The Overlooked: Part 1 | March 29, 2012

Below, you will find my first attempt EVER at writing fiction. Nothing about this is real, although I do my best to make it seem so. I have loved horror movies ever since my parents showed me Halloween when I was eight years old. I also began reading some stories that dipped into horror. I have always wanted to write a horror short and I finally felt inspired enough to give it a try. Let me know what you think. I can’t wait to share Part 2 with you…

Back in 2006, I was in a little town in central California, around a half hour outside of San Luis Obispo. My friend wanted to get me to have my first drink since I had just turned 21 only 3 months earlier and had yet to taste alcohol at all. We arrive at a decent enough looking bar called Scotch on the Rocks. The name was particularly clever because it had a Scottish-themed interior and was in the center of a shopping center that was located right off of a mile-long bluff overlooking the Pacific. The night started out late as we didn’t even get to town until 9:30 that Thursday night when Mark and I, the friend that was hounding me to get “toilet-clenching” drunk, arrived at his Cousin Keith’s house. After two hours on the road with no stops, I was happy to just walk around his house for a bit as they joked around and started reminiscing quickly, but we were hastily rushed right back to Mark’s beat up Accord and made our way to the aforementioned bar.

The outside of the bar was very misleading. It seemed to be decorated by the architect that built many 7-11s. The stucco was a bland tan that blended with the air around it and had a shoddily hung sign with the name written in fading green paint. The inside was a pleasant place with deep red plaid covering the backs of all the chairs and a bartender that looked like he could pick up anyone and throw them off of the cliffs outside if they chose to not tip him well enough. There were only about 25 people in the whole building and they all seemed to be deep in their drinks. Two girls and a guy were dancing together on the dance floor, if you could even call it dancing. If the right combination of at least two of them happened to lose their clothes, I’m sure that SOMEONE would end up pregnant. Aside from these two girls, there were only four other females in the entire establishment. The patrons were obviously locals and I stuck out from everyone with my light green polo and olive-toned cargo shorts. Everyone else seemed to favor supporting their frequented thrift shop and browsing through the clearance section just to save a couple dollars on things like sleeves or stain-free shirts.

Keith knew three or four of the guys that already smelled like the bottom of a keg and he disappeared into the fairly light crowd with them. Thankfully, Mark had promised to stay at my side most of the night, considering it was my first time in a bar. Following the long drive, I honed in quickly on the restroom and made my way to the cleanest stall, which still would have made my ex girlfriend throw up in her mouth a little bit. Once I finally found the sweet relief of an empty bladder, I was beginning to come to terms with the fact that I WAS going to be consuming alcohol that night. It’s not like I had never been in a situation to drink; I went to countless parties, I had seen a bunch of my friends drink at school, even my own family attempted to get me to drink long before I was of age. I washed my hands thoroughly (one of my mother’s pet peeves growing up) and used the tree bark they called paper towels to dab the sweat droplets off my forehead. Upon passing through the door, I saw her.

She caught my eye, and I can still see her as I first saw her when I think about it, with the most beautiful smile I had ever seen. As I walked by her, she said something but the overbearing drone of some terrible Akon song made it virtually impossible to even comprehend that she made a noise. I stopped and turned to her. I probably looked a bit more flustered than I needed to. I vaguely heard her as she attempted to introduce herself. Amongst the sounds of bass and auto-tune, I think she said her name was Shannon. I, being the gentleman I was raised to be, invited her to join Mark and I at our table near the corner of the wall, closest to the door. I could still barely hear her but now, at least, we weren’t yelling at each other from three inches apart outside of a restroom that hasn’t seen a mop in at least four years.

Mark was much more outgoing than me. I had spent years of my life watching this guy bounce from girl to girl with ease- just because he could. I was always the one that was overlooked. I didn’t find myself to be unattractive to the female persuasion, but there was a reason I had to spend most of my teenage years as a third, fifth, or even seventh wheel. My last girlfriend and I only ended up together because I was assigned to help her transfer into our University. She was a smart girl and very beautiful, but things changed as she began to become assimilated into the college life. She left me for some idiot that cheated on her after three weeks together. I still feel for her decision-making. It didn’t surprise me that Mark and Shannon seemed to be hitting it off and were whispering to each other as I stared onto the tiny square of linoleum they called the dance floor.

Mark prodded into me, right between my ribs, and gestured me towards the door. Once outside, he told me that Shannon knew of a house party going on two or three blocks away. If I was going to drink, I would much rather drink someone’s Heineken at home, rather than spending four dollars for each bottle of Coor’s Light at the bar. We made our way to a run-down house in a rather isolated area of town. Those two or three blocks turned out being more than ten. As I got out of the car, I thought about the suspiciously low number of cars in front, but I was not one to go against Mark when he got an idea.

The house seemed welcoming. It had a quaint overhang that drooped slightly due to age but the paint was less than three years old. The garage door was halfway open and the contents showed hints that the owner was a mechanic. Tools were strewn across the interior and miscellaneous car parts topped stools, tables, the ground, and balanced precariously atop tool boxes that lined the walls. The weeds were beginning to look overgrown, but not nearly enough to make someone scoff in disapproval. The mailbox was a football field away from the front door and a beaten down path snaked its way from the box all the way to the stoop at the front of the house. I almost tripped over a broken sprinkler head and made sure to keep my eyes looking forward. The unusually low level of light coming from the moon did not help make me feel safer as I trod through the dandelions and prepared for that first drink.

By the time we walked up to the front door, Shannon’s voice was beginning to grate against my ear drums like the sound of locusts in the summer. She was this high-pitched, incessant buzz of pure annoyance that Mark was somehow interested in- and he made that obvious. We were greeted at the screen door that was hanging by a single rusty hinge by a burly man that introduced himself as Damien. He wasn’t dressed for a house party at all: a greasy tank top that was the color of beach sand, although originally white, hung loosely over a pair of blue jeans that looked like they predated the Apollo 11 landing with more holes than a kitchen sponge. He led us through his surprisingly clean house and kept reassuring us that the party was in the back. Although industrial music could faintly be heard, I did not feel comfortable in the situation at all. It didn’t help that Mark now had his arm draped around Shannon’s waist and her hand was in his back pocket. Figures.

Damien opened the back door to his house which led from his kitchen to the dimly lit patio. We all walked through as he held it open for us with a gap-filled grin taking up the lower half of his face. I followed the two lovebirds out of the door and stepped down into the patio. After taking a step, I felt a sharp thud in the back of my head as my world began to swirl and my vision blurred. I didn’t even feel the pavement as my limp body fell first to my knees and then face down in a lifeless heap.

To be continued…

Part 2