On one of these jaunts, I began to ape one of my favorite authors, H.P. Lovecraft. only to assuage some leftover melancholy, bore from my frustrations at university. Having been a long time fan of weird fiction, and in particular the difference it held to mainstream fiction (yes'm I like weird prose because it's not mainstream, laugh it up, though in my defense, I don't sit in a coffee shop with my laptop, tweaking my thick glasses and jerking off my scarf awkwardly because I've spied a new issue of beardy, The bearded man's magazine.) I began to write about an alleyway, and more importantly, the thing that stalked it.
My buddy, Robert Lindsay, was engrossed enough to say to me "If you don't finish this, I will kill you". And because I'm not yet ready to die, here's the first bit.
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Vaguely, I sat at the bar staring.
By,
Joseph E. Crouch
1.
I turned down a urine complimented alleyway, a rumpled up duvet stained with cold sweat and cigarette ash mangling my otherwise quickened pace. Groping around in the dark, trying to assert some control, the only control, I reasoned, I could impact. I was certain this illusion of agency was the only thing keeping me from frenzy.
Lit by the moon and small eruptions of light from a displacement of windows along the track. It itself being both beckoning and wanting of comfort; the alleyway adopted a quizzical melange. The source of the real discomfort was behind me, taking the form of the assured distant footsteps coming from the boot of Benny Matheson.
Lit by the moon and small eruptions of light from a displacement of windows along the track. It itself being both beckoning and wanting of comfort; the alleyway adopted a quizzical melange. The source of the real discomfort was behind me, taking the form of the assured distant footsteps coming from the boot of Benny Matheson.
I say boot, and I mean it, for Matheson had seen fit to give chase with only one of them on. The muted slap of his cold, and by now, impossibly battered left foot could be heard almost as loudly as his Doc Martin’d right.
Matheson, was a grubby, thirty-something, with a gappy sneer, likely caused by a proclivity for certain, mind altering substances. His encroachment inspired a twitching in my right eye within the likely knowledge that the gap between us was closing. In the few times that I had been unfortunate enough to be in Matheson’s company I had been struck by the distinct candor of his voice, and additionally, the way he postured himself within a space; as if he were deliberately ill at ease in the company of others, but also, the company of his own flesh. Yes there was an overall idea of flabbiness about him, generated not only by the wattled thing he called a face, but also through his garb; being that it was a couple of sizes past his already large frame and had the faint aroma of calcified decay.
Our previous meetings, however, had not been by chance; he frequented a certain haunt of mine, along with a handful others possessing the same air. I would see them arrive; walk through to the back and emerge in the early hours, just before closing, never really bothering others. As keenly as my visitation to places still allowing local music was, so too was my growing awareness of the routine the group had exhibited. Sometimes Matheson would come alone, buy a drink and sit at the bar, facing the dancefloor; staring vaguely, as if something amiss; some shallow drama that goes on unquantified and unnoticed, save for a certain maudling that takes you in a particular state. With this in mind, the main roster remained; Matheson, the obvious lynchpin of the group, the Delray twins, one freakishly tall and gaunt; the other as wide as his twin’s verticality, and Felix; the group’s token European. I could never work out where exactly he was from, and the accents used by the Delray twins in mocking didn’t give much away either. He was of particular interest in that he was the obvious outsider of the bunch, possessing a difference not so keenly blatant as I had perhaps felt. If I wasn’t addled in those moments sitting and observing, I would have been able to formulate a better reason for the feeling of deep unrest that had begun to accumulate within.
My attachment to their routine provided ample distraction, enough so that I noticed when one of the Delray twins didn’t show up. That was two weeks ago. It strikes me that I had suppressed the other Delray’s face in the immediacy of that week, until now. The subdued nature of it only signposting something far stranger about the affair, which I wish I had been alerted to sooner. Then, last week; the other twin vanished.
Tonight, when I came to be in my usual place, Benny was on his own, sitting at the bar. Nothing seemed amiss save for the absence of his friends. He alone; sitting, scanning the negative space. His eyes not focused on the far wall ahead of him, but on something between that. I couldn't work it out, and many times caught him mouthing something out. Vaguely, I sat at the bar staring.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------For now though,
Stick around, John Doe.
