It was almost midnight on Josh Havers seventeenth night at Miskatonic University when he was hauled out of bed by his overeager roommate, Danny Trips, whom Josh had already pegged as a psychopath and hypersexual maniac, in order to go on a journey Josh really didn't want to go on. Josh had been asleep for about three hours because he was taking his coursework very seriously. Danny Trips was not. Danny Trips was out every night, engaged in some sort of clandestine activity that Josh preferred not to know about, but which must have been pretty exhausting, because Danny Trips spent most of his time in class asleep in the back.
Danny Trips was exactly the sort of person Josh didn't want to be. So when he woke at the ungodly hour of near-midnight to see Danny Trips's eager face grinning down at him, Josh felt only revulsion.
"Is the building burning down?" Josh asked.
"No," said Danny Trips. "Get up."
"No," said Josh.
Danny Trips siezed Josh by the ankles and dragged him onto the floor. Josh bellowed expletives.
"It's Friday," said Danny Trips. "Let's go. What, are you going to spend *every* night asleep?"
"Yes," said Josh. "Yes, I am. Go away."
He tried to climb back into bed. Danny Trips restrained him. "I have a moral obligation," said Danny Trips. "I can't let my roommate be the most boring concievable human. Let's go."
The altercation went on for some time, but the result was basically inevitable. Josh fumbled his way into some clothes and was dragged, miserable, into the streets. A throng of youths was waiting outside, all of them apparently known to Danny Trips. The sequence of greetings was interminable. Josh was introducing to a dizzying sequence of strangers, none of whom registered whatsoever in his brain, and then carried along by the crowd until he'd completely lost track of where he was.
"THE FAT MAN'S REVENGE"
"Hey, who are you?"
"What?" said Josh.
He was crammed into one corner of some bar called The Fat Man's Revenge. A combination of deafening music, blinding lights, and general malaise had relegated him to sullen silence. He had no idea where Danny Trips had gone. In fact he hadn't recognized a face in the crushing crowd for some time. He didn't recognize this girl either, although he sure didn't mind looking at her; she had big blonde hair and a welcoming smile and was wearing a tight black dress that barely reached the thigh.
"I said who are you?" she yelled.
"Josh," he yelled back.
"I'm Claire," she yelled. "Why don't you have a drink?"
It was because he was terrified of approaching the bar, which looked like a Ground Zero of bellowing alcoholics whose self-control was draining rapidly. He shrugged instead of explaining. She grabbed his hand. "Come on," she yelled, "let's go!"
He wasn't sure why he was getting such special attention - there were about a thousand other people available, and none of them crammed into an obscure corner - but he went along with it nonetheless. She dragged him through the throng towards the bar. He winced as the lights above the wall of liquor blasted him in the eyes. Claire got right up to the bar and yelled something at the bartender (a burly, tattoo-encased slab of a man), who produced two shot glasses and filled them with some suspicious blue liquid. Claire passed one to Josh. "Have a drink with me!" she yelled.
Josh drank. Up front the drink was gruesomely sweet; a moment later he felt like he'd just swallowed a tank of gasoline. He turned away so Claire wouldn't see him gagging. She laughed. "It's good, right?" she yelled.
"What?"
"It's good, right?!"
"Yeah!" Josh said, trying not to wince. Claire leaned over the counter to tap the bartender's shoulder; her skirt rode up her thighs, exposing just a hint of bare ass, which nearly threw Josh into convulsions. She held up two fingers. The bartender slid two more drinks across the counter. Josh took a deep breath.
"Cheers!" yelled Claire, holding up her glass. Josh drank and spent another ten seconds in a dizzy haze as the drink blasted through him. When he opened his eyes someone had grabbed Claire's arm - some dude in a white polo who was, inexplicably, wearing sunglasses indoors. He yelled something in her ear. She waved at Josh and giggled; the dude shot Josh a sneer and pulled Claire away from the bar.
Josh watched her go wistfully. What a weird experience, he thought, and started to return to his corner.
"There you are, man!" roared Danny Trips, so close that Josh jumped. "Where you been? Hey, you gotta meet someone!"
"What?" said Josh.
And was once again dragged through the crowd, this time by Danny Trips, who seemed to float perpetually in a crowd of raucous friends. Danny kicked open a door behind the bar, and Josh was relieved to find himself somewhere far less crowded and far less noisy.
The centrepiece of the dimly-lit room was a big mahogany table, littered with half-empty bottles, cigarettes, and playing cards. The table was occupied by six men with identical haircuts, all wearing impeccable black suits with loosened ties and jacket sleeves rolled up. Each of them had a half-empty glass of whiskey in front of him, a cigarette drooping from his lips, and a handful of playing cards. They all looked up silently as Danny Trips came in.
"Who's this?" said the man at the head of the table, to whom the others appeared to silently defer.
"This is the guy I was telling you about," said Danny Trips. "Josh Havers. Right?"
"Yeah." There was a brief silence as the man stared at Josh. Danny Trips interjected: "Josh, dude, this is my pal Mr John Avis, and these are, uh, Mr Blonde, Mr Sack, Mr Durmonde, Mr Clearford, and Mr Taft."
"Uh, pleased to meet you," said Josh. "I'm, um, not sure what I'm doing here?"
"Don't worry about it," said Mr Avis. "Why don't you kids pull up some chairs, make yourselves comfortable, and I'll explain the whole deal to you, Josh. How's that sound?"
