Infernum

The next afternoon Alex woke up to his telephone ringing and a pool of sweat beneath him. As he got out of his sweat-soaked bed he looked at the alarm clock on his nightstand—5:18 p.m. Alex had been asleep for over 24 hours. The phone rang again as a still groggy Alex made his way to the kitchen to answer it. He picked up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Alex! What the fuck man! I’ve left you like three messages now…” Alex recognized the voice, it was his friend Beau.

“What?” Alex replied.

“Dude … what the fuck man? You’re not going to flake, are you?”

“I don’t know, Beau, I think I’m sick.”

“I don’t care if you’ve contracted syphilis, you are not going to flake out on me tonight… It’s ladies night and I need my wingman,” Beau said with strong sincerity.

“Alex, I don’t care what you do, just get your shit together and I’ll see you at the Pioneer at nine o’clock sharp… I promise there will be more women there than we know what to do with, okay?”

“Alright Beau, if you say so… I’ll see you there.”

Alex took some Tylenol and spent the next two hours cleaning up and getting ready. As he was walking through his dining room toward the bathroom he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head to see the same woman he saw yesterday standing just outside his window. What the fuck? he thought as he moved closer. He walked over to his large picture window and pulled the curtains back and then reached over and drew the blinds, only looking away for an instant. He looked back out the window a split second later to find that the woman had gone. “Not again,” he said aloud as he ran outside to find her. Once outside the house Alex looked around for a while but saw no sign of the green-eyed beauty. Questioning his sanity, he gave up the search and decided he would head to the bar early and get a good table.

***

Alex arrived at the bar shortly after 8 p.m.; being one of the few things to do in this small town and given the fact that they were giving out free drinks to all the ladies the Pioneer was starting to fill up early. Alex walked into the 100-plus-year-old bar that looked like a scene from an old western and flashed his I.D., as people normally did, to the bartender who was standing behind the long bar just inside the door that ran the entire distance of the front room. Alex made his way past the long, narrow room in front in an attempt to find an open table in the larger room at the back of the Pioneer. He was in luck! Alex and Beau’s favorite table was still available. A small booth nestled in the corner of the room by the entrance to the back area was the perfect spot, you could see all the women in the bar coming in, but at the same time it felt private and secluded enough behind the thick wooden beam along the wall that separated the two rooms to strike up a conversation and seal the deal.

One beer turned into two as Alex waited for Beau to show up. Glancing across the bar for possible prospects, Alex spotten Beau walking through the door. A quick stop at the bar then Beau was sitting at the table with Alex. “I can’t believe you got this table… How long have you been here?”

Alex replied with a muted, “Oh, only an hour or so.”

As beau looked across the now crowded room he nodded to Alex, gesturing him to look toward the bar. “Hey Alex… Check it out man, the honey twins are back! I think you got a shot!”

Alex immediately recognized the two large homely women sitting at the end of the bar, the same two he was hitting on the last time he and Beau were there.

“Give it up, Beau! It’s not funny anymore … okay?”

A few hours went by; Alex and Beau were sitting at their corner table scanning the bar. They were several beers into the night and not having any luck with the ladies; as it turns out, all the attractive women stayed away from the bars on ladies’ night, and the two friends failed yet again to remember that bit of key information. “Hey, Beau.”

Continuing to look around the bar Beau replied, “Ya Alex?”

“I was just wondering…”

Beau looked over at Alex inquisitively.

“Wondering what?”

Alex folded his hands on the table, looking down at the floor beneath it. “Do you believe in God?” he hesitantly asked. Beau shrugged his shoulders at Alex and chuckled once loudly at the statement. “I’m serious, Beau, do you?” Alex asked again.

“I don’t know man… I guess so.” Beau replied quickly to avoid the topic of religion.

Alex looked up at him and asked again,

“I mean … do you really believe in God, like He is a real person watching over us?”

Beau tilted his head slightly to the side.

“What’s brought this on? You know… I think you’ve had one too many, my friend.”

Alex looked at the magnitude of empty beer glasses on the table but felt sober as a bird. Weird, he thought.

“It’s just… I saw something on my way home the other night … something I can’t explain.”

Beau looked at his friend with concern.

“What do you mean, Alex? What did you see?”

“Well, that’s the thing, Beau… I don’t really know. I mean it was dark and all, but I think I saw God fighting the devil.”

Waiting for the punch line, Beau indulged Alex. “You saw God? And He was fighting, Satan?”

Alex quickly corrected himself. “Well, not God per se, but one of his angels anyway. Oh … and there’s one more thing, a woman,” he added.

More confused, Beau asked, “So? There’s an angel fighting the devil and a woman? What in the holy fuck have you been smoking, Alex?”

“Beau, I was driving home the other night over Byers Pass and I saw a white-winged angel fighting a massive beast made of lava and rock that looked like the devil, it was the most amazing thing I have ever seen,” Alex said in a pleading voice. “When I went back the next day, I saw a woman doing research”—Alex held up his fingers making air quotation marks—“then she just vanished, until just a few hours ago when I saw her again outside my house.”

Hearing the sincerity in Alex’s voice Beau flagged down the waitress and ordered two more beers and a shot of Jack Daniel’s whiskey.

“Alex, I’m sure you didn’t see a holy war on your drive home the other night. You probably just imagined the whole thing or dreamt it. And the woman, who knows… People mill around Bass Hill all the time.”

“But I saw her at my house, Beau… She’s following me or something,” Alex said with conviction.

“It’s just your imagination, Alex … Nothing more.”

A waitress stopped at their corner booth setting the drinks Beau ordered down on the table between them. Beau grabbed his shot of Jack and drank it in one gulp then chased it with a drink of his beer. As Alex reached for his beer he stopped just short and began staring across the room. “Beau! That’s her, holy shit, over by the door, that’s the woman who’s been following me!”

Beau quickly turned to look. “Where?”

“Over there.” Alex gestured toward the front door trying not to be conspicuous. “By the door, Beau.” It didn’t take Beau long to locate the woman.

“Wow,” Beau said as his jaw dropped open a little. “She’s fucking hot! Alex, you didn’t say she was hot,” he added as he turned back to his friend. “You should go talk to her,” he said enthusiastically

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Alex asked, afraid to look away from the woman for fear of another vanishing act.

“Hell ya you should… I don’t care if you think she is creepy or if she is stalking you, she’s insanely fucking hot and that excuses her from all things creepy and stalkerish,” Beau said with a hint of sarcasm.

“I don’t know if I should, Beau, you remember what happened with the last one.” Alex reminded Beau of his ex-girlfriend who not only stole his heart but his car, wallet, and friend too.

“Oh, go on, Alex, it’s not like I’m saying marry the girl, just go and talk to her. And you need to do it quick; I don’t think she’ll be open for long,” Beau said frankly. Alex got up from the table and, without breaking eye contact with the woman, made his way across the crowded room toward the bar. He had no interest in playing stupid bar games to get lucky, but he wanted to know more about this mystery woman.

“Are you following me?” he asked the woman rather bluntly. She stared at Alex for a moment with her deep emerald-green eyes then gave him a subtle gesture inviting him outside. She turned and walked out the front door. Alex was just behind the woman when the door started to close between them. Losing sight of her for an instant, Alex pushed the door back open to find she had gone. He looked down the street quickly and then up the other way. The woman was standing at the end of the building some 50’ away, a distance Alex thought to be impossible to cover in such a short time. The woman gave him another nod then walked into the alleyway between the Pioneer and the next building up. Alex started walking toward the alley hesitantly; not knowing what he could expect to find there he soldiered on with a cautious stride.

Meanwhile, back inside the Pioneer, a very intoxicated Beau, still smiling from watching his friend hook up with a hot redhead, approached what had to be two of the most eager women sitting at the end of the bar. He approached the duo and offered to buy the “honey twins” another drink. Beau was on top of his game tonight, and these two women were falling for every cheesy out-of-date line he threw at them. This is going to be a good, no, a great night, he thought.