Kayli Unknown

Chapter 1 - The Girl in the Car

Kat was tending bar when it happened. Not her job really, but she had gotten a call at three.

"The bar isn't open."

Kat recognized the voice. One of the Kaminski sisters. Lisa, the regular bartender wasn't at work again. Maybe sick, maybe shacked up, maybe screaming into the night as she sometimes did. Jim, the owner, would be teaching until three thirty, and then have basketball practice. So who was left to open the bar? Jim's girlfriend. The Kaminski sisters made the call, announced the problem, and hung up.

Kat pulled on her coat and boots and backed her fourteen passenger bus out into the cold.

January at the northern edge of Wisconsin. Snow, cold, sunset at four thirty. Kat drove down empty roads to an empty town. Maybe twenty homes still occupied. Only three businesses left. The three were huddled together with empty lots on each side. Kat parked across the street – next to the unused train tracks.

The ancient sisters were pressed against the door of the bar as if they wished to push their way through. Or maybe they were just feeling some warmth come through the cheap laminated door. Kat unlocked the door and let them in. They went to their usual place – a small table and two chairs pressed against the right wall. The wall farthest from the bar. Farthest from the other customers. Kat brought them each a glass of white wine while one sister pulled out a cribbage board and the other shuffled cards.

The bar was a simple place. Old, shabby. A huge pool table took up the middle of the room. A long bar took up what space remained. Twelve barstools and a large TV. That was pretty much all there was. Kat got behind the bar, kicked the half barrels to see how full they might be, put her key in the cash register, and ran a rag over the bar. She was open for business.

It was nearly four when the first loggers arrived. Chuck White's crew. Six men in their twenties who had been out in the cold all day. Each wanted a glass of beer and a shot of brandy. They sat opposite the TV, and glanced at some ESPN talk show, but mostly they talked among themselves and with Kat. Kat poured a round. Two of the guys she thought might not be legal age, but she served them anyway. If they could handle eight hours with a chainsaw, she thought they earned the right to drink with their buddies.

Conversation? Complaints about the cold. Complaints about the woodlot. Too many poplars. Trees too small. All singles. Only two doubles all day. Kat had just started to ask what a "double" was, and then it happened.

The side of the bar exploded. The front corner. No more than two feet from where the old women played cribbage. The Kaminski sisters were blown towards the back of the room. The men at the bar ducked and dropped. Kat stood and watched. The car was ancient, and large. Maybe gray, maybe brown. Any color long faded and mottled with rust. The driver was a girl. A girl. Young. Far too young to be driving. Her face was already pressed up against the windshield from the impact with the wall. No seatbelt. No air bags. She was off the seat, over the steering wheel, face on the glass. And her expression? Absolute terror.

And then the car hit the pool table. Slate top, mahogany sides, brass inlays, it weighed a ton and hadn't been moved in decades. It didn't move now. The car hit the pool table and disintegrated. The radiator exploded, the front bumper bent back into the engine compartment, dented fenders blew rust and dirt all over the room.

And the girl. Kat saw her. Just before impact she turned her face, looking away, closing her eyes. It probably would not have mattered, not with that impact, but by turning her head, when the car stopped and the girl's body didn't, her head was pinched against her shoulder. It couldn't possibly be true, but Kat could swear she heard her neck snap.