HAL PORTER was just finishing up his shift for the day at the Santa Monica site, hauling tools back to the shed, when the building appeared out of nowhere.
It was in the lot adjacent to the construction site, in the patch of land that Hal would have sworn was empty just that morning. Granted, it was only his second day working on this site, but Gerry, the foreman, had stood glaring at it as he chain-smoked furiously less than an hour ago, grousing about how some “hippie weirdo” owned it and wouldn’t sell, how they had to work around that one damn lot, and what a bitch it was going to be. The police had their eyes on it too, apparently. People kept turning up dead in it. They suspected the deaths were gang-related, but it was a long way to go to dump a body. Rape victims woke up here too, for some reason. It was a weird, creepy place, and Gerry had advised Hal to avoid it, especially if the shift ran late. And yet, as Hal stood there, he was not looking at an empty patch of ground, nothing but weeds and sand. He was looking at a building, three stories tall, looking like it had been there for over a hundred years.
A woman was standing in front of it.
She stood beneath the awning—a sagging, battered green and white striped overhang—and a dingy plastic sign that read, simply, “BAR.” The woman, however, was not dingy or saggy. She was sleek and expensive: small, dark-haired, decked out in a pristine white dress and heels and, of all things, a thick fur coat. It was Los Angeles, and it was an eighty-eight degree day in July, and she was wearing a fur coat that would have kept her warm in Juneau, Alaska.
The woman was looking at Hal, her dark eyes full of suspicion, but after a few minutes she turned away from him and toward the building, studying it carefully. She paced up and down the sidewalk in front of it slowly, like a tiger, but aside from occasional glances at Hal, she didn’t take her eyes off it. Hungry, Hal thought, as he watched her. She looked hungry. It wasn’t a hunger for food, either. She was hungry for… something. Shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun with his free hand, Hal stopped and stared, his eyes shifting from the woman to the building and back again. There was something she wanted. Desperately. Something in that building.
Something, a voice whispered in the back of his mind, she’d wanted for a long, long time.
She turned toward Hal again, and this time their eyes met. She wasn’t glaring any longer; in fact, she looked surprised. She took a step toward Hal, tentatively, and Hal waited, still watching. He began to feel strange, as if he were falling asleep with his eyes open. Or maybe, he thought, his head spinning, so light now that he had to hold back the urge to laugh, I’m just now coming awake. He didn’t laugh, but he did smile, and when the woman saw this, she smiled back.
Then she lifted her hand and blew him a kiss.
Light flashed. It was a small flash, so subtle it could have been the sun reflecting off a mirror, but it came from her hand, and when the light hit Hal’s eyes, he stepped forward. He dropped the tools he was holding and started toward the woman standing in front of the imaginary bar, the woman who was now beckoning to him. I’m coming, he thought, and he started walking faster. The sights and sounds of the construction site faded away, becoming blurs and distant tink-tink-tinks as the world narrowed to that woman, that building, and the space between them. I’m coming.
I’ll go inside, he thought, his gaze shifting to the door of the bar. He could see it now, tall and dark—taller and darker than it had a right to be—but he knew, somehow, it didn’t matter. He would open the door. Nothing could stop him from opening that door. And when I’m inside, I’ll find it. I’ll find what she’s looking for. What I’m looking for too.
I’ll find him. I’ll find him, and I’ll bring him home.
“Hey!”
The shout jarred in Hal’s head, but it wasn’t until something butted him hard in the elbow that he stopped. He turned, dizzy and annoyed, and then stifled a wince when he saw who it was. It was Todd, the shift manager. The other crew members had warned Hal about Todd—he didn’t do much work, they said, because he was too busy watching everyone else. Some thought he was some sort of spy for the investors. Whatever he was, he was strange. Todd was short and stocky and had the complexion of a toad, but he had oddly bright blond hair that for some inexplicable reason he wore in a pageboy bob. The bob was gleaming at him now as Todd glared.
“What are you doing?” Todd demanded. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”
Hal looked at him strangely. “They just called end of shift ten minutes ago,” he reminded Todd. You were the one shouting through the megaphone. Remember?
Todd glared and nodded at the bar, making his gleaming hair dance again. “Then why are you heading back into the site?”
“I’m not,” Hal said, pointing to the bar. “I was just—” He stopped. Then he stared.
The woman was gone. The bar was gone. The lot was empty again.
“You were just what?” Todd demanded.
Hal ignored him. “I swear, I saw—” He leaned forward, squinting, as if somehow this would help. It didn’t. He straightened up and ran a hand through his hair. “Nothing,” he said, trying to sound casual. “I thought I saw something, but I didn’t.” He shook his head and then bent to retrieve the tools he’d dropped. “Forget it. I’m just tired. I’m seeing things.”
“This heat will do it to you.” Todd was watching Hal like a hawk. “You should go home. Get some sleep.”
“Or get drunk,” Hal murmured, and then shouted and dropped the tools again when he looked up.
The bar was back, and so was the woman. She was looking at him with wide, angry eyes, and she was beckoning to him furiously.
“What is it now?” Todd demanded, but he didn’t sound impatient. He sounded wary.
Hal rubbed at his head, pretty sure there was something wrong with it. He glanced at the shift manager. “That lot over there, the empty one—you see anything in it?” The woman shook her head and began to motion to him more frantically. Hal added, carefully, “You see anybody standing there?”
Todd laughed. Nervously. “It’s bed for you,” he said. “Either that or you need to get laid.”
Hal turned to Todd, frowning at him. “What do you mean, I need to get laid?”
Todd drew back. He looked suddenly strained and held up his hands. “Hey, it’s you hallucinating women, buddy.”
Hal raised his eyebrows. “I never said it was a woman that I saw.”
Todd’s complexion went from ruddy to pale. “You did. I remember.” He took a few more hurried steps backward. “Hey, look, I gotta—” He turned abruptly, then waddled off toward the office trailer.
Hal watched him go, more confused than ever. So Todd had seen something. Hal wasn’t hallucinating—or, at least, it wasn’t just him hallucinating. But Todd was upset by it. Why? And what did it all mean?
The woman—and the bar—were still there. She was gesturing to him again, no longer angry, just desperate. Hal felt the pull, the strange, surreal longing to go to her, to go inside, to seek. He took a few steps toward her, hesitant, and he watched the world fade away again. He saw, this time, even the bar fade away, and for a moment, he could see inside.
He saw a man, slight and slim and beautiful, reaching down to him from a glass castle in the clouds.
Hal drew in a sharp breath. No, he thought, and he stepped back.
There was a loud crack, another flash of light, and then the building and the woman were gone. The lot was empty. The world was normal again.
For several minutes, Hal stood there, frowning, trying to figure it out. But nothing made sense, and in the end, he told himself he didn’t care. Whatever was going on was none of his business. He didn’t want to get in trouble, and if Todd wasn’t a spy, he was at the very least a little strange. And so was this mystery woman who appeared and disappeared at will with a bar in an empty lot. He ignored them all and went toward the bus stop, heading for home.
But he couldn’t shake the strange, empty feeling in the pit of his stomach that whispered, urgently, that he had just made a very big mistake.
