Hesitation was something understandable and forgivable, but ten seconds had already passed since the silence between Rachel and Vinnie became awkward. The brown haired woman ignored his glove, said nothing, and didn’t even seem to really notice him at all. All desire to sustain a conversation with this person drained out of Vinnie as if someone had pulled the bath plug. Without a single word exchanged, the two people steered around one another and continued on with their lives as if the meeting had never occurred. Now wearing a frown, Vinnie pulled his glove back on. “Today’s just not my day…”
Had he assembled a list of different leads he could pursue, he might have been able to simply move on down to the next point of interest, but following the heartily disappointing ‘encounter’ with Rachel, Vinnie’s figurative to-do list lay blanker than a high school student’s expression on the first day of Calculus. In the spirit of trying to discover something new, however, he settled for walking downtown to an area of Angel Springs he practically never visited. Nothing in his heart set him against this zone, but other than driving past it on his way to work each morning he never found a reason to consider it. On the way, he suddenly gave a smile to the blue sky, thankful for the temperate weather today that meant he wouldn’t sully his suit jacket with perspiration.
In less than five minutes at a casually intent pace he arrived at the unfamiliar district, a more claustrophobic area of the town than the area containing the Golden Peking. Following a spur-of-the-moment gut feeling, he turned left down the mainstreet, and found himself surrounded by old, run-down buildings. Every structure here felt dingier yet more cultural than those of the pristine, very modern districts of Angel Springs. The people here, too, sported a somewhat distinct look from the typical town inhabitant. Poorer families and a more closely-knit community meant that new trends in fashion caught on like wildfire and mutated just as quickly to produce fashions that were paradoxically uniform and unique at the same time. Vinnie guessed that, even if gangs didn’t dominate this area of town, that sort of lifestyle held a substantial influence on the way people acted. Here, the restraint and niceties of the clean, organized parts of town dissolved. Everything, Vinnie thought, gave off the impression of emotion, vigor, rawness—in short, personality. The same sort of intimate local culture one might expect to find in a rural town that lived by its own rules seemed nestled here in the city’s heart. All this fascinated Vinnie, but as a definite oddball around here, he kept both eyes open.
In fact, to avoid sticking out like a sore thumb walking along the street, he detoured onto a sidestreet under construction to take a look around without scrutiny. Immediately he noticed that pretty much nobody inhabited this little avenue, and it outdid the rest of the district in grunginess. Interested in what might lead to such a distinction, he sauntered down the sidewalk with commendable posture and his hands in his pockets until he spotted
two individuals leaning against a building comprised mostly of dark gray bricks. They were speaking freely to one another, and to Vinnie they seemed rather drunk for it being so early in the day. Their clothes, halfway between casual and formal, could have belonged to someone of pretty much any profession. Vinnie could imagine them behind the counter of a video shop, convenience store, pool hall, whatever. In short, they did not stand out in any respect except for their exuberant mannerisms, and Vinnie didn’t pay them much mind.
A noise drew his attention. Across the torn-up road, a door set in a building that Vinnie assumed to be closed had opened, and from it walked two women opposite him. Neither one appeared to notice him, which suited him just find, because for a moment he couldn’t stop staring. Accentuated by their similar choices of clothing the ladies’ ample chests bulged prominently and actually bounced with each step. After a brief moment, Vinnie noticed other things. Their hair, auburn with dyed green streaks, matched exactly, and their eyes shone the same color in the light of a sunny noon: acidic lime green. Had Vinnie not known better, in fact, he would have said that their eyes glowed with an almost radioactive luminescence. He watched
them strut straight toward the two drunk-looking men, whom Vinnie suddenly noticed had sobered up. After a moment, the two pairs stood opposite one another, and the whole scene took on a menacing tone.
This is too weird… the besuited onlooker thought worriedly, only realizing a moment later that he was looking for weird. Feeling the tension and wondering what might happen, he stowed himself out of sight to observe.
The silence was broken by one of the women.
“Last I checked, the boss doesn’t like losers hangin’ around his crib like TV gumshoes on stakeout. Think you boys oughta run home before things get messy?” With a chuckle, the man in sunglasses replied,
“If we didn’t want you to find us this time, we woulda tried a little harder to hide, doncha think? Maybe it’s time the four of us hit the town. How’s a double date sound?”The other woman tossed her hair angrily and crossed her arms beneath her busom, turning sideways. Her companion turned the other way, putting both hands behind her head.
“Big talker, huh? You won’t like getting smashed with us.” She breathed in deeply through her teeth and called,
“「Bottoms Up」!” “「Gin and Juice」!” “「Capitol King」!” “「Lynyrd Skynyrd」!”Vinnie saw four distinct flashes, but afterward, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Not one but
four ghostly things appeared, one for each person he saw. Two of them were strange; above the long-haired woman’s shoulders floated what looked like a teapot with four legs, four disturbingly human eyes, and a tongue coming from the spout, and the pigtailed woman now held a fancy serving dish with a strange champagne glass on it. The remaining two, however, nearly caused Vinnie’s eyes to bug out of his skull. The man with sunglasses stood side by side with an animatronic gladiator with dull grayish-brown armor and tomato-red flesh. A huge helmet not unlike a kettle with holes drilled in completely obscured the head. Meanwhile, the bespectacled man in a polo shirt stood above a crouching robotic butcher, complete with apron. Each of its hands exhibited only two fingers, albeit long, segmented, and thin enough to be razors, and instead of a head it appeared to sport a giant potato peeler with hammerhead-esque eyes on either end. As ludicrous as these things looked, these four looked intent on some kind of fight. Vinnie Pantera, meanwhile, dared not breathe. The reality of other spirits existing, and
responding to their hosts by name, had just settled in, and he would rather die than miss what happened next.
