"You've been holding out on me Mikey, I can't believe you've only just introduced me to this goddess" Gretchen shouted drunkenly at Michael as he slid into the booth seat next to Kobie.
He felt like all the blood had drained out of his body. He was sure if he could see himself at that moment he would have looked like a sepia photograph.
"You only just got back," Michael said, replying on automatic, his voice flat, his whole body empty.
"True," said Gretchen, and then went silent for a good minute, looking as if she was struggling with the logic of the retort. Kobie giggled for no apparent reason.
"You could have sent me a photo at least" Gretchen cried. She banged her fists dramatically on the polished wooden tabletop. Amber liquid splashed out of her glass.
"Pictures wouldn't do me justice," Kobie said, holding her hands around her face like she was framing a photograph.
Michael looked backwards and forwards between the girls. Kobie was grinning wildly and flushed to the point of being pink. They were having a great night, and perhaps thankfully, neither had noticed anything strange about him.
It was a blessing in disguise. Usually, Kobie was preternaturally sensitive to his moods. she could sense the slightest shift in his feelings. It seemed like the drinking, and maybe the sensory overload of the Hamo with all its sights and smells had deadened her senses. It was for the best. Why ruin their night. Michael was slowly getting his breathing under control. He looked around the room. There was nothing out of the ordinary.
On the balance of probability Michael had definitely been erring on the side of this dark winged figure being a figment of his imagination, a misfiring in his brain, hopefully temporary. Some sort of weird after effect of the lightning strike. But when he thought about it he could still feel the touch of the things feathers against his leg, still hear the sound of it grinding its message into the mirror.
The sound of those letters being scratched into the glass was painful to think about. Every time his mind played over the moment in his head, hearing the sound again was like searching for a cavity with his tongue and then feeling the sharp pain when he touched against the nerve.
The sound was so vivid. He had looked so real. He had seen the crow man, felt him, heard him. What if he wasn't a figment of his imagination? What if there actually was a demon following them. What if the lightning strike had caused a change in his brain like he'd been thinking, but it wasn't the change that he'd assumed. Instead of making him hallucinate, what if his scrambled brain was somehow allowing him to see things which were previously invisible to him, like ultraviolet light. Always there but not normally perceptible by humans.
Michael shook his head. That was crazy thinking. None of this was real. But if it was, what did the creature want? Michael had a sick churning feeling in his stomach. He thought he knew what the creature wanted. It wanted Kobie. What else could that message mean: "THE GIRL IS MINE".
"Are you okay?" Kobie was staring at him with a worried look on her face.
The noise and colours of the pub swam back into focus.
"Come on old man, let's get you home," Kobie said and pushed him gently, nudging him out of the booth.
"Aww, come on guys, the night's only young" Gretchen said.
"You must have been away for a long time" said Kobie, "to forget how grumpy this one gets if he doesn't get enough sleep".
They unfolded themselves from the booth and headed towards the exit. Gretchen draped her arm around Kobie as they stumbled through the bar, past the bouncer and out into the night.
They walked home along Beaumont street, past the warm glow of Mclean's Books, the 24-hour supermarket and the Amcal chemist. They waited at the traffic light even though there were no cars at the intersection and crossed when the man turned green. The beeping from the lightbox echoed down the empty street. A car turned the corner in the distance, speeding down Tudor street well past the speed limit with a deep thudding bass playing so loudly from a subwoofer in its boot that it rattled the windows of the building society as it flashed past them. A flock of bats flew overhead.
They reached the back gate of the apartment block and walked up the echoing spiral stairwell for the second time that night. Michael looked at his watch. 11pm. That wasn't too bad. If he fell asleep soon he could get a solid five hours before he had to get up at 6 for his 7am start at Office Works. You'd think no one would need IT help at seven in the morning, but you'd be wrong. The tech support line that Michael worked for was a 24/7 operation and it always surprised him how little downtime he got on the phones. Even at three in the morning in the middle of the week, there was someone trying and failing to set up a new router or troubleshoot a printer connection.
Michael and Kobie said goodnight to Gretchen in the hallway and stumbled into Michael's room, falling onto his bed, into the first proper embrace they'd had in days. Michael hadn't drunk anything, but he was so tired that he felt woozy. Maybe it was the after-effects of what had happened in the bathroom as well. the shock of it all. But he was so tired that he felt he couldn't move. He just needed to sleep.
"I can't move" he whispered to Kobie.
"You're still wearing your shoes baby" she whispered back, brushing a messy tangle of curls back from his face.
"That's okay. I'll just be more ready in the morning."
"Eww. You need to shower you smelly man."
"Too tired," said Michael. he could feel his eyelids closing against his will. They felt so heavy. It felt so good for them to be closed.
As he drifted into sleep he could feel Kobie untying his shoes and pulling his socks off, undressing him and tucking him into bed.
YOU ARE READING
Feathers
Paranormal*** COMPLETE *** After a freak accident, Michael is left with dark visions that he's too embarrassed to tell his girlfriend about. But what if they're not all in his head? A novel about love, trauma and friendship. About the things we hide from th...
