The bar was busy for early evening. Its open sign blinked at all who walked past it. It beckoned to them.
John stood across the street and watched as New Yorkers could not resist the neon’s sign draw. They went into the bar through the padded red door with its silver buttons and small diamond-shaped window. The bar was the same sanctuary where John had spent years drinking his marriage, career and the life of his daughter away.
He tried to tell himself he didn’t want to go in but he really wanted it more than anything. He was jealous of those people who wandered into the gaping hole that was hidden by the red door. He swore he could feel the cool metal handle of the door in his hand. He swore he smelled the stale alcohol on the damp air of the dark bar.
He felt his foot leave the curb and step into the street. He had given in to the neon sign’s siren call.
A loud crash shattered John’s yearning.
Startled, John jumped out of the street.
People ran to the intersection up the block.
“Somebody call an ambulance.”
John followed a group of people up the street.
As he approached the intersection he recognized the intersection as the one where Marie was killed.
A cement truck had plowed into a car that had failed to stop at the sign. The front of the car was crushed. The people in the car were not moving.
John’s breath caught in his throat as he stood back from the gathering crowd. Somewhere in the crowd of people a young girl laughed.
He saw himself sitting in the driver seat of the car. Next to him sat Marie, her face bloody.
“Marie!” He yelled.
Somebody in the crowd turned back to him.
“You know them?”
John looked at the person and then to the wreck. Marie was gone.
“No. Sorry,” John said.
John and the others watched as an ambulance and cops showed up. A fire crew used the jaws-of-life to remove the young couple from the car. As they put the woman on the stretcher John had to look twice. Somewhere in the crowd the young girl laughed and clapped.
Marie looked back at him from the stretcher. Her eyes unblinking, lifeless.
“Daddy,” he heard her whisper.
“Marie?”
John tried to push through the crowd.
“Watch it, dude,” Someone said as he was forced back.
John followed the stretcher. He jumped to see over the crowd of people. As they loaded the stretcher into the ambulance he saw the injured woman again.
“What the hell is going on,” John asked out loud.
“Another accident,” the woman in front of him said. “There’s one at least once a week. Stupid drunk people don’t stop at this sign and pow they get hit by the traffic that doesn’t have to stop. A few years ago a little girl was killed.”
John looked over at the lady. She didn’t look back at him as she watched the ambulance drive off. John noticed her skin was gray and mottled with pox marks and scars. Her hair parted on the side of her head. A bulge emerged and it opened. A dark, inhuman eye stared back at him.
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