Relaxing further into the creaking backrest, Harry observed the room. The lounge area of The Trumpet was long and slender, with a grimy pair of piss-soaked toilets stinking up an exit corridor at one end and a stone fireplace crisping the air at the other. In the middle of the pub was a dilapidated oak-wood bar that was older than he was, along with several rickety tables and faded patterned chairs. In the backroom was a small, seldom-used dance floor that Harry had only seen once at New Year’s. It was a quiet, rundown pub in a quiet, rundown housing estate – both welcoming and threatening at the same time. Much like the people that drank there.
Tonight the pub was low on drinkers. It usually was on Tuesdays and Harry preferred it that way. He wasn’t a big fan of company. Of course it helped that the snowfall had stranded most people to within a hundred yards of their homes and blocked up the main roads with deserted, snowbound vehicles. With the weather as bad as it was, getting to the pub, for most people at least, was not worth the risk. For Harry it was, because the alternative was being alone. And that was something he hadn’t been able to face for a long time. He wondered if it was something he ever would be able to face again. So he had braved the snow and made it to the pub in one piece, surrounding himself with people who he barely knew and were just as desperate as he was.
But at least I’m not alone.
Somehow Steph had made it in tonight as well, holding down the fort as she did most evenings. Harry often wondered why she needed all the overtime. She seemed to enjoy her work, but it could’ve just been the barmaid’s code: to be bubbly and polite at all times to all people. Maybe, deep down, she counted each second until she could kick everybody’s drunken-asses out and go home. Whatever the truth, Steph was a good barmaid and she kept good control of the place.
Even Damien Banks behaved under her watch. Weekdays were usually free of his slimy presence, but tonight was an unfortunate exception. The local thug was sat with his Rockports up on the armrest of the sofa beside the fire, a flashy phone fastened to his ear.
No doubt controlling his illicit little empire, Harry thought. Probably refers to himself as ‘the Don’.
From what Harry had heard – from sources he no longer remembered – the degenerate scumbag pushed his gear on the local estate like some wannabe drug lord. No one in the pub liked Damien, not even his so called friends (or entourage as Old Graham would often call them in secret). There were rumours that the shaven-headed bully had once stomped a rival dealer into a coma, then taunted the family afterwards, revelling in the grief he’d caused. There had also been several murders in the area that Damien was supposedly involved in, albeit not directly.
Harry shook his head. He’s the one who deserves to be in a coma, instead of lounging around like he owns this place.
There was one other person in the bar, too. A greasy-haired, oil-skinned hulk named Nigel. Harry had not ever really spoken to the large man, but spotted him in the pub at least a couple of nights each month. A lorry driver, from what Harry gathered, and spent a lot of time on the road. Poor guy will probably have to sleep in his cab tonight.
After Nigel, Damien, and Steph, there was Old Graham and Harry. Just the five of them; the full set. Tuesday was a quiet night.
Harry swivelled on the bench, pulled his right knee sideways onto the cushion, and peered out the pub’s main window. The Trumpet sat upon a hill overlooking a small row of dingy shops and a decrepit mini-supermarket that had steel shutters instead of windows. Steph once told him that the pub was barely surviving on the wafer-thin profits brought in by the lunchtime traffic of the nearby factories and, if it were to rely on its evening drinkers alone, the place would have closed its doors long ago – even before the public smoking ban came in and ruined pubs across the land.
Usually Harry could see the shops and supermarket from the window, but tonight his vision faltered after only a few feet, swallowed up by the swirling snow and impeded by a thick condensation hugging the window’s glass. For all Harry knew, the darkness outside could have stretched on for eternity, engulfing the world in its clammy embrace and leaving the pub a floating limbo of light in an endless abyss. The image was unsettling.
Like something out of the Twilight Zone.
Snow continued to fall as it had nonstop for the past day and night. Fat, sparkling wisps that passed through the velvet background of the night, making the gloom itself seem alive with movement. Harry shivered; the pub’s archaic heating inadequate in defeating the chill. Even the warmth of the fireplace was losing its battle against the encroaching freeze.
God only knows how I’ll manage the journey home tonight without any taxis running. Maybe Steph will let me bed down till morning? I hope so.
Harry reached for his pint and pulled it close, resting it on his thigh as he remained sideways on the bench. He traced a finger over his grubby wedding ring and thought about the day he had first put it on. He smiled and felt the warmness of nostalgia wash over him, but then his eyes fell upon the thick, jagged scar that ran across the back of that same hand and the warmness went away. The old wound was shaped like a star and brought back memories far darker than his wedding day. It was something he dared not think about. He drank his beer.
God bless booze and the oblivion it brings.
Harry chuckled about how once he had not cared for the taste of lager – white wine had been his tonic of choice – but The Trumpet wasn’t the type of place where a thirty-year old man could order a nice bottle of Chardonnay without being called a poofter.
Funny how a person changes, Harry considered. Just wish I’d changed for the better.
He took another swig of beer and almost spat it out again. In only two minutes since he’d last tasted it, the beer had gone completely and utterly flat, as if something had literally drained the life from it. But before Harry could consider what would cause such a thing, a stranger entered the pub.
A second later, the lights went out.
Chapter Two
“Bugger it!” Kath cursed aloud and slapped her palms down on the supermarket’s checkout desk. She’d been two minutes away from finishing the 9PM cash-up and the building’s power blinked out like someone had flipped a switch.
Bah! Working at this dump ten hours a day is miserable enough without having to do it in the dark. I must have the words, SHIT HAPPENS, stamped across my forehead.
“Peter!” She hollered into the darkness. “Check the fuse box, will you!”
A muffled voice from the nearby stockroom led Kath to believe her order had been received. She sighed and waited while her sight adjusted to the dark, wondering where she could find a torch or some candles (Doesn’t Aisle 6 have some?). The Fire Exit sign above the supermarket’s entrance gave off a small degree of illumination, but not enough to see her acrylic fingernails in front of her face. Kath had other senses, however, and her ears picked up the sound of footsteps echoing down the Bread & Pastries aisle.
“Who’s there?” she called out.