Undertow

Chapter 1-2

Inside, the Den was packed. As the door swung shut behind him, Derek peered through the crowd and wondered how he’d ever find a man he didn’t even know. Patrons lined the bar, jostling each other to catch the bartender’s attention; a row of booths stretched along the opposite wall, and a few wooden tables filled the center of the room. Everywhere Derek looked, people laughed and drank and called to each other over the pounding bass that poured from the sound system to beat against the walls. Derek recognized the tune of an old song, some hair band from the 80’s—here and there a few people sang along, their voices rising over the music. “I got the peaches, you got the cream.”

I can’t do this, he thought, one hand reaching for the door. He felt like a hole torn in the fabric of existence, an ugly bruise on otherwise flawless skin. It was too much, too soon, he shouldn’t even be here…

Then, despite the crowd, he felt someone watching him.

He glanced around, searching for a familiar face, and caught the bartender staring at him as if he were the only customer in the place and the man wanted to know what he’d drink. Tall and well-built, when he smiled at Derek, he showed way too many teeth.

No. With a shake of his head, Derek muttered to no one in particular, “I was just leaving.”

In his mind he moved toward the door, back out into the cool night, back to his empty car and down the barren stretch of road until he reached his lonely apartment. He could picture the rest of his evening all too well—lying on the sofa because he couldn’t face the dark bedroom, silence so severe he might have gone deaf, time crawling by as he waited for sleep to claim him. Then the dreams would come, suffocating nightmares of the ocean, floating hair obscuring his vision, a hand stretched for him but just beyond his reach, Tad. A longing so poignant, an ache so real, he would cry in his sleep and only realize it later, when he woke with puffy eyes and clogged sinuses.

Unfortunately, his body didn’t get the message he wanted to leave. Instead of stopping at the door, he found himself propelled toward the bar. As he moved closer, a woman in front of him turned, grinned to someone behind him, then slid off her barstool to push past Derek. He helped himself to her seat and the bartender approached with an empty shot glass in one hand. Waving it away, Derek admitted, “I’m just here to meet someone.”

“Isn’t everyone?” the bartender countered.

Derek’s mouth twisted into a poor attempt at a smile. “I don’t mean like that.”

The bartender gave Derek a knowing grin and held out a hand. Derek found himself drawn into a firm handshake. “Welcome to the Den of Thieves. So who’re you meeting here?”

“I don’t know,” Derek admitted. From beneath the bar, the bartender retrieved a bottle of bright pink Raspberry Schnapps. With a shake of his head, Derek started, “No, really, I don’t—”

“One Undertow,” the barkeep said, speaking over Derek as if he’d ordered the drink. “Coming right up. This friend of yours…”

“I don’t know him.”

Derek watched the bartender fill half the shot glass with the pink alcohol; it winked in the glass like liquid bubble gum. Then the bottle disappeared back beneath the bar and another took its place—Blue Curacao. As the bartender filled the rest of the shot glass, the two colors blurred together to form a deep indigo so dark, it reminded Derek of stormy seas. He stared into the inky depths and a sense of déjà vu washed over him; in his mind’s eye, he saw waves strike the side of a shuddering sailing sloop, he felt the spray on his cheeks like tears, he heard his voice torn from his throat, Tad’s name shrieked into the howling wind.

The bartender’s voice came from far away, as if he were the dream and the horror of losing his lover was Derek’s burden to relive over and over again.

With a shake of his head, Derek realized he’d missed a question; since Tad’s disappearance, since his death, Derek had found himself dropping out of the world from time to time, and he had to force himself to return to the land of the living. “I’m sorry?”

“I asked your friend’s name,” the barkeep replied. At the confusion on Derek’s face, he prompted, “The person you’re meeting here tonight?”

“Oh, right.” For a moment Derek looked around the bar as if he had never seen the place before in his life. Fear rose in him, an overwhelming sensation of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, as if he had somewhere else he needed to be. Someone he needed to find.

Tad.

Steadying himself, Derek raised the shot glass and threw it back. The alcohol tasted like NyQuil—it rushed down his throat, stealing his breath. “God,” he gasped. When he set the glass back down, the bartender refilled it despite the shake of Derek’s head. “That s**t’s lethal.”

“That’s an Undertow.” The bartender’s grin widened, if that were possible. “It grabs you when you least expect it and pulls you under.”

Derek grimaced at the full glass and couldn’t imagine drinking from it again. “I don’t want more.”

The bartender simply told him, “Courtesy of your friend.”

Then he looked across the room and nodded at someone Derek couldn’t see. He turned to follow the glance; in the last booth, along the far wall, a man sat draped in shadow. His face was hidden by the wide brim of a black cowboy hat, and a single red feather bobbed from its band. When the man saw Derek, he raised a shot glass as if proposing a toast.

* * * *

The brief message had been left on Derek’s voicemail three weeks in a row. There was something about the raspy male voice that sounded oddly familiar, like a forgotten song heard years ago. Derek found himself playing the message over and over again in the hopes of jogging his memory, but try as he might, he couldn’t recall where he’d heard that voice before.

“I’ve found what you lost,” the caller said. No greeting, no identification. “Meet me at the Den of Thieves on Saturday, midnight. You’ll get it back.”

Derek ignored the first call. It had to be someone playing games, he told himself, dialing numbers at random and leaving odd messages to f**k with strangers’ minds. He stayed in that Saturday, spending the weekend in the same way he spent all others—asleep, dreaming of Tad in an effort to drown the pain of losing him.

The next call came three days later. Same message, same voice. “I’ve found what you lost.”

Derek tried to shrug it off. But the voice haunted him, its message worrisome. What had he lost? He didn’t know—he had his keys, his cell phone, his driver’s license. He spent the next weekend rummaging through the apartment, taking inventory, looking for what might be missing. But how did one look for something that might not be there? All Derek found were Tad’s belongings, boxed away in the bedroom closet, and he spent a heart-wrenching night wrapped in one of Tad’s faded flannel shirts, crying into soft material that still held traces of his lover’s scent.

When the call came a third time, Derek almost caught it. He’d just turned off the shower when he heard the phone ring. He scrambled from the tub, one hand snagging a towel as he raced from the bathroom, but the moment his hand touched the receiver, the phone’s jangling ring stopped. He waited a full five minutes, toweling himself off right there in the hallway, then picked up the receiver. The interrupted dial tone told him he had a message, and damned if it wasn’t the same one. “I’ve found what you lost.”

“What. The. Fuck.”

In his frustration, Derek slammed the receiver down three times, punctuating each word. It’d be worth meeting the man if only to stop the calls.