Joe's Joe

Okay everyone, I've used a few suggestions that you all provided. I'm not sure how I'm going to format everything, but I thought it would be interesting to list the suggestions I've used. If this doesn't seem like a good way to do it, let me know, and I'll change it going forward. I had no plan when I began writing this, beyond the name of the main character, and I found it interesting that I sort of gravitated towards a horror-comedy combination. Who knows how it will turn out. Certainly not me, and that's awesome. So here are the suggestions I used, with the intention of using some of the others later.:

- The main character is a barista

- He meets an old Irishman named Benjamin McKree 

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"Dammit!" Thomas shouted, burning himself on the espresso machine for the third time in a week. He frowned and shook his head, moving to the sink. "I'm so sick of this place!" He railed to no one in particular. 

"Um… I-I don't suppose I could get that coffee…?" piped a mousey young woman from the counter. Thomas turned on his heel, ready to tell her exactly what she could do with her coffee, when the front door flew open with a crash. Which was saying something, because the door was equipped with one of those hydraulic arm things to prevent the door from doing exactly that. The coffee shop wasn't exactly busy, but what little conversation there had been was gone, chased out the open door. 

Judging from the noise, Thomas had been expecting a buffalo to come charging into the shop, or at the very least a large, angry man. When a rather small, but fit older man came into the shop Thomas couldn't hide his surprise. He couldn't have been more than 5'5", skin still taut, if rather wrinkled over his face, with thinning white hair. 

Picking his jaw up, and shaking his head, he looked at the man, "Was that really necessary?" The old man's rheumy eyes found the source of the voice, and seemed to stare right through Thomas. 

"THOMAS ROSARIO! Tell me, did you see the direction the creature took when he entered your place of business!?" The booming voice could not possibly have belonged to this small old man. This time, Thomas's jaw would have hit the floor, had it not still been attached to his skull. 

"Buh…?" was all Thomas could manage to say. Perhaps not the most eloquent way to put it, but very to the point. 

"Oh, never mind!" The old man dropped into what Thomas thought was a fighting stance (his knowledge of fighting styles gained from kung-fu movies, he really had no way to be sure), and began to prowl through the coffee shop. No one moved. What is happening, Thomas thought to himself. Have I finally lost it? Before he could begin to repair the cracks in his sanity, it shattered all together. 

Had Mousey-girl grown? She was easily standing several inches taller than when she was asking about her coffee. Thomas leaned out over the counter to get a better look. She seems to be floating. I could have sworn she was earthbound when she entered the shop. His inner monologue continued, even as his body was ducking for cover behind the very espresso machine that had viscously burned him, before the world went insane. My inner monologue is rather calm, considering the circumstances. I should be freaking out, but I'm not. Well, that wasn't entirely true. Thomas's body, now having fallen, was trying to scoot under the counter that held the racks of cups and lids, continuing long after he had hit the wall.

As Thomas had his little nervous breakdown, the small, strangely spry old man had begun circling the floating young woman. Her head was tilted at a strange angle, and her arms and legs seemed to move independently of one another. Almost as if she were being jerked around by human-sized puppet strings. In fact, now that Thomas realized that, she wasn't so much floating as hanging in mid-air. For some reason, this seemed much more creepy, but he couldn't put his finger on why. 

"BEGONE DEMON!" Shouted the old man, in his much-too-loud-for-an-old-man voice. "You do not belong in this world!" 

The sound that came out of Mousey-girl's mouth could hardly be called human, but it certainly spoke English, "You are a fool if you think you can stand up to the likes of me, Benjamin McKr--!" The Mousey-girl marionette spun around as a column of freezing water hit her in the back. Well, her head spun around anyway. There was a sickening crack, but otherwise she didn't seem to notice. Thomas stood there with the faucet held tightly in both hands. "You!" The Mousey-girl turned demon pointed, and if you've ever seen someone point backwards… well, you probably haven't but it was weird. Given the situation, that's saying something. "How dare you! You are an insect! Less than an insect, you don't deserve to eat the dirt that my master has trod upon! You--!" Then her heart exploded. 

Thomas noticed several things. One, where the girl's left breast used to be, well, it was still there, but now there was several inches of metal sticking out of it as well. It looked like a sword, but it was too covered in gore to be sure. Two, hearts blood is very red. Three, said red blood was rapidly approaching Thomas in what could almost be described as a wave. Four, Thomas realized that he had forgotten his burnt hand was in pain, and it let out a fresh twinge to remind him. Lastly, Thomas realized that he shouldn't be thinking nearly this quickly, and everything happened all at once. 

The blood washed over Thomas in a crimson wave of sickly-sweet copper, the Mousey-girl fell to the ground, and perhaps most terrifyingly, he saw something briefly take shape in the air where the girl stood. He saw it just long enough for it to dissipate with a deafening roar, rushing out the front of the store in a whirlwind. Of course it blew out all the windows. It wouldn't be a monster if it left politely through the door. There was one final crash, as the Joe's Joe sign over the door fell to the ground in a heap. For a brief second, there was silence, and then reality seemed to snap back into place. Patrons began screaming, and rushing for the door. You wouldn't think that 8 people could cause a stampede, but you weren't there that night. It was short but fierce. 

Once a stunned Thomas and the old man were the only two left in the store, Benjamin pulled the sword from the girl's back and wiped it on her blouse. He extended his hand to the once again prone Thomas, "I think we should talk." This time, the old man sounded nothing more than an old Irishman. Thomas tried to reach for the man's hand, but reality had caught up with him as well, and all went dark.

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At the end of each post, I will provide suggestions for suggestions if you will. Again, let me know if this seems redundant or unnecessary. 

- What was that creature?

- Who is the old man?

- How did he know Thomas's name?

- And of course... what happens next?

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CHANGELOG: I realize that I said I wouldn't change things, however, I've decided that I can change typos, continuity gaffs, and other small things like that. For example, Rase pointed out that Thomas must have stood at one point, so I changed a couple of words to imply that he was knocked down again.