Friday 31 January 2014

Adam & Eve



I’m a creator.

You could call me a bar tender, but really, I’m a creator.

After you and your buddies piss off home after closing, I sit around with Smithie there and we dream up new cocktails and drinks to try out on you unsuspecting idiots.

Sometimes they work and you have a great time, while other times they don’t and you’re sick as a dog that night.

Or you cause a huge fight.

Or worse still, your friends cart you off home because you’ve passed out in the toilets.



But tonight, we cooked a great brew. 

It was pure.

Unadulterated, and sexy.

Rude in every single way possible.

Knocked us both off our feet after two martini glass-fulls, and yet we still had a full shaker of the shit left.

We called it Adam & Eve.

Adam & Eve was made from Bourbon, a shot of Southern Dragon’s Tear’s (these are rare an expensive), a sage leaf, ground up apple seeds, nutmeg and – to make it look naughty – a cherry on a toothpick.  Yep, Smithie and I had a great time trying to finish off Adam & Eve; but something strange happened after our first drink.

Something weird.

The place changed – and not in a good way.

The huge speakers by the stage turned into Hell Hounds.  They were huge, black, salivating and clawing at the ground to get to our souls.  Smithie stood up too quickly and knocked over his bar stool and he kept his eyes glued to the speaker. 

“Hey, mate, it’s not real.” I reminded him.

“Like fuck it’s not!” he slurred.

Leaning across the bar, I slapped his face hard and he stared at me, then back at the stage where the large speaker was itself again, “There see, Smithie, it’s a speaker, not a Hell Hound.”

“I think it’s time to go home.” He frowned, “That drink was too fuckin’ weird for me.”

I nodded, “Yeah, don’t we both know it?”

We tossed out the rest of the first lot of Adam & Eve we made, locked up the club and walked out to the car park as the sunrise was just starting to break over the sky.  I loved this time of the day normally… but today, I saw demons filling every shadow.

Exactly what did I put in that drink that had put me on edge?  Turning, I was about to ask Smithie, but he was in the nearest garden being attacked by a Hell Hound – the same one that was eying him off in the club!

“Je-zuz!  You guys were real?”

“Of course they were.” A voice said behind me, “Allow me to introduce myself, I’m Adam… and this…” he turned to his right as a woman stepped out of the darkness, “…is Eve.”

“But I created a drink.” I said, “I didn’t summon you guys.”

“You created the first drink of its kind… something biblical.” He smiled, “You put biblical ingredients into it, so you summoned us into existence.”

“And you called it by our names.” Eve stepped toward me, “How sweet.”

I stepped back, “What do you want.”

Adam looked around, “Well, you called us… the Hell Hounds have taken the first sacrifice.  To keep your end of the deal up, and everyone happy, we need more.”

“Sacrifice… deal?” I had no idea what they were on about.

“Of course.  You struck a deal with us; keep your end of the deal and your little place will prosper.” Adam smiled.

“Fail us, and it will rot.” Eve’s smug face stepped closer.

“No business is worth that.”

He put his arm around my shoulders, “Not even if it means losing your soul over?”



Three months have passed.

Nobody visits my place anymore and I’m still trying to create the perfect drink... it’s the drink to send those two bastards back to where they came from.

I pray to God.

I have tried to talk to the Angels to help me.

Nobody answers my calls.

Smithie is a servant of theirs now, and he doesn’t seem to be anything but a brainless zombie who I can’t kill no matter how much I try.  And now, it’s time to pull out the last resort I’ve got:  the Glock.  It’s loaded.  I lodge it under my jaw as tears course down my cheeks…



My eyes snap open and I’m on the floor behind the bar.


Damn!


Adam’s kneeling over me with the gun in his hand grinning ridiculously, “You didn’t think you’d be let go that easily – did you?” he helped me to my feet as he placed the weapon on the bar, “After all we have your soul, so you can’t do away with yourself… we will just keep on bringing you back.”

“You suck.” I spat.

“Aaw, don’t be mad at us.  Just bring us a sacrifice.” Eve smiled sitting at a table.

Then, it dawned on me.  I walked around the bar, to her table where she was sitting.

Faster than she could react, I pulled the silver knife I had hidden inside my jacket and drove it into her heart, “You want a sacrifice, you’ve got one!”



“No!” I sat up and looked around.

“Hey dude… that drink gave me hallucinations like you wouldn’t believe!” Smithie said to me from across the bar, “How about you?”

“Let’s not make it again… can we forget we ever made it?”

He leaned over and tipped his share of the cocktail into the sink next to me, “No problems.”

“And can I stay at your place tonight?”

“I was going to ask that of you… I got really spooked tonight.” He smiled, “but sure, come back to my place and we’ll drink lots of coffee and watch porn.”

“Dude, sounds like a plan.”



As we walked out into the breaking day, I turn at the sound of what I could only swear was the growling of a dog.  As we get to Smithie’s car, a guy and a girl approach us, “Hi… we’re Adam and Eve.  We’re new in town.”


7 comments:

  1. Seems I'm not the only one who ended up with some form of Dragon's Tears in my drink :D

    Interesting idea. I liked the voice of your protagonist, although I felt that Adam and Eve were a bit 2D. Bit hard to do much more with them though, given the word space. They did their bit, kepy everything going along :) Creepy as all get out too. I enjoyed myself reading it :)

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  2. Hey, pretty fun for someone who doesn't drink! :) The whole thing puts me in mind of a mixture of Philip K. Dick Novels... namely, A Scanner Darkly combined with Confessions of a Crap Artist. Mixed in with a little religious demonology! Good times.

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  3. Hey thank you both for your great comments. I started with the first line; and then, when it got to around line 3, I really got curious as to where the story was going to take me.

    Mind you, it was around midnight - when my writing is at its best - and so I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish this story. :D

    Yeah, Adam and Eve were a little flat, but if I had time, and more word count to fill them out, I would have been able to. :D

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  4. I really like how you took our traditional perceptions on Adam and Eve (or at least my perceptions) and totally warped it into your own thing. Well done!

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    1. Well, the whole drink thing got me thinking... when you have booze that have pure names, you gotta wonder where they came from.

      Then, I had very pure and biblical ingredients in my drink; and it made me wonder just how do we know what the Bible has told us is right? Really, it could have been the other way around... and where did Adam and Eve end up anyway? Did they go to Heaven or Hell? All these questions jumped up in front of me when I got in and brought them into play... :)

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  6. Interesting and enjoyable story. Swallowed whole, apple seeds are harmless, but ground they release cyanide (or so I'm told). Great take on Adam and Eve and apple seeds as a hallucinogen.

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