The Human Retaliation [on hold]

Chapter 5 part 1: Bar

These separate chapters (and others in the future) have been turned into parts.  They were meant to be 1 chapter combined but were posted as multiple.  I'm keeping them as multiple to preserve the votes, reads, and comments on the chapters.

***The Week Before***

Jessie managed to drag her new friend across the road and into the less-than pleasant neighborhood nearby.  This was the part of the city, and every city has at least one, that most people wouldn’t want to stop their car.  Half the time it’s not even the people they’d fear—it’s the current state of the buildings the locals live in.  Hell, the current residents are probably the same ones one would see in the grocery store or serve them at the local restaurant.  Others would probably meet these residents at the beach and nicely say ‘Good day,’ but when someone comes into their neighborhood from the outside suddenly only evil inhabits the streets and everyone is out to get them.

Naturally a precious little girl dragging a sick boy down the streets was not a common sight, especially a little girl who obviously doesn’t fit the stereotype of someone who would actually live here.  The street Jessie found had a steep decline, it was like the middle and upper class intentionally built the road though the lower class portion of town at the very top of a hill to avoid having to look across the filth—to pass it by without ever seeing what was really down the other side of the crest. 

But Jessie breached the crest, and the little girl had no plans of ever looking back.  As she dragged her sick friend down the center of an empty street, past the trash and broken buildings that dared inhabit this place, she looked slowly around her—but not as a little girl, as something different.  There was a new vibe to her, something that was no longer young and innocent.  The girl knew where she was going and was determined to go there—she had no fears and didn’t even bat a eyelash at the desolation around her.  She should be scared, she should be sad—just watching her mother get hit and probably killed.  And in no way should she be near that dying kid behind her. 

Her eyes weren’t young anymore.  Her face no longer had that childish glee.  She transformed the second she woke up in the back of that car.  The child inside her body was dead and something much more has taken its place.  Something much more dangerous, and something that wouldn’t be afraid of the world around it.  Something that brought the smoldering figure behind her into existence.

Jessie came up to a heavy wooden door, now off the street.  She was about half way down the hill and the building in front of her had foggy windows she couldn’t see through.  But unlike the rest of the broken industrial buildings or residential structures this one had what looked like a yellow glow coming from its muddled windows.  Life, existence, help.  She didn’t bother with the dusty wooden sign above its door that said “bar” or the half a dozen waxed up motorcycle’s sitting outside, even if it was near mid-day.  To her fearless face this place show life where no others here had.

She reached up just above her head and grabbed the black worn handle, twisting it till the door clicked open.  Now, a girl her age should struggle to open a door of this stature, if even get it open at all, but she proved to have no problems at pulling it open enough to squeeze her body in.  Inside was a dark haze and it smelled heavily of cigarettes.  The entrance was narrow with black curtains lining against both walls.  It opened to a small cramped space with a single slow-turning fan in the center which seemed to swirl the smoke around instead of actually disperse it.  The actual walls of the place were covered with pictures, mostly those torn from magazines and almost all of them busts of women—majority wearing almost nothing and some appeared to be completely nude. 

The walls were a collage of these posing women, pictures on top of pictures and all stuck to the walls with different means, some with a stapler, some with tacks or taped, and a few seem to just stick with a will of their own.  Away from the walls there were several tables, three booths, and a large counter that went across the length of the interior.  At the far end of the place was a single pool table cramped so well against the wall it looked to be impossible to actually use a cue if the player was on the side with the wall.