Chapter Text
It was a late shift at the dive bar on 5th at 3:57am. It was a particularly cold day, so the day was slow and hardly any patrons came in. Carl was fine with that. He wasn’t a particularly good barkeep.
Even on the busiest days, he would drag his feet on getting things done. But his manager, Greg, just needed a warm body to mind the shop and close up.
Even as patrons came in and out that night, he didn’t bother to bus drinks or clean the glasses. He received plenty of passive aggressive texts in the work group chat from the opening staff the next morning. ‘Whatever’, he’d just think. He just yawned and tried to keep awake in the empty bar. Truly, what came next seemed like it could have been a dream just creeping into his periphery. That would be if it wasn’t for the stink.
The stink of blood and metal. Next, Carl could hear footsteps of solid boots approached the door. Assuming that it was a vagrant, unwell in the head, Carl got a broom. He wasn’t going to let them get dirt or piss in the place, right when they were about to close. That would just mean more that he needed to clean after close.
A man pushed the door open. He was shorter than Carl would expect, sitting a head shorter than the barkeep. But what was more surprising was the smell of not just blood, but fresh blood. The man in front of Carl was truly a sight to behold. In the dim light of the bar, it was hard to make out at first, but there was a sheen on his body. Blood was dripping from his body. It was as if he had soaked in a blood bath before coming here. His hair was matted in clumps. Blood dripping from his face. His ruined leather jacket covered up what used to be a very tight yellow shirt.
“Uh, do you need me to call 911?”
The bloodied man in front of him just grunted as he passed Carl. He stalked to the half drunk beer at the table, which he took and drank. Leaving his crimson fingerprints on the glass. He then walked further into the bar and took some of the hard liquor from the top shelf. Before Carl could muster another word, the other man took a wad of cash and shifted it into his hand before walking off.
The man drank walked back into the night, chugging straight absinthe from the bottle.
Carl looked at the cash. Under the red, he could make out hundred dollar bills. “… the fuck?”
Carl later got a slew of texts from the opening shift in the morning about how there were blood stains on the floor. ‘So, I guess that wasn’t a dream,’ Carl thought as he skimmed through his messages. Then went on about what happened and how the puddles of blood wouldn’t come out because Carl didn’t bother to try moping.