The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [164]
If it was a kiss, it was likely a kiss not to spite him, but a kiss ignorant of him. They were neither receptive to his presence nor to the fact that he was alarmingly alien. This insight gave Ralston ample moments to retreat a step and regroup his thoughts.
We stay together.
That’s just what he’d told Andy-man.
Andrew.
Ralston about-faced, in attempt to call Andrew to join him, forthwith.
But there was no Andrew.
There was merely the deserted sign-which read WAIT, now pivoted to face him as if to address him once more and the overhead soundtrack of instrumental easy listening.
***
“Wait here, I think I’ll test the waters a bit.”
Ralston, after all, held a superior grasp on the situation, supposedly; to be here was his idea.
But Andrew instantly aborted his attention, however, to heed the unexpected call of his name by a voice both familiar and female emitting from the direction of his left. Intuition set him in motion to hearken, as if the voice were from Bari’s own multidimensional lips.
But this was not Bari’s voice.
The next second, he perceived that it was Melony’s.
He abandoned the vestibule where he stood, exit stage left, ventured past Ralston and the Denim man at the counter to the beckoned call of his utmost interests.
Conceivably, the source of direction from which the voice summoned him was to the left; maneuvering that way pitted him against the sight of nothing more than what he’d already observed. The counter ended abruptly to his right by a walkway gap to the kitchen. This was succeeded by a textured wall embodying a single rest room door and meticulously hung Elvis Presley portraits. The places to sit were to his left now, an avenue of four booths of tables along the stretch of front windows.
The occupant of the far booth’s corner seat stirred, and by now Andrew assumed this had to be a woman, yet she did not raise her head from her folded arms.
No one else could’ve called to him, for no one else appeared to be around from where he swore the voice called.
Except for this…this woman.
Could she be....?
He approached her slowly until he drew closer to a glass door past the last booth and leading to the outside. Scotch tape held a poster of a cup of coffee and a can of MJB across its bottom half, and attached to its top pane of glass was a cardboard sign:
PRIVATE PARTIES ONLY.
Then, the woman he approached lifted her head and glared directly at him, the hazel pools of her eyes a fountain of tears.
The woman was Melony.
Melony...in likewise condition that Andrew had seen her last, silky black Halloween witches’ gown and a belly bulge from the Andrew-yet-to-be-born.
And in a pitifully heartbreaking state of anxiety.
Andrew froze, his instincts quick to stifle any exertion to take her by the hand and lead her the hell out of there...to so might have been just what her captors were waiting for.
“Andrew, I’m...I’m sorry. Get away from here! It’s a trap! I’m sorry...he...he made me call your name!”
“He?” Andrew was puzzled. “He who?"
“My husband....”
The gastric echoes of a toilet flush accompanied the opening of the restroom door, which by this time was to Andrew’s rear.
Andrew riveted to a deliberate stance in total view of the being which, after a few steps, emerged from the restroom and switched off its inner wall light absently, as if by habit.
By the looks of him, the being was clearly pissed off, gazing upon Andrew in a startled fury and recognition that had been rehearsed in hindsight.
Andrew recognized this being also.
“Max J. Polito....”
Only he was indeed a being. And clearly by definition of appearance not a human one. Not anymore.
His overall countenance resonated a distinct and eerie beige aura, despite the preppy getup of trousers and sweater and leather jacket, which he straightened at the collar. His blueblack hair was unkempt and flailed, his pale expression that of an intent but otherwise zombied madman.
He extended a defiant, ghostly finger at Andrew, accusatory and succinct. “You know what that sound is, you