Jed knew that it was a mistake the instant he walked past the bouncers.
The sound hit him in the solar plexus. All he could think of was his eardrums being plastered together inside his head.
His friends rushed past him into the melee on the dance floor. He just stood there feeling conspicuous and incompetent.
He turned to leave, screw the cover charge, when a woman pushed past him. Her breast brushed against his arm. His upper arm tingled with echoes of that touch. The noise of the club faded away. All he could think of was sex. It had been way too long. Jed decided to find the bar and get drunk.
*
He paid five bucks for his sixth Coors Light and turned to look out at the crowd. Jed now felt a bit more comfortable clutching his drink. He'd spent the hour just watching.
The dance floor dominated the entire rear half of the building. A mass of bodies gyrated to the music blasting from overhead. Lights strobed. A no-man's-land of tables divided the dancers from the bar. Groups of laughing people leaned towards each other to scream conversation into ears. Jed could already feel the tobacco residue in his lungs. He'd spend the rest of the weekend coughing it out. If it weren't for the flesh on parade, he would've left five beers ago.
No one sported anything that he would consider sluttish, but there were enough bare midriffs and tight pants to make his chest tighten with lust. He was surrounded by women and they all grew more and more attractive by the minute. He sipped his beer and watched them smile and laugh. They were all so confident, so absolutely sure about their hair and their makeup and their bodies. A few on the dance floor moved like they knew exactly how much Jed wanted them.
He hadn't seen his friends in some time. Maybe they were upstairs. He'd heard someone screaming about another bar upstairs serving cut-rate rum drinks.
Jed continued to just watch. Fascination and lust came in waves, all shot through with paralyzing insecurity. Women surrounded him. Toss a beer nut and you were bound to hit one that he wouldn't kick out of bed for eating crackers. But they were all in tight groups, or obviously with someone, or so gorgeous that even his eleven beers didn't supply enough courage to talk to them. This isn't how he'd imagined it. He'd always hoped that his chance encounter would be with an approachable beauty sitting alone at a quiet bar, after he'd had less beer and been able to spend a few weeks at the gym.
He sipped his beer, scanning the crowd and hoping that his friends would find him and tell him that it was time to go. He looked through the tables and noticed an attractive woman with an oddly thick ponytail. She sat alone. In the strobing light he could tell that the ponytail was red. He wondered about the color of her pubic hair. He felt a thrill rising from his crotch and he realized he could no longer deny it: he really had to take a leak.
As he slid off the barstool, he was alarmed at how the floor shifted under his feet. How many beers had he drunk? Jed walked carefully towards what he hoped was the restroom. He found it eventually in a walled-off corner. He also found a line of guys.
"Is this the line for the can?" he asked the last in the queue.
"Yeah. Is this fucked up or what?"
With that news, Jed's body betrayed him with the sudden urge to piss NOW. He looked around frantically and saw an emergency exit. A beer glass propped the door open. He pushed through into a wide alley. A light over the door cast stark shadows. Jed ran for a dark corner, clawing at his belt.
His lower back ached with release as he let loose. After he'd pissed for what felt like five minutes he wished he'd thought to time himself, just for the record. Finally he was done and his universe expanded with the warm fuzzies of relief. His corner was damp and mossy. Apparently this was a popular spot for restroom overflow.
The night air had cleared some of the fog from his head. Jed was in no hurry to get back to the club. Still, he moved away from the corner and its stale urine stink. He leaned against the cold bricks of the alley wall and stood in the shadow, wishing he was sober enough to drive home.
The club door swung open with a bang and a young woman walked out into the alley. The bright pink of her halter top practically glowed in the bright light. A man followed close behind her. She turned on him.
"We need to go. I can believe you talked me into this!"
"Hey, babe, come on. It's been weeks. Relax."
"We can't afford to relax, Clay." The woman huffed and turned away.
The man pulled at his goatee and pleaded.
"Look, it's just a couple of drinks, some dancing, then we'll go back."
The woman crossed her arms over her chest. The couple looked frozen for a moment, on the verge of something.
The woman turned around again, facing the man still worrying his goatee.
"We should get back inside," she said.
Just then the door opened and the red ponytail walked into the light. She raised a straight arm and pointed at the back of the man's head. Jed heard the woman say "Oh shit." and a red mist puffed from the man's forehead. He dropped. Red ponytail now pointed at the woman who was raising her hands and ducking. Another red mist and the woman crumpled. Jed backed into his corner and felt like pissing his pants all over again.
The killer turned to where the man lay. Jed could now make out the gun. The man's body convulsed as the killer put another bullet in his head. She did the same to the woman. Jed watched gouts of blood spurting from her forehead, pooling in the alley. The killer pulled out a plastic bag from her purse and knelt over the body of the woman. Its legs twitched rhythmically. The killer had her back to Jed with her thick rope of hair shining under the lamp. She held her arm out to the side and Jed caught a flash of blade. Now she worked intently over the gently twitching body. Jed fought back rising nausea.
The killer stood up and stepped away. In the dead woman's face, Jed saw ragged holes instead of eyes. The killer dropped something wet into the plastic bag and walked down the alley away from Jed.
Pakeha