Seconds
The café wasn’t crowded but it was busy. People chatted in low voices while two waitresses delivered coffees and cake with flushed cheeks and forced smiles. Someone in the kitchen dropped a plate; the sound of smashing china ricocheted around the room. It was only then that Jacob set eyes on a pale-faced man dressed in black.
The man smiled, a grin that straddled the border of friendly and sinister.
Jacob shifted uncomfortably in his chair and glanced down at his lap.
“Afternoon,” said a deep voice.
Jacob’s eyes were wide.
“How did you….?” He pointed dumbly at the table where the man had been sitting.
“Never mind. May I have a seat? I’m a traveler and have need of conversation.”
“I was just leaving,” Jacob said.
“No, you weren’t,” contradicted the man. “You were just about to order another cappuccino and I think I’ll join you.”
Jacob’s lips tightened. He gritted his teeth. A burst of adrenalin made his heart flutter.
“My name is Lucas,” he said, summoning one of the waitresses.
“Jacob.” The reply was deliberately curt.
“Pleased to meet you, Jacob,” Lucas said, extending a hand.
As they pressed the flesh Jacob shuddered. Icy fingers gripped his heart. He placed a hand on his chest, noticing as he did that Lucas’s skin had taken on a waxy, gray appearance. Dark circles ringed his eyes and he was speaking through black lips, though his words were lost in the void that seemed to have enveloped them.
Indeed it was only seconds that their hands were joined but Jacob watched as a dark and shadowy creature swooped down out of thin air to upset one of the waitresses as she left the kitchen. Coffee and china were sent flying. The waitress cursed and squatted down to pick up some of the larger fragments, completely unaware of the cause of her little accident.
In the corner an elderly woman sat sipping her tea while a winged being of light stood behind her, its wings shielding her. When it noticed Jacob looking it smiled and for a moment the icy fingers around his heart loosened their grip.
It also happened in those few seconds Jacob’s hand was in Lucas’s that he heard a screeching of tires behind him, outside on the road. Every face turned to investigate but Jacob’s attention was captured instead by a grotesque, bat-like face screeching towards him from the ether. Its gray form turned black as it neared him and when it opened its mouth to screech, Jacob could see the bright pink tissue lining the inside of its mouth and the rows of tiny needle-like teeth jutting out of it.
Lucas broke the handshake. “It’s been lovely but I have to go,” he announced, bowing his head slightly before dissolving into the air.
In that same instant Jacob felt a great force smash into the back of him, sending him flying across the room towards the old lady. In the seconds before his head hit the wall, snapping his neck, he saw the old lady scream, clutch her breast and slump forward onto the table. He saw the winged being of light lift her spirit out of her body and ascend through the ceiling.
And in the couple of seconds before the stars in front of his eyes faded he saw the bat-faced creature swoop down and wrench something from the top of his head.
For a second everything went black. When light returned, pale and dim, he looked down and saw himself lying limply in the narrow space between the dented front fender of the vehicle and the brick wall of the café toilets. He saw Lucas looking into the café from the pavement outside. Then he turned and saw the eternal void he was being carried into. His spirit shivered and he screamed as the creature, having dragged its quarry safely home, bit down into his shoulder.
Then the darkness swallowed them up like tar.