A New Legend: A Short Story Read online

  A New Legend

  By Joshua Scribner

  Copyright 2012 Joshua Scribner

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the author.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A New Legend

  "So, do you want to go home with me or do you want to take me home?" Lea Mosher asked. She sat on the other side of the bar, rubbing a finger around the open area of a low cut tank top. "Or you could just lock up and spread me out over one of the pool tables."

  Andre smiled the smile that people called charming. "Another night maybe."

  Andre Savor's father had given him a few things before retiring to the Gulf of Mexico. One was this place, Rack'em, Throw'em and Down 'em, so named for the abundance of pool tables, dart boards and booze. Andre had renamed it this after his father gave him the business. It was a tradition for each successive owner to give it his own personal name. It was a tradition started by Andre’s Great Granddad when he handed the place over to Andre’s Granddad. Another thing Dad had left Andre was healthy Italian looks. Andre was reasonably tall, very dark, and very muscular. Of course, the muscles came from the other establishment he spent a great deal of his life in, the gym downtown.

  It wasn't that he thought himself too good for a night with Lea. She was five years his senior, but had an amazing rack and a decent figure otherwise. It was just that he'd had her a few times already and thought she might be falling in love. Hell, she already felt close enough to stay ten minutes after closing. That couldn't be a good sign.

  Andre was a mere thirty-two. He didn't need love for a while, and he could get all the sex he wanted.

  "Ahh," Lea protested, swiveling on the barstool, watching him wipe the counter. It had been a slow night, but that was to be expected on a Tuesday. There was a pool tourney tomorrow, a dart tourney the next day and then the weekend. Things would soon be going nuts, bringing him lots of cash and maybe a girl or two he hadn't had yet. Yes, RTD'em was a never ending source of everything he needed in life. It had been that way for his dad and his dad’s dad before him. He didn’t know much about Great Granddad, but Andre expected it had been the same for him too. Someday Andre would have a son who would never want to leave either.

  Lea grabbed her purse from the bar, got up and moved toward the door. She stopped and hiked up her skirt, revealing a lack of panties, then gave a shake that actually tempted him a little. But not enough.

  "Good night, Lea.”

  She scowled at him, then left. She was mad and probably wouldn't hit on him for at least a week.

  “Oh well,” Andre said to an empty bar. “What are you gonna do?”

  Not wanting someone to wander in, Andre came from behind the bar, keys in hand. He moved to the front door and was about to stick the key in when the door rattled. He hadn’t been looking at it. He’d been looking down at the key ring in his hand.

  Taken aback, his mind raced to get a grip on why the door had moved. He supposed the pressure from a blast could cause such a thing, but he’d not heard anything like that.

  Standing there, he snickered at himself. He had worked out pretty hard today before coming into work. He'd not taken a nap beforehand. It was late, and he'd walked to the door with the image Lea's naked, wobbling butt in his head. His brain was bound to make mistakes with all those distractions pulling at it. He'd probably misheard a simple noise from outside, like maybe Lea's shoes clapping on the pavement, maybe something in the plumbing, definitely not the improbability of the door rattling. He decided to take a look outside anyway. Maybe Lea would be there. Maybe she’d played some kind of trick on him. The door wouldn't budge. If that wasn't enough, another sound came through the bar. This one was more distinct. The only other way out of here was the door that ran along the alley. Besides its regular lock, it had a heavy metal latch, something he kept meaning to spray with a little WD-40, if he could just remember to pick some up. The sound disturbing the silence had been the screech of that latch sliding into place.

  Nothing in life had prepared him for this. He owned a bar in a small city. He worked out, tended the business and took girls home for sex. That was his life, and he had loved it up to a few seconds ago.

  Andre didn't have to tend the bar. He could hire someone to do it, but he didn’t want to give it up. Andre was the one person he knew of who actually loved his job. He was good looking, but not really smart. He wasn't ambitious, other than trying to see exactly how many notches he could make on the back of his headboard. So why would he do anything other than what he already did? And Andre certainly didn't want anything to disturb his reality. So about all he could do right now, in the face of something he couldn't explain, was just try to deny it in his mind. He’d go home, forget about the weirdness, then come back tomorrow like nothing had happened.

  Andre tried the door again. It still wouldn't budge.

  What was left was to turn around. That's what logic said to do, but the rest of him really didn't want to. The rest of him seemed to want to stand there forever. His muscles were tight. His breathing was picking up fast, and he could actually feel the thump of his heart.

  A crash made him jump straight up, like a startled cat. In his periphery, down, on the floor, he saw a shattered whiskey bottle.

  Without thinking about it, he finally turned around.

  Then he shook his head and squinted his eyes. Something had to be wrong with his vision. But these adjustments did nothing to take away what he saw sitting at the bar, on the very stool from which Lea had been hitting on him.

  The figure there was as white as a powdered doughnut and as naked as a newborn sparrow. But this was a man, a bald, still man. That was about as much as Andre could tell about this person, who had his back to him.

  Andre knew he had to get himself under control. Just because he didn't understand the situation didn't mean he could just stand there and wait for victimization.

  "Bar's closed," Andre sputtered, barely registering the frivolity of his words. At this, the man at the bar did nothing. Andre found he was getting worse. He felt as if he could actually pass out. He needed something. A thought came. The man wasn't magic. He was just using some kind of technology Andre didn't understand, something electric. As for his appearance, it was just part of his act. A trick to scare Andre. These thoughts helped. Technology scared him much less than the idea of the paranormal. That much was clear in the movies he liked and didn't like. He'd watched and rewatched every Terminator movie, but he couldn't make it through flicks like Paranormal Activity and The Shining.

  Calming down, Andre went to the technology in his pocket. He pulled out his Iphone. "You need to leave now, or I'm calling the police."

  His voice was breathy, but he thought it was much better than before. In response to his voice, the man still did nothing. The phone, on the other hand, jumped from his hand and flew. It soared all the way across the room, nearly smashed into a Budweiser clock on the other side of the bar, then fell to the floor.

  Andre's next move surprised him. Maybe it was that he'd done it many times in his mind. He kept a shotgun behind the bar, which he'd never pulled out. He'd always imagined what he would do if he were trapped away from that gun. And now he did it. He grabbed a pool stick from the wall and held it in his left hand. He grabbed a cue ball from a table and held that in his right. Knowing that if he took time to think he wouldn't be able to do it, Andre hurled the cue ball at the man. It was a nice toss, right on target, would have
been a strike if he were pitching. But then the ball veered away from the man and crashed against the far wall. Still refusing to stop and think, Andre pulled the stick overhead and moved toward the man. That's when he felt it. A pressure hit him and stopped him in his tracks. Then he felt as if someone behind him pulled the pool stick out of his hands. He knew that wasn't the case, though. The man in front of him had done it.

  His body seemed to go into the worst panic mode yet. Having the invisible pressure control him, preventing the movements he commanded of his muscles, made him think of what it must be like to have a stroke. He saw something move behind the bar. It was a bottle of Southern Comfort. Andre knew it was meant for him, and he knew he was a sitting duck. He was shocked to find the ability to move, even if it was only away from the man. He felt as if he would puke or pass out, or maybe both. He ran into the dart room, then into the men's room, where he moved into the stall and crouched on the toilet.

  What the hell was happening?

  #

  Thump. Crash. The noises brought Andre from his reverie. He hadn’t wanted to leave that state of mind. He’d wanted to stay there until morning and just hope the situation resolved itself. Wasn't that how these things often worked in movies? The morning light would come and the monsters would have to take the day off. He wasn't about to go outside the bathroom. Whatever had made the noise had done so by hitting the locked bathroom door.

  Could the man get in? He'd shown no sign of being able to move, just an ability to move shit around. But what if he'd gotten better somehow? Shouldn't Andre be taking some kind of proactive stance?

  He got up. The plunger was right there by the toilet. That seemed like an almost useless weapon. But there was also a container of toilet cleaner. Could that be dangerous if shot into someone's eyes? Did it matter against an enemy that had telekinetic ability? Maybe. So far the man had only moved solid things. At least, he'd only moved things with a solid outer shell. Maybe he couldn't move a liquid.

  It seemed like a long shot, but it was what Andre had. He led with the bent-necked container as he left the stall. He immediately noticed a green fluid on the floor. It looked as if it had come from under the door. Andre thought he had an idea of what the fluid was. He got down on the floor and took a sniff.

  He was right. It was Apple Pucker. The man must have caused it to hit the door, and then the bottle fell to the floor, where it broke.

  That meant the man probably knew where Andre was.

  #

  Crash.

  Something had hit the door.

  Crash.

  Harder that time. Andre was back in the stall. He sat on the toilet, cleaner in hand, like he could just blast his way out of here with the blue fluid. He shook like a child alone in the dark, with a monster in the next room.

  Crash.

  It was louder again, and different in another way that his frantic mind couldn't quite assess.

  Crash.

  This time, the sound was clearer, metal on metal. With that, he understood the previous difference. The object hitting the door had been getting lower on the door, as if the provider of its volitions was trying to survey the obstacle.

  The next sound made his ears rings, and he knew what object was outside the room. Still, he was able to hear the shotgun cock and fire again. Then the next sound, which he could barely hear, was the worst sound of all. The jam must have been disabled by the blast, because the door had creaked open.

  Andre was frozen. He sat there with the bottle of cleaner, but not because he thought it would be effective in protecting him somehow, because it was all he had.

  Fear wouldn’t let him move fast, not even his eyes. But he rolled them slowly between the top and the bottom of the stall, expecting for the shotgun to appear in one of those places at any moment.

  It came over the top. But it wasn’t the shotgun. No, it was the bottle of Southern Comfort, and it fell into his lap.

  A thought crept into his mind like from a foreign place. It hadn’t come from a foreign place, though. It was just that he was so afraid that he felt disconnected from his own brain.

  He sees me.

  No, the man couldn’t see him. If he could see around corners then he wouldn’t have needed to survey the door before blasting through. The man must have been able to sense Andre some other way.

  Andre stared intently at the bottle in his lap. It was the first one the man had moved. Andre had thought the man had intended to throw it at him earlier, but the bottle hadn’t come. Then, other bottles had come to crash against the door, but not this one.

  Could it be?

  The sound of metal sliding on metal brought him from his thoughts. He looked up and saw that the shotgun had arrived. It cocked like it was cocking itself.

  “Okay,” Andre whimpered in a voice he’d not heard from himself since childhood. “I think I know what you want.”

  #

  The bottle of whiskey followed him. The shotgun floated ahead, but pointed at him. This man, ghost, whatever it was, seemed to lack fine motor skills. But he’d somehow been able to produce the pressure to latch a door and pull a trigger. Then again, latching a big latch and moving a trigger one inch was probably not as difficult as what the entity wanted to do, at least not in terms of fine motor skills.

  The gun made it to the other side of the bar and then off to the side. Andre went around the bar and turned around on time to receive the floating bottle of Southern Comfort. He then fetched a shot glass. He was usually pretty nimble with a glass and quick too. But now the glass and the bottle shook in his hands as his legs wobbled him across the floor. He sat the glass and bottle on the bar and then spoke.

  “If I do this, will you leave?”

  Andre waited a couple of seconds before he got his answer. And his answer came in the form of a whack on the back of his head. It wasn’t hard enough to knock him out, but he did see stars for a couple of seconds, and he didn’t even notice the crash of the beer bottle hitting the floor.

  The answer was clear.

  Don’t ask questions, and I’ll make the rules, barkeep.

  Andre poured a double, with about the same amount of fluid spilling onto the counter. He didn’t slide the drink over, like he normally would, his aim normally perfect. The entity at the bar used whatever volition he conjured in things to move the drink himself. Then the drink sat in front of him. Andre moved over and lifted the glass to the thing’s ever so slightly parted lips. He poured SoCo into the man’s mouth like a mother feeding an infant its first drinks from a sipping cup. Andre might have pulled the drink back had the man not gulped pretty continuously. He took the entire double shot in a matter of seconds. Then the color blue grew into his eyes and so did movement. But that was all. The rest of him was still.

  Andre started to pour him another drink. He tightened his forearm, gripping the bottle pretty well. It felt very solid in his hand, and he spilt much less this time. He lifted the drink to the entity’s mouth, and on the third gulp, brought the bottle swiftly toward the entity’s head.

  It almost made it, but instead, about an inch from its intended target, it went flying from Andre’s grip.

  The man’s lips moved, and he made his first sound. Andre knew that sound, that bellowing groan. The man was pissed off and frustrated. Andre had caused him to break his favorite drink.

  Andre wanted to tell him there was another bottle. He didn’t have time. It was like being struck by fifteen baseballs. But it wasn’t baseballs, and he didn’t know how many bottles hit him. There had been plenty to use from the open fridge door on the other side of the liquor racks. The worst of the pain came from the one that hit his lower back, a kidney shot. He bent backward a little and then went down with the pain, his knees landing in broken glass, cutting through his jeans and through his skin.

  None had hit his head this time, so Andre was pretty lucid. A bottle of Crown Royal hovered above him.

  #

  It looked as if the man’s head was trying to escape h
is body. Tendons showed in his neck. Muscles twitched in his pale face. His lips seemed to actually reach with their movements and his eyes bulged. Was Andre what he was after? Why?

  “Just tell me what you want,” Andre said.

  A beer bottle came next to the Crown bottle, like a jet fighter in support of a more important plane.

  “Okay,” Andre said. He took the bottle of Crown from the air. His knees burnt with their cuts as he moved across the beer soaked floor, but the pain in his back was worse. He didn’t think it was anything as severe as a ruptured kidney, but it hurt like a bitch anyway.

  He suspected the man could speak now if he wanted to, but all he did was groan. The shotgun still hovered off to the side, making Andre think the man wasn’t wanting to kill him. If he’d wanted that, then he could have killed him already. But, then again, maybe he wanted to torture Andre. Was it something Andre had done? Maybe he’d slept with the man’s wife. He would never have slept with a married woman intentionally, but he slept with a lot of women, some of them strangers, and he didn’t ask a lot of questions.

  Maybe he killed himself when he found out, and now he’s back for his revenge.

  Andre fed the man a shot of what was presumably his second choice in whiskey. The shot was down in a matter of seconds and then the man moved his right arm. It wasn’t a major movement, more like an old man lifting an arthritic limb, but it was a movement. He got it raised halfway from the bar, before letting it drop again. There was another difference. The man wasn’t so white now. There was a slight peach in that white. He still hadn’t reached the level of human color, not even sick human color, but Andre thought he knew where this was headed.

  All this time I’ve been feeding people booze and knocking them out. This is the first one I’ve fed booze to help come alive.

  The man spoke his first word, just a whisper. “More.”

  Andre tried to think of an out. If this man wanted to torture Andre, maybe it would be better just to make a run for it, force the man to kill him.