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Ben slowly opened his dazed eyes and tried to focus them. He was lying on his back on the floor of The Black Cat. He sat up and stared around the room. Everybody was still there, drinking and chatting, carrying on as normal, or at least whatever passed for normal in Sweetwater, seemingly oblivious to the state he was in. He made eye-contact with Henry Ho. The hotelier and sometime peeping tom raised his glass in Ben’s direction in some dark, sarcastic toast, an expression of pure contempt written on his face. Ben looked over at Harris’s table. The doctor was still there, with his nurse girlfriend, and someone else. Ben blinked. Harris was sat between two women. His Asian girlfriend, Kim.
And Jo.
Ben stared at Jo for some time, making sure his eyes weren’t lying to him, but there she was, sitting with them, up close and very personal. Both Jo and Kim looked high to Ben. He watched them conduct their hands all over Harris with vacant sexuality, like bored porn actresses sleepwalking through their roles. Harris reached over and pulled down Jo’s top, releasing her breasts. He leaned in over them, lingering there for a moment, before turning to look directly at Ben. Harris grinned at him, then began gorging himself on one of Jo’s nipples.
“Bastard,” slurred Ben.
He tried to stand, but he felt heavy; unnaturally heavy. He struggled against the strange, invisible, dense weight on him and managed to rise with difficulty, but then felt a sudden, violent tug on his prosthetic leg that pulled him down again. It was so jarring that it took both his legs from underneath him and smashed his head back into the floorboards. Confused, Ben rolled over on to his back and slowly raised his head again. He looked down at his splayed legs and watched, as his prosthetic was jerked and wrenched again by some invisible, violent force. The false leg rose and dragged him along the ground for several feet, then the unseen force let go of him as suddenly as it had attacked.
Ben breathed hard and looked around in a stupor. Everybody else in the bar was watching him and giggling at his predicament. He looked back at Harris's table and saw the doctor smirking at him, as Jo and Kim reached into his trousers with dead hands and even deader stares.
Ben rolled over on to his front and tried to crawl towards Harris’s table, but the invisible assailant struck again. He was dragged backwards at speed by something gripping his dead leg, as his fingers tried to find purchase and his nails raked across the wooden floor. He managed to shout for help this time, until the words were smashed out of him by a collision with a barrel-keg-table. The impact was enough to flip him over on to his back again and he groaned, as he was quickly hauled through the bar like a struggling fish caught on a line, now being reeled in.
Ben saw the far wall racing towards him, coming faster and faster, the source of the force pulling him still unclear. He tensed and braced himself for the inevitable impact. Seconds later he crashed through a chair, splintering its legs in the process, then rolled over and over, gathering speed, before slamming sideways into the wall.
Ben groaned and tried to raise his head, but he was disoriented. Something above him caught his attention and he instinctively looked up, just in time to see a wobbling set of bleached shark jaws dislodge from their fitting on the wall after the impact. He watched in a daze, as the jaws broke away and fell silently towards him, razor sharp teeth glistening, as they twisted and turned, tumbling through the air towards his face. Ben screwed his eyes shut and tried to scream, as he heard the sound of dozens of sharp knives thudding into meat.
*
Ben’s glassy eyes slowly opened and rolled around the room, but he failed to comprehend anything they showed him. He tried to rise, but felt a dull ache pulse from the back of his head and travel through his body in a wave. He fell back on to the bed and into another deep sleep.
When he eventually awoke again, he was greeted by the cold, harsh glare of grey light coming through the caravan's curtain-less window. He sat up and grimaced, before suppressing a coughing fit. He took a moment to let his queasy, thumping head equalize to being upright, then tried to absorb his surroundings again. Somehow he’d made it back to the caravan, but he couldn’t remember anything about how. He studied the crumpled clothes he still had on from the night before with a confused expression. He looked over at the other side of the bed, where Jo should have been.
It was empty and it hadn’t been slept in.
Urgent thoughts began racing through his dull, aching head. He stood up and snatched open the bathroom door. It was empty too. He moved to the window and stared outside, but there was nothing to focus on, just a thick blanket of grey fog that had rolled in off the sea like a spent lover. Now he was wide-awake. Awake and full of rising anxiety.
He stumbled out through the fog, still in last night's clothes, looking like some ragged monster from an old Universal picture. He made his way awkwardly towards Crazy’s caravan, calling out Jo's name, but there was no reply; his calls were just absorbed by the flat, eerie silence that lay in the thick shroud of fog that had enveloped Sweetwater. When he reached Crazy’s door, he had to lean on it to steady himself, as another rush of sickness rose from the pit of his stomach to swamp his mind. He took deep breaths and banged on the door.
“Crazy,” he called. “You in there? I’m coming in.”
Ben opened the door and looked inside Crazy's caravan. There was nobody home, just a wall of faded photographs chronicling the crooner’s yesteryears, and flyers advertising dozens of forgotten tours as a second-rate entertainer. Ben picked up one of the old pictures. It showed a much younger Crazy on stage, driving all the girls wild in some hick town watering hole.
*
Irma looked up from the bad signal on her black and white television set, where Dick Powell was about to get cold-cocked for the umpteenth time in “Farewell My Lovely”. Through the office window, she could see Ben’s shuffling, figure claw his way through the thick fog towards her. He opened the office door without knocking and limped up to the counter. Irma was instantly up and out of her seat to greet him with a fresh crust of bad make-up and a sickly smile.
“Have you seen Jo?” said Ben. “My girlfriend?”
Irma shook her head. Her eyes were wide with pantomime concern.
“The blonde girl I came in with...you haven’t seen her at all?”
Irma slowly shook her head again. A sympathetic, but bilious smile broke out on her painted face. Ben sighed and backed out of the office looking deflated.
Had he finally done it?
Had he managed to drive her away for good this time?
He felt that burning fear in his gut again, the one that usually fired up when his bravado died down; the thought of the damage his actions might have caused, the realization that he’d probably gone too far again, that he’d inflicted too much pain and there was no salvaging their love now.
Maybe, or was her absence something else?
Was it Sweetwater?
He thought of the Black Cat and its patrons the night before. Dark memories of Ali and Dr. Harris returned to him, then darker thoughts of Henry Ho. He remembered the peephole in their hotel room and a deeper worry bled into his brain. His eyes narrowed as they tried to pierce the fog both around him and inside his head.
*
Henry Ho held the front door open with his rear and carefully backed out on to his porch. He had a tin of white paint in each hand and a paintbrush clamped between his teeth. He set the tins down and tried unsuccessfully to prize one of the lids off with his fingernails.
“Not really painting weather,” said Ben. “Is it?”
Ho looked out into the fog and saw Ben approaching the hotel. He tracked Ben’s limp, as he climbed the steps to his porch.
“The elements are harsh out here,” said Ho. “It’s got to be protected.”
Ho left the paint tins and leaned against the porch railing. Ben smiled and began rolling a cigarette. He began to smoke it in silence, watching Ho carefully.
“So,” Ben said eventually. “You getting ready for next season?”
“What can I say,” replied Ho. “I’m an optimist.”
“I don’t suppose you had a pissed off lady check in here last night,” said Ben. “Or if you did, I don’t suppose you’d want to tell her boyfriend about it?”
“Well,” said Ho. “That kind of depends on what he did to piss her off. And what he’s going to do to put it right.”
“Give her some flowers,” said Ben. “Make up.”
Ho looked Ben up and down. There was a dry expression on the hotelier's face.
“I don’t see any flowers,” he said.
Ben faked a smile and flicked his cigarette on to the porch.
“Where’s Jo?”
“Your girlfriend didn’t check-in here, Mr. Barker.”
Ben rode his rising temper, trying his best to keep his cool, or at least the appearance of cool.
“So, what happened in the bar last night?” he said.
“You had a little too much to drink,” said Ho. “You argued with your woman, and then, just about everyone in the bar, and eventually you passed out.”
“Is that right?” said Ben.
“It was quite entertaining actually,” said Ho. “Maybe we should book you to perform instead of Crazy next time.”
Ben took a step closer, but Ho held his ground, showed no sign of fear.
“I know about your little peeping tom routine,” said Ben. “I’m coming back here with the police. We'll let them ask you a few questions.”
Ho looked unconcerned. He flashed Ben his best front-of-house grin, as he pulled a screwdriver from his pocket.
“For what it’s worth,” said Ho. “I’m sure your girlfriend will return when she’s cooled off.”
Then the grin vanished, and Ho's face turned to stone.
“Now get the fuck off my property.”
Ben watched Ho return to his paint tins, kneeling down to prize the lid off one with the screwdriver.
“Sure,” said Ben. “See you soon.”