Kelly Creagh - Nevermore

“Hey!” Isobel shouted, marching right up to shove Mark in the shoulder.

“Hey yourself, Iz! Relax. It was just an accident. Besides, Count Fagula’s got a mop back there somewhere, I’m sure.”

“Keeps it in his little green apron,” Brad chimed in, causing both of them to explode into howls of laughter.

“Get out,” Isobel growled, pointing them to the door.

“Can’t.” Brad sighed. As he spoke, he wandered to the store freezer, where he pulled open the door and tugged out a pint of ice cream. “We’re still short some Banana Fudge and a couple of malts.”

“Hey, Brad, over here!” shouted Mark, clapping his hands, raising them like he would for a pass.

A wild look came over Brad. “Go long!” he called. Gripping the pint like a football, he leaned back, preparing for the toss. Mark laughed and retreated as far as the front door, his eye on the pint.

“No! Don’t!” Isobel screamed.

Brad threw the pint. Alyssa squealed and ducked. Nikki flattened herself against the display glass.

The carton hurtled through the air toward Mark, who dropped down at the last second, causing the pint to smash against the mural-painted wall behind him. The crushed carton slid down, then hit the floor, leaving a brown splat of Rocky Road right in the middle of a cockatoo.

Isobel spun in search of Varen, only to see Brad lift the hinged divider and invite himself behind the counter. He slid up to the register and, with practiced fingers, tapped a series of buttons that sent the cash drawer shooting out. He dipped a large hand in, and Isobel gaped as he claimed a wad of twenties.

That’s when Varen moved.

He got close enough to reach for the money—close enough to almost snatch it back. As the scene played out, a sick terror seized Isobel’s heart, tightening it in a fierce grip. She felt her entire form flinch as Brad shoved him. Varen stumbled backward, hands raised in an open-palm gesture of forfeit.

It wasn’t what Brad wanted.

His face contorted and his fist balled. He reared back, his arm a python prepared to strike.

Without thinking, without knowing what she was doing, Isobel rushed him. She crashed hard against Brad, grappling for his arm. Knocked off balance, Brad dropped the money. Before he could steady himself, her hand struck. She slapped him, and the crack of her palm against his jaw split the room.

Everything went silent except for the quiet playing of the steel drum music, and the soft hum of the store freezer. Brad stared down at her, anger fixed in his eyes, causing them to burn unnaturally bright, like two supernovas ready to explode.

“Get out,” she said, hissing the words between her teeth. She couldn’t remember being this angry at anything or at anyone ever before in her life. She could feel herself trembling all over, like a time bomb. She swallowed, strangling the impulse to strike him again. “I said get out!”

Nikki was the first to scuttle out the door. Isobel knew this because she could hear that tch sound followed by the jingle of the door chimes. Someone else followed, but Isobel couldn’t see whether it was Mark or Alyssa, because she was too busy staring holes into her ex-boyfriend. When she finally heard a third jingle of chimes, she steadied her voice and spoke quiet and slow.

“Don’t ever talk to me again.”

Brad stared at her long and hard, as though waiting for her to retract her words. She didn’t, and finally he took the cue and broke away, brushing past her. He smoothed a hand through his hair as he made his way to the door, pulling a crumpled pack of cigarettes out of his back jeans pocket, like there was nothing the matter, like he didn’t care one way or the other.

He paused before he reached the door, long enough to toss a folded piece of paper he’d dug out of his jacket pocket onto one of the little brown wicker tables.

The door chimes rang a fourth time.

Only when Brad was out of the shop did Isobel feel the shakes begin to subside.

She looked around, but Varen had vanished.

She bent to retrieve the money, stuffing it with trembling fingers haphazardly into the cash drawer and shoving it closed again, as though it could contain what had already gone awry. She gripped the sides of the register and stared at the numbered keys, trying to anchor herself, trying to decide if the here and now was too impossible to be real.

She flinched when Brad’s headlights sliced through the front windows, as bright as search beams.

They swiveled violently away, tires screeching. Isobel shut her eyes. She listened as he peeled out of the parking lot, the blast from his modified muffler sounding a roar before fading into the night.

Numb, she turned in a slow circle, opening her eyes again to pan the destruction around her. Chairs overturned, ice cream melting on the floor, and still no sign of Varen.

She shuddered, overcome with something akin to relief. She couldn’t have faced him in that moment. She couldn’t face him ever again. Not after this.

Moving on impulse, Isobel hurried to the door.

Her hands on the push bar, she stopped, her gaze catching on the table, on the folded slip of paper Brad had dropped there. Suddenly she realized what it was. It was the note from Varen, the note he’d written to warn her, the one that she’d tucked into the pocket of her sweater.

The sweater she’d left in Brad’s car.

Her back pressed to the wall, Isobel lingered just outside the staff door. Finally, steeling herself with a shuddering breath, she pushed away from the wall and gave the door frame a timid double knock.

“Hello?” she called into the pitch-blackness. “You—you back there?”

No answer.

Isobel reached a tremulous hand inside and patted the wall. Her fingers fumbled over a light switch and she flicked it upward, causing fluorescents to sputter on with a soft clink.

Inside, shelves packed with boxes of ice cream cones, packages of napkins, and cartons of paper cups lined the hideous lime green, cracked plaster walls. Her searching gaze traveled past a dark gray locker cabinet and the rear exit, stopping to rest on the door to the walk-in freezer. It stood ajar, mist whispering through a slim gap.

Isobel stepped into the room. She moved to the freezer and glanced down to find it propped open to a slit by a small wooden crate.

She put her hand to the latch and pulled, surprised when it opened easily, sending huge gales of cold air tumbling out over her sneakers. She peeked her head inside first, sliding in only when she thought she saw, through the veil of fog, one black boot.

“What are you doing in here?” was the first thing, the safest thing, she thought to ask.

He sat in one corner, lounging on a bench composed of shrink-wrapped ice cream canisters. She inched farther into the cold, suddenly glad of the turtleneck and the pair of blue sweatpants that she’d brought to throw on after the game. She let the freezer door thud back against the wooden crate, her shoulders hunkering, and wrapped her arms around her middle.

His visor sat on the floor between his boots, and his hair once again hung in his face so that she couldn’t read his expression.

“I . . . ,” she began, groping for the next thing to say, the right thing to say. “I’m sorry,” she said, the words sounding lame in her own ears, and she knew that, on their own, they weren’t enough. “I . . . didn’t know they—”

“I know,” he said.

She hugged herself tighter. “I—I put the money back in the—”

“Thanks.”

Isobel pressed her lips together in a tight frown, a wad of frustration knotting itself in her chest.

“Look—I’m trying . . . I said I was sor—”