Named after his mother's Hollywood crush, not a real person, Jonny Castle had a swag about him just like his namesake. It was easy to see why she would crush on a character that'd say "nobody puts Baby in the corner" and move his hips for a little dirty. Hell, she even paid a look-alike a thousand ringgit to perform at her 30th.
That was a lot of money then, for a guy who just came by to role-play and swirl her around a little. But she giggled like it was the real deal as the 9-year-old him hid under the buffet table watching the adults.
That night, as she lay drunk on the couch, he had sat at her desktop and tried to search the internet about this Jonny Castle character. The search had returned a few links excruciatingly slow, the internet a crawl back in the 90s. But it was then that he made up his mind to be a journalist, a researcher.
Why was he thinking about this as he walked through a ghost town, he wasn't sure. A town that had been abandoned during the last pandemic in 2009, the swine flu outbreak. "Go there, check it out and spin a story," his boss had said and now here he was.
He already knew it was an aged town, the young ones leaving their older folks behind for the city. He walked around snapping pictures of the buildings falling apart. He saw an old man shuffle off through a door 100 metres ahead. He broke into a slow jog to catch up with the only soul he'd seen so far.
The door swung open even before he could touch it. “Here’s your damn whiskey,” he heard, as he stepped into a busy bar.
Like speakers going from mono to stereo, the sound filled up the room. He felt claustrophobic, something he had picked up from his assignment in Venezuela when he had been shoved into a barrel for questioning the wrong people. Working alone didn't always favour him.
He immediately turned around but there was a big, burly man standing against the door he had walked through. The man nodded towards the bar. Jonny felt like he was in a dream. Light-headed, he walked to the bar, bumping into bodies that gravitated towards him like pins to a magnet.
"Hey Mister, here's your drink!" said the waitress as he sat on a stool to steady himself.
"What's this place called? Who are all these people?"
"They? You mean 'we' right? You are one of us now."
"One of you?"
She sneered, then took the glass and shoved it against his mouth.
It knocked his teeth and it shook him. He had been on many assignments which included dangerous and rowdy but this bar elevated all his nerves.
He took the glass from her, and she walked off but not before she spat on the floor, missing his shoes by an inch. He studied the colourless liquid in the glass, wondering what it was before he threw it back and downed it in one mad gulp. He couldn't taste it, he couldn't even feel it going down his throat.
He looked around at the people, and it hit him that no one was talking. They looked like bees lost after their hive had been knocked. Just buzzing around, literally. There was a strange static sound in the background but loud enough to give him a slight headache.
"Hey," he called out to the bartender. The bartender came over and scowled. "Where is this place? What's going on? What's that weird sound? Who are all these people?"
"Waiting," he grunted, except his lips weren't moving. It was like Jonny could hear him in his head.
"Waiting for what?"
"What are you waiting for?" the bartender questioned back, enunciating 'you'. Jonny slammed the glass on the counter. He was many things, but if you asked anyone who knew him to describe him in one word, they'd say temperamental.
The glass shattered but no one seemed to care. Not even the bartender who was already walking away. A lady sat beside him. There was something odd about her. He stared at her and she turned to look back at him.
He jumped off the stool. Her eye sockets were empty. "I have cried my heart out. I've cried my eyes out. But you are here now." All this he heard in his head, including her shrieking laugh that came after.
He ran to the door or at least where he thought the door had been. He walked along the wall, as he heard, felt a muttered chant rising up from the weirdos. But he wasn't listening.
He saw the old man who had shuffled in looking out a window. He took long strides, bumping into more bodies. Jonny followed the old man's gaze, and there he saw it. He looked back at the packed bar, every single one of them, the whole place was filled with ghosts. He had seen them before, they were looking familiar now. The man who had hung himself when Jonny had broken his story of embezzlement. That lady, his mother who had died of loneliness.
He looked out the window again and stared at the body crushed under the slab of stone fallen off from the half-finished building just 100 metres away. He looked at the only part of the body not crushed, his hand holding the camera he had gifted himself during the lockdown Christmas. And he heard a low static rumble rise from within himself, humming and harmonizing with everyone else in the bar.
This is my entry to The Ink Well Two-Week Summer Short Story Contest and Workshop. You can read all about it by clicking HERE. From the 50 loglines provided, I chose number 15:-
A man walks into a bar… in a ghost town; bizarrely, the place is packed and the atmosphere is hostile.
I hope you enjoyed my story and would appreciate all the constructive criticism😁
Thank you so much for reading,
Sh33la
Image sourced from pexels.com and edited
This story got me on the edge of my seat. Thanks for providing the link to the complete story.
I love horror and everything about this story fits perfectly.
Zonniaaaaaaa
How are you? So good to see you here :D
Come join in the fun... I think you still have a day to do it
I am glad you enjoyed the story
Hehe feels good to be here, missed you 💕. I would have loved to join but guess it's late so maybe next time.
I am not sure why I can't seem to follow you - hmmmm - trying to figure it out but I will be looking out for you :D
Really? What could be the problem?
Well about that, I am not yet active for now so you won't see my post often but I will come here once in a while to read your articles and that of others.
I'm sure I'll figure it out soon enough - probably I'm missing something
Take your time, but not too much haha
Trust all's well with you <33
Thank you thank you @ackhoo & @qurator for the support and encouragement :D
Johnny is sure temperamental!!!
hehe
Glass pieces in smithereens all over the counter 😉
You write very well, @kaerpediem!
I wish I had a bit of your talent and skill in writing 😘😍!
Thank you @silversaver888
I am trying to work on it :D
Good luck, sis!😘😍
I love this story :) Jonny sounds like an interesting guy - now ghost! It was a fun read that was unpredictable to the end!
Here are my suggestions:
The story was a little confusing, as the age transitions weren't too clear. Also we need to meet a few more of those ghosts, please :)
Thank you for the feedback on the story @wrestlingdesires
And happy you enjoyed the story
Will see how to tweak it 😊
My pleasure :) It's already excellent, but this project is about making us push even harder - it reminds me of our UU round tables :)
You've got me intrigued with the first part, I am not a fan of horror but I'll wait for part two. I am sure it will be worth the wait.
Glad you liked it even though it is not quite your genre :D
Thank you @sofs-su
Excellent first draft, @kaerpediem. You've set up the conflict for your horror story well, teasing us along as to why all these people are in this bar, and why they aren't speaking with their mouths. Those are some haunting images.
When you work on your second draft, consider your opening carefully. There is some confusion in the opening lines before the story gets traction and takes off. The first three paragraphs seem to be someone else's perspective, other than Jonny's, but it's not clear who that person is. And those paragraphs are a diversion from the real story. You could consider omitting them, and then writing the first paragraph with a really strong hook into the actual story. Good luck!
Reading it back after your comment, I see what you mean
Ok, let's see if I can keep my wandering mind on one track ;p
Thank you so much for the feedback - truly appreciate it :D
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Thank you @fambalam :D
This is a beautiful story, and being a huge fan of horror, i appreciate your work very much.
However, i noticed your opening could use a little more clarity. Like who exactly is telling the story, Johnny or someone else.
I really enjoyed your story, thank you for sharing.
I hear you on the opening
Reading it back I see the discrepancy
Thank you for the feedback and happy that you liked the story ;D
Hi @kaerpediem. I love your story!
Your character is a temperamental, claustrophobic soul who hits the counter with a glass that shatters without anyone caring in the slightest.
I struggled a bit with the first reading. Perhaps because I didn't know anything about the porn actor, I couldn't quite understand the introduction to the story. Luckily I've read you before and I knew I had to keep reading. Slowly it all made sense. The poor man is crushed to death, with his camera in his hand (how I identified with this, it hurt me).
On the second reading, the images brought a smile to my face. I read underneath the scenes a burlesque tone that forces me to read it, even if I don't want to, in the key of comedy.
Maybe I'm wrong, and you didn't intend to go in that direction, but the only recommendation I could make is to accentuate that jocular tone in the scenes.
I know it's a big challenge to make people laugh, it's much easier to make them cry, I think your writing can do it.
I wish you the best of luck in the contest
I love how you have interpreted the story - in a burlesque tone :D
And yes, I now see that the beginning might have been chugging along that took a sharp turn and derailed ...
I am not a funny person and wouldn't dare present it as funny, but I do like make light of the eccentricities of life and hope I deliver
Thank you so so much for this comment
I have learnt for sure :D
When she said "You're one of us now," the "Hotel California" started playing in my head... this story takes that level of horror and just works it ALL THE WAY OUT... from his mother's Hollywood crush all the way to the final crush ... impressive!
This story does struggle just a little bit at the beginning ... it swirls around a little because we began to get into a vivid portion of his mother's life and then have to run and jump and catch up with the nine year old who becomes a researcher. Not that our labor was not rewarded, of course, but it might have been a little easier if we got more of the vividness of his experiences that led him to his path.
This is like those one live reviews and I love it :D
I saw the beginning as presenting the man he was, raised by a mother who left him to his own devices, his curiosity about his name that matched this performer making his mum giggle and started off his interest in journalism only to have it kill him off....
But I guess too much in a short story...
Thank you so very much for the feedback :D
As I said somewhere in my comment, I come to read your stories and feel mesmerized to the point that I forget to write something in the comment box. I was thinking why the heck no one was speaking and then suddenly found out "why". It would be interesting to find myself in that bar one day and see if I survive or drop down dead! Great suspense and built up!
Hi Sunny
You like the thrill eh
Thank you for dropping in, reading and commenting :D
Thank you for the comment and feedback
I am now seeing how I have jumped from one train to another :D