The sky split with a deafening roar. Hail pounded the Earth, punishing the ground. The parked cars echoed the sound of the hail, disguising the torment with a high pitched “plinking”. I waited under the eave of a storefront, hoping for a moment’s relief from the storm’s fury. My shoes, now sponges, were leaking their black dye. “That’s what I get for buying $10 canvas shoes,” I said,lecturing myself. My coat was no longer warm; the rain had made its way through the cotton fibers and was dripping down my back and arms. I still had six blocks left to go and the storm wasn’t looking any friendlier. I pulled my ball cap down tight. Keeping my face to the ground, I started towards my destination.
I didn’t feel like going to work today. I felt even less like going now, because I’d have to work my shift soaked.
I could see the music store in the distance. The sign that proudly announced “Anything for a Song” was being beaten against the façade of the building. Water poured from the roof making a pond directly in front of the door. I built up some speed to try and hurdle the moat that was forming along the entire storefront. My feet missed their mark and sent a tidal wave in every direction. Now my pants were soaked from ankle to waistband. “SHIT!” I said it louder than I realized. My quick burst of profanity echoed almost as loud as the thunder clap directly after. Looking up to grab the door handle I was startled by my boss standing on the other side of the glass. He rolled his eyes and walked off shaking his head. I opened the door to the familiar smell of new sheet music and guitar polish. The brass bells tied to the door handle made me cringe. Day after day the once pleasant jingle had turned into a reaction that Pavlov would be proud of.
I hung my coat behind the counter; it dripped into the trashcan in a slow steady rhythm. I tried my best to dry off with a few old rags that we reserved for wiping dust off of piano keys. “Do you think you’ll actually be able to sell anything looking like that?” Mr. Childes, my boss, asked in a condescending tone. He had an unusual candor to his speech. I couldn’t quite tell if he was being sarcastic or actually irritated that I couldn’t dodge the raindrops walking to work.
“Can I wear one of the shirts the Fender rep left the other day?” He looked at me with a snarl, exposing his coffee stained teeth. “It’ll have to come out of your paycheck” he said as he smirked. He got them free, and now he’s selling them for $15. I forced a smile and thanked him.
The fresh, dry cotton stuck to my damp skin as I slid the shirt on. It still had large square wrinkles that framed the Fender Guitars logo. It smelled sterile and crisp.
The lights flickered with the next lightning strike. “Unplug the keyboards!” Childes barked from his office. I made my way through the sea of amplifiers and guitar stands to the back of the building. The low humming of florescent lights was the only sound in this hidden part of the store. The thunder couldn’t make its way through the bricks and plaster to compete with it. As I stretched to reach the outlets behind the keyboards, the lights brightened for a moment and then crackled out of existence. The room was dark. I fumbled for the cords and yanked them from the outlets. Rising back up, I smashed the back of my head into a shelf of music stands sending it tumbling to the floor. My vision sparkled in the blackness and I instantly felt ill.
“What the hell did you break?” Childes screamed from his office. “You’re going to owe me this week instead of getting paid. Be careful damn it!”
I could hear him fumbling through his desk drawers and cursing under his breath. His office lit up with a single flashlight beam. The circle of light moved around the room casting long distorted shadows through his doorway. “Stay there,” he yelled, “I’ll come back to get you. I don’t want you to break anything else.”
I felt the warm stream of what had to be blood tracing its way down behind my right ear. “Great.” I murmured. “I suppose he’ll want me to shampoo his carpet too.”
Just seeing his flashlight swing in his grip, I could tell he was pissed. His arrogance was apparent even with only seeing his obscured silhouette.
I pressed my hand hard against the throbbing cut on my head. I was hoping to hide it; I didn’t feel like another lecture or sarcastic comment. His light got closer and stopped about ten feet away from the doorway to the room. Lightning flashed outside backlighting him. The snap-shot image of him took a minute to register. He was standing, frozen in place, and staring past me. “What’s your problem?” I said growing impatient. My head thumped with each heartbeat. “Seriously Mr. Childes, I’m hurt.” He stood there, I could hear him breathing. “I can’t see Mr. Childes, shine your light back here!” Another flash of lightning lit the front windows. His flashlight dropped to the ground with a thud. I heard his heavy feet stumble as he tried to run. “What the… where are you going?” I lunged forward to grab the flashlight and catch up to him. The blood that was oozing from my scalp was starting to run down my shirt. I could feel it spreading over my chest. I stepped past the doorway, and the warmth I thought was blood tightened around me, crushing my chest, pulling me back. I grabbed the back of my neck. My hand sunk into my flesh, my fingertips touched bone. Panicked I thrashed and twisted trying to see what held me. Long black lines were stretching from the wall, pulling the flesh from my bone. I felt the skin on my chest ripping, pulling away from the muscle beneath. I pulled hard. I tried to move, to run, to fight. I was being stripped down to the bone. The skin on my fingers stretched tight ripping over my fingertips. The white of my bones poked through the pads. My lips pulled across my teeth, tearing and falling away. The blackness that was tearing me apart pinned me against the wall to finish its job.
With a snap I felt the last of my flesh twist from my back. I crashed to the floor in a heap. My bare skull cracked as it hit the floor.
The room was instantly re-lit with the arrival of electricity. My vision was fuzzy. The room came into focus. Mr. Childes was standing over me. “Get up!” He gave me a swift kick to my shins.
I was lying on my side, disoriented. What the hell had happened? I felt my arms expecting to run my fingers down smooth wet bones. Relieved, I felt warm skin. I got to my feet and my head throbbed with every inch of elevation. “What a dream.” I murmured. Mr. Childes turned around to face me from the front of the store, his hand raised in its usual pose before a long lecture. I walked past the doorway, almost expecting to be pulled back again.
“We need to move those keyboards from the back today,” he said, stretching each word with emphasis. “I don’t like it back there.” Something changed in his usual mindless gaze and he looked straight at me. “This place used to be a clothing store in the 1920’s. It sat empty for years, that’s why I got it dirt cheap. They had their own tanner, Mr. Evans. He was famous, at least around here. He sold his leather to all of the shoe factories, cobblers; most of the leather workers around here bought his stuff. The old print shop on the corner even bound some Bibles with it. He had the best leather on the East Coast, hell, probably in the U.S. One morning old Father O’Kelly stopped in before Mass, hoping to get Evans to attend church. Well, he couldn’t find the old codger. Yelling for him, he walked into that backroom.” Childes pointed to the back of the store and his hand trembled a bit. “He found the bastard skinning his neighbor. So all those Bibles, all those shoes and coats—yeah, you guessed it, human skin. I heard he even gave slabs of meat to the soup kitchen.” He smiled uncomfortably. “The whole damn town was full of cannibals wearing people boots.”
***My second entry in the 'Ghost Story' contest.
