Beers and Fears Read online

  The little girl. The young man. The hacked woman.

  WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

  Blaze straightened as Tina pulled into the lot. Her sky-blue Mustang showed its age. Unlike Tina. Her cherry hair, stuffed under a white scarf, floated behind her in the breeze. The cats-eye sunglasses hid her hazel eyes. She flashed a smile and waved at Blaze. He waited for her to near before speaking. Tina pursed her lips and lowered her sunglasses to take in his beaten face.

  “My-my. Looks like somebody had a rough time with the alley cats.”

  Blaze squinted against the sun. “Got mugged.”

  Tina searched his eyes from behind the sunglasses. Her expression told Blaze she didn’t believe his story. But he didn’t care. He had bigger problems. Keeping Tina away from Tony and the other greaseballs, for instance.

  “Matt see your new mug yet?”

  Blaze shook his head. “No. Look, Tina. We need to talk.”

  She began to open the door. Blaze jammed his foot against it to keep her from going inside. Tina shot him a fierce look as if to ask him if he dared hold her up.

  “I don’t want you hanging out with Tony.” He bristled. The words came out easier than he had imagined. Blaze bit his lower lip in anticipation of Tina’s response.

  “Oh, Blaze. That’s sweet of you but I don’t need you to check on me. And I’m a big girl. I can decide who I hang around with.”

  Blaze grabbed her shoulders. Tina dropped her handbag. Her face flushed with surprise. “I don’t want you mixed up with him. Them.”

  Tina wriggled free of his grasp. She snatched her purse from the pavement, dusting it off. Blaze apologized for his actions. “I’m sorry. I mean, they aren’t going to help you get to Hollywood. They’re into…” He struggled to finish his sentence. The idea of saving Tina suddenly felt ridiculous. He chided himself for letting his infatuation get the better of him.

  “For your information, Blaze, I know what they do. I like that stuff.” She licked her painted lips. “I’ve done much worse to get by.”

  Blaze felt sick. The thought of Tina having sex on film and enjoying it upset his stomach.

  “It’s fun and I get to make some extra money on the side. It doesn’t hurt anyone.”

  “It hurts me.” Blaze reddened. The truth was out there and couldn’t be taken back.

  Tina smiled. She rubbed a silky hand down his battered cheek. Blaze winced as her fingers slid across one of his wounds. She pulled her hand back, realizing she had hurt him.

  “Oh, sweetie. I had no idea you felt this way.” She scanned his face. “I like to have fun. I’m not the settling down type.” She pushed Blaze aside so she could go inside. Blaze stared at her ass while she walked to the bar along the back wall. “Besides, I don’t shit where I eat.” Tina removed her sunglasses and scarf, tucking them into her handbag underneath the bar.

  Blaze stomped after her. He realized his boyhood fantasies about her had made him look like a fool. An urge to run away and hide overcame him. Whether she liked him back or not, Blaze had to make Tina understand the danger she was in.

  “What if they are more than what they seem?”

  Tina chuckled. “You mean because they’re Italian.” She dampened a rag and got to work wiping down the counter. “I know who they are. I’ve been around here much longer than you, sweetheart. I’ve seen them all come and go around here with the billfolds and shiny shoes. Money is money.”

  Blaze reached across the bar. Tina retracted her arms before he could get a hold of her. To hide his failed attempt, Blaze leaned on his outstretched hands. “They’ll kill you. They’ve done it before. They’ll do it again.” He wondered why he couldn’t make a more convincing argument. Or was she just too pig-headed to listen to him? “Please, listen to me.”

  They both shifted their attention to the door as Matt arrived. He grumbled under his breath and headed straight to his office with little more than a glance. Blaze kept his face tilted away to avoid Matt’s discovery of his injuries.

  “Like I said, I’m a big girl, Blaze. I’ll be fine. But I appreciate you being like my brother.” She winked at him and left him standing with his mouth hung open.

  He ran outside for fresh air, afraid he would be sick. The sunshine heated the fluid in his veins. His head swam with thoughts of Tina in compromising positions. Blaze realized he didn’t know Tina, or anyone else for that matter, as well as he thought he did.

  The sound of shattering glass broke him from his illness. Blaze looked up in time to find the young man plummeting to his death. His body bounced on the pavement. A spreading puddle of blood surrounded the man in the early American clothing. The dead, blackened eyes stared through Blaze’s soul. His lips fumbled to gurgle a message, half-drowned by the puddle of his own gore.

  We need you.

  WHAT DO YOU NEED?

  Sacrifice.

  WHO’S SACRIFICE?

  The killing.

  The response confused him. The voice hurt his skull like his brain had swelled to bursting.

  DID TONY KILL YOU?

  It feeds and it’s hungry.

  Blaze rubbed his eyes with disbelief.

  Help us all.

  The whisper lingered upon the wind. Blaze hurried into the brewery before he lost his mind.

  ***

  Jackie liked playing outside. She enjoyed the fresh air; the sunlight warmed her skin. Her mother always told her to go outdoors. She didn’t like Jackie being in the way whenever the customers came by. Jackie only knew what her mother told her, but she never understood why all the customers were men. They would ring the bell for her mother, all dressed up in suits and strong-smelling soaps. But when they left the house, the customers looked sweaty and tired, carrying their jackets over their arm or slumped over one shoulder. Jackie imagined her mother yelling at the men and striking good deals. It made sense by the sounds coming from the back room.

  One of Jackie’s favorite activities was skipping rope. She loved to twist the braids beneath her feet as if she were leaping across the Grand Canyon. The sensation of soaring above the earth brought a tickle to her belly. Jackie would skip from one end of the block to the other, sometimes as many as ten times before she would tire. The soreness in her arms and legs never bothered her. The sweating did, though. Her mother said real ladies don’t sweat. Jackie worried that she wouldn’t grow up to be a lady like her mother if she continued to get filthy in her little dresses. But the fun of jumping around would help Jackie forget her mother’s constant warnings.

  She sat on the front lawn for a bit to cool off. The grass was littered with little pods which had fallen from the big tree on the edge of the property. Mr. Hendricks next door had taught Jackie how to peel the pods apart with her fingernails. The sticky residue on the inside of the pods would make her scrunch her face. But she loved to stick the pod on the end of her nose and tell the world she was Pinocchio. Jackie always remembered the first time Mr. Hendrick’s had shown her how to do it. He had placed one on his large, reddened nose and then he puffed his cheeks out, rolling his eyes back and forth. It had made Jackie laugh so hard she had peed a little in her underpants (but she hadn’t told her mother about that part). Since that day, Jackie pretended to be Pinocchio while she caught her breath.

  Jackie spit on her fingers to wash away some of the stickiness. A dog barked from across the street. Jackie stared at the dirty dog, its coat clumped and sodden. It hobbled along, favoring its front right paw as if it had broken its leg. The dog barked again.

  Her mother’s customer shouted from inside the house. He cursed about the noise the dog had made. Jackie stiffened. The man sounded really angry and she feared he would step outside to give the dog a whipping.

  She brushed her dirty hands along her thighs and rose to her feet. Jackie waved the dog to come to her. It ignored Jackie’s pleas, sniffing around the parking lot of the brewery across the street. Jackie wondered if the dog was hungry, searching for a dropped morsel on the pavement.

  It barked
louder.

  The man inside cursed again. His voice scared Jackie.

  She called to the dog, begging it to come to her. She would find something in the house to feed the doggy.

  It sat back on its haunches. The dog licked its lips and barked in a continuous cacophony at nothing in particular.

  Jackie wanted to save the dog from getting a beating. She also wanted to feed it and give it a bath with the hose in the backyard. Jackie crept closer to the street. She used her pointer finger to beckon the dog to her side.

  It lowered its head and directed its loud barks at her. Jackie heard crashing doors behind her. The customer would come outside and hurt the poor dog, who already looked to be having a bad day.

  Jackie hurried into the road. She raised her finger to her lips to shush the doggy before it got itself in trouble.

  Jackie never heard the car as it came down the street.

  ***

  The heroin worked its way through his core. It surged faster than he had ever experienced in the past. Dougie had given Blaze some good stuff this time. It fed his synapses, dulling the aches. Blaze stared into the mirror. The creature reflected at him resembled a decaying corpse. He strained to look closer at the image in the glass. The eyes were foreign. Demonic. The monster in the reflection bared its sharp, bloody teeth at him. Blaze projected his anger toward the thing which abandoned the living, usurping his soul.

  FLASH

  Bombs peppered the hill ahead. The strafing jets, deafeningly loud, obliterated the landscape, charring beast and fauna. The man who had been named after his father, Frederick Matkowski, known to his platoon as “Match” for his hair-trigger temper and for lighting up the jungle with napalm, walked with confidence. The small flames licked at the nozzle of his weapon, hungry for more death. Match, soon to be renamed Blaze by his surviving brothers, searched for gooks among the greenery. He knew they were small and fast like rodents. His eyes watched for quick movements.

  He needed to kill.

  FLASH

  Blaze held on to the sink. His knees weakened as the poison reached his heart, flooding his system through tainted veins. The image in the mirror had morphed back to the man he had come to know. Mixed up and drug-addled. Blaze wanted to cry, sad at the husk of a human which remained behind. His real person had died long ago. In Nam.

  FLASH

  A head popped up from the earth, ten yards in front of him. A North Vietnamese sympathizer with an AK-47 in his hands. The recognition of his ill-timed ascent clouded the dink’s face as he dropped his head back into the make-shift tunnel.

  Blaze grinned.

  He aimed the nozzle and squeezed the trigger. Flames gushed over the lid of the opening. As fire lit up his irises, Blaze saw burning Charlies climb over each other to avoid the perilous immolation. He kicked up the fiery hatch with his muddy boot, jammed the nozzle below ground level and squeezed off another plume of destruction. The fire sucked the oxygen out of the tunnel, so whatever was not burned would die of suffocation. Blaze enjoyed the sound of terror in the foreign tongue, as the dying cursed the white devil who had brought death to their lands.

  FLASH

  Blaze noticed the outline of the figure in the shadows behind him.

  The woman with the huge knife slicing through her flesh. She screamed silently as an invisible hand worked the blade through jagged slashes in her skin. Blood drained from the open gashes. A stink of death and decay wafted from her wounds. He spun to face her.

  The little girl in the dress smiled at him. She raised her finger to her lips to silence him. Blaze grasped at her arms, holding tight before the sedan could run over her again. He screamed into her childishly innocent face. He demanded to know what was happening. Why were they dying over and over? What was wrong with the brewery? Was it cursed? What did they need him to do?

  Before he got an answer, the little girl exploded into a fine mist of crimson. It sprinkled Blaze’s face. He swiped away at the excess that covered his vision.

  WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING HERE?

  Something beautiful.

  HOW IS THE KILLING BEAUTIFUL?

  It is what has been and will always be.

  DID YOU FOLLOW ME BACK FROM VIETNAM?

  We are everywhere. But mostly here.

  WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?

  The past and the present and someday, the future.

  NO MORE RIDDLES! SHOW ME WHO YOU ARE!

  FLASH

  A child cries from the weeds. Blaze turns his attention toward the sound. He moves without reserve as bullets shred the fabric of the vegetation around him. The deafening fray fades into the background, allowing the child to reveal its location. Blaze steps on grass and plants, tamping down a fresh path. He ducks under a limb, the dry leaves tickling his soot-covered face, lapping at his perspiration.

  The crying is close.

  Blaze steps through, into a game trail where an overturned basket rests in the dust. The baby’s dying grandmother blinks up at him. Her eyes glazed over. A drizzle of red along the corner of her lips. Her hand reaches toward the crying child.

  He watches. The fragility of life rushes to his mind. All the killing. Dying. What was it for? He couldn’t answer the question even though it gnawed at him every day in the jungle.

  He watches. The baby’s face is beet red, tempered by the need to be held. Cared for. Its cries becoming more desperate with each passing second.

  He watches. The grandmother whispers in her native tongue. Blaze can’t understand a damn word she says. But he gets the meaning, nonetheless.

  Please don’t kill my grandchild.

  Blaze takes an eternity to cement his next move. Should he kill the baby first so the dink’s last memory on this earth is of her burning grandchild? Or should he put the old hag out of her misery, ending her pain, and sparing her the evil he will do to the innocent child? Either way, the baby had to die. If it lived, it would grow up to be one of them. Fate had been determined when the grandmother took a round in the gut.

  He smiled. Pointed the nozzle. He watched.

  He pulled the trigger.

  FLASH

  WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

  It will be okay. If you walk away.

  Blaze puked across the floor. He dropped to his knees, the cords on his neck straining at his retching.

  I’M NOT WALKING AWAY.

  He wanted to walk away but something deep within urged him to figure this out. An electrical current bolted through his limbs. Blaze reeled at the fire inside his chest. Every fiber tingled as the energy drank of his being.

  If you refuse to walk away, then you will die like the others.

  Blaze gasped. Saliva hung from his open mouth.

  I HAVE TO SAVE THEM FROM THIS EVIL.

  Laughter filled his ears.

  You have evil in your heart, Frederick.

  YOU DON’T KNOW ME.

  The horrors of Vietnam resumed like a film reel in his mind. Each soul he had reaped returned to show him what he had done, but from their point of view. He wanted to turn away from what he saw. The pain of the truth too real for him to accept.

  He smiled. He laughed. He enjoyed.

  The killing.

  I HAD A JOB TO DO!

  Yes, and you excelled at it.

  Blaze rested his forehead against the cool tile floor. He cried. He asked the spirits in the ether how he could have become such a monster. Everything had changed when Blaze had landed on that foreign soil. It had been a dreamscape.

  A nightmare.

  I WILL FIX WHAT I HAVE DONE. YOU’LL SEE.

  You are part of the problem. Your blackened heart has awakened the dead.

  FLASH

  Blaze kicked open the door. Tina shrieked, surprised at his sudden entrance. She is bent over a stack of crates. The sweaty man behind her pulls out, holding his hands in the air as if caught red-handed. A lanky guy with a beatnik beard looked up from his camera. He shouted something at Blaze. Tina pointed at him, commanding him to leave immediately.r />
  The rage flowed like water from an open spigot. Blaze stepped forward. The sweaty guy began to look for his trousers. He appeared to have no interest in sticking around to find out how upset the psycho “boyfriend” would be. The lanky cameraman pointed a bony finger at Blaze, complaining that he had interrupted a great scene.

  Blaze picked up a full keg and used it to smash at the face of the cameraman, who absorbed the blow with a thudding crash to the floor. The keg felt too light in his hands to be full, but Blaze’s anger aroused a superhuman strength. He brought the keg down with all his might, erupting the cameraman’s head like a rotted pumpkin from a Halloween night porch.

  Tina screamed, covering her breasts with one arm.

  Sweaty guy decided against finding his slacks. He sprinted for the storeroom door. Blaze intercepted the man. He clutched the man’s throat, digging his fingernails into his skin. Sweaty guy fought against the tight grip without success. Blaze slammed the man’s slick body into the wall. His eyes rolled in their sockets as his head took the brunt of the attack. Sweaty guy used his scissoring feet to kick at Blaze. A flailing foot landed a hard shot in Blaze’s shin. The sharp pain caused Blaze to loosen his grip. As sweaty guy slipped down, he hurried around Blaze, running for the door to escape. Blaze quickly pursued him, tackling sweaty guy from behind as he reached the door. The two of them crashed to the floor, grappling for the upper hand. Blaze quickly maneuvered into position so that he could wrap his arm around sweaty guy’s neck. The choke hold applied, sweaty guy grunted and gasped as he struggled for air. He put up an enormous fight, swinging his head backwards into Blaze’s face, using his elbows to connect blows into Blaze’s ribs. However, it was to no avail. Slowly, sweaty guy’s resistance faded as he neared unconsciousness. Blaze added a final touch by wrenching sweaty guy’s neck hard. A loud cracking noise echoed across the storeroom signaling sweaty guy’s broken neck.