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[I NEED A BREATH]

My head is reeling. I don't feel drunk. But I also don't feel sober.

My head is swimming. Chase's expression is flickering, like the shadows cast by a campfire, between enigmatic and angry and frightened and just... blank.

Sometimes I'd swear I'm just looking at an old-fashioned photograph of him.

I need to take a breath.

Need to calm down.

Need to remember that this is a dream.

It's a dream, Leo!

Ch: It's a dream, Leo.

Ch: Do you need to take a breath?

I nod, swallow hard.

Leo: Is there a bathroom?

Ch: Well, yeah, technically, but it's real bad. Honestly you're probably better off just ducking out behind the building.

He points at a door marked EMERGENCY EXIT, over by the jukebox. I don't recall seeing it there when I walked in.

As I step toward it I get the weirdest sensation that if I turned around, he wouldn't be behind the bar anymore. There wouldn't be anyone else in the room. But that's nonsense, and I'm not gonna look that dumb in front of him. Even if it's only a dream version of him.

The back door opens right into the desert. A couple scrub oaks, some nopales, some yuccas, then nothing but sagebrush and rocks. There's not even a light.

I take a few deep breaths of cool night air. I feel calmer.

I do also kinda have to piss, as long as I'm out here.

I'm halfway through when I suddenly feel like I'm being watched.

I can't see anything, of course, but I could have sworn I heard steps. Gravel shifting.

Something's out here.

Fists up. Eyes open. Ears alert.

I've put up with enough people trying to jump me out of the darkness to know when I'm not alone.

Just gonna head calmly back toward the door. Back inside.

The emergency exit doesn't open from outside.

Shit.

I've just barely stepped away when something BIG hits the door. Right where I was standing a second ago.

It's too dark to see anything but a shape, but it's definitely big.

I sprint around the building.

I hear it right behind me.

It's too close to risk looking back.

But it sounds bigger than a truck.

I can tell because I hear the truck rock on ancient suspension when it passes.

I burst back through through the door, inches ahead of whatever it is, fall on my ass, sure it's about to drag me out, but I'm gonna go down fighting. Maybe give Chase time to get away...

But it's just hanging back at the door. Is it too big to fit? Or can it not come in?

I get my first good look at tit and wish I hadn't. It's ugly, it stinks, and it's dead. Mostly bones, but with folds of withered tissue hanging from them, like curtains. It's got horns, but beyond that I've got guess at the species. Where it should have a face there's just this jack-o-lantern nothing of a grin.

Chase: Ah shit.

He doesn't sound scared...

I glance over in time to see Chase reach for one of the beer taps from the top of the bar. Pull it out, and walk over with it. What is he-?

As he steps out from behind the bar, it's not a beer tap anymore.

It's a pickaxe.

He saunters over, stands between me and the door. The... skeleton zombie giant, whatever the fuck it is, starts shrinking away.

Chase: How many times do I have to tell your scrotum of a face it's not welcome here?!

I've never heard him sound like this before!

He gestures with the pickaxe like it's a baton.

Chase: We reserve the right to refuse entry here, dickless! So don't fuckin' let me see you again!

The thing's making a sound like a frightened animal. Chase hasn't hit it, hasn't even swung yet, but there's a dark sticky fluid dripping from the pickaxe's tip all the same.

He stares it down.

It whimpers and runs. Disappears into the night.

Puchica.

Chase: You ok?

Leo: What the fuck, Chase? What was that?

He shrugs on his way back to the bar.

Chase: Some real assholes had the run of the place, before I got this job. Had to run them off.

Chase: You know how it is. You let one asshole bring his asshole friends, soon enough you're the asshole bar. Sometimes they try to bully their way back in. Gotta keep em out.

Chase: Not everyone who shows up here is one of mine.

I've never heard him talk like this. But there's something familiar about the way he says it. With some sort of furious serene... nothing. Like he's blank. Like he used to sometimes get, when he'd decided dealing with something wasn't worth being here for, so all of a sudden he just... wasn't here.

I used to be a little worried and frustrated by it.

But if this is what he was like, inside his head, when he was doing that?

Then I guess I'm a little worried and impressed by it.

I pull myself to my feet.

Leo: Maybe I should have just used the bathroom after all.

The blank looks vanishes, as if it was never there. He's just smiling now.

Chase: Oh, I dunno dude. You haven't seen the bathroom. Might still be the worse option.

He puts the pickaxe down on the bar, and the second he lets go it's a beer tap again. Hooked up and everything.

He pulls it, fills a shot glass. With...

Well, it looks like the same dark sticky fluid that was on the pickaxe.

Chase: Well, cheers.

He knocks it back, makes a disgusted face.

Chase: Ugh!

Chase: Has a kick, this stuff.

Chase: Maybe don't order that one.

If you say so, Otter.

[SOMETHING LIGHT?]

[SOMETHING... SPICY]

[MY HEAD...]

[I THINK I'VE HAD ENOUGH FOR NOW]