2021-11-29 - The Stain

Tor Lockhart has been less of a familiar face at Pizza Kitchen the last few months. If his cousins and uncle are to be believed, he barely came by at all during the missing twelve weeks. But it was just Thanksgiving, which means reconnecting with family, no matter how fucked up and dodgy said family is.

After the dinner, he was convinced to pick up a few shifts to let one of his cousins with a family have a long weekend. So it's back into the Lockhart bullshit of small time crook turf war talk in the kitchen, or plans for small scale robberies come the holiday season. One of the cousins wants to steal parcels off peoples' front steps and the conversation, between prepping dough and toppings is all about how best to pull that off.

All of it reminds Tor of why he decided to chart his own path with the brewery. Not only does his family get mired in petty things - theft and otherwise - but there's no way to move up. His uncle who owns Pizza Kitchen isn't retiring anytime soon, and even if he did, he'd pass it on to his daughter and not to Tor. And crime in Gray Harbor doesn't allow for many opportunities either. He asked for months for more responsibility, but he was still treated as just the errand boy.

The gofer.

The driver.

The lowlife from the bad family with no prospects and no desire to better himself.

But he's been trying. He's sunk everything into Strange Harbor Brewing, even though he didn't know the first thing about beer when he started.

He exits out the back of the pizzeria after his shift, smelling of tomato sauce and pepperoni. He lights a cigarette and starts down the back alley. It's a route he's walked a million times before. It's an alley that's seen many, many things.

Tor takes a left turn down a narrow alleyway that leads back towards the street. Then he feels that strange, sinking, prickling feeling that those with the Glimmer sometimes do. That feeling that something isn't right, that you're slipping between worlds. Smoke from his cigarette becomes fog. When it clears, he's back in the same alleyway he just tried to exit. In front of him is a man, slumped against the wall with a bullet wound in his head. Tor feels the weight of a gun in his hand. The shot wasn't his - that came from the man to his left. But the bloody nose and lacerations that came before the shot . His knuckles are red and swollen, and he tastes blood in his mouth from a split lip.

"C'mon, Tor. Leave the piece of shit. Donny and the boys will take care of him."

It's a memory. It was the night a few years ago when he moved from petty thievery and fencing to enforcement. At the time, it felt like the way to move up. Go around town, shake down people with gambling and drug debts, and dispense a little pain if they don't pay up. At first, he got a power trip out of it. Instead of being the little gopher good-for-nothing, these people feared him.

But that man in the alley had a family. He lost money in a fixed game. He was a mark, set up because he seemed to have money. But it turned out he and his family were badly in-debt and overdrawn, and the gambling was a desperate attempt to get his head above water.

And Tor was party to his murder.

He lowers the gun, thumb sliding over the safety. He stares at the man's corpse, then turns to move away. He nearly walks right into the man, who is now on his feet and seemingly alive despite the bullet hole in his head. "Did you forget about me, Tor?" says the man.

Tor raises his gun again, stance practiced and professional, from years of being drilled by his family. "I know what this is," he says.

"Oh, you do? Well, then why the hell are you pointing that gun at a corpse?"

It's a good point, but he keeps his guard up nonetheless. "What the fuck do you want?"

"What do I want? I want to be alive. I want to go home and hug my kids. But since I can't do that, I'll settle for reminding you what a piece of shit you are." As the man spoke, he spat blood from crusted lips. "You think you get to move on? Be an upstanding member of the community? A fucking hipster brewer?" The man advances, now looking more decayed and haunted. The wound in his head oozes black blood. "You're a Lockhart. Worse than that, you're a Baxter. And everyone knows that Baxters don't amount to shit."

Tor keeps his composure on the outside, but he backs up, still holding the weapon, trained on the decaying corpse of a man. "Yeah, I'm a Baxter, and I grew up in this goddamn town. Which means..." his finger slides off the safety, "...I know you're trying to make me feel like shit. To drag me down. So you can eat my self-loathing and guilt."

The man-corpse smiles, teeth coated in blood. He chuckles. It's a raspy, disturbing sound. He wobbles his head. "That may be the case, but that doesn't make any of this less true, kid. You had it right when you were in high school and you gave up and stopped applying yourself. You were smarter then than you are now. Because now you're trying. And you know in your heart that it's going to fail." The corpse stops moving forward. His tone turns almost casual. "Best case scenario? Your little business becomes a money laundering front for your lowlife family. This town doesn't let anything out, which means your brewery isn't going to get a reputation. And only so many people in this town will buy from you. And then, you'll end up drowning in debut and run back to your uncle for money. And then he'll own you again."

In spite of himself, Tor feels the gun hand shaking. He tries to steady it, but the corpse notices.

"It's funny, isn't it?" rasps the dead man. "Knowing what something is doesn't make it any less terrifying. And I notice you're not defending yourself. You'll either end up a gofer for the rest of your life, like me..." he points to the bullet wound in his head, "...or you'll go to jail. But your family doesn't really do time, do they? You disappear, keep on your bullshit, or end up dead."

The man isn't telling Tor anything he hasn't already thought about. That's what's so disturbing about it.

Tor doesn't back away as the man approaches again. The walking corpse reaches out and places a hand on his shoulder. He can feel how cold it is and feel the gore seeping through his shirt. "Good talk, kid." And then, he shoves him back, hard.

He feels himself falling backwards. He spins out to catch himself, then hits the ground hard enough to jam his shoulder. There's no gun in his hand, and he finds himself near the mouth of the alley, his car within sight. But the gore isn't gone, and neither is the split lip or the lacerations across his knuckles.

Tor lies there for a moment on the cold ground, before he slowly gets himself to his feet. He doesn't look back. He doesn't need to. They cleaned up that man's corpse years ago. But if he looks closely, he can still see the bullet hole against the concrete where the shot passed clean through his skull.