Last Call

“Anyone wanna just go back home?”

“Um, yes. Me.”

Hank looks around, purposefully past Penny who is accepting his offer. “Last call. If anyone wants to go, just speak up now.”

Penny huffs. “Stop it.”

“Fine, we’ll keep going then,” Hank sarcastically resigns, a smug smile on his face. 

Penny pulls her cardigan tighter around her frame. The Texas night is balmy and warm, but the sweater is bringing her comfort amongst the chaos. “I’m serious, y’all.” 

Duke groans, kicking a rogue log. “We know you’re serious, Penny, you’ve been serious all week. Lighten up.” 

Despite Penny’s complaints, the rest of the crew come to her defense against the brute. “Duke.”

“Leave her alone.”

“Shut up, Duke.”

The group is used to Duke speaking his mind and Penny getting her feelings hurt, but it doesn’t mean they want to endure it. Especially not while wandering aimlessly around Hank’s uncle’s land. The plan was to gather the booze and blankets and the projector and set up shop in the old barn. Summer could get boring in this agricultural-heavy college town, and the friends weren’t into the floating-the-river or jetting-off-to-Cancun scenes. 

Well, most of them weren’t. 

Penny, maybe, Duke, likely. 

The issue at hand is not the lack of wanting to come here—aside from Penny—but not knowing exactly where here is. “Hank, you said you and Fisher literally came out here, like, two days ago.” Lottie says this like it’s a statement but the question is heavily implied.

Hank shrugs, holding tight to his backpack straps in both hands. “Yeah, we came out here to scout it out, make sure there were no animals or squatters.” They all wait for more. Hank, apparently, did not get her implication.

Throwing her hands up, they slap loudly against her thighs on the comedown, echoing through the wooded area. “So, what, the barn was here two days ago but has grown legs and walked away since?”

Fisher jumps in, in defense of Hank. “Hey, it was light out when we came. It’s pitch black now.” He gestures to the abyss around them. The phone flashlights seemed plenty bright before they were shrouded by old oak trees. Now, they hardly penetrate the path before them. “The barn is around here somewhere. Everyone just relax.”

“Oh, relax,” Penny says in sarcastic realization. “I’ll just relax! Totally. Great idea, Fish.” She emphasizes her sentence with a heavy hand landing on Fisher’s shoulder, making him wince. Hank laughs at the two, earning a glare from the panicked Penny. “Less laughing, more looking.”

Duke begins forward again, passing Hank in the front of the group and charging on. “I stole my roommates good tequila for this, and I’m gonna be pissed if I don’t even get to drink it.” His booted feet make lumbering stepping sounds as he tries to navigate over the uneven ground of the woods. 

“Hey, didn’t you hear Fisher? We just need to relaaaax,” Penny mocks, walking faster to keep step with Duke. The two are now in camaraderie for once, even if they have vastly different reasons for being annoyed.

Fisher and Hank stay close behind them, scanning their lights around them in search. Lottie scrambles up, pushing between the two guys and finding safety in the middle, tucking an arm around the bicep of each. “Why didn’t y’all, like, drop a pin or something?”

“No service,” Hank explains swiftly. Lottie ‘hmph’s, grabbing on tight to her protectors as she trips on a raised root. “Careful, lady.” She rolls her eyes though she knows Hank is looking out at their surroundings, not at her.

A cheering shout comes from the two taking the lead. Focusing their beams on where Duke stands ahead and off to the left, the barn finally comes into view. “Leave it to John Duke Wilmington the Third to save the day.” He turns, raising his arms in the air as if to receive the incoming praise. As the other three approach, Hank walks straight past him to the barn doors, while Fisher lands a pulled punch to his open stomach. Duke folds over with a huff. Penny and Lottie’s laughs fill the air as they trail inside the building after the other boys. 

“Here she is,” Hank gestures to the dusty barn, mostly empty but with remnants of farm-life strewn about. Some rogue blades of hay litter the floor, and the upstairs loft boasts old rusted farming tools. “Our safe haven ‘til morning.”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Penny instantly objects. “Morning?”

Lottie joins in hesitantly, arms crossed over her chest. “Yeah, sorry, I’m with her on this one. Who ever said anything about staying the night?”

“God, why do we ever bring girls? They never want to do the fun stuff,” Fisher jokingly complains, immediately shielding himself from the possible hits that don’t come. 

Bottles clink loudly as Duke unpacks one of the bags. “Because they’re hot,” he supplies unhelpfully. A quiet passes through as the group all look toward where he’s kneeled down, back-turned, collectively deciding to ignore him as they all look back at one another. 

“Anyway,” Penny course-corrects. “I do not wanna stay the night here.”

Pulling out the projector and beginning to set it up, Hank throws another bag to Fisher. Upon opening it, Fisher reveals two blow-up mattresses and a pump. “Right, dude,” Fisher remarks with sarcasm. “The sound of this loud-ass pump is gonna attract every creature in the state.” 

“Then you better start blowin’, boy.” Hank looks over his shoulder to him, puckers his lips, and winks, making Fisher laugh even as he tells Hank how stupid he is. 

The barn is still so dark that Penny can’t understand how anyone is unpacking anything. She gathers the phones, useless for anything but light with no service out here. She places them strategically, some propped up, some laying, until there’s only a few lingering dark corners in the old, spooky structure. The loft they can’t reach is bathed in moonlight from an above window, but the light doesn’t travel far past that.

“Don’t waste your time, Fisher,” Lottie butts in. “We aren’t stayin’ the night here.”

Hank and Fisher share a look, uncaring that the girls can see their colluding grins.

Turning on her heel away from the conversation, Penny finds the less frustrating option right now is surprisingly Duke.

He has his aforementioned stolen tequila bottle in his hand, and he flicks off the plastic cap with a flourish. “That’s your roommate's expensive tequila?” Penny questions, picking up the discarded lid. 

Staring up at Penny from where he lounges on a raggedy blanket, he answers, “I didn’t say expensive, I said it’s good.” He takes a swig straight from it. 

As she watches the liquid slide back down the side, she grimaces. “I think Hank brought shot glasses.”

Duke throws her a mocking smile. “Cute.” He brings the bottle to his lips again, tipping it to the sky and guzzling down the burning clear liquor. Releasing with a refreshed ‘ahh,’ Duke claims, “I need more than a shot-sized amount of this stuff to feel the way I’m tryna feel.”

Penny scoffs a laugh. “What, you didn’t pregame, big guy?”

“Of course I pre-gamed. I’m five beers deep, Pen, but five beers doesn’t do much for a ‘big guy’ like me,” he winks. Penny shakes her head but can’t help the pressing smile she feels forming. No one is immune to Duke’s charm. Or his stupidity, but at least he’s balanced. 

“Finish up by yourself, Hank-erchief. I gotta take a leak.” Fisher ditches his duty with the air mattress, making his way to the door. Lottie makes a sound of disgust, murmuring ‘leak’ as an echo under her breath.

Once Fisher gets to the door, however, it won’t open. “Hey, Duke, did you close this behind you when you came in?”

“Yeah, why?”

Fisher pulls violently at the door. It won’t budge. “Dude, the hell did you do? It’s not opening.”

Duke stands now, sloshing tequila on Penny’s shoes as he does, causing a squeal to leave her. “Duke, yuck!”

Ignoring her accusation, he makes his way to where Fisher is still yanking on the door to no avail. “I didn’t do anything, just open it.” He shoves the smaller guy out of the way, using his own might to tug at the sliding barn door. 

“Hey,” Hank interjects, joining the two. “Don’t break the damn door. Fisher, there’s a window up there in the loft, we’ll just give you a boost.” He shrugs as if this is a simple and obvious solution.

Lottie groans from across the barn. “Oh, brother,” she says beneath her breath. She watches anxiously as the two boys raise Fisher to a half-broken off ladder to reach the lofted area of the dilapidated barn. Penny refuses to watch. Even when Fisher makes it up successfully. 

“Oh, shit,” he hisses. “I hear something moving around.”

Hanks reassures him, “It’s probably just a rat.”

“Or a raccoon,” Duke counters. Ignoring either possibility, Fisher goes to jump from the window. Penny only looks up once she hears the thud of him landing outside, shouting that he’s okay. 

“I totally stuck the landing,” he insists from outside the door.

Duke scoffs from within. “Yeah, right.”

“So, is there, like, something blocking it, or what?” Hank questions. 

“Oh, right.” The group jolts almost in unison as the barn door is wiggled from the outside by Fisher. “Nope, nothing. It just won’t move.” 

“Well, there has to be something wrong. It literally was just open,” Penny argues. 

Fisher’s voice fades as he walks away, saying over his shoulder, “I’ll check better when I get back from my piss.”

Silence lingers in the barn once Fisher’s footsteps fade. “It’s too quiet in here.” Penny speaks out again, using being annoyed as a cover for being scared. 

“Let me turn the movie on,” Hank offers. He fiddles with the projector for a bit before the opening to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre appears. 

The girls instantly object with moans and groans. Even Duke feels it’s a bit on the nose, claiming it as a cliche.

“Play something else, for real.” Lottie refuses to back down, and Penny is just glad it isn’t only her that has objections. 

Hank shrugs, just as annoyed, though for an entirely other reason. “I can’t, I don’t have any service.” He holds up his useless phone as an explanation. 

“Then how were you even gonna play that?” Penny points to the offending paused screen projecting on the rotten barn wall.

“I downloaded it.”

Duke, already having moved on from movie-gate, holds up his now empty bottle of tequila. “Who drank all my damn tequila?”

“You drank half of it, spilled nearly all of the other half of it on me, and I drank the rest.” The answer comes from a red-cheeked Penny who has now worked herself into a full-blown panic. “Why did I think alcohol was gonna make this better? I feel sick.”

“It’s okay, Penny,” Lottie approaches her with a calming tone. “Calm down.” Then, she turns to the two remaining guys. “Let’s just go home. The night is over.”

Suddenly, a scream tears through the night. “Fisher,” the guys say in unison as they lock eyes. His voice grows closer.

“Help, guys, you have to help me!” The barn door begins to wiggle fiercely. Hank and Duke run over as the girls squeal in terror.

Hank calls out to Fisher over the sound of the clanging wooden door and his screams. “Fish, Fish! Stop, what’s going on dude?”

Fisher’s only answer is, “Let. Me. In!” Each word is emphasized with a sharp tug on the unbudging sliding door. A crashing sound sails through the woods, like a herd of elephants, reaching the barn and causing the group to gasp. 

“Something’s out there,” Lottie croaks.

Fisher’s yelling grows more and more urgent. Duke slams his body against the wood to no avail.

Then, silence. 

The only remaining sound is breathing—out of breath heaves from the guys, adrenaline-laced panicked inhales from the girls. Nothing from outside. 

“Fisher?” Hank whispers. When he doesn’t receive a reply, he races up to the ladder, calling for Duke to give him a lift. They work in tandem to hoist Hank onto the loft level. He skitters quietly to the window, peering down to the ground below. “Oh my—” His cut off words are followed by a gag.

Penny charges forward, looking up to where Hank remains on his hands and knees in the loft. “What? What is it, Hank?”

“Is he okay?” Lottie asks. “Are y’all messing with us? What’s going on?”

Hank clambers down the ladder, jumping the rest of the way to the ground. His landing is rough, and he stumbles past the girls to the unpacked bags. “We have to go. We’ve gotta get outta here.”

“Hank, man, what did you see?” Duke insists. 

Penny tugs on Hank’s arm, stopping him from the frantic packing he’s attempting. “We can’t go anywhere if the freaking door won’t open. Just tell us what’s wrong with Fisher.”

Sinking down to Penny’s level, Hank looks her straight in the eye as he says, “He’s dead. Help me pack, please.” He goes instantly back to throwing their things haphazardly into their bags.

Penny doesn’t move, but her eyes widen considerably. “That isn’t even funny. We told y’all to stop the pranks. With these guys, a dramatic joke isn’t out of the question. Especially when they already know the girls are already scared.

He suddenly whips around, and Penny backs up with every step he takes toward her. “Do I look like I’m pranking you?” If Penny’s honest with herself—no, no he does not. She shakes her head infinitesimally. “Pack a bag.”

Duke stops pacing near the door to approach the two. “She’s right though, dude. Even if we’re being for real, we can’t leave. The door is damn busted.”

“Help me up, Duke.” Lottie’s body swings as she hangs from the broken ladder. “I wanna see for myself.” Duke groans as he crosses to help Lottie up to the loft. 

Hank stops throwing things around for a moment to interject. “Lottie, don’t. You don’t want to see, I promise.” As soon as he finishes, Lottie lets out a horrified scream, scrambling away from the window and jumping down to the first level. Duke catches her, barring her from breaking an ankle. In his arms, Lottie presses close to him, shivering.

“This can’t be real, it can’t be real,” she repeats into his chest where her face is buried.

Penny drops to the floor, holding her head in her hands. “What do you mean he’s dead? He was yelling like two seconds before it got totally silent. And what the hell was that noise in the trees?”

Hanks answers, “I don’t know.”

She continues her barrage of questions. “Where’s the nearest place with service? The nearest police station? The nearest neighbor?” 

“I don’t know,” Hank supplies again.

Penny stands now. “Is there another exit to the barn? Any weapons in here that aren’t ancient and rusted?”

A frustrated groan comes from Hank, alongside his same answer. “I don’t know, Penny.”

“Do you know anything?” Penny’s question is not rhetorical, and she waits for an answer. When one doesn’t come, she fires off again. “What was the point of scouting this place out yesterday? Or was that even true?”

“Okay!” Hank explodes. “I haven’t been out here in a decade and I lied to make you feel better, Penny. Happy now?”

She stomps her foot, stirring up the dust beneath it. “No, as a matter of fact, I’m not happy, you jackass.”

Lottie peels herself from Duke to try to interrupt the two. “Enough, okay? The bickering isn’t making anything better.”

They ignore Lottie’s sage advice, bulldozing past it. “If you really didn’t want to come, you should’ve just stayed home,” Hank offers.

Penny nearly screeches. “I wish I had! Why did we have to come out to your uncle’s creepy ass barn to drink and watch movies like we always do anyway anywhere else?” Penny’s fury is written all over her red cheeks. Her cardigan is discarded from her upper body, tied around her waist. “Did you even tell your uncle we’re out here? Does anyone even know we’re out here?” Hank shifts on his feet, running his hands roughly through his hair. His body language makes something click with Penny. “Oh, wait a minute! Is this not even your uncle’s land?” Duke and Lottie look uncomfortably between the two. 

The woods outside seem to come to life again, trees rattling and yelps and howls that the group hopes are from a pack of animals. But Duke voices their worst fear. “Anyone else think that sounds eerily human?”

Penny walks slowly until she comes nearly nose to nose with Hank. “If we make it out of here alive, I’m gonna kill you.”

"Penny—"

"Or maybe I'll let whoever's out there do it for me."

"Penny, I can't just—"

Penny ignores him. "Anybody got any objections to throwing Hank to the wolves?" Hank isn't sure if he's more scared of the literal or metaphorical take on this question.

Lottie and Duke look down sheepishly. Hank scoffs. "Guys. Come on. Our friend is dead, we're all in shock, let's just...chill."

"Going once," Penny continues.

The click of the barn door sliding open jolts the group. All they see is the dark woods outside of it. There's no one in sight. Even Fisher's body is gone from where it laid. The howls set off again. Hank looks at Penny with all his pleading written across his face.

Penny announces, "Last call."