Page 2 of To Crave Darkly
Life was good.
“Hey, sweet cheeks,” somebody shouted accompanied by a click of fingers.
I sighed. Or life was full of ups and downs.
I turned to the asshat who thought that clicking his fingers at me was a suitable form of behaviour. He must have been about forty-five, a bit overweight, and completely and utterly drunk. The bar was clearly propping him up and his eyes were glazed over, unable to focus on anything properly.
I squared my shoulders and plastered a grin on my face.
“What can I get you, sir?”
“I’ll have a whisky,” he slurred, “and a night with you.” He grinned at me. In his head I bet he thought he was being charming instead of a sleazeball.
“One whisky coming right up, sir, but I’ll have to give a hard pass on the second request.”
“Aww come on baby. I’ll make it worth your while,” he whined.
“Sorry, that isn’t going to change my mind.” I placed the whisky in front of him and he grabbed my hand. “Sir, please let go of my hand.”
“Baby, don’t be so mean.” He let out a huge burp right in my face. Oh god, I was gonna hurl. I tried to pull my hand away, but his grip was surprisingly tight. Anger surged up in my chest and again my skin hummed and vibrated with electricity. It was unsettling and I didn’t understand where it was coming from.
“Sir, I won’t ask again. Let go of my hand. Now.” I glanced towards the exit and my eyes found Stevie, our head of security. He understood the look in my eyes and started to walk over towards me.
The drunk used the moment my eyes were off him to pull me forwards over the bar. Glasses crashed to the floor, spilling their contents everywhere. I felt sticky cocktails seep into my shirt as I fell on the bar top, the impact jarring my ribs painfully. Luckily, Stevie made it to the bar before the drunk could do anything else.
“I think you’ve had enough, don’t you?” Stevie growled. The drunk looked up at him and blanched. I could understand why. Stevie was intimidating as fuck. He was well over six foot, covered in muscle with two full sleeves of tattoos.
“I was only having fun,” the drunk protested while Stevie carted him off to the exit. Rae came over and we stood together as Stevie bodily threw the drunk out into the street.
“I love watching him do that,” Rae chuckled. “It’s just so manly.”
I laughed, grateful for the distraction. “It certainly is.”
“You ok?” Rae asked.
“I’m fine. I just feel like I smell like a candy shop now.”
“That’s because you’re as sweet as sugar,” Stevie called as he walked back towards us. “Need a hand with the clean up?”
Rae nudged me and waggled her eyebrows. It was no secret that Stevie liked me and Rae had been trying to set us up for months. He was nice but he wasn’t the guy for me. I was about to refuse his offer but Rae chose that moment to suddenly hear her name called from the other side of the bar. Traitor. I narrowed my eyes at her retreating form, and I hoped she felt my stare burning a hole in her back.
“Sure, I’d like that,” I replied to Stevie. He grinned back at me and it turned him from intimidating to gorgeous. I was a horrible person. How could I not like someone as sweet as Stevie? The spark just wasn’t there. He was a great friend, but for me, there was never going to be anything more.
After Stevie and I had cleaned up the bar and I’d swapped my sticky shirt for a fresh one, the rest of my shift passed without any other incidents. I watched Rae flirt unceremoniously with a group of well-dressed businessmen and knew full well she would be heading home with at least one of them, maybe two if she was lucky. I chatted happily with the numerous customers who gathered around the bar, but I wasn’t a flirt like Rae. Don’t get me wrong, the guys at the bar flirted with me, and I was pleasant and polite, but I was sick of men handing me their number on a napkin. I mean, how cliché can you get?
I paused in the middle of stacking glasses. The hairs at the back of my neck prickled. The feeling of being watched again trailed over my skin. It felt like a ghostly hand crawled across my flesh and beckoned me to turn around. I spun round, my eyes scanning the crowd for that scary guy from earlier, but I couldn’t see him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a void of blackness. It was like all the light had been swallowed by the dark and the absence of it screamedlook away. Instinctively I knew that was where he was. It was like something was telling me not to look but everything in me was fighting against that instinct. Again, there was that feeling of wanting to do the opposite of what a completely normal, sane person would do, accompanied by that static buzz that slithered along my arms. So, instead of running for the hills I turned and stared straight at him. I couldn’t see him; there was nothing to see but blackness, but as sure as I knew the sun would rise, I knew he was there staring straight back at me. It was starting to give me the creeps so of course, I decided to do something that no normal sane person would do.
I gave the scary strange stalker guy the middle finger.
Sorry mum, but sometimes you’ve got to poke the bear to get rid of it.
Chapter 2
LORI
Call me crazy but despite all the good advice and well-meaning offers I still walked home alone every night after my shift. I lived a ten-minute walk away and I couldn’t see the point in wasting the fuel. I knew I could possibly get mugged or murdered horribly and die but I also knew I could get taken out by a bus walking to the corner shop. I figured when it was my time to die it’d be my time and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
The trees rustled in the breeze behind me and something hit the ground, grabbing my attention. I turned around and saw the empty alleyway staring straight back at me. It was eerie and had always given me the creeps, but it was the fastest way home. I had always used it despite the overwhelming sense of dread I always felt entering it. Perhaps it was just the soundtrack of the night that creeped me out, or the branches that never seemed to have any leaves on, but after my run in with the weird guy at the club I felt really on edge. I shook my head, trying to shake off the fear, and started walking towards home but I couldn’t shirk the feeling that I was being followed. I glanced back over my shoulder, but I couldn’t see anything. Maybe I was just being paranoid. Yeh, that was it.
