Chapter Two – Stephanie

 

“Come on, Jeff,” I groaned into the bar’s old phone, the one that had been there for years before my dad had passed away, “you can’t fucking do this to me, man! This is the second busiest goddamn night of the year, and the crowd’s getting too heavy!”

“I’m sorry, Steph,” he said, his voice weak and sickly. “You think I’m happy I’m missing out on this pay day?” He paused, coughed. I cringed internally, and externally, at how painful and wet it sounded. “Got rent due at the end of the month, same as everyone else. But I’m fucking dying here, boss.”

Jeff was my second call out. Well, technically. The first, Christina, I’d actually sent home because I was worried just looking at her for too long was going to give me whatever weird variety of plague she’d contracted. Her skin almost had a green tint, and thick yellow mucus was running from her nose like a faucet someone had left on by accident.

I’d sent her home because I knew, with Jeff and I both behind the bar, we’d be able to handle anything. He’d been Mom’s second-in-command for years, before Mom passed, and I knew he and I could take anything this place threw at us.

But, with him sick, I was at a loss. There was no way I was going to get through tonight all on my own. Phone cord twisted up in my hand, I leaned back against the wall of the back room, sighing loudly into the phone. “Shit, Jeff. What am I going to do?”

“Well, what would Sharon have done?”

I shook my head. I knew exactly what Mom would have done: the same thing she’d done every year. Work her fingers to the bone and make a killing, even while she was shaking her head at the crazy-ass tourists who came to Camelot every year, without fail, for one weekend in March.

“Who wants to celebrate some old lady dying, anyways?” she’d always mumbled as she grabbed more ice from the back.

Which was, to be precise, almost the exact opposite of what I wanted to do. I just hadn’t yet figured out how I could blow up a bar without it looking intentional.

Kidding, of course! Even after everything Mom and I had been through together, this was one of the only places I still felt close to her. Like she’d walk through that bar one night, help me and Jeff with closing up.

“She’d work it like any other night, whether you guys showed up or not.”

“Exactly,” Jeff said, his voice high-pitched and nasal from the sickness. “Just channel Sharon, or something. You got this, champ.”

“Gee. Thanks for the encouragement.”

Only problem was, I wasn’t Sharon Kaufman. She’d been a hard-nosed retired factory worker who’d decided to buy a bar in the middle of freaking nowhere after she got laid off in Pittsburgh. After she’d bought up the place, she hadn’t even had enough leftover money to change the name on the sign.

I was just Stephanie. Not the woman who’d kicked an abusive asshole of a husband out on his ass, or held a strike placard high on the union line. Not that the strikes helped, of course. The layoffs had still come.

I twisted the phone cord more tightly, wound it around my hand as I bit my lower lip. I wanted to cry, to tell him that I wasn’t a champ. That I wasn’t some tough old broad like my mom had been. I was me. A girl who’d been left a bar when her mom died, who was just trying to keep this place afloat and make it from one day to the next.

I wasn’t some tough guy or gal. I wasn’t her son, any more than she’d been Stan.

“Don’t worry,” Jeff said, coughing again into the phone. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

“They could get such shitty service from the owner that they burn the place to the ground.”

“Well, then you’d get that insurance money you’re always joking about.”

“Too bad Stan & Sons is in Camelot. Probably only be enough to buy a bus ticket back to Pittsburgh.”

Jeff laughed weakly on the other end. “Don’t worry, champ, I believe in you.”

“Yeah,” I said, “thanks, I guess. Don’t think your good vibes will pour any shots, though.”

He chuckled again, his breath ragged in my ear. “You’ll be fine. Now, go pour some drinks.”

I sighed deeply, nodding. “Yeah, sure. I’ll get to it. You get better, okay?”

“If I can walk, I’ll try to come in tomorrow.”

Really, I didn’t want him pushing himself too hard. Jeff was the closest thing I had left to family in this town, and his getting even sicker because he didn’t rest was the last thing I wanted for him. “Only if you feel better. All right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he breathed, then promptly tried to cough up both lungs. “Just like your mom, you know that?”

I winced, pulling the receiver away from my ear as I said my goodbyes and hung up the phone. Due to the coughs, he still hadn’t gotten out his own farewells by the time I’d hung the heavy receiver back in its place, though.

I stood there, staring at the phone, the rumble of the patrons growing louder in the back of my hearing. I didn’t want to do this. I really didn’t want to. But, Jeff had been right. Mom would have done it, even if she’d been as sick as Jeff. Because the mortgage didn’t pay itself, and there was always a bill in the mail for the lights.

Out in the front of the house, the crowd was getting thicker by the second as the visitors came streaming in to get ready to celebrate Winifred O’Bannon’s death. For the last fifty or so years, the town had been putting on a little celebration of her execution by mob, and the curse she’d placed on the town. Year after year, it had gotten bigger and bigger, with people coming from all over the world to tour our haunted little burg, and to see the bands that played.

Not that the town was proud of what their ancestors had done, or anything. Nor were they proud that they had had to invent a haunting like they did. But, when the coal seams had dried up, they’d all had to make a living somehow, and making up a haunting was about as worthwhile as digging chunks of carbon out of the dirt and stone.

This year was different, though. After some big event production company came to us with their plan for the big anniversary, the town had been intrigued, but cautious. After all, it was the one-hundred-fiftieth anniversary, and the crowds were going to be pretty sizable even if these bigwigs from Philadelphia didn’t manage to throw their big party.

“Bigger than Bonnaroo!” the promoter had said when they pitched the idea.

Not that any of the older townsfolk knew what the musical festival in Tennessee was. “You mean Woodstock?” I asked, just trying to be helpful.

“Yeah!” H. H., the main promoter and money man behind the whole operation, had said. “Exactly! Bigger than freaking Woodstock! We’re even gonna have Maneki Neko here!”

While the elders hadn’t exactly approved of their foul language, or known who the hell Maneki Neko was, the council voted unanimously to approve it. After all, we all had to scratch out a living up here in the mountains. Any way we could. Even if we didn’t keep up with popular culture.

I turned around, leaned against the back room’s cool wall. I laid my head back, right next to the phone, mildly hoping Jeff would suddenly call to tell me he’d turned a corner and was now well enough to come in.

I sighed, the sound of the crowd getting louder and louder out in front.

He wouldn’t, I knew. But a girl could hope, couldn’t she? I was desperate here, and not even finding any straws worth grasping at.

“All right, Stephanie Kaufman,” I said, my eyes looking up at the ceiling as I impersonated Mom’s no-nonsense, but still caring, voice, “it’s the big game, our star hitter’s injured, and you’re up to bat. You got this, champ. You got this.”

And, for a brief moment, it was almost like she was actually there. Standing by my side, her hand on my shoulder as she rasped her encouragement, the smell of Marlboro Reds thick on her words.

I smiled up at the ceiling, gave a little nod. “Thanks, Mom.”

I headed back out to the front of the bar, barely pausing as I saw the wall of people crowding in at the bar. Devils and witches and zombies. Past presidents of the United States. Current presidents, even. A hundred characters from the cast of a hundred movies.

And, boy, were they raucous, rowdy, and ready to drink.

Bits and pieces of speech drifted to my ear, rising from the rumble of the sea of humanity in front of me.

“Miss!”

“Can I get some service here?”

“What’s taking so fucking long?”

Only way I was going to handle this crowd was by letting them know I wasn’t going to be pushed around, I realized. I took a deep breath, took it as deep as I could, and felt the air flow into my lungs and into my diaphragm. Felt…something else flow in right alongside that air. Like a memory or a distant thought.

And then it was on me in a rush. This feeling of empowerment. Of something strong and unflappable, and I was acting without even thinking about it. Just going into it like I’d done this all a thousand times before.

I stomped my tiny foot against the concrete. “All right!” I shouted above the din, both hands cupped around my mouth like a megaphone, the smell of old cigarette smoke suddenly filling my nose.

The crowd quieted a little, and dozens of pairs of eyes settled on me from within masks, and from behind layers of makeup. Except for one. Those were plain old, normal, human eyes looking right at mine.

Oh. Oh my. Those were nice.

Dark brown, piercing me from within his heavy features. A little stubble over his lip and chin, and short-cropped hair. I guessed he was in his early thirties, and he wore the years well. Something about the way he looked at me made my heart began to race, and I felt for just a moment like I was catching that plague making its rounds with my employees. Almost made me ignore the fact that he wasn’t even wearing a costume like the rest of the people around him.

He gave me a little half-smile, and my knees almost melted. Quickly, though, I slipped back into my motions.

I swallowed hard, pulled my attention back to the crowd.

“Okay, folks,” I yelled when they’d settled down to a dull roar. “If you want to drink here tonight, you’ve gotta know two things.” I held up a finger. “First, I’m the only bartender, so you’re stuck with me. You’ll all get served, you just might need to wait a minute longer.”

A little bit of grumbling, but general nods.

I held up another finger. “Second, I’m the owner, too. So, you got any complaints, I’m the woman to talk to.”

General murmurs and nods, at first.

“This is bullshit,” said a guy in the crowd. Dressed in a Roman centurion costume that showed off plenty of muscles, he looked to be in his mid-twenties. “Why don’t you have any more staff?”

“Yeah,” added his girlfriend, dressed in some kind of toga thing that barely left anything to the imagination, as she pressed herself against his side.

“Don’t like it?” I said, stepping forward with my hands on my hips. “Well, The Round Table is open right down the road. More than welcome to pack in there with the rest of the sardines.”

His lower lip stuck out in one of the worst pouts I’d ever seen, and he and his girl turned to each other and began to discuss other drinking options.

Honestly, I didn’t care one way or another what they did. Even if seventy-five percent of these people left, I’d have a better night than I’d had in the last six months. No doubt about it. I turned back to tall, dark and handsome with the deep brown eyes, pointed at him.

“You’re up first, chief,” I said as I took a step closer to him. “What can I get you?”

“Laphroaig, if you’ve got it,” he said, the words rolling off his tongue like they were caramel.

“Scotch man, huh?” I asked, grabbing a glass. “Neat, I’m guessing?”

He smiled a little. “Any other way?”

With a little flush to my face, I turned to the bar, pulled down the scotch from the top shelf of the wall of liquor, and began to pour his drink. I may have gone a little heavy on the pour, but he seemed like he would appreciate the gesture. In a flash, I had the glass of amberish liquid neat in front of him.

“Neat, huh? Man after my own heart. You wanna start a tab?”

“You gonna be able to keep track?” he asked.

“Oh, I think I’ll remember you,” I said with another smile, despite the flush in my cheeks.

“Then, yeah, sure. Start me a tab.”

After that, I turned to the next group of people, took their order for four domestic beers. “Twenty bucks,” I said.

“Start a tab?” one of the guys, who was wearing some kind of deer outfit with giant antlers and a name tag that read “John,” asked.

I smiled up at him, had to crane my head back to look him in the eye because of my vertically-challenged-ness. “What are you supposed to be?”

“John Deere. Or a dear John, depending on how you look at it.”

“Aw, isn’t that sweet?” I asked, flashing him a tight-lipped smile. “Not tonight. Cash only.”

“But you just—”

“Did you not just hear the rules? Specifically rule two?” I asked as the good-looking guy with the dark eyes and sexy smile chuckled around his sip of scotch. “ATM’s across the street at the convenience store if you need some cash.”

“Hey,” handsome called above the crowd, leaning over the bar to get my attention as I was cramming cash into the old register my mom had left behind, “I got a question.”

Not that he had to lean and shout. He could have given me that little half-smile of his, and I would’ve been able to hear just his whisper.

“Shoot,” I called back.

“What is all this?”

I burst out laughing, suddenly unable to control myself. “You don’t know?”

“No. Should I?”

I turned back around, walked up to the next customer at the bar and pointed at him. He gave me his order of a bourbon and Coke, and I bent to the task.

“Well, yeah. Only reason anyone ever comes to the most haunted town in America, fifty years running.” I glanced over at him, my eyes smiling beneath my bangs. “I was wondering why you weren’t wearing a costume. Figured you were going as normal, or something.”

He smirked. “Or something. Most haunted town in America? How come I’ve never heard of you guys, then?”

“Maybe you’re a little too old for Halloween?” I asked.

“Some people say I’m young at heart, though.”

I laughed as I placed the drink in front of my customer, took his cash. “Well, that makes one of us. You really don’t know, do you?”

He shook his head as I spun back around, moved on to the next face in the crowd, and pointed at them. Bartending on any night is like juggling five glass balls all at the same time. You’re trying to keep a million things in the air at once, and you have to keep the momentum going. Because once that slips, you’ll slip. And once you slip, all those shiny orbs are going to fall to the earth in a crash.

But tending bar on a night like this?

It’s more like juggling chainsaws. Chainsaws that have been dipped in poison. Then set on fire.

Or something like that.

I turned back to him, bottle of well whiskey in hand, and began to line up shot glasses in front of me for one of the customers. As I spoke, I poured the liquor into the glasses, barely spilling any. “Woman named Winifred O’Bannon was burned to death for being a witch here at the height of the Civil War.”

He coughed on his scotch, making a face as he wiped the back of his big, rough-looking hand across his mouth. “A witch?”

“Well, she wasn’t somebody’s wife,” I said with a nod as I pointed to the next couple and leaned in to take their order. “Owner of the big mine, Gavin Burns, accused her of witchcraft,” I continued as I poured drinks for the customers, and grabbed two more beers, “and convinced the judge to have her arrested. Jury acquitted her of the charges.”

“What happened? You said she was killed, right?”

“Mob justice,” I said. “Burns got a bunch of his rowdier miners whipped up, had them burn her boarding house down with her still trapped inside. Never proved he instigated, but the whole town knew who’d been behind the burning.”

“Shit,” he breathed, taking another sip of scotch. “Hell of a way to go.”

“You’re telling me,” I said as I delivered some more drinks. “Story is, she screamed out a curse with her dying breath, a curse on Burns and all the other men who were involved. And they’ve been trapped here ever since.”

“Civil War times, huh?” he asked, a distant look in his eyes like he was seeing past me.

I nodded. “Hundred and fiftieth anniversary this weekend.”

He shook his head, seemed to come back to the here and now. “Damn. Long time to haunt a small town, don’t you think?”

“Figure she’d have moved on by now? No one else in this town seems to, so why should she be any different?”

He grinned as he leaned forward, elbows planted on the bar in front of him. “I got a question. You ever see her ghost?”

I set an ice-filled glass on the counter in front of me and just gave him a funny look. Of course no one had ever actually seen her ghost. It was all BS we sold the tourists, same way a farmer shovels it on the farm. Why else would anyone ever come here to this podunk town?

For just a moment, though, I smelled those old Marlboro Reds my mom used to smoke, and I could’ve sworn I heard her whispering laugh from behind me.

But, that was crazy. Wasn’t it?

“What?” he asked with a little smile. “Never seen it before?”

I shook my head, dispelling the illusion of Mom’s laugh.

I really wanted to tell him there wasn’t anything like actual ghosts here, but a little part near the back of my brain noticed the people standing around the bar, their eyes fixed on me. Disillusioning them on their first night wasn’t going to be good for repeat business. That’d be like Disneyland admitting it wasn’t the happiest place on earth when you first got past the ticket-taker.

“Well, of course I’ve seen her!” I said with a laugh as I popped the lids off two beers with easy swipes of my oversized bartender’s bottle opener. As I did, my eyes glanced past his, to the couple in the Roman costumes. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve lived here practically my whole life. They say you can see her all over town. Even my mom saw her once, right here in this bar.”

The couple locked eyes with mine for a moment, but something about them was strange. Not right. Like they’d slipped contacts into their eyes when I wasn’t looking, turned their eyes from human ones to yellow cat eyes with vertical irises. Everything about their faces seemed to have changed along with them, to have taken on some kind of feral, predatory cast.

My breath caught in my throat for a split second, even as the handsome stranger asked me a follow-up question, his voice a thousand miles away.

Their eyes shifted back just as quickly as they’d changed originally, and they returned to their little chat with each other.

Cool sweat broke out over my body, and I shook my head, blinking.

“You okay?” the stranger asked, his brow furrowed.

“What?” I replied with a wan smile. What had I just seen? Was that even real? Or just a trick of the light? Of the stress, and everything else, just messing with me? Was it just like that laugh of Mom’s? “Oh, what were you saying?”

“Asked what your mom did when she saw her.”

“Oh,” I said with a little laugh, put on a fake grin, and easily slipped back into my role as bartender and entertainer. “Threw her ass out for not tipping.”

The handsome stranger laughed, drained the rest of his scotch, and slid the glass forward.

“Another one?” I asked.

He shook his head as he pulled out his money clip. “Not right now. Gotta find a place to stay the night.”

I threw my head back and laughed, the memory of the Roman couple already fading in my mind as more pressing matters returned to the forefront. “You’re either blind or an extreme optimist, chief. Think you can find a place? Camelot’s got less than two hundred people living here. How many hotels you think we have?”

He shrugged. “I’ll find something,” he said as he went to lay down some cash.

I waved it off. “Nah, you keep it.”

“You sure?” he asked, one eyebrow arched up.

“Oh, yeah. You know how priceless a good laugh is?”

He grinned. “Wasn’t that a hotel I saw across the street?”

I nodded as I finished taking another order, this one for a martini, and went to grab my shaker. “They filled up six months ago, from what I hear,” I said, my grin spreading. “But good luck, anyhow.”

He chuckled and gave me a nod, before turning and disappearing into the crowd, which promptly swallowed him whole.

I sighed as I turned back to my work, to the wall of crazily dressed partygoers, to the wall of people closing in on me from all sides. I sighed and nodded, those yellow eyes flashing again before my eyes.

I shivered for just a moment, trying to put it down to just getting my wires crossed, and quickly got back to work. “Who’s next?” I shouted to the crowd. I pointed to the nearest guy who looked like he’d been standing there awhile. “What can I get you? Make it fast!”

This was already shaping up to be a long, strange night.