Adapt (I)

TJR Garcia © 2020

SCARLET

I glance between the shadowed doorway and Boe. This door has no signage, staged in a back alley of Western Towers building, and I have to say I am not convinced of my reasons for entering. Not to mention that the tiny droplets of water that are dripping from the gutters of the city buildings are sending shivers down my already cold spine.

I shudder. “Well, it’s late. It’s been fun, Boe, but I’m tired-”

Boe laces my arm through his, cutting off my excuse. His gentle touch extinguishes any will-power I might have had before, and I follow him through the door.

I am prepared for anything. The car ride left lots of time for my imagination to run wildly in every direction. I was ready for everything from illegal cage fighting to some prestigious hunter Brothel.

And I am still wrong.

The lighting is warm and easy on the eyes. The walls are deep maroon, but that is only if you can see it through the copious amounts of decorations. Mounted elk and bison evenly pace out the perimeter of the room. Between them is photographs, paintings, signed memorabilia, road signs and pin up girls. I feel like I have fallen back into a 50′s truck stop.

The space is huge, but the colour scheme and the plethora of décor make the space seem small. But is small the right word? More like cosy - comfortable. The puffy red leather booths don’t help with the space issue either.

It feels like this place is giving me a hug. I feel safe here.

The Bar lines the back wall, and the booth seats horseshoe the rest of the room. The middle is strewn with bar tables and a warn pool table. Coloured balls are scattered on it impotently, as if someone had to leave their game unexpectedly.

My jaw is slack, and I can literally feel the heat from Boe’s beaming smile, as we weave our way through the all-but empty bar.

The five people that are here all seem to know each other. Not uncommon at a bar, I would say. We reach the counter and a tall, lanky bartender saunters over to serve us. But I am still enamoured by the items hanging on the walls. I don’t recognise any of the portraits, but they are immortalized like movie stars. Some pictures are of killed animals people have hunted, others are military-style shots. The men and women donned in a black blazer embellished with silver stripes on the shoulders. Each and every one has a plaque explaining the photo and the name of the persons in them, but they are no help to me.

Boe unravels my arm from his and I regain some of my sanity. He leans on the bar and orders two scotches from the bartender he calls Sam.

“Scotch?” Sam the Bartender asks. “But I have had Stolichnaya on reserve ever since I heard you were in town, Boe.”

“I’ll have one later. I am introducing Scarlet to the hunting world and I don’t want to freak her out.”

I don’t think I could have rolled my eyes any louder.

Then I realize how quiet the room had grown.

Sam the Bartender’s eyes bulge out of their sockets. “You’re Scarlet? As in, Scarlet Ranger?”

I can feel the entire bar lean in. I knit my brows together, grasping for an intelligent response.

But Boe beats me to it. “You know Scarlet?” Okay, good, at least Boe is as confused as I am.

“Shh,” Sam hushes. “Don’t say it that loud. You will have everyone from the state here in a matter of hours, and I am the only one on tonight.”

“Everyone who?” I chirp.

Sam the Bartender leans in close. “Honey, you are the biggest rock star to hit the hunting world since Elvis. You give everyone hope to be a hunter, even if they weren’t born one.”

I look around the bar and realize that there are no other hunters in here. Not one. My markings verify it.

“I don’t understand. What is this place?”

“Honey, this is The Kraken! The only place in the country where the hunting world and the human world collide. The humans in this room have made it their mission to kill Therians, just like you.” Sam slides the scotches our way and then pours himself one and throws it back.

“Why would humans become hunters?” I ask. If I were a human I sure as hell wouldn’t be wasting my life hunting.

He shrugs. “Meryl, over there, her husband was a hunter because his mother was killed by a Therian. Max’s family was killed, off route 21, by a Therian that was posing as a lost hitch-hiker. Cindy...” Sam shakes his head in a sort of watered-down disbelief. “Cindy was a journalist that dug a little too deep into some local deaths and discovered Therians. She calls them shifters I think. I don’t know... I think when two oceans meet there is bound to be some spillage.”

I look at them individually, and wonder what I would think if I were to see them on the street. Meryl has sandy blonde hair and weathered skin, I would say that she was a smoker that loved sunny days at the beach and walking mountains just to see the view from the top. Max is a stout balding man that has the cheeky grin of a car salesman. And Cindy looks as though she has lost hope more times than she has had shots of whiskey. And judging by the cluster of shot glasses at the empty booth she is sitting at, I would say that number would be quite high.

I turn back to Sam the Bartender. “And you?”

“Well...” he trails as he polishes a glass. “I’m Sinatra. Sam for short. And my little brother went missing when I was eight. When I was eighteen, I decided to find him on my own. I found this lump and he taught me enough to protect myself. I run this bar now, for hunters.”

“Wait, who’s your brother?”

He nods towards Boe.

My eyes fall out of my head.