The 7th

Chapter 3

It's not very often that I am at a loss for words. Generally speaking in most any situation, I can find words to speak on or about the subject matter at hand and in fact in most cases I find that I just talk until the point that someone shuts me up. This was no different than any other time.

"Holy dingo dicks batman." My voice was a mixture of confusion and surprise. The words I had used were a bit of a surprise to Cami though. Or they must have been because it shook her from staring at the wooden ceilings of Stevie D's barn bar.

"The hell did you just say?" she asked.

"Holy dingo dicks." I glanced sideways at her taking my eyes from the spot on the ceiling for just the briefest of moments. "You know, like Batman says to Robin."

"Batman actually uses the term dingo dicks? And who the hell is Robin? His girlfriend?" she asked clearly baffled.

Knowing that I had just flown way past the point of her knowledge of anything batman or for that matter fictional character related I shook my head. "Never mind. This" I said pointing up to the ceiling "is just a little weird yea?" She regarded the ceiling again.

Directly above the toilet that Joey was still slouching on was what appeared to be a god's honest pentagram. Well I guess maybe that god is not the appropriate terminology to use here, or would it be deity or... never mind. What matters is there was a damned pentagram on the ceiling. A five-pointed star in the middle of a circle simply etched into the wooden slats that made up the ceiling of that barn bar. In the upper point of the star was an eye etched into the middle of that particular triangle. "Um.... any damned clue what that is?" I asked Cami who was still staring at the symbol.

"Well it's a pentagram." She lowered her head to look at me as if I were some kind of idiot for not knowing that.

"Holy shit!" I said with a stunned voice. "A witch hunt we shall have for who so ever hath dabbled in the dark arts is surely possessed by the devil. He shall be cast out from that body never more to enter." I switched into a stereotypical southern bible thumping Baptist preacher. You know the type all hell fire and brimstone. I was mocking something I am sure I had seen in a film somewhere. I noticed Cami's puzzled look.

"Of course, it's a pentagram Cami. I'm not an idiot." She just continued to stare at me. I think she may have been put off a little by my preacher act. If my memory served me correctly she was a big religious type and I was also fairly certain she had a family member that had something to do with the church. "What I meant was what's it for? I mean no one really uses or believes in pentagrams, right? What are we looking at here, some wiccan wahoo came to the bar and used some who-doo voo-doo on Joey?" I asked skeptically.

"I mean as unbelievable as that sounds, that's what all this kind of points to." She said shaking her head.

"Wait, wait, wait a minute here." The corner of my mouth turned up into a smirk. "Are you going to stand there and tell me that you believe someone who believes in magic has come into a bar here climbed a ladder, or floated I guess if you are going with the magic angle here, inscribe a pentagram on the ceiling and then what? Waited crouched in a corner until our boy Joey sat down to take a big ol' deuce at which point they put the magically whammy on him and stole his mind? Not to mention about a hundred and fifty or sixty pounds of fat off of him?" When she didn't answer I went on. "You are not serious right now? I mean you are supposed to be the intelligent one of the two of us. I get to be the goofy screw up, not you?"

She finally spoke. "I don't know what I believe but I know what I see. This is like something out of a movie."

"No joke." I returned my gaze to the ceiling. When I glanced back towards Cami she was a little pale. "You alright?" I asked no real concern in my voice figuring she was just a little queasy from seeing Joey this way. We had all grown up together, her, C, Joey, and I. Joey was a few years younger than us but had always been around you know. Always kind of in the background. At the parties C used to throw Joey would be kind of just hanging on the fringes of everything. If you thought back to memories of those parties you wouldn't really remember him at first because he would never really be involved in the center of the circle kind of stuff. It was only when you dug deep into that memory and thought back to the events of the night you'd remember him in some off handed way like you went to the fridge to get some ice or something and he'd be there in the kitchen kind of just watching things. Always smiling. Always the big guy with a grin who wouldn't hurt a fly unless it hurt his brother in which case he would do a wonderful impersonation of the Hulk and smash said fly into oblivion. Then after remembering that your mind would show you all the other times throughout the night that you'd seen him. He was there, just always in the background.

Cami had always been kind to Joey. If he had ever been seen at those parties talking to anyone it had usually been her. You could see the love he had for her that he tried so hard to keep hidden. I think she knew it to and she was to kind to just straight out say that it would never happen. She would carry on with him and hell she even went to his senior prom with him. It was kind of a big deal for him. I think probably one of the highest moments in his life. I say all that to say this, I could understand why seeing him the way he was, sickly white shaking and seemingly outside of himself, would make her feel a little off.

"I just need some air." Her words came out softly as she turned to leave the bathroom. My balance shifted back and forth as a weighed my next move. Part of me wanted to go check on her and make sure she was ok offering whatever assistance I could. I knew though that doing that would only make her more pissed off. She was a strong independent woman, a fact she prided herself on. She hated anyone to see any weakness in her and I was likely just going to make things worse if tried to help more than likely being awarded a quick jab to the solar plexus rather than a thank you. So, I turned back to Joey or where he had sat when we first came in. In my mind he still sat there on the porcelain throne rocking slightly ever so often. I took a step back trying harder this time to take in the whole scene. I started an inner dialogue.

"The gouges on the stall, the bent pipe, and the pentagram. The things I could explain?" myself asked me. "Well there aren't any. There are a lot of inexplicable things here. One, three gouges, not four or five. Any person, if they were to attempt to gouge a tin wall which in and of itself would be a massive feat of strength, would leave four or five gouges depending on how they hit it with their hand." I don't know if you've ever fooled a lot with galvanized tin but its not very easy to cut let alone just tear through. "I guess it would be possible to only hit it with the three middle fingers on your hand but even if you did that there would be blood left from where the tin cut you. Two, the pipe. That pipe is made of at least a quarter inch thick steel. No way is a person just going to crush that bare handed. And three" at this point I glanced back at the ceiling still unwilling to believe that someone had carved, not drawn, but carved a pentagram into the ceiling, "who the hell uses these things? Also, one other thing to note." I said to myself. "Why does this one look so odd? The lines don't all connect." Each of the lines in the pentagram would generally intersect one another to form the star. In this one each point of the star operated slightly apart from one another. Instead of one whole star it was five separate triangles arranged in such a way that the approximation of a star could be seen. "And what's the deal with the eye?" My gaze traced the room one last time coming to rest on the Joey in my head. His eyes weren't moving side to side anymore. Likely my mind had failed to maintain that detail as most of its core processing power was being used in other ways.

"Me and myself have got a lot of figuring out to do buddy." I said to him knowing that he could not hear me as he was only a recreation, a figment of my imagination. "I'm gonna figure this out for you, then we will see about getting you back to normal." I paused. He didn't respond. Of course, he didn't respond. Sometimes I get so caught up in my internal musings and mind recreations that I can forget they aren't real. I turned my back to him and left the room not really certain what my next move would be. Hell if I knew who in this little county would know anything about pentagrams or witchcraft or any of that mess.

"Well?" C spoke as I walked towards the door of the bar.

"Mighty deep subject for such a shallow mind." The old saying floated from my lips as more of a habit than anything else. "I don't know C." My chest heaved as I let a sigh out. "Never seen nothing like this before."

"Yea. Me either." His words betrayed the worry in his voice.

"Don't worry man. It's not something I can't figure out. You should go be with your brother. He's gonna be alright I'm sure." I lied. We were dealing with new stuff here, I had no way of knowing if he would be ok or not but sometimes lies are a good thing.

"Yea. Ok." C spoke and I could tell he didn't believe the lie I fed him. It had been worth a try though.

"C?" I called to him as he began to lock up the back door of the bar. "No one you see the other night look out of place?"

"Naw, just the normal folks. College kids mostly."

College kids. My mind latched on to that and ran with it. Suddenly I knew where we were headed next. C said something about the two odd people who were looking for something but it only grazed my thoughts.

"Thanks C." I said not able to hide the slight tingle of the excitement the idea of a lead had brought to me. With that idea in mind I hurried from the bar leaving C with a look of puzzlement on his face.