Mystery

Karl removed his helmet and ran a hand through his hair to restore the spikes.

He hung the helmet on the handlebars of the Aprilla RS125 and deftly caught the lighter that Ryan chucked at him.

Ryan was sitting astride his Honda CBR125R already puffing away on a cigarette.

"How was it?" he asked.

"Great!" Karl responded taking a drag and enjoying the cool air on his face after the stuffiness of the helmet. "It corners like a dream, and it's a real smooth ride."

"It's a great bike, you got yourself a real sweet deal," Ryan nodded at Karl's new bike. "I still can't believe you had the cheek to ask for a discount just cos of that tiny scratch on the tank! And I can't believe he fell for it either!" They both laughed.

Karl looked around. He and Ryan had ridden all over their town, but he didn't know this place.

They were parked up next to an old boarded up pub. A big white building that looked about 40 years out of date, with the new bypass road of smooth tarmac and shining street signs running past it to the industrial warehouses. The pub sign was faded to oblivion. It was a forgotten place of peeling paint and even the graffiti was faded, it looked eerie in the yellow light of the streetlights.

The car park was broken tarmac and gravel, littered with cigarette ends and discarded cans and bottles. Fast food packaging fluttered ghost-like where it had caught in the hedgerows.

"Where are we anyway?" Karl asked looking around, "You couldn't have taken me to a pub that was open could you!" he laughed.

"This place has never been open." Ryan replied leaning his bike on its stand and getting off. "Not in my lifetime anyway, and according to my dad, not in his lifetime either."
"Weird," Karl mused, "I wonder why they don't just pull it down."

Ryan just shrugged, uninterested. "So, can I have a go?" He asked nodding at the Aprilla.

"Sure!"

Karl watched him for a minute as he rode the bike round the car park, then took it out onto the deserted road to give it a real test. As the rear light turned to a pinprick in the night, Karl found his gaze drawn back to the old pub.

It didn't look as old as Ryan had suggested. Surely it must have been open at some point in the last twenty years. And why didn't someone reopen it now. It was on a busy route with lorries and warehouse workers coming and going all the time, it'd be a gold mine surely!

Unconsciously he found he had walked right up to the building and was surprised when light flashed across him as Ryan came roaring back into the car park, leaving a six foot skid mark in the loose gravel as he braked.

"Hey, don't wear out the tyres." Karl shouted to be heard over the engine.

Laughing Ryan removed his helmet and turned the bike off. "She's a sweet ride alright; better than that pile of shite you used to ride!"

"Hey you want take a look round this place?" Karl asked. He didn't know what made him suggest it, but he knew he had to satisfy his curiosity. Something inside would surely prove that the pub had been open in the last twenty years.

Ryan shrugged again. "Sure, what the hell."

They found a window round the back where a board had rotted and come loose enough to be pried open wide enough to squeeze through. Inside it was pitch black. Karl pulled out a penlight and shone the narrow beam round the room. They were in a bathroom, the men's judging from the line of stained urinals.

"Nice!" Ryan commented wryly. Karl chuckled.

They wandered through to the bar. The floor was littered with rubble, broken bits of plaster that had fallen from the ceiling, glass shards from the windows, even broken bricks and splintered wood. There were no tables or chairs. A roll of decaying carpet lay curled in a heap in one corner like a dying beast. The bar remained, filthy with dust, and inexplicably one unbroken shot glass stood upon it untouched by the surrounding ruin.

Silently as if afraid of breaking some kind of spell they moved through the rooms. The torch beam picked out details of the whole, peeling wallpaper, a sofa, tossed carelessly aside, foam bursting through the disintegrating fabric, a single white trainer. Well that was modern at least, Karl thought, but it seemed to be the only thing that was. He looked around trying to see if it could have been thrown in through a window, but the windows were tightly boarded. Probably left by kids mucking about, got in like we did, Karl decided disappointedly.

"Well, it's a fixer-upper if ever there was one!" Ryan said blowing out a long breath. "You seen enough? I'm dying for a burger!"

****

Over the weeks that followed Karl found himself inexplicably returning to the pub again and again. At first it was just coincidence. He'd set out on his bike not intending to even go in that direction, yet at some point he always seemed to come around to pass the pub.

Then he found he couldn't stop thinking about the mysterious building. The forgotten, lost place that no one seemed to want. A place that existed yet didn't exist as everyone seemed to ignore or dismiss it, but not for Karl. He was fascinated by it. Soon he would ride out deliberately just to sit in the car park, smoking and staring at the building.
His obsession finally came to a head the day after his last exam. Ryan called and invited him for a celebratory ride.

"I can't, I have to go to the library." Karl said.

"The library!" Ryan choked, "But schools out, forever! If you flunked your exams there's nothing you can do about it now! No point trying to become a brainiac after your exams you genius!"

"There's just something I gotta check up on ok?" Karl said, "You're going to Oliver's party tonight right?"

"Of course!"

"I'll see you there then."

"Alright, laters Einstein!"

***

Karl was not the kind of guy who frequented libraries and he felt out of place as soon as he stepped through the door. The librarian at the desk seemed to concur with the opinion that he didn't belong there as she gazed scathingly at his leather jacket and motorcycle helmet. But he wasn't going to be put off by this bookish looking vulture; he straightened his back and strutted past her into the library.

Then he realised he didn't even know where to start looking for the information he wanted. Grudgingly he returned to the desk.

"I'm doing some research on the town," he started, "There's an old pub on the new bypass road, I dunno its name but I wanna find out who owns it and how long it's been there and stuff." He quickly found his desire to know about the place overtook his apprehension of the librarian.

The librarian peered at him as if trying to figure out why this punk kid wanted such information.

"Why don't you take a seat and I'll bring over any information I find." She suggested at last turning her piercing gaze to the computer screen instead.

Karl sat jiggling his knee impatiently while the librarian wandered among the stacks. Then she reappeared after several minutes with a pile of books and old papers.

"Here you are!" She deposited them on the desk in front of Karl and he was suddenly very grateful that librarians existed.

"Cheers" He said plunging straight into the pile.

Several hours later the librarian was standing over him again.

"We're closing in ten minutes." She repeated, he hadn't heard the first time he'd been so absorbed in his research.

"Ok. Oh crap!" Karl said noticing the time; he was going to be late for the party. Where had the time gone? He glanced at the pile of books and papers scattered across the table knowing he should put them away.

"It's ok, I'll tidy these up." The librarian said, "interesting was it?" She enquired as he shrugged on his jacket.

"Yeah, thanks!"

***

On the ride to Oliver's, Karl went over everything he had read that afternoon in his head. He hadn't found the name of the current owners of the pub, but he had found that in the 1980's the pub had been refurbished from a previous ruin, but on the day the pub was due to open, the owners had been involved in some kind of accident and been killed. The details had been murky, even the papers from the time could shed little light on what had actually happened. But afterwards no one had bought the pub and it had faded to its current disrepair.

A book on the town's history had a photo of the pub in it, and finally Karl learned its name, it had been called The Fair Folk Inn. The photo was from the 1800's and in it the pub looked very vague and washed out as if it was a ghost, the people surrounding it seemed equally odd, they were hard to make out. But then photography had only been in its infancy back then, photos were often out of focus and double exposed. The caption under the photo read: The Fair Folk Inn, 1889, Midsummer Eve.

Another book had held plans of the town reaching back to medieval times and there had been an inn at the same location as the modern day pub even back then. Beyond that, the origins of the pub lay lost in the mists of time.

Lost in his thoughts Karl was surprised when he looked up and found himself pulling not into his friend's house, but into the pubs car park. Yet at the same time, he was not surprised. He parked up and got off his bike.

The windows of the pub glowed with warm, welcoming light and he could hear the sound of fiddle and whistle playing some folk tune coming from inside. There were voices and laughter and the clink of glasses. The pub wasn't a ruin anymore, but neither was it new.

He realised absently that it was Midsummer Eve as he pushed open the door and entered.
Inside the familiar sounds and smells of a pub hit him, smoke and beer and a cacophony of voices.

The place was packed, but everyone seemed to be wearing old fashioned clothing. He walked through the throng, glancing around at them. They seemed unperturbed by his presence, even nodding at him in welcome. Now he realised it wasn't just the clothing of these people which was odd, they looked strange too, not human.

The first thing he noticed was how many punters were of shorter than average stature. Dwarfs or gnomes he supposed surprised that he wasn't more alarmed by this. He noticed one tiny fellow sitting in the corner on his own wearing a green jacket and scowling into his tankard, on the table was a green tri-cornered hat. Karl wondered if he might be a leprechaun.

There was a man in a brown cloak that upon closer inspection was actually duck feathers growing straight out of his back. He was talking to a hideous old hag with one missing eye and a crow on her shoulder.

Next his eyes fell upon a woman more beautiful than he had ever seen before with pale skin and hair that shone like starlight. She was so beautiful that all other sound and sight faded away as Karl found himself drawn towards her.

He was so preoccupied by the beautiful maiden he almost tripped over a man of about only three feet high who was the ugliest person he had ever seen. His skin was a strange grayish-green. 'Goblin', Karl's brain supplied as he stepped around the creature apologising. All thoughts of the maiden were banished from his mind.

He needed a drink.

He edged round a huge black dog that had a greenish tint to its dank and ragged fur, careful not to disturb its slumber and caught the barman's eye.

The barman seemed human enough, aside from a rather long dark brown tongue that flicked too frequently across his yellowed teeth.

"What'll ya have?" he asked.

"Beer please." Karl said reaching for his wallet, then glancing to his side he saw an elfin-like man with pointed ears slide a gold coin across the bar to the barmaid.

"Um, I don't have any money like that." Karl admitted as the barman started to draw him a tankard of ale.

The barman appraised him a moment.

"That'll pay for it." He nodded at a gold chain Karl wore round his neck; it had a dragon pendant on it. It was gold, but only cheap; Ryan had bought it him for his last birthday. He took it off and handed it to the barman in exchange for the beer.

Karl leaned against the bar and sipped his drink, taking in everything around him. It was surreal. No one was going to believe this, he grinned to himself. He couldn't believe what was happening. Maybe it's not happening, he thought, maybe Bad Bob, one of his less savoury friends, had convinced him to try a magic mushroom at Oliver's party and this was the result.

Yes, that must be it, he decided. Then seeing as he'd paid for it, he might as well enjoy the hallucination.

Nearby a group of four folk were sat at a table playing some kind of game. Gambling. It involved throwing what looked like bones into the air and seeing how they landed. Karl watched for a while until one of the players threw up his great long hairy fingered hands in frustration and left the table. He stomped away, the remaining gamers laughing after him as they greedily claimed their winnings.

One looked up and caught Karl's eye.

"We need four to play," He gestured at the empty place.

Karl thought for a moment, then shrugged, why not he thought, this isn't even real, what have I got to lose.

He sat down at the table looking round at the other gamblers. One was a fat dirty looking creature with dark skin and patches of hair sticking out from ill-fitting and torn clothing. He had a long pointed face almost rat-like in appearance, and when he grinned at Karl he saw sharp pointed teeth. A walking staff, topped with a human skull leant against the table at his side.

Nice touch, Karl thought.

On his other side sat what was definitely a dwarf. He had a long grizzled beard and tiny cunning eyes. But that was about all Karl could make out of him as he wore a hooded cloak and had the hood pulled down over his forehead. The cloak did not do anything to hide the Dwarf's sturdy bulk however, and Karl was sure he glimpsed the flash of a knife blade when the dwarf reached out with a meaty fist to drink from his tankard.

Finally, directly opposite was the player who had invited Karl to join the game. He had long silver-white hair, and poking out from it, on his forehead, were two small horns like that of a goat. His face and bare forearms were covered with swirling blue tattoos and he had a gold torque round his neck. His face was serene and his movements were elegant and refined. While being the least alarming in appearance, there was something more deeply unsettling about this being.

Karl pulled out his wallet, and started to get out a twenty for his stake.

"That's no good here." The horned creature said, watching him.

"I don't have anything else to wager with." he glanced at his watch but it was just a cheap knock off from down the market and had no value.

"How about," The creature spoke slowly, considering, "the years of your life?"

The other players looked at him, nodding encouragingly.

"Er, sure." Karl agreed. This was getting trippier by the second.

A not entirely friendly grin spread across the horned creatures face as he graciously handed Karl the bones.

"Your throw first." He indicated.

Karl had some luck at the start, but it didn't last. Before he knew it he owed six years of his life to the horned player. Suddenly he wasn't enjoying this fantasy so much, in fact he felt rather sick. As the next round ended and he conceded a seventh life to the horned faerie he decided enough was enough.

"Er, I gotta pee." He said standing up and heading for the bathroom. The other players nodded, unconcerned.

Once in the men's room he waited for the only other occupant, a tiny reddish skinned man with scaly wings on his back, to leave, then he scrambled out the window.

***

Gulping in the cool night air with relief he headed back to where he'd left his bike.

It wasn't there.

Dammit, not now he thought, don't let someone have nicked it!

He glanced round the car park. Maybe he had forgotten where he'd left it. But there was no sign of it. The car park was deserted.

And that was odd. That tree hadn't been there before had it? And that building was new too.

Karl started to feel quite dizzy. He closed his eyes tight and took several deep breaths. Please let everything be normal when I open my eyes, he repeated under his breath.

Steeling himself he opened his eyes again. No bike. And those new warehouses where still there, and the trees. Yes the trees, they had been there before, they were just bigger now. What the hell was going on?

Over the pounding of the blood in his ears he realised he could no longer hear the sounds of music, or laughter from the pub either. He turned back and found it just as it had always been before that night. Boarded up and desolate. At least that was unchanged.

Behind him the crunch of car tyres on gravel announced the arrival of a car. The headlights pooled light around him as the car pulled to a stop right behind him. A figure stepped out of the driver's seat. Karl shielded his eyes from the glare of the lights with his arm.

The figure was of a man, probably approaching his thirties. He was familiar, yet Karl couldn't quite place him.

"Can you help me?" He asked, "I think someone's pinched my bike!"

The figure didn't respond, but stepped closer. Then the man said;
"Karl? Karl Nielsen? It's really you!"

"Sorry do I know you?" Karl asked, but even as he said it he realised who the man was. It was his friend Ryan, only he was older now.

"This is a joke!" Karl said, smiling, but the smile faded quickly, how could it be a joke? "I just took a bad trip on a magic mushroom, that's all this is."

"You vanished," Ryan said, speaking softly as if to someone who had been very ill, "Seven years ago. The police, they found your bike in the car park here. They even questioned me about it. But they never found a trace of you. Nothing, you were just gone."

Karl felt like ice was running through his veins. Seven years, that had been his debt to the horned faerie.

"Every Midsummers Eve for seven years I've come back here. I didn't know what I expected…" Ryan trailed off, staring at Karl. "And look at you; you don't look a day older than when you disappeared."

He might not look different, but Karl felt now with a rising horror, that there was an empty feeling somewhere deep inside him. An empty place where seven years of his life should have been.

"What happened?" Ryan asked.

"I don't know" Said Karl.