My body moved independently from my mind. Like the shadow on a sundial. And I was looking through a door I couldn’t recall opening. The one Lamia had walked through. I mean, Malia. It looked like the entrance to a service elevator. Cream-colored linoleum floor with green flecks. Textured wallpaper. The elevator doors were scoured steel and wide enough to drive through. There was only one call button – maybe up, maybe down, I didn’t know. I pushed it seconds before the thought entered my mind. The bell dinged like a revelation.

The doors slid open and I shuffled inside. The cabin was the size of a Manhattan studio apartment. Mirrors lined the walls – Him watching me watching me watch Him, like the circular logic of Carlton’s comics as he went insane. My eyes were big and round like his had been and I couldn’t make them look normal. The Krispy Kremes had likely been my last meal and soon my face would be a skeleton covered by a thin layer of skin.

The cabin lurched and began to vibrate, but I couldn’t tell if I was ascending or descending. Alone in this elevator that could hold a hundred people or more. No emergency phone. No buttons. Just spotless panes of mirrored glass spanning the walls, ceiling, and floor. Three hundred and sixty degrees of me, and I looked like an extra in some slasher film. The cabin slowed, and jolted to a stop. The doors whisked open.

Shock scrambles the mind, shock clears it.

Staring out through the open doors, I felt equal parts horror and relief.

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

I’d know this place with my eyes closed. Name it by smell alone. Any bar regular learns the scent of their favorite watering hole. A blend of the beers they keep on tap, the fry oil from the kitchen, brands of cigarette smoke absorbed in the walls, wood oil for the bar top, vinegar for the floor, dishwasher steam, urinal cakes, and wallpaper glue. The elevator let out into the hallway leading to the restrooms in my old favorite bar, The Mule Kick. The place I’d gotten blackout drunk the night Rox fell from his crib. The last place I’d tasted booze.

The same old cigarette machine stood between the bathrooms, though I know the place banned smoking several years ago and had it removed. I peered in on the rows of Marlboros, Winstons, Camels, Camel Wides, and gripped the pulley knob. I’d been a Marlboro Red man, myself. The deadliest of them all. When I go for something, I go all in. Or, at least, I used to. I can’t say I put the same amount of soul into my commercial music as I did playing for the Rising Dead.