His Eyes

A scary story for today.

It was 2:48 in the morning and even in his hotel room all the way up on the 9th floor, the sound of protesters on the sidewalks below had only gotten louder.

He’d tried earplugs and playing white noise on his phone. But nothing seemed to drown out the cars honking. The chanting. The singing. The whistles. The cowbells. Where do they all find cowbells?

Fed up, he put on his pants and boots. He almost grabbed his mask too, before stopping himself. It had only been three months and already he felt naked without it.

Bare-faced, he took the elevator down to the lobby where he planned to request a switch to an interior room overlooking the courtyard instead of the street so he could get a few good hours of rest in before reporting for duty in the morning.

“Reporting for duty,” he repeated in his head. Not clocking in. Not starting a shift. “Reporting for duty.” Finally he was working a job that felt important. A job that came with a signing bonus big enough to finance a pontoon boat and 8 trips to the Magic Kingdom. 12 if he stayed at an offsite hotel.

Once he reached the lobby, he saw that the front desk was unoccupied. Just a little sign with an apology that the hotel was completely full and a phone number in case of an emergency. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a slow but steady stream of protesters ambling past the sliding glass doors. Instinctively the sight made him hustle out of their view for fear of…what? Most of them were nothing but saggy old hippies, desperate to feel part of something again before they kicked it, or trust fund college kids, pretending to be radical while they knew damn well they’d never have to work a day in their life. If these so-called “freedom fighters” were so unthreatening in the light of day, why had he just now felt the need to scurry away before they could spot him?

Around the corner from the front desk was a little lounge, now empty, and a bar, behind which a round-faced older woman in a vest wiped down the counter with a rag.

“Are you open?” he called over.

“No,” she answered. “But long as you don’t want anything too complicated, I can help you out.”

He ordered a beer and perched himself on a high stool while she closed down.

“Long day?” the bartender asked as she rinsed a glass in the sink.

“They’re all long days,” he said, enjoying how cool that sounded, “Been up since 5 putting away bad guys.”

The bartender chuckled. He couldn’t tell if she did it in a way he liked or not.

“Protesters keeping you up?”

“Nah.”

“Really? They’ve been rowdy tonight.”

“Eh, I’m not all that scared of signs and cowbells.”

“Good for you. If I were in your shoes, I don’t think I could handle it.”

“Handle what?”

“All that negative energy.”

He felt a pang of relief that he was talking to someone on his side.

“I appreciate that ma’am. But don’t worry. I don’t pay it much attention.”

“People must wish horrible things on you when you take them away. Or when you take someone they care about.”

“Sometimes. After a while it gets easy to tune out.”

“Really?” the bartender pursued. “You’re not worried all that pain will make its way back to you one day?”

His expression hardened. It seemed he’d misjudged this bartender’s leanings.

“Do you think I should feel guilty for doing my job?”

She turned off the sink and tilted her head apologetically. “I’m sorry. I promise I wasn’t thinking that.”

“What were you thinking about then?”

“Curses.”

He looked at her blankly. “Curses?”

“Like in the middle ages,” she rattled on, “peasants, outcasts, people who had no means of protection, their only weapon was wishing harm on powerful people. Speaking it to their faces and praying it came true.”

“Lotta good that did them,” he scoffed between sips.

“Right. Only works if the cursed person believes.”

He took another gulp of his beer. When the silence became too uncomfortable, he broke it.

“There’s a hill in my hometown that’s supposed to be cursed,” he offered up, trying to take hold of the conversational reins. “Story goes some tribal chief cast a spell on it back in the 1700’s as revenge on the settlers who stole his land. Kids at my school used to say if you spent a minute on the hill, you’d lose a year of your life.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Did you ever risk it?”

He thought a moment.

“Hell no.”

The two laughed.

“See? It worked.”

He shrugged. The protesters outside were singing some old angry song, but it was clear that their energy and numbers were waning.

“Lotta people out there wishing all sorts of harm on you,” the bartender tsk’d.

“They’ll be gone by 4,” he countered. “Always are.”

He finished the last suds of his beer and clapped his hands on the counter.

“Just in time too,” he yawned “Cuz I’m in desperate need of some shuteye. What do I owe you?”

But the bartender didn’t answer. She didn’t move. She simply stared back into his tired, bloodshot eyes with a piercing intensity that made the caveman part of his brain shiver.

“You’ll never sleep again.” she said.

“I’m sorry?” he said as though he couldn’t make sense of the words.

“You’ll. Never sleep. Again.” the bartender repeated. Without a blink. Without a stammer.

There was something suddenly vicious in her soft face. It gave him a feeling of sick deep in his stomach, a dull boiling ache he’d never felt before. The moment was so altogether shocking that he couldn’t even muster the sense to look at the bartender’s name tag for the purposes of complaining about her to the front desk in the morning.

So without a word, without paying, he stood up and backed away. And she stared at him, wiping down the spot at the counter where he once sat. Unable to bear it anymore, he turned away. But when he stole one last glance before turning the corner to the elevators, she was gone.

Back in his room up on the 9th floor, it was quieter than it had been an hour earlier. The protesters were mostly gone just as he’d predicted. Only a few hoarse voices chanting now. A very occasional breathless blow of a whistle. A puny clatter of one remaining cowbell. Hardly anything to lose sleep over.

He looked at his phone. 3:31 in the morning.

He closed his curtains and flopped down in bed, staring at the dark ceiling. Seeing nothing but the face of the bartender staring back at him.

He was so very tired. So desperate to rest.

And yet. His eyes would not close.