Kelly wasn’t like the other girls. Kelly could read minds. Or at least she thought she could. A belief as strong as her faith in gravity. I know what you’re thinking, she would tell people, and then glare at them until they believed it too. But one day, Kelly met her match.

It was a Wednesday, a boring day like any other day. Kelly sat at the end of bar, waiting for her shift to end. Another dead day at the Buck n’ Run tavern. And then he walked in. James, in a five-year-old letter jacket, blue jeans, hair in a greasy coif. James the zombie. At least that’s what everyone called him—brain melted on booze, cheap cigarettes, and car fumes.

Kelly got up, went around behind the bar. “What’llyahave, mac,” she said, knowing the answer already. Beer, of course. She could read minds, afterall.

“Whiskey,” James said, not even looking at her, seeming to ignore her utterly, like the word whiskey was his mantra and saying it in a bar was just a coincidence.

Kelly blinked, frowned, reached for the cheapest rotgut they had. Maybe he was a zombie. Can’t read a mind that isn’t there. She started to pour, then stopped. “You sure you don’t want a beer?”

Finally, he looked at her. His eyes were dead, flat. “Whiskey,” he said again, enunciating it.

But Kelly shook her head. “You just don’t look like a whiskey guy to me. I think you’re thinking beer.”

James narrowed his eyes, didn’t say anything for a second.[He] fished a cigarette out of a pack, placed it between his lips, not bothering to light it, just staring at her. “Let me ask you a question,” he said.

“Sure.” Her eyes bored into his, trying to figure out what he was going to say.

“You ever kill a man?”

She tries not to smirk. “Of course not.”

“Me neither. Never even wanted to. How about a cat. You ever kill a cat?”

Now Kelly frowns. This was starting to get personal. And Kelly didn’t like personal “No.”

“Me neither,” James says, finally lighting his cigarette. “But I almost did, just now, driving over here. Little fucker ran right in front of my car. Freaked my shit out. Now gimme that whiskey.”

Kelly looked at James as his gaze wandered off again, her hand still holding the rotgut. “What kind,” she asked.

“GTO, six banger, glass pack and a souped-up hemi.”

Kelly sighed. “No, idiot, what kind of cat.”

James gave her his full attention, took a deep drag on his a cigarette and then exhaled slowly, one eye closed against the smoke.“Listen, you want to know the truth? I’ve never had a drink before, never in my life. And these things? I smoke, maybe, one or two per week. I know what people say about me. James the Undead. James the Vampire.”

“Actually,” Kelly started to say.

James continued, interrupting. “Whatever. But that’s just talk. People like to talk. I work on my car, I listen to the radio, I don’t bother nobody. I keep my nose clean. Then some fucking cat tries to commit suicide under my tires. I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. Maybe it don’t mean nothing. Maybe it does. But for right now, I don’t care. And I don’t know what kinda of cat it was. Brown or some shit. Now gimme that whiskey.”

Kelly, despite herself, was moved. She looked him in the eye for a few more seconds, started to pour the whiskey. She set it front of him.

Kelly watched as James picked up the glass, sniffed the contents, and shot the entire mess, wincing. The look on his face was genuine—he had clearly never drunk whiskey before. Kelly grabbed a mug, pulled a tap and poured a beer. “Here you go, then.” She said, smiling. “You’ll want to chase that with this.”