T

he darkness closed frighteningly around me as I drove into the stormy night, on my way to Salona, my parents' little city. No lights behind me, no lights ahead; only the opaque veils of dark, shattered by wind, the rhythmic thud of windscreen wipers and the the narrow strip of yellow light continuously swallowing the road beneath me. All alone in an alien dream, eager to find the path to some shore of reality.

I've lost almost three hours finding my way back on the main highway after missing my exit; the familiar area where I grew up had become a menacing maze of empty roads, leading to nowhere; a nobody's land determined to have me forever wandering under the steel whip of rain. A whole afternoon lost in vain, and a lot of frustration as I only figured out my way by the fell of dark.

I blamed my mother for that futile trip, and her latest insidious hints of neglect. "It is about a month since we last saw you, James", she'd reminded me on the phone with that reproaching tone I couldn't stand. I blamed my girlfriend for pestering me about family connections, and how important it was to keep them alive, when I suspected she'd only wanted a day off by herself. I blamed the whole world which always conspired against me, pushing me to do stupid, useless things I didn't want to, when I had so much work, important things that required every available minute of my time. But here I was on a Friday evening, losing my way and my temper, losing my precious time for this dinner.

I blamed myself too; for surrendering to that guilty voice in my head whispering that is was more than a month since my parents saw me, and how much it meant for my old mother to just have me there, even for those few sparse hours. How happy she was to stuff me with all kinds of homemade sweets and read on my face that I was indeed happy, healthy and content with my work. If I had only not postponed this visit for so long I would be now in my shiny new office, working at my latest contract and at the countless details of Monday's meeting, instead of wandering in the storm.

An undefined form flew above the road, a piece of garbage stolen by the wind - absurd and surreal in the night's loneliness - disappearing from my vision like a ghost.

More feeling than seeing the exit, the final exit to that damned lost city of my childhood, I turned right and decided to reward myself. I deserved a drink before stepping into the "mommy's boy" skin. The old pub was right in front of me, a destitute building standing at the city's entrance. My parents were warned that I'd be late - if I could ever find my way - so a few more minutes didn't mattered anyway.

The cube-shaped building of the pub and the empty parking place looked like the last station before the end of the world. For a big city guy as myself, used to crammed parking lots, that waste of space seemed so unnatural; maybe it was indeed too much time since I was here. But at least there were lights, as sick and desolate as they were, trembling under the strong wind and spotting the demented convulsions of the rain. And there was also the promise of a warming scotch after so many hours of frustrated driving.


*


I

parked right in front of the old entrance door, along with two other cars lost there somehow. The moment I stepped out, a wicked wind slapped my face with ice-wet fingers, wrestling me, trying to knock the breath out of me. Roaring and threatening with thousand curses, the low black sky was almost a physical presence, a beast avid to ravage and devour every trace of life on this earth. Pieces of trash were flying around, poor maddened souls lost in the dark hell of storm.
I ran the few steps to the pub door, my fancy lawyer suit already soaked, with only one thought in my mind: "Damnation". This was a night of the damned. If there ever was a moment when I felt like praying, this night was one of them. Only prayers could help you hold your grips through the haunting wail of that ghostly storm.

Or drinking to oblivion

, I thought as I stepped inside, closing the door in the furious wind's face.
The place was withered and shadowy; an old bar with low ceilings, cracked walls covered by black and white photographs and the patina of time showing everywhere. Inside were only few people, vaguely known faces belonging to a time and a place I wanted so much to leave in the past. Most tables were empty; not even on a Friday evening Salona's people were alive enough to get out of the houses. Not on nights like this. A muted small TV hanging above the bar ran some local news, reflecting its blue light on the tens of liquor bottles along the wall.

"Evening, Nat," I said to the fat bartender, panting and wiping out the water from my face. He nodded indifferently and placed both his hands on the bar, obviously waiting for my order. His rosy nose was stained with crimson cracks of broken veins.
"Pour me a double scotch, will you? Straight."
" A little late for dinner, Jamie?" he asked with that slow, monotone voice of a person who has all the time in the world, handling my drink.
"Yeah. This damn weather," I answered shrugging. I raised the glass he pushed in front of me and took a hasty sip; the magic potion instantly restored the flow of blood in my veins and warmed my breath. Nat returned to whatever he was doing with his bottles under the counter.

"I think I'll sit over there for a minute," I said, pointing to the farthest table, and I left, leaving him to deal all alone with his bottles. Nat's twin daughters were a few years my seniors in the high school; two blond and square Brunhildas, faithful clones of their father and with a time-proven crush on me. As far as I knew, they were now devoted wives of local merchants, promptly producing a bunch of square and blond offspring. I remember making little harsh jokes on them back then, but only because my friends were permanently teasing me, and I had an honor to protect. If Nat was still having some hard feelings about that, this wasn't the right night to deal with the past.

I sat there in the smoky corner of that aged pub, enjoying the warmth and fragrance of the scotch, while the desperate shrieks of the storm outside raised above the low-playing country music on the background. I let a pensive mood to smoothly wrap my mind. Forgotten memories of my youth emerged like vapours from the glass in front of me; events and people who were once all my life, now lost to me like an eerie dream in the morning. A long procession of past years trotted in front of my eyes, some good, others bad; but each one of them stealing some more innocence from me, more dreams, more hopes. My life has run past me, without knowing exactly when and how. I found myself sighing; Nat's scotch was probably stronger than I thought.

*

The entrance door burst wide open and an old man stepped in, accompanied by a wet gust of cold air. I immediately recognized him as he approached the bar; that icon figure of the classic cowboy could only belong to Billy Cavanaugh, the hero of our local urban legend. Summoned from my memories, the past was here, not waiting for an acceptance. And suddenly I was again the little boy with scratched knees and sun-burned freckles, hidden in the bushes with another bunch of kids, eyes bright with excitement and hearts pounding with fear, waiting for Billy Cavanaugh to pass by. "Did you see it? Did you see it?" we were hysterically asking each other afterward, pushing and jumping around with frenzy."It was right there, walking next to him!"
The truth is I never saw the famous ghost of that boy, Darren Collins, who supposedly never left Billy's sight; but I always believed the others did. And I completely believed the stories were true. Something in Billy's walk, already then white-haired, in his haunted, fixed stare was more convincing to me than any story we, the kids,enjoyed so much telling each other. The man was carrying a ghost with him; and that was visible to the naked eye.

Now, just as then, I scanned him with curiosity; and just like then, there was nothing to see near him, no dark shadows or spooky forms of otherwordly creatures. But the same haunted stare hit me again; and that walk of a man with an unbearable burden in his heart. I watched him taking a seat at the far edge of the bar and I understood how easy it was back then, for us, overloaded with imagination kids, to believe those stories.

Oh, the stories...The rumors were that in his youth, Billy and his best friend, Darren Collins, fell madly in love with the same girl; they said she was the most beautiful girl Salona ever bred. Both proud and handsome daredevils, they broke a lifetime of friendship to conquer her love; in the end, Billy Cavanaugh was the one who won her hand. Unable to accept the defeat or to live without the woman he loved, young Darren publicly killed himself, jumping from the church roof on Billy's wedding day. As weird as the story was, and recalling it now, with a mature mind, I realized how dramatic it sounded, it was historically accurate. But from this point on I wasn't so sure what was real, and what was fantasy.
The story went that poor Darren's ghost is always around Billy, when alone, making his life miserable. His wife was the only person who kept Darren at distance. Of course that the Cavanaugh couple never, ever, celebrated their wedding day. More than that, it was not healthy to be around Billy on that damned day, when frightful things happened to him. Their love, although stained by a heavy curse, lasted over the years. But from their union only a sick child was born, who died a few years later of a mysterious disease; Darren's ghost took his soul, they said. Yes, I felt like a boy again, all these stories running wildly through my head, and for a moment there, I even liked the thrill of it.

"Get a grip now", I muttered to myself and took another sip of reality from Nat's scotch.
Then I became aware of the silence.
Maybe it was that the music stopped suddenly, or maybe the quiet in the bar became too obvious to me, but something strange was happening in there. Without a word, like at an invisible signal, the few people sitting around stood up and prepared to leave the bar. All of them. I watched with incredulity how they left in silence, one by one, without a glance toward Nat or Billy. There's nothing like a ghost story to feed people's superstitions, but this I thought to be embarrassingly weird .
The last person in the bar, a short man in his sixties, approached Billy and patted him on the shoulder, whispering something that sounded like: "I'm sorry for your loss", but I couldn't be sure. Then he also disappeared, swept by the harsh night.
Unaware or indifferent to what was going on around, old Billy never raised his eyes from the bar in front of him. His stare seemed locked on something more daunting than an empty pub on a stormy night.

"You shouldn't have come here tonight, Billy", said Nat finally with his slow rolling voice, and the words fell like stones in the creepy silence of the room. Aware of it, Nat bent for a long moment under the bar and the cheap music started playing again, weird and totally out of the place.
"Are you afraid too, Nat?" Billy's voice sound tired, more an affirmation than a question.
"Is not about fear, Billy. I know it is a hard time for you, and I'm sorry for your loss. But you shouldn't have come here. Not tonight."
Billy Cavanaugh laughed, a dry laugh so fake that my nerves tensed, and he finally raised his eyes to look at Nat.
"Are you afraid he will come to take me in, now when there's nothing to stop him?"
I knew from my mother's gossips that Billy's wife has been suffering with cancer for a long time; she was probably the loss everyone was sorry for. Or at least they said so.
"People are talking, you know. They always do." Nat spoke while polishing his glasses with a white rag. "People are afraid, and I can't blame them for that. It's not like I've had too many clients around here lately."
I gulped another sip of scotch without blinking. The storm seemed to concentrate all its hate on pub's modest building, barking and howling through every crack it found, shaking it from the ground.But it seemed secondary to the dreadful tension inside.

Billy lowered his glance again.
"Don't worry, then," he said slowly. "If the rumours are true, this is the last night I will ever bother anyone."
A shiver ran through my spine at the calm tone with which he said that.
"I don't like when you talk that way, Billy", replied Nat. "I don't like it at all."
"I'm ready, Nat, for whatever is there for me. I don't even care now." The old man seated himself better on the high chair. "I just figured that if I'm going to leave, at least I'll have a good drink before I go. What do you say, is that okay with you? A drink with an old friend?"
Nat shrugged at his bottles, then prepared a drink and placed it with a heavy sigh in front of Billy. He threw a look at me, the undesirable witness of their unnerving conversation.
"Hey, Jamie. Didn't you finish your drink yet? I bet Marry-Lou's dinner is long cold since waiting for you", he said to me.
My glass was almost empty, all right, yet no one will send me home like a kid at the bedtime. I swallowed the harsh words on the tip of my tongue, and I only said:
"It's all right. I'm not in a hurry, and I'm definitely not superstitious."

A half-second smile flickered on old Billy's lips, and he continued to stare at his glass. I don't know why I always thought of him so old; he couldn't be much older than my own parents. Probably because he was already legend when I only was a kid, or maybe because of his prematurely white hair. Or maybe because of that mysterious aura he was surrounded by.

"What about you, Nat?" he asked with the same low voice, like Nat's conversation with me never happened. "Won't you pour a drink for yourself too?"
The bartender hesitated; he was visibly unhappy with me, but the night was way to spooky too worry about that now.

Without a warning, a devastating thunder shook the building so forcefully that the rows of bottles above the bar clinked in protest, trembling in their places. The pale lights flickered, the TV turned blank and for a moment I was sure we'd be left in the dark. All three of us looked above, up at the bulbs' hopeless struggle. It felt like the storm's fury suddenly penetrated through the thin walls; the wind's howling was deafeningly coming from all directions, while his chilling blow crept above the floor. Instinctively we glanced at the door; it was closed.
And a big, black shadow stood in front of it, looking at us.


The time stopped frozen, and so did the heart. Like in a slow motion movie I registered a thousand details within a blink of the eye. The wide opened eyes of Nat, petrified too with a hand on a brown bottle; the final flicker of the lights above him, stabilizing in a pale glow. The last clicks of the bottles and glasses, as a dull silence fell in the room. I noticed a gray fog creeping slowly toward the strange form in front of the door, and I felt its foul, unbearable smell. The shadow's form was not completely defined, its dark edges continually moving like the edges of a flame in the wind. It was a human form standing there, but that fascinating play of shadows, constantly concealing and revealing it in the same time, was the most frightening thing I'd ever experienced. I watched his facial features coming in and out of sight, and two wide, black holes, that impossibly stared at us the same way that only human eyes could stare.

I noticed Billy's intense, defiant look.

Then I allowed the air to fill my lungs, causing my heart to painfully beat again; I realized that I was looking into the hollow eye sockets of Darren Collins' ghost.


The End of Part 1

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Tag der Veröffentlichung: 03.02.2011

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