The bar was still being tended by Dustin, so he shuffled his way over to a stool and sat down, feeling oddly winded. All around him, the party was winding down a bit.. It was still loud, but he could probably have an actual conversation without having to yell.
Josh was still sitting where Steve had been. He glanced over when he saw Caleb sit down and grinned.
“Hey bro, suit looks great!” Josh grinned.
“Yeah, it was yours.”
“Eh, basically complimenting myself,” Josh shrugged. “So I never got to telling you the rest of the story.”
“Great, more haunted bikers. Go on.”
“So where was I? Right, the missing workers. Anyways, after that, things were mostly quiet. Tucker’s buddies were super tight-knit. When he bought this place, they were already well-established. Not a lot of competition. Then some cartel comes from up south. Called themselves the Azzies.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Exactly. The DEA wasn’t even after these guys, they were so low key. Then the Azzies showed up and all hell breaks loose. Literally.”
“Come on.”
“Nah, I’m serious. Weird executions, disappearances. All Azzies, none of our Heaven’s Devil boys.”
“Okay.”
“Then one night the cartel has enough. Sends a damn army. This whole place was lit up. Azzies started a fire. Then they murdered everyone. Peeled the skin off their faces, cut off their arms and legs, had the dogs eat the rest. There were twenty four people in the biker gang. By the end of the night, there was only one left: Tucker McCabe.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah. They had attacked while Tucker was out on a trip. Comes back, finds his boys dead, his place burnt to the ground. Police have the whole place closed up, but he walks right in there, past the Sheriff, and he’s in the burnt out ruins all day and night. Three days later, he walks out.”
“Weird…”
“Yeah. Then the cartel just friggin dies. One after the other, hundred people drop dead. Even the guys the Sheriff locked up. Dead as a doornail in their prison cell.”
“Okay, and so Tucker…”
“After the last member of the Azzies died, he said ‘My bar and my boys will be here forever’. Then he blew his brains out.”
“A strange flex, but okay.” Caleb grinned.
“That’s not the scary part,” Josh leaned forward. “Over the years, people who’ve come here just vanish. It’s usually just one or two guys every couple of years. A vagrant camped here one night and the cops rolled up on him. Ran inside the bar. They followed him inside, but found nothing. Not even fingerprints.”
“Selective ghosts.”
“Yeah, well, Dustin’s dad said” Josh looked over at Dustin and shouted, “Hey Dustin! What’d your dad say about the rules?”
“Uh, never be on the property after midnight.” Dustin grinned, glancing at the clock on the wall.
It was 11:40 PM.
“Keep going. I’m telling him the stories,” Josh pointed at Caleb.
Dustin walked over, huffing, a look of excitement on his face.
“Didja tell him about the missing cleaner?”
“What?” Caleb asked.
“Three guys my dad hired a couple years ago. This place was a filthy old dump at that point. They parked in the back. Dad had them working late so they could show the bar to a few prospective buyers that week.” Dustin leaned forward over the bar, his fake beard brushing it. “When he came to see how much progress they’d made, he found the place pristine.”
“Okay?”
“When the cleaners came to pick up their checks, one of them was missing. Never showed up again. Not even for a check. They said he went inside to use the bathroom just before midnight and never came back.” Dustin hesitated, “And you remember that escaped convict from a few years ago? He came here too, to hide out. They found his cuffs by one of the old cars. No more convict.”
“But I don’t get it, why midnight?”
“The video.” Josh replied.
“What?”
“We had to install cameras on the property after the cleaner went missing.” Dustin said. “There was this veteran back from the Iraq war. He’d beg by the side of the road over on K Street. One day, he wandered into the bar. We’d locked it, but the door just… opened.”
Caleb shivered, remembering what had happened a few hours ago.
“He goes in with his dog. Camera has him wandering around, then they both get on that cushion over there, falls asleep.” Dustin nodded to a corner booth. “Everything seems normal until midnight. Cameras cut out for a split second. Then he was gone.”
“Just before the cameras went out, we saw him. Tucker McCabe, staring straight at the camera over there near the hallway to the manager’s office.” Dustin pointed.
Caleb looked. The hallway was, of course, empty. “And the dog?”
“We have a motion detector set up. The next morning, the alarm went off. Dad went down to check it out, opens the door, dog runs out whining and yipping.”
“We installed padlocks after that. The weirdest part was that this place looks better every time someone vanishes.” Dustin said. “Dad said that jukebox wasn’t there before the cameras cut off. When he walked in, it was playing Crystallica.”
Caleb sat in silence. He glanced up at the clock. 11:50 PM. That cold feeling in the pit of his stomach was growing.
“Aren’t you afraid of vanishing?” Caleb asked.
“With this many people?” Dustin looked around at the twenty guys who were playing pool, darts, drinking and laughing, “Fuck no! The ghosts only take people who are on their own.”
“Know that for a fact?”
“Well, they’ve only taken one person every time.” Dustin shrugged and pulled out some bags of salt. “Plus we brought this. I spread it around the doors here.”
“Salt.” Caleb sad flatly.
“Stops ghosts from crossing the line.” Dustin said, pointing at the entrance to the bar. A thick line of salt was there. “If something does happen, I’m safe.”
“Then why wear biker garb?”
“Confuses the spirits. So that’s the ghost story. Scary, huh?” Josh grinned, nudging Caleb with his elbow. “Hey, where’s Steve?”
Caleb looked around, “He went to his old beater to get a towel. No idea where he is now.”
“Go find him!” Josh’s eyes widened. “It’s almost midnight, you know!”
“You two are fucking with me, right?”
“Nope.” Dustin grinned.
“Okay, you guys got me, haha.” Caleb fake laughed. “Who opened the door?”
“The door?”
“When me and Steve were outside, the door opened on its own.” Caleb said. “Which one of you was it?”
“Dude,” Dustin stared at him, “The key didn’t work. No one was inside the door.”
“Sure.” Caleb blushed red. “Jackass.”
Stupid motherfuckers! Of course they were just fucking with him. Who else could have opened the door?
“No, he’s not fucking with you,” Josh said, “Dude, no one opened that door.”
“Fuck you two, I’m going to find Steve,” Caleb said angrily, getting up and walking towards the backdoor to the parking lot.
As he waddled past the booths, wondering why walking was so darn hard, he smelled something sweet and strangely cloying. Caleb slowed to a stop and glanced over to the empty booth the veteran had disappeared from.
He froze. Almost literally, as the room had suddenly gone ice cold. His breath puffed in visible clouds in front of his face.
Sitting in that corner booth was a big, burly man. He was smoking a cigar, wisps of which curled around his well-groomed black beard. The man’s eyes were the color of steel and seemed to pierce Caleb straight to his soul.
“You okay there, pig?” The man’s voice was deep and resonant.
“...Uh…” Caleb latched on the first thing he could think of, “Pig?”
“Heh, that’s what they call big fat guys who like drinking and fucking.”
“It’s just a costume,” Caleb said defensively.
“Well, I gotta say, I like your costume,” The man winked, “Reminds me of one of my old friends. You fill that costume out nicely, piggy.”
Caleb decided the guy was just a weird asshole. He glanced behind him at the clock. 11:55.
When he looked back, the man seemed much younger, the beard clearly fake. Even the cigar was clearly plastic, the ‘smoke’ fake. The arms and gut looked more like padding than anything real. He looked exactly like the kid he’d tripped over on his way to the bathroom before.
Caleb shook his head. He must have just been seeing things. Stupid ghost stories!
“Something wrong?” The kid asked with a smirk. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”
“Look man, I don’t know what game you’re playing, I just gotta find my friend quick. Before midnight.” Caleb explained.
“Oh,” The kid said. Caleb realized that the kid’s voice seemed to be deep, but more like someone putting on a gruff voice, “But that clock’s five minutes fast.”
“Eh?” Caleb pulled out his phone.
12:00.
“Shit! The ghost might have gotten him!” Caleb said frantically, staring at his phone. He glanced back up. “Have you seen-”
The man was gone. Moreover, the booth was completely empty. He looked around, and all he saw were his friends dressed up in fake biker garb. What a weird fucking night.
Caleb waddled through the kitchen to the back lot, huffing and puffing all the way. Sweat trickled from his brow. This costume was getting too hot and too heavy. He was going to find Steve and go home.
The parking lot was eerily empty.
He looked around, searching the underbrush for the old burgundy-colored beater and Dustin’s shitty old truck. All he could find were rusted old hunks of junk back here, overgrown with brush. Near where they’d parked, he thought he’d seen their car, but after glancing over it, realized it was completely ruined. The front seats were torn up, a pile of dead leaves was sitting in the back ones, and the windows were all busted.
Clearly not Josh’s car.
As he turned to look elsewhere, convinced he was searching the wrong place, he saw a flash of bright green from the corner of his eye. Caleb went back to the rusted out hulk and peered through the broken driver’s window.
Hanging from a busted rear-view mirror was a bright green rosary.
Caleb gulped, reaching in and pulling it out. He flipped it over. On the back was Josh’s name: Josh Hubert. He glanced into the rusted hulk It did look A LOT like Josh’s car, now that he could inspect it better.
Which was impossible, since it had clearly sat here for a decade at least.
Caleb’s heart pounded in his chest. Impossible! He paced back and forth, wheezing. No, Josh must have set this whole thing up. Pulled his car around the front, left his rosary dangling from a ruined car that kinda looked like his. Yeah, that was it! Caleb was obviously being pranked.
He waddled around the building, going to the front.
The front parking lot was empty. Even the door was still padlocked shut. Thanks to the blackout windows, he couldn’t even tell that people were inside it. Caleb hustled around the parking lot before pulling out his phone. It still read 12:00.
Caleb stared at it, baffled.
No, that wasn’t supernatural, he was just being silly. Steve’s number was in his phone. He unlocked it and called Steve’s number. It rang several times before it was picked up.
“Hello?” A deep voice said from the other side of the line.
“Steve?” Caleb said, voice gruff and croaky. He coughed, clearing his throat. “Where are you?”
“Caleb?” The voice was Steve’s, but weirdly distorted, a deep bass. “I’m in the bathroom. Where are you?”
“Parking lot.”
“What the hell are you doing out there? All the boys are inside.” Steve hung up.
Caleb blinked at the phone, then turned it off with fingers that felt oddly swollen. He flexed his hand a few times, all his digits feeling puffy and strained. Maybe he was having an allergic reaction? Anyway, he’d found Steve, so he wouldn’t have to worry about an allergic reaction to latex much longer.
He waddled back into the bar.