When Angela glanced up and saw him out in the parking lot beyond the neon beer sign hung in the bar’s small front window, her first thought was to wonder if this was the night she was going to die.
The unexpected storm of emotion drove other thoughts from her mind. She wondered if this might be why she had just that morning changed the color of her hair from a bright violet to platinum blond that down the length gradually changed to pale pink that became darker until it was a vivid red at the tips, as if her hair had been dipped in blood. Signs sometimes came to her in such subtle ways.
Under the lone streetlight, she could see that the man was wearing a hooded, camo rain slicker. He paused momentarily to glance around in the drizzly darkness. The rain slicker gave him a hulking appearance. His gaze went from the bar’s sign, BARRY’S PLACE, to the neon beer sign, and then to the door.
She suspected he wanted a drink in the hopes of keeping a high from fading as the distance of days dulled the rapture.
They sometimes did that.
His indecision was brief. When he came through the doorway, his dark shape made it seem as if he were dragging the night in with him.
Seeing him standing in the dim light inside as he paused to glance around at the patrons, Angela felt a sickening mix of hot revulsion and icy fear laced with a heady rush of lust. She let the feeling wash over her, euphoric that she could feel something, even this.
