Double Shot

by Chris Bostic

  They didn’t hesitate to squeeze onto the platform. As Paul sidled over closer to her, my stomach lurched. Partly at the way she cozied up to him, but just as much at how the elevator visibly sank a few inches.

  “Join us,” James told me as I stood back with my eyes probably popping out of my head.

  I wasn’t afraid of heights. Enclosed spaces made me a bit anxious, but the feeling that time was something totally different.

  My conversation with James could wait.

  I recognized it was my chance to get away from them and hunker down if I wanted too. Or finally find Lee.

  CHAPTER 10

  “I think I’ll head back to the office,” I told James. “Wouldn’t want to crowd y’all.”

  “Pretty little thing like you oughta fit on here just fine.” Paul pressed tighter into Clarice, leaving a sliver of a gap between him and James.

  Not a fucking chance.

  I waved them off with my best flirty smile. “Oh, I really do need to be gettin’ back. We’ve been gone an awful long time.” I waved again and took a couple steps back “Enjoy the ride.”

  “We’ll try,” James said, and nodded politely. “It was very nice to meet you, Hope. We’ll sure be looking forward to seeing you at the store in a couple months.”

  “Me, too. I absolutely can’t wait,” I replied with all truthfulness. The sooner the better, especially since James didn’t appear to be concerned about my earlier outburst.

  “Feel free to stop in any time,” Paul added. “Just ask for me or Jimmy here.”

  “I sure will.” Definitely James, not you, I thought. “Thank you so much.”

  “Better hang on, fellas,” Tim said and pressed the button. “We’re goin’ up.”

  With a stretching of old ropes and a sudden lurch, the little cart slowly rose, advancing little more than a few inches every second.

  I kept walking backwards, equally as slowly.

  With goodbyes said, the others pretty much ignored me to fully appreciate the ride.

  I caught Clarice’s eyes. The look she gave me seemed somewhere in between relief and disappointment. At what, I had no idea. Maybe she was just happy to see me go.

  More likely, I was overreacting like normal.

  Once their heads went above the floorboards of the next level, I fished out my cell phone and thumbed the button.

  “Dammit, Lee,” I cursed under my breath, then flipped back through the old texts to make sure I’d told him where we were at.

  It seemed like a good time for an update.

  We’re in G

  They went to second floor

  I’m goin back

  The three dots showed up again. Reading or typing. I hoped for the latter.

  While I waited, I leaned back against a rick to rest. With Building G sitting at one of the highest points of the property, it was more apt to stay a little cooler. Definitely less stuffy, which made the liquor smell that much sweeter. So much so, I found myself tempted to follow them up the elevator to see what kind of good stuff Tim might offer up.

  It was easier to stay put, though. Probably better for my headache too.

  Or not.

  Despite the small windows, I felt a breeze stir, and that almost made the wait for a reply worthwhile. It remained oppressively hot, but I’d take what little bit of relief I could get. Especially with Clarice gone.

  “Come on, Lee,” I muttered when the long-awaited reply didn’t come.

  I figured I should head back, especially since I’d already told him as much, but my head and stomach weren’t completely convinced.

  On second thought, I savored the idea of sampling some quality air conditioning and my water bottle back at the office.

  I pushed off the wall and started toward the door when my phone vibrated.

  Hold up

  I stood there for a few seconds reading the two words over and over. A need to answer the question why kept coming to mind, along with being annoyed at his short replies. Lee usually wasn’t that brief. If anything, he tended to the opposite spectrum. For some strange reason, the guy liked to type paragraphs.

  Another reply vibrated my phone.

  I’ll pick you up

  “Wow,” I muttered. “Four words, almost five.”

  I decided not to wonder about how he intended to pick me up, whether by truck or all-terrain utility vehicle, and chose to celebrate the small victory. Either way, my feet could use the break.

  I typed out a quick Ok, and slumped all the way to the floor.

  I sat against the nearest rick and tried to find comfort in a giant beam of wood propping me up right across the back. Solid support, but certainly not as comfortable as the couch at home. The one where Lee liked to fall asleep with his head on my lap while I read or watched garbage television. Either way; it didn’t matter. He always fell asleep.

  Anymore, that seemed like the perfect, dreamy end to every evening, where I had a measure of peace and quiet. Company without the twenty questions. Security without throwaway conversation.

  I couldn’t think of a better way to end the long days. Nothing beat having my man cuddled on my lap, softly snoring while I tried my hardest not to smile at the big guy all at ease.

  Only slightly better than a cute little lap dog, I decided. Plus, I didn’t have to take Lee for a walk or pick up dog poop in the yard.

  All those peaceful thoughts made my eyelids as heavy as concrete.

  I heard footsteps clomping on the floorboards right above me, but I couldn’t care less. All that mattered was getting the ache to fade from my tired brain.

  I closed my eyes and tried to feel the breeze. It moved slowly through the rack house like a ghost, gliding around barrels to bring the scent of sweet liquor right past my nose.

  The nausea dissipated the more I relaxed. Everything slowed down.

  The idea of phantom thugs surrounding the property slipped from my mind, replaced by the idea of phantom spirits moving among the barrels. Brushing my hair back. Tickling my neck.

  “Ooh,” I mumbled, letting it all remind me of Lee a few hours earlier, nibbling at my neck. Making my body melt like the pulses of a jacuzzi tub, rubbing at my muscles. Slowing my heartrate down. Wanting more of that wine—and the taste of bourbon on Lee’s lips.

  Floorboards squeaked again.

  I adjusted position and tried to decide if I still had time to rest before the others got done upstairs.

  Surely they’ll be a while longer, I decided. I figured I could catch a couple more minutes of rest before I slipped out the back door and headed to the office.

  The floorboards protested again, but with the sound of only one set of footsteps. On my floor.

  “Finally,” I mumbled, figuring Lee had come inside to find me, just like I knew he would all along.

  I put a big smile on my face and sat up. I cracked open my tired eyes.

  Sunlight streaming through a distant window silhouetted a massive figure. The man stood about the same height as Lee, around six foot four, but seemed twice as wide. A veritable giant bearing down on me as I sat helplessly on the floor.

  I scrambled to my feet so he wouldn’t catch me completely defenseless, though I certainly didn’t have a chance if he got his hands on me.

  CHAPTER 11

  “You okay, ma’am?” came an incredibly deep, gruff voice.

  I stumbled backwards and nearly tripped on the corner bracing of the nearest rick.

  “Uh…yeah. I-I’m good,” I stammered. “Just fine.”

  I kept backing away as the giant came toward me, still nothing more than a black shadow.

  My heart hammered in my chest. I tried to catch a decent breath, but my breathing turned shallow and rapid. Fight or flight had kicked in quickly, though there wasn’t a chance in the world I was going to fight.

  “You s’posed to be in ‘ere?” he asked, voice booming through the cramped space.

  “The boss is upstairs…with some clients,” I managed.

  My hands
closed into fists, so I shielded them slightly behind my back, straightening up at the same time in case I had to run.

  “Who’s that?” he asked.

  “Clarice Owens,” I replied, eyes shifting side to side to see if I could spot a shortcut out.

  “Ah shit, girl, I know that.” His laugh billowed down the aisle, practically bowling me over. “I know all y’all up there in the office. I meant your, uh, clients or whatever.”

  So he knows me, or at least Clarice.

  “A couple restaurant guys, doing a barrel selection with Tim.”

  “What the….” His thunderous voice fizzled. It was like I could almost hear him think through the deathly quiet. Then he seemed to snarl when he said, “I set that up for them over in H.”

  He got so close that he blacked out almost all the light behind him.

  I tensed for second, as if that was even possible, then unexpectedly found myself relaxing—somewhat. Thanks to the darkening, I finally got a little better look at the guy. While I didn’t know his name, I recognized him as one of the men on the barrel crew.

  I mentally kicked myself, realizing I should have known his name. Especially seeing how every inch of both his arms were covered in tattoos. Something like that was hard to miss, though he certainly wasn’t the only one on the barrel crews boasting full sleeves. His just seemed extra dense to the point that it looked like one skull or cross on top of another.

  The snarling aside, I assumed he surely wasn’t one of the active shooters Clarice had been talking about. There was no way he’d still have a job. Then again, the place had to have been pretty desperate seeing how they’d hired both Lee and me.

  “So y’all are done in H?” he asked, seeing how I hadn’t responded yet.

  “Yeah, sorry. We’re all done over there,” I replied. “This was more of a pit stop since….” I paused, not sure if I should share anything about the lockdown. “Since Tim wanted them to try some of the best stuff.”

  He grumbled under his breath. “Y’all gotta tell me when you’re gonna be in my houses.” He waved a hefty arm around the area. “This is my department.”

  “I-I’m sure it was a last minute thing,” I said, trying to diffuse the instant tension on his part. “I don’t think Tim meant anything by it.” I started to back away again. “I really should be getting back to the office.”

  “Good idea,” he said gruffly. He looked up and snarled at the sound of footsteps on the floor above. “I’ll take care of them.”

  It sure sounded like a threat to me, but I wasn’t in any kind of position to do anything about it. My options appeared to be limited to praying for Lee to show up, or just turn around and leave—possibly at full speed.

  “Okay…well…I guess we’ll see you later.”

  He nodded brusquely, then a slight smile creased his brutish face. “Now you, you’re welcome here anytime, Hope. We always like to see ya.”

  That took me aback.

  I had no clue how he even knew my name. I mumbled a quick goodbye and turned around to head for the door, hoping he didn’t come after me and tackle me like a pass rusher. Or worse.

  He let me go without issue, but it seemed evident that Tim and Clarice had really pissed him off. I could only hope that turned out okay.

  Once I got to the end of the aisle and was about to slip out of his sight, he called, “Hey, Hope.”

  I turned back to see a bung hammer in his hand. He made the giant mallet look like a kid’s toy.

  “Watch this.” With a maniacal grin, he flexed the hammer and pounded on the floor above—right underneath where the others were standing.

  Even knowing it was going to happen, I jumped at the sound. Clarice shrieked loudly enough to echo through the entire rack house and probably all the way to the gift shop. I had to stifle a chuckle at that.

  As the shriek died down, feet still shuffled upstairs like mice scattering from light.

  “Got ‘em,” the brute declared, bellowing at his own practical joke.

  I was all the happier I hadn’t gone upstairs, but equally glad to be leaving the rack house.

  As I pushed the door open, I didn’t even bother to look outside first. Anything out there couldn’t have been as worse as trapped inside with the angry giant or my useless boss and the creepy client.

  “Now what?” I said once the door closed behind me—much softer that time. I gazed across the property once again. Not so much because I needed my bearings as wondering where on earth Lee could be.

  Rack houses sat off to my left and right, as well as behind. There were no signs of movement at any of those.

  Straight ahead stood the visitors center, with a not so terribly long walk across the grass to get me to the back door. From there, a short trek down the hallway to my airconditioned office.

  Behind my home away from home, the distillation building dominated the landscape, the column still section rising high in the air like an elevator shaft.

  The lower level of the building was clad in rock brought in from the surrounding hillsides. It changed over to a clean metal siding for the remaining stories. Three floors high to the center and right, while the still area rose off the building in the back left, pushing five or more stories.

  I wondered what the view was like from the top. Probably a lot like the drone pictures we had commissioned of the property a while back for new social media background photos.

  A sprawling complex set in slow rolling hills, mostly devoid of trees. The silver-clad, stained in black fungus, rack houses dotting the whole southern end of the property, with the gift shop, distillation, and a small hotel like a boarding house newly under construction on the northern side.

  A giant pond divided the hotel off from the rest of the property. In addition to being a lovely picture element, it served as the source of our pure limestone spring water, the best for making Kentucky bourbon whiskey—or so the story my pamphlets told.

  I ignored Lee’s earlier text about waiting and set off for the office, finally convinced nothing was going on anywhere around the property. The gunshots had to have come from somewhere else, for some other reason. So I cooked a few of those up as I walked.

  If anything, I assumed the cops were busy a short distance away, probably dealing with some day drinkers and domestic abusers in the trailer park a mile down the road, or some meth heads robbing the houses that backed up to the distillery property.

  That latter seemed the most likely, especially when it came to the black-clad creepers. The two guys I thought I’d seen were probably ransacking houses right beyond our border, using the tree line for cover as they crept around the neighborhood. Hopefully not shooting at homeowners.

  “Gotta to be it,” I told myself, feeling a little embarrassed at my antics with Clarice. Not totally silly, considering the home invasions were right next door to us, but I acknowledged it could have been a bit of an overreaction. No doubt Clarice would bring that up every single day.

  All the more reason for me to talk to James about a new job. But then there might be Paul to deal with.

  “Fuck my life,” I muttered. “I can’t win.”

  I shook my head and tried to decide if I should type up a resignation letter when I got back to the office.

  I loved parts of my job, such as working on the advertisements. There was nothing more enjoyable than working at a place with so many different products. The ad campaigns could be wildly different, much like the bottle shapes and labels.

  I had a fair amount of artistic freedom too. As one of her few good traits, Clarice wasn’t a micromanager. She was usually preoccupied enough that she only gave occasional pointers or simple corrections on my work product.

  Better yet, the owners never concerned themselves with the advertising so long as we avoided controversy and made them plenty of money.

  What wouldn’t be fun going forward was the thought of being the butt of endless jokes about my jumpiness. Criticism certainly didn’t rank high on my list of favorite things
.

  About halfway back to the office, after thoroughly weighing the pros and cons, I decided I’d better tough it out until they got rid of me. I was still living on my own, even if Lee was there pretty much all the time, and nothing was going to replace a paycheck that quickly.

  “I’ll just deal with it,” I mumbled under my breath. “Apologize if I have to, but mostly suck it up.”

  It’s gonna suck, for sure, but….

  The high-pitched whine of an engine and tires crunching on gravel brought me out of my musings. I looked up half-expecting to see myself redeemed in the form of robbery crew vans pulling up to load out our finest products from the best rack houses.

  Instead, I couldn’t hardly believe my eyes.

  CHAPTER 12

  I squinted into the slowly fading daylight. “That can’t be Lee.”

  Sure enough, my man raced toward me on a side-by-side utility vehicle. The oversized four-wheeler bounced on the rough ground as he came at me at top speed.

  “Hope!” he yelled over the whine of the engine.

  I stopped in my tracks. I couldn’t help but be curious, yet terrified, at why he came rushing at me so quickly.

  I stumbled to the side, thinking he might plow right into me. But he laid on the brakes at the last second and turned the wheel to cut right in front of me.

  “Hop on,” he said without further explanation.

  I did as he asked but started in on the rapid-fire questioning right away.

  “What’s goin’ on? Why you drivin’ so fast? You know you could have hit me, right?”

  “Whoa, sister,” he said, instantly pricking the spot that set me off. “One at a time.”

  I wasn’t about to repeat myself. “So?”

  “What did you ask first?” he said as he stood on the gas pedal to race toward the rack house I had just left.

  My iciest stare was the only reply I could muster without risking what my sharp tongue might say.

  Lee took the hint. “Probably something about what’s up, huh? So…oops. Hang on.” He paused to yank the wheel fairly hard to the left, making something clunk in a cubbyhole in the dashboard.