One Last Drink

This is a story for CrazyWords' Writing Competition. My subject was "drunkeness". My deadline was April 5th, 7:59 PM Central Time.
Joe slouched happily on his bar stool riding the best buzz of his life. Franky sat next to him, nervously scanning the room.

“Holy shit, Franky. Just...holy shit. There was something in that last one. Dunno what it was but whoo mama! I gotta get me another one of those!”

It was Saturday night and the bar was crowded with twenty and thirty-somethings, a dull roar of conversation filling the air as they joked and flirted. Despite this, Joe was being loud enough to draw some annoyed glares from the patrons closest to where they were sitting. Franky gave the cute blond next to him an apologetic smile and she rolled her eyes before turning back to the Clint Eastwood lookalike currently chatting her up. Franky swallowed hard.

“Would you shut the fuck up, Joe? First, you can't have another one of those because you got us kicked out of that bar. Honestly, man, I have no idea how you've survived this long the way you act. That chick's boyfriend is gonna be pissed after what you pulled and I'm not totally sure they didn't follow us here.”

Joe's drunken ebullience turned sullen in an instant as he sulkily leaned across the bar, his scowl turned to the bowl of peanuts resting between them.

“Whatever, Franky. Let 'em come. Tommy Hilfiger dudebro back there wants to make an issue of it, he's more'n welcome to try. I'll feed his head to his own asshole. Prick has a problem with me, he should learn how to keep a tighter watch of his woman.”

Franky sighed. He'd been out with Joe enough to know there was no reasoning with him when he got like this. “Yeah, I'm sure you would, Joe. Anyway, we should think about getting back to the house. You know how pissed Boris gets when we miss curfew. It's getting late, and if we don't get back soon we're gonna be toast.”

“Awe, Franky, you little bitch. Fuck Boris. You know that asshat just likes to think he's got control of us. What's he care if we come in at two or three? No difference. I'm getting another drink before we go.”

Franky reached over and pulled on Joe's shoulder. “Dammit, Joe, you don't need another drink! You're drunk enough as is; any more in you and you're likely to start something that'll have us against the whole damn bar! And I don't care how tough you think you are, if that happens we are going to most likely get the shit kicked out of us! Then we'll be lucky if we can crawl back to Boris's place and even luckier if he lets us inside!”

A cold metallic sheen slid over Joe's eyes and his mouth drew into a hard line as he reached up and took hold of Franky's wrist in a crushing grip.

“Get your fucking hands off me, Franky.”

Franky let go of Joe's coat and gulped. “Yeah, sure, Joe. Whatever you say, man.”

A single bead of sweat rolled down Franky's forehead as Joe increased the pressure of his hold, tight enough to leave bruises. Abruptly, Joe smiled and released Franky's wrist. “See there? That wasn't so hard, was it? Now don't get your panties all in a bunch. One more drink and we'll head back to the house so old mother Boris won't be concerned, ok?”

Franky slumped unhappily in his stool rubbing his sore wrist. “Ok. Yeah, ok. One last drink. Just...just try to control yourself would you? For me?”

Joe laughed, “Only for you, Franky! Now then, let's see; what do I want? Better make it something special since you're rushing me over here and...what is that smell?”

Franky noticed it too, the scent of fresh bloomed lilacs ever so subtly laced with something muskier. The two men turned to look at the same time and were simultaneously struck, dumbfounded. The woman that stood in the entryway of the bar was a vision. Large almond eyes the color of dark chocolate were set above lips as plump as ripened cherries. A careless tumble of jet black curls framed the incredibly pale skin of her face, hair so thick it seemed to beg a man to run it through his fingers. She was dressed in a modest black dress that nevertheless served to accentuate her soft curves, the effect exponentially more arousing than any of the far more revealing outfits most of the other female patrons were decked out in. The roar of the room had descended to a quiet buzzing. Taking a moment to survey the crowd, the ghost of a smile reached the corners of her mouth before she made her way to the bar, the gentle sway of her hips holding the profound attention of every man in the room as well as the unmasked disgust of many of the women. Sliding smoothly onto a stool ten feet down the bar from Joe and Franky, the spell was abruptly broken and threads of conversation began to pick up again around them.

Joe turned to Franky excitedly. “Franky, I am gonna tap that shit.”

Franky sighed. “Joe, really? Every other guy in here just thought the same thing, man. I mean look at her! No way is she dumb enough to go anywhere with you. Let's just get out of here. That chick is trouble, I can feel it. There's just something about her that isn't...right, you know? Something off.”

Joe grinned. “Yeah, there's something off. See that pale skin? Profound lack of Vitamin D. Fortunately for her, I have the cure. Watch and learn.”

“Joe...”

“Look, if she shoots me down, we go home ok? I won't even try to get another drink.”

“Fine, I'm holding you to that. I'll see you back here in two minutes, then we're gone.”

Joe flashed a tooth bearing grin and laughed before sauntering towards the woman who already had three other men clustered around her. Franky leaned back against the bar, ready to observe the profound comedy that was about to unfold.

He could see her watching Joe out of the corner of her eye as he approached, only turning to give him her full attention when he'd gotten close enough to throw her one of his patented pickup lines. “Here it comes,” Franky thought, “the part where she throws her head back and laughs her ass off. Maybe if he uses one of his extra special lines those other guys there will do me a favor and lay him out. Then I'll just have to get the bouncer to help me cart the shithead to a cab.” He could see Joe say something then, to Franky's amazement, the woman's mouth curled into a wicked grin, her eyes burning with lust filled desire as she hungrily stared at Joe. She raised a single finger to the lips of the man standing next to her who had been obliviously trying to carry on a conversation before grabbing Joe by the hand and pulling him behind her towards the restrooms at the back of the bar.

Joe had time to flash Franky an excited thumbs up across the room before the door slammed shut behind them. Franky's mouth dropped open in shock.

“Holy shit,” he muttered to himself, “maybe I should see about getting another drink after all.”

Instead he simply sat at the bar, waiting for Joe to finish whatever the hell he was doing back there. Five minutes passed, then ten. Then fifteen. After twenty minutes Franky began to get worried. At thirty he got up and started to make his way back to the restroom. Joe would be pissed if Franky was interrupting, but dammit, they'd already missed curfew.

He shoved through the bathroom door and stopped, unable to believe what he saw. Joe stood slumped against the back wall of the restroom, his arms held on either side by men built like professional linebackers and looking like he'd been beaten to hell. The sultry woman standing in front of him was wielding a pair of pliers. As Franky watched she reached into Joe's mouth with the tool and, accompanied by a sickening series of cracking pops, ripped one of his teeth out to join the small pile already on the tiled floor beside her. Joe moaned softly as bright red blood steadily pulsed out of his mouth and down his chin and chest.

Franky stepped farther into the room. “Hey! What the fuck are you doing to him?” If he could get one of those guys off Joe, they might just stand a chance of getting the hell out of there. He briefly registered movement to his rear and realized another assailant must have been hidden behind the door. Before he could turn he felt the sharp stab of a needle, then what felt like liquid fire injected into his neck. Franky fell to the floor screaming and writhing in pain as the poison did its work before finally passing into blessed unconsciousness.

Ice cold water poured over his head woke him up, sputtering. Franky coughed and blinked his eyes, a dull burning still echoing from his neck where he'd been injected earlier. His mouth was so dry, it felt like sandpaper. He looked around. He was sitting, tied to a chair in the middle of a nondescript warehouse, the pale light of dawn shining through the dirt encrusted windows high above. To his right he saw Joe was secured to another chair in a similar fashion, so battered and bruised that if Franky didn't know better he would have thought the man was dead. The woman stood in front of him holding a bucket, flanked on either side by a pair of her black clad goons. She'd changed out of her dress from the bar into the same military style clothing the men wore. She smiled as Joe moaned through his mouthful of missing teeth, his head lolling in a circle.

“So sorry to wake you, boys,” she purred, her voice velvet over steel, “but I wanted to make sure you were conscious for the big finish.”

“Fuck, lady! What the hell is happening?” Franky croaked. “Who are you? What the fuck are you doing to us? Please, give me something to drink!”

She gestured to one of the men standing beside her, “Maurice.”

The man stepped forward and Franky saw he held a pint sized bag of blood in his enormous hands. Fingers moving deftly for a man of his size he inserted one end of a small plastic tube into the bag and held the other end over Franky's mouth. A few, small drops bled from the tube onto Franky's tongue, salty and so rich he almost gagged. Then the man called Maurice was gone, administering the same sacrament to Joe before returning to the woman's side.

“There,” the woman smiled, “one last drink. In answer to your previous questions, my name is Morgana de la Fontaine. What is happening is I am avenging the death of my darling sister and countless other victims of your horrific appetites.” She turned and walked to the sliding cargo door on the side of the warehouse. “And what I am doing,” she said, heaving at the chain to raise the door, “is ridding the world of two more godforsaken parasites.”

Facing east, the light of the morning sun streamed through the doorway directly onto the two prisoners strapped in their chairs. As the first rays touched them, the men's skin began to blacken and steam before spontaneously bursting into flame. Now fully alight, Joe and Franky's screams echoed throughout the empty warehouse, pockets of fat under their skin bubbling and bursting, their eyes melting in their sockets. Morgana and her companions stood watching the conflagration, unblinking, until all that was left were small piles of dust and a pair of greasy black stains.

Approaching the remains she hocked and spit a healthy wad of phlegm into the ash.

“For my sister. Let's get this cleaned up and get some breakfast, boys. I'm hungry.”

With that, she turned and walked through the warehouse door into the welcoming light of day.