Christmas Eve on Haunted Hill Read Free

a fresh bottle of Pabst from the cooler beneath the bar. 
He twisted the cap off the bottle, tossed it in a waste basket, and set the
bottle in front of Luke.  “No relation to the coaching legend, before you ask.”
              “Luke Herzinger.”
              “Nice to meet you, Luke.”
              “Same.”  Luke knocked
back a gulp of whiskey and followed it with a sip of Pabst.  He wasn’t that
deep into his planned final bender yet, but already a warm glow of mild
inebriation was spreading throughout his body.  His only hope was to remain
just sober enough to get himself out to the old house on the hill come
midnight.  And once he made it up there, he could have his last ever drink and
prop that shotgun under chin.  Maybe.  “You run this joint these days, Stu?”
              Stu nodded.  “Took the
place over from Sal Jr., that’s my daddy, a few years back.  You remember him?”
              Luke remembered Stu’s
father beating the living shit out of him one night many years ago.  The memory
was hazy—so many of them were—but the thing that triggered the fight was a
complaint from a female customer who accused Luke of stealing money from her
purse.  That detail he did remember.  Whether he’d actually done the deed was
another matter.  That memory resided somewhere in the more booze-pickled
recesses of his brain.  Either way, he’d reacted to the accusation in a less
than even-tempered manner.  Those details were also a bit hazy, but he believed
he might have repeatedly used a derogatory term rhyming with “runt” to refer to
his female accuser.  Tempers flared in every direction.  Fists flew.  Bottles
were thrown.  Someone whacked him across the back with a chair.  The whole
thing culminated with Sal dragging him outside and decking him with a solid
punch to the jaw.
              Making an executive
decision to keep this particular anecdote to himself, Luke lifted a shoulder in
a shrug meant to indicate uncertainty.  “Think so.  Like I said, it’s been a
while.”
              Stu’s eyes narrowed some
and he was silent a moment as he appeared to study Luke more closely than
before.  “You say your name’s Herzinger?”
              Luke gulped Pabst, wiped
moisture from his mouth.  “Yep.”
              Stu’s brow furrowed as he
scratched his whiskery chin.  “Huh.  I’ve heard that name before.”
              Luke’s hand shifted to
the whiskey glass.  He drained it and thumped the empty glass on the bar.  “That’s
interesting.  Refill, please.”
              Stu took the glass away
and set it in the sink at the back of the bar.  While the barkeep set about
preparing a fresh double whiskey for Luke, the fat guy with the mustache rapped
his knuckles on the bar.  “Herzinger.  I know that name, too.  Oh, wait. 
Herzinger as in…”
              The fat man’s rosy face
paled slightly and his mouth dropped open.
              Luke sighed.  “Yeah.”
              The fat man shook his
head.  “Holy shit.  You’re the one whose daddy--”
              “That’s right,” Luke
said, cutting him off.  “Rather not talk about that, if you don’t mind.”
              His second double whiskey
was in front of him now.  He picked it up and knocked back half of it in one
go.  Exhaling heavily, he put the glass down and closed his eyes, waiting to
see if the fat man would press the issue.  He was unsurprised when the man
allowed the conversation to lapse.  Prying into a man’s private business was
frowned upon in these parts.  If someone told you they didn’t want to talk
about a thing, you damn well left well enough alone.
              On the jukebox, a Buck
Owens song gave way to Bob Marley’s “Lively Up Yourself.”
              Luke opened his eyes.
              His head slowly swiveled
in the