?”

          “D.J., this is Brian Buegge from True Value. Sorry to bother you, but your bar is on fire.”

          Six minutes later, D.J. pulled up in front of the True Value Hardware that had been across from his bar for almost as long as there had been a bar. D.J.’s grandfather, who founded the bar, said it used to be an old-time pharmacy and sandwich counter. He joked that people would get lunch at the pharmacy, where they’d get coffee, sandwiches, and ice cream sodas, then finish work and head to the bar for pretzels and beer. That ended sometime in the 60s, when it became True Value, which it had been for D.J.’s entire life.

          A firetruck was at the curb in front of the bar. Two firefighters had hoses pointed at flames springing from the roof. The water hissed when it reached the flames, and black smoke bloomed out into the night air. D.J. wondered what would happen when all the alcohol behind the bar caught fire. Maybe it already had.

          Across the street from the fire truck, parked just ahead of D.J.’s car, was the truck marked Fire Marshal. D.J. got out of his car and walked to talk to the fire marshal, who was holding a walkie talkie and watching the crew fight the flames. He thought he had seen the marshal once or twice before, probably from him coming into the bar, but he wasn’t sure. Even if he did, he had no idea what the man’s name was.
          “Excuse me,” D.J. said.

          The marshal looked at him curiously. “Yes? Is this your bar?”

          D.J. nodded. “Yeah. Think you can save it?”

          The marshal shrugged and waved his hands casually. “Hard to say. I’m not sure my guys here give a fuck.”

          D.J. reeled back. “What? What do you mean?”

          The marshal laughed. D.J.’s jaw dropped and the marshal laughed harder, doubling over. As the marshal stood, his features shifted. His fire gear became a black suit, his helmet closely-cropped hair, held in place with the perfect amount of gel. The fire marshal vehicle faded away, as did the fire truck. The flames, once raging, slowed, swaying back and forth in a slow dance, before retreating beneath the hole in the roof, which healed over them. Finally, the firemen also disappeared, until there was nothing on the quiet, dimly-lit street but D.J. and the man.

          “Hello, D.J. Thanks for coming out on your night off. How about buying me a drink?”

          D.J. stared at the man a moment, then pulled out his key, unlocked the door, and they went inside. It was a warm night, and a bit stuffy inside, as it usually was when he first opened the bar, but D.J. couldn’t remember the last time he felt so cold. From the tops of his bare arms and hands to the back of his neck and shoulders, he felt like chilled meat pulled fresh from the butcher counter. He turned on the lights and walked behind the bar. The man, Bud, took his usual stool at the far end of the bar.

          “It’s been a while!” Bud said.

          D.J. put a napkin in front of Bud and filled a bowl of pretzels. “Two years. You already have my soul. What do you want now?”

          Bud touched a hand to his chest and pursed his lips. “How hostile! At the moment what I’d like is a small plate. You and I both know those pretzels came from a bag you opened yesterday, and I’d like something fresher, and more substantial.

          D.J. reached below the bar and put a small white plate in front of Bud. With a flourish, Bud flicked his wrist and an egg appeared between his thumb and forefinger. He put the egg on the plate, then did the same two more times, placing a total of three eggs on the plate.
          “Salt and pepper please.”

          While D.J. reached below the counter, Bud picked up an egg with his right hand and extended the index finger of his left.

          He waggled his eyebrows. “Have you seen this trick?” His face took on a surprised expression as the nail of his extended finger started to grow, until it came to a very sharp-looking point an inch past the tip of his finger.

          Still holding the egg in his other hand, Bud tapped the long nail hard against the shell of the egg, cracking it. He then used to point of the nail to break away chips of the shell. He rolled the egg between the palms of his hand, crushing the shell, then flaked away shell again. Finally, he took a bite, sprinkled on salt, and took a bite again.

          “Mm.” He swallowed. “I’ve been watching you, you know.”

          D.J. poured himself a Coke in a tumbler with ice. He shrugged, then added a shot of Jack Daniel’s.

          Bud’s eyes went wide and he smiled. “Drinking while working! That’s a first! The man has changed!”
          D.J. shook his head. “I’m not working. It’s my night off, remember? A minute ago, my bar was on fire. Twenty minutes ago, I was watching a movie.”

          “True enough.” Bud finished the egg and cracked another. “Now, as you know, I haven’t been in here. But I don’t need to be. I can watch people from anywhere, especially when they belong to me, as you do.”

          Bud paused and he smiled slightly. “You winced just a tad at that. Just a slight tightening around your eyes, a slight flex of your jaw. You didn’t like me saying that, that you belong to me. Do you doubt or deny it? You do. Fair and square.”

          D.J. lifted his head slightly. “You’re wrong. My soul belongs to you, after I die. But I’m not dead. I’m not your slave. I won’t do shit for you other than pour your drinks and give you chips and pretzels like every other paying customer in here. Until I’m dead, I’m a free man.”

          Bud smiled. “I suppose you’re right.” He leaned back on his stool and lifted the final egg, still in its shell, to his lips. He touched the egg with his lips and extended the fingers of his hand in a flourish. The egg disappeared and in his hand was a cigar, already trimmed and smoldering. He puffed on it, his eyes flaring red each time he did.
          D.J. laughed drily. “Parlor tricks aren’t usually your style. And you’ve never smoked in here before.”

          Bud puffed out a perfect smoke ring and pointed to a sign above the bar, just behind D.J. “Aren’t you going to complain? It does say ‘No smoking.’”

          D.J. shrugged. “You’re the Devil. You’re going to do what you want. And really, it’s too late for me to give a shit. I should be home, nodding off on the couch. Maybe I’m there now and this is a dream. That would be nice.”

          Bud smiled around his cigar, drawing hard. The end of the cigar burned bright red, as did his eyes. Suddenly, his hand shot out, faster than should be possible, or did his arm actually grow? His hand grabbed D.J.’s left wrist and pulled as his other hand grabbed the cigar from his mouth and brought it down on the back of D.J.’s hand. D.J. screamed as his hand sizzled. He tried to pull back but he was trapped for one, two, three agonizing seconds as Bud leered in his face and his hand burned. Finally, Bud let go and D.J. staggered back.

          “WHAT THE FUCK?!” D.J. screamed, cradling his hand. He blindly reached to turn on the sink below the bar.

          “That’s it, run water on it,” Bud said. The cigar was gone. “I want you to know you’re quite awake. That mark will be there tomorrow. And probably forever. I want you to know I was here. I want you to remember.”

          “REMEMBER WHAT? That you were here to rub it in? That you ‘own me’? I’m well aware, you fuck! I’m going to Hell when I die! I’m going to burn! You think I don’t think of that every day? I take cold showers now because hot showers make me think of how hot I’m going to be one day, burning and boiling! It’s sick! I don’t need the reminder, fuck you very much!”

          Bud laughed. He laughed a long time, until finally he leaned forward on the bar and continued chuckling while looking at D.J.

          “Ah that’s wonderful! After all this time, that’s how you’ve changed. Knowing you’re damned has emboldened you. Because what do you have to lose? Is that right?”

          Still running his hand under water, D.J. nodded. “Yeah, that’s right.”

          Bud waved a hand at the taps. “Could I get a beer? Any kind. You know I’ll pay for it.”

          D.J. thought about it a moment, then shrugged and pulled a bottle from the cooler at random. He idly noted that it was Yuengling, though he didn’t remember stocking any. He couldn’t remember anyone ever asking for it. In a bar in the middle of nowhere, Montana, why would they? He opened the bottle and poured.

          “Thank you.” Bud sipped the beer. “So, barkeep, tell me. In the two years since you traded me your soul for the sake of the neighbor who murdered his pathetically, permanently vegetative wife, have you had any regrets?”

          D.J. looked puzzled. “What? About the deal? So he wouldn’t be damned? No, not at all. I feel bad for him. He already went through Hell taking care of her and going through all that. It’s horrible to even think of. No, I’m glad I saved him.”

          “Really? I know he’s been in here. He comes every week, almost every day. You’ve never looked at him and resented him for what you believe you had to do, for what you definitely will have to do for him when you die? The eternal burning? Watching your skin blacken and bubble and burn away, choking on the fumes, but always having more to burn, so you’re never relieved of the pain? That doesn’t bother you?”

          “It bothers me to think of it. I don’t want to burn. But when I see him, I just think of how sad he must have been seeing his wife gradually go away until she couldn’t talk, or feed herself. Pissing and shitting herself every day. Until he was so sad that he put a pillow over her face and smothered her. He did that out of love, murder or not. I think of that every time I see him. He was her hero, not her killer.”

          “Interesting. Tell me this then, and I already know the answer. As I said, I’ve been watching you.” He sipped his beer, then nodded at D.J’s glass. “You should drink more of that, it will help your hand. Knowing you’re already going to Hell, have you at any point taken advantage of the situation? You could go out and commit murder. Just drive down to Whitefish some foggy weekend, pick a drunken tourist at closing time, shoot them from across the street while sitting in your car, and drive home. No one would know. And you’d be just as damned, burning just as hot. Hell is Hell. Or go bang some married women. Have an affair. Have an affair and kill the husband, then kill the wife, who cares? The possibilities are endless. Have you done this at all?”

          “No.”

          “Have you even thought about it?”

          “Not really, no.”

          Bud leaned forward again. “Why not?”

          D.J. shrugged. “What would be the point? Why should I hurt someone else just because I can? Seems useless and stupid.”

          Bud laughed. D.J. looked at him.

          “I don’t see what’s so fucking funny.”

          Bud continued chuckling. “It’s that you’re so hopeless. Pathetic, really. A prisoner of your own morality. You realize of course that those dreams came from me. Many of them, over time, but especially the one from the other night.”

          D.J. nodded. “The one with the girl. Of course I knew. You wanted me to know you were coming, so I’d dread it. You like being feared. You relish it.”

          Bud smiled, and as he did his features shifted a bit. His complexion became less ruddy, his hair more curly, his nose a bit broader. When he spoke, his voice seemed slightly higher, perhaps with a bit of an accent.

          “You’re right, I do. I sip that level of fear like a fine wine, so sweet. Now terror, terror is much heartier, like a full-throated, dark brew like a brown ale, but not quite a stout. Despair is a stout.” He drank more of his beer. “Check please, I’m just having the one I think.”

“I’m not going to bother ringing it in. Five’ll do it,” D.J. said.

Bud put his hand on the bar, then pulled his hand back, revealing a five and two ones.

“Thanks.” D.J. said.

Bud raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Thank you. I have to admit I was disappointed in your reaction to the dream. You weren’t afraid in the dream, were you?

          D.J. laughed. “Of course I was. The girl had a razor blade and was cutting herself up, slashing all around like a crazy person. I didn’t want to get cut.”

          “But you did, badly. Several times. She even killed you. And you were so afraid you prayed. For her.”

          “Yeah, so?”

          “When you woke, and you knew I was coming, were you afraid? Tell me the truth.”

          D.J. shrugged. “Seeing you is never a good thing. You already had my soul, but you could be coming here to torment someone in front of me, or to tell me about someone else I know who’s going to Hell. You’ve done it before.”

          “But you weren’t afraid for yourself.”

          “No. I just didn’t want any part of what you were coming here for.”

          “That’s dread, not fear. And that’s part of the problem. I like fear. Remorse. Anguish. Despair. Lots of it. From you I get acceptance, resignation, almost stoicism. That won’t do.”

          Bud stood up. He finished his beer, dabbed the corner of his mouth with a paper napkin, balled up the napkin, and tossed it on the bar.

          “You’re out. I revoke claim to your soul. I don’t want you in the underworld. You’ll just stink up the place.” He headed for the door and opened it. “Have a good evening.”

          D.J. stared at the door after Bud left. He started to feel cold, then looked down to realize he was still running his hand under the cold tap. The burn was still there.

          He was free.

Zachary Wilhide is a writer and artist who lives in Virginia Beach, VA with his wife and cats.  He has previously had stories published in Spelk Fiction, Close To The Bone, Yellow Mama Magazine, and Shotgun Honey, among others.  His art currently resides at https://www.deviantart.com/whytedevil.