LYDIA & BILLY'S NIGHT OUT

 

LYDIA & BILLY'S NIGHT OUT

by Ellen Pepper

"Where is he?” Sitting alone at the table in a Stygian and cacophonous nightclub, a woman with a haunted expression scans the room looking for the man who brought her here to hear his favorite band. The music had been sublime and the evening pleasant; her companion amiable.

 

Earlier...

 While they listened to the music, a woman in a tattered crimson gown approached them and told the man that he looked familiar. Lydia glanced at Billy and noticed for the first time that he had shaved his beard – looking twenty years younger. There were a few stray short hairs near his right ear that he'd missed. She told their visitor that with his fine bone structure, he looked just as handsome. The woman vanished into the crowd after nodding her agreement.

The band they'd come to see left the stage and was replaced by another, much less musically appealing. She noticed that Billy had gone over to the far wall and was conversing with a man completely clad in black. They were smoking and wore serious expressions. She glanced away, only for a minute, but when she looked back, he was no longer there. He wasn't visible in the crowd. He'd said nothing before he left the table.

Unconcerned, she expected him to return shortly.

He didn't.

After half an hour had passed, she became worried. She had never enjoyed the frantic ambience of nightclubs or crowds, and the band was making a raucous noise. Lydia wanted to leave but she waited for Billy's return.

He didn't.

When she looked down at the table, she saw that he'd left two drawings done in black felt pen – one a self-portrait at his desk and the other a garish cartoon character with a malevolent expression. Disturbed, she put them in her purse.

She decided to check the men's room – perhaps he had been detained there with a problem. She knocked at the door but there was no answer. She entered and saw that the urinals had been removed – possibly during the social-distancing pandemic. The restroom was deserted but then a man with long, shiny ebony hair and intense gray eyes entered and asked her business. She told him that she was looking for Billy who seemed to have vanished. The man gave her an unsettling knowing look, washed blood off his hands, and entered a stall.

Back in the club, Lydia wandered aimlessly around desperately hoping that Billy was somewhere, anywhere in there.

He wasn't.

The feeling of abandonment was piercing her. There was no way that this errant behaviour could be understood.

As she stepped outside, she saw an ambulance leaving, lights flashing, but the siren wasn't on. A crowd had gathered around a large pool of blood on the pavement. Lydia spotted one of Billy's boots lying beside it. So was his knife...the one she'd given him on his birthday the night before.

©Ellen Pepper 2023