returned with three knocks. He'd take his time and savor the triple.
The vodka was half-gone when Bill said, "Emmett was looking for you."
Mickey stilled for a moment, then answered, "I don't do that anymore."
"Just the same, he was here," was Bill's reply, before he moved away to drown another nooner's nightmares.
Just the same I don't care mumbled Mickey to himself. There'd been a time when he'd tried to use his curse for good. That's when he'd met Emmett. He'd once believed in his ability to be beneficial, something to be tendered in exchange for his humanity. But that was before he'd lived through a malignancy of tears and blood and sorrow. From gift to curse, his ability tumbled into a twisted stair of broken limbs and the ignorant dead.
Never again.
But a drunk crashed into him, sending his drink shattering across the bar. He couldn't help but turn, and in the turning heard everyone's thoughts—
Motherfucker owes me money.
Please let her want me.
Please God let him give me a pass.
He's hiding money in his sock.
They scream better when I ventilate.
Mickey spun back to his isolation at the bar, his self-medicating alcoholic mind conjugating the verb to ventilate and wondering how that applied to people. Against his own wishes, he found himself spinning the stool slowly around, his eyes like a searchlight.
A desperate voice beamed.
Beating down dog.
Beating down dog and leave me alone.
As if in reply from the same mind.
Onetwothreefourfivezixseveneightnine...look at her over there in her pretty pink dress. Look at her in her fuck-me pumps. Dog wants to eat. Dog wants to lick. Beat down. Beat down. Beat down dog! Skin can melt, you know? I like it when it melts. I like the taste. Like butter.
"Sorry about that, Mick," said the bartender as he placed another drink in front of him.
Mickey spun back around, attended his empty glass, and nodded. He hated these moments of broadcast dementia when he became privy to the inner workings of the insane. He could ignore someone's fate, he could ignore what was beyond his control like the fate of several dozen Chinese, but could he ignore a person whose entire reason to exist seemed to be to hunt and destroy another. The thoughts left him feeling stained and ugly, more accomplice than witness.
Mickey stared into the mirror and caught the monster in full glare.
Skin can drip if hot enough.
Mickey concentrated on his glass— eyeball to highball and tried to forget what he'd already witnessed. Along with the thoughts had come the recollection of the events that had fueled them.
A woman nailed to the wall.
Her gasoline drenched clothes in conflagration.
A metal pail waiting beneath to catch the solid made liquid.
Mickey recoiled at the scene, closed his eyes, and drowned what remained of his cognition with alcohol.
***
Mickey awoke from a nightmare. He sat upright. His anger soared. How dare they make him feel this way! How dare they dictate a behavior and preach its validity! What the fuck was responsibility to him? Why was it that he was on the hook just for knowing that they were going to die? Did he owe them something? Just because he knew, was he supposed to stop him?
Three hours later he managed to fall asleep. Fitful and filled with dark brooding dreams, when he finally awoke again, he was far from rested.
Against his will, he found himself wanting to meet the Dog. Part of him wanted to tame the beast, while the other wanted to kill it. Another, more sane part of his mind wanted to run from it.
The next morning Mickey boarded the bus. He noticed the new bus driver. In twenty-seven years the man would die surrounded by his loved ones at a family celebration. His heart would explode— a bad diet as deadly as a pistol, albeit a slower, malingering killer.
As they pulled away he glanced at the warehouse. The container hadn't been moved. Five more people had died in the night. Why was he letting himself care?
Mickey hit The Spot at Noon.
As he leaned into the bar, a hunchbacked man with long curly hair grabbed him from behind. Mickey spun and met the man's wild blue eyes and was immediately assaulted by both the man's stench and his fear.
"Mickey, you gotta save me from the men in black hats. Where are they?" Gripping Mickey's collar, "Tell me where they are."
Emmett Morgan had been a successful financial consultant who'd awoken one morning only to discover that he was too afraid of the world to even leave his