Billy Yates' Bar

Billy Yates' Bar (#TheGrudgeContest)

Billy Yates' Bar had never been the same since Blake Rowe's murder, two long years ago. 

Its patrons were always throwing a careful glance over their shoulders. Rowe was always a good man, they said; just never when he'd been drunk. 

No, when Blake Rowe drank, he became a different man entirely. 

Detective Kathryn Soto sipped quietly on her whiskey, finishing her second round of Jameson as she reflected on the case. He had pissed off the Mob that night, alarmingly drunk because of his recent divorce. As they shot him, he was spewing hatred, swinging a knife at his killers until his life had run its final minutes. She hadn't been there; but she had been called to the scene, and watched as the body bag was dragged out off of the floor. 

 There was one stool that stood ever empty at the bar: Rowe's Stool, as it had become known. The stool where a man was shot to death. Respectful or superstitious, no one had touched it since that fatal night. 

The hours passed, and by the time she finished her fifth whiskey, the bar was deserted save herself. Yates was preparing to ask her to leave, when he saw the pain in her eyes; and so he let her be, heading out knowing Kathryn would lock the pub when she was ready. For a long while, she sat there quietly; and then she stood to leave. 

She was nearly to the door, when she turned to stare at Rowe's stool. 

 Fuck it, just one time. 

And so she returned, poured herself a sixth Jameson, and sat on the untouched barstool.

-

She must have passed out, for when she awoke, the clock read 2 a.m. Kathryn righted herself, her head swimming as she pulled it from the countertop. She went to stand, but collapsed straight to the floor instead. 

 It was there that, through the haze of liquor in her head, she heard the gurgling. 

It must be the sink drain, she thought; but it was growing louder. Growing closer. 

It was then that Kathryn Soto spied the pale hand reaching around the bottom of the bar. 

She tried to scream, but her tongue wouldn't cooperate; she tried to pull her gun, but her fingers fumbled. She kicked away from the bar as the hand brought with it another, and then a head. And in the head were blood-red eyes, which pierced even the liquor. The hands moved faster, the eyes grew more intense, and Kathryn thrashed harder as the thing pulled itself closer. 

It grabbed her leg; and though she kicked it repeatedly, it held on. She began to cry as it pulled its clammy body onto her, her legs trapped beneath its weight; and then it was on top of her, the red eyes of Blake Rowe mere inches away from her own.

She screamed, at last, as she met the bloody gaze of her ex-husband. 

Billy Yates' Bar closed the very next day.