Noir

Chapter Five – Not A Golfer

The alley was lit up like a cheap strip joint, neon lamps flashing outside. The air is thick with the stench of decay and depravity. Corruption. Crime. Peggle.

As I entered, the cold wind gave way to the warm glow of the cheap, flickering fluorescent lamps. Pyrotechnics, as a figure met me at the door.

“You want to bowl, eh? Well, you’ve come to the right place.”
The dubious Joe led me to the alleys. This place had seen better days.

As Splork went to serve other customers, a family of spherical man-whales and squealing ticks, I looked about the place. The lanes glowed, dripping with wood polish and sweat. I saw it, beyond the clattering pins and marbled balls, shimmering in the strip lights.

The machines stood unused, save for one bum scraping quarters together in a grimy paw. I shuffled up to a booth, watching the colours dance on the screen. The display glowed gently, dulled by scratches and grease. I wiped at it, watching the aura of the thing seeping into my fingers. A quarter, shiny and smooth, swallowed by the hungry device.

Some time later, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I jumped, the colours still flashing before me, the enchanting dance of the silver ball as it jived from peg to peg. Splork beamed at me. “Ah, Peggle,” he whispered. “Ultimate perfection.”
“You know,” he continued, as I massaged the feeling back into my fingers, “after we discovered Peggle, we stopped even needing the drugs. It’s more a nostalgia thing, you understand. But Peggle…” He smiled. “I’ve seen a man stand here for days, blowing hour after hour of wages on this cabinet until he had no more. A housewife, begging a passer-by on her knees for a few extra credits. Children abandoning school and family and everything for this…”
He stroked the cabinet as I stared back at him, unsure of what to make of this figure, his spotless polo shirt shuffling over his sagging, pale arms.

“Ah,” he said, “I see you’ve begun to feel it yourself.”
The world blurred together, a dense fog falling like a hammer. The display swam before me, the laughing Joe slapping me on the back. My brow dripped with sweat. He knew my face. I was done. And yet, he held back. I was not in a room with a single lamp and a gang of goons with two-by-fours. The puzzle stared back at me, and spoke.
“Peggle fever.” He chuckled again, and walked back to the counter. “You probably wonder why I’m telling you this.” The clatter of pins, the sound echoing in my ears. “I’ve not known anyone to beat Peggle fever. You’re an addict, Mr Turpentine. Enjoy it while it lasts.”
The door to the staff room slammed shut. I stared behind it, my stomach turning tricks as my head felt like a goon had taken a bat to it. I staggered into the lobby, the human bowling balls and their spawn gawping at me like fish. Feeling the bile rise, I cheesed it, stumbling through the alley and into a nearby unleashing a torrent of churned-up cheeseburger into a pile of trash. Blocks and balls swimming before me. I stumbled into the nearest doorway, delirious.

A face stared back at me, claws clacking away in the tank. In the dark, the room swam. On my hands and knees, I looked up at the crustacean, watching it grow closer. The voices spoke to me.

“Allo,” it said, as it ballooned to engulf my world in a nightmare from which I could not escape. “My name is Claude.”