Party Crasher

Human beings are unpredictable creatures. Habits and expectations do not dictate behavior. Such is the benefit of consciousness and self-awareness. The soul.

And sometimes, it is not unheard of for 'perfect' people to let loose.

And sometimes, letting loose can go a long way.

Annie Barlow graduated with honors from Hartland University in May 2006. As she walked toward the stage to get her degree, she thought about what a long road she'd taken to get here.

Graduating with a 4.0 is no small feat. It takes quite a lot of dedication to achieve. Though Annie had seen some downtime in the last four years, there were many long nights of hard work in-between. On top of that, she'd been a member of several organizations. A quintessential college student, Annie was about to bring a solid resume into the working world.

"Anastasia Tabitha Barlow, Magna Cum Laude!"

At the announcement of her name, she ascended the auditorium stage. Her red hair draped from the sides of her black graduation cap. The front end of it didn't do enough to conceal the freckles blanketing her face.

Last night, her excitement over the occasion left her restless. As she shook hands with the Dean and President, the effects struck her. Sleep was going to be a long time coming, though.

She followed the line back to her folding chair. Whatever excitement left within her faded out, a troubling memory eclipsing it.

"You're supposed to be my girlfriend, Annie. I don't have a girlfriend. I have a ghost."

Three weeks ago, her ex spoke those words to her over the phone. Now bleak depression accompanied her exhaustion. Whose fault had it been? Was it worth it?

After the ceremony, there were pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. Pictures in the gym. Pictures in the parking lot. Pictures in the car on the way home. Pictures back at the house. Every click of the camera added weight to her eyes.

Then Annie's parents threw a get-together for her. The house swarmed with family members. The camera clicked and flashed for every possible combination. Somewhere in the middle of it, Annie slipped away to make coffee, which made her jittery and tired.

There were gifts, food, and more pictures. Then, one by one, people left. The noise died until the house went quiet.

To Annie, it all blurred together. When she went to her room that night, she dropped into the bed without changing clothes. Sleep took her in an instant.

#

Now, what happened next is something Annie Barlow can't explain. Nor was anyone able to clarify it for her since she kept it a secret.

She wondered later if the whole thing had been a dream. That would have made sense if the evidence she found hadn't told her otherwise.

Annie woke up in the darkness of her room. She didn't know how many hours had passed, only that she had the energy of a full night's sleep. She tossed and turned a bit, trying to pass out again until dawn. It soon became apparent she was fighting a losing battle, so she got up.

She changed clothes in the dark, throwing on a simple bra, t-shirt, and jeans. She reached for her jacket but decided she didn't need it. The temperature was already heating up in the prelude to summer.

Temperature? Yes, that meant Annie was leaving the house. The idea of where, however, remained a mystery. Years later, she compared her actions to mind control, or a puppet on a string. An invisible force led her out of the house.

Outside, Annie locked the door. Then she climbed into her trustworthy '99 Buick Century and started the engine. The radio jumped to life with the tail-end of a Nickelback song. She pulled out of the driveway.

I want to do something stupid, she thought.

The houses of her familiar neighborhood scrolled by her windows. Every yard had some sign in it of the approaching season: inflatable pools, flowers blossoming on the well-manicured bushes. Some neighbors had left their push mowers out instead of locking them up. Even in the dead of night, they felt safe enough not to secure their belongings before they went to bed.

Annie headed southeast, taking a road that led away from the Archton town limits. The radio's digital readout told her it was 2:27 AM.

Now that the idea of doing something stupid occurred to her, she was committed to the act of stupidity. But what options were there for being stupid this early in the morning? This was a small, conservative burg. Unless she was willing to drive into the next county, she wouldn't find any all-night clubs or open bars.

Annie left the neighborhood. The houses began to spread out, becoming less clustered together. She turned down a few familiar roads, and then she veered off onto unfamiliar ones. Rural emptiness and overgrowth pushed away the houses.

Then they were gone altogether. Trees replaced them, appearing at random, wide intervals before closing in on in the car. Soon Annie drove down a corridor of trees that formed a wall on either side.

It was at that point Annie realized she wasn't sure where she was, nor how to get back. This was before cellphones or cars had built in GPS systems. Since Annie did not have a mounted navigation system in here either, she began to worry. Perhaps "doing something stupid" would be limited to getting lost in the dead of night. Hopefully, she wouldn't pay for that on the wrong end of a gun or knife.

But as slight anxiety blossomed into cold fear, the corridor widened again. Through her windshield, a replay of her journey went in reverse. The trees disappeared. The middle-of-nowhere wasteland dissipated as the houses came back. Soon she was moving through a neighborhood again, one comparable to her own. Annie still wasn't sure where she was. Being surrounded by houses again put her at ease, however.

It was here she wondered if she ought to turn around and try to find her way back home. She'd had her fun with this midnight drive, but now it was time to return to reality.

No, she thought. I've been dealing with 'reality' for eight years. Four years of reality for an acceptance letter. Another four to secure a career. I'm tired of reality. Reality sucks.

Thus, instead of making a U-turn and returning home, she kept driving. That was when a house drifted by the car's passenger side. Though Annie didn't catch a full glimpse of it, her peripheral vision spotted a fleet of cars parked in the yard. Faint music thumped.

Papa Roach replaced Fall Out Boy on the radio. More houses passed the Buick.

Meanwhile, Annie's mind ran background calculations. Cars. Lots of cars. Music, loud, but under control.

Party?

A party.

Annie drifted from the present and time-traveled to the past. She remembered roommates stumbling back into the room, either already drunk or talking of future gatherings. Drinking the night away excited even her study groups, bland as they were from the outset.

But not Annie. She studied and earned clout with her student organizations. There were no parties for her, just endless commitment to preparing for the future.

The neighborhood ended in an abrupt cul-de-sac. There was no need for a mental debate about any U-turn; fate decided that for her. She guided the Buick around the circle and drove on the other side of the street.

The houses went by again. Except this time, instead of passing the party, Annie applied the brake.

Now that Annie had a better view, she could see that it was, indeed, a party. It couldn't be anything else. Six cars of varying kinds were parked in front of the one-story structure. Annie eased her car into an available space between them.

She still wasn't sure what she was doing when she got out. This whole situation had a surreal, dreamlike aspect to it. It was strange that she was here, at a house she'd never visited, in a neighborhood she'd never entered.

Even stranger was that she was ascending four steps to a porch that ran the whole length of the house's front.

You'd better stop. Whoever owns this place will know you don't belong here, and they're gonna call the police.

The sensible thing would've been to listen to her thoughts, turn around, go back the other way, and hope it wasn't too late. But Annie was not in a mood to be sensible, a fact made evident when she walked right through the front door.

Parties, in Annie's mind, were a mystery idealized in sex comedies she'd watched. She expected to see twenty people drunk, high, dancing, or making out. Instead, she entered a big, furnished living room that was void of anyone. The music was louder on this side of the door, but it wasn't deafening.

Thus, Annie Barlow eased her way into the house, infiltrating it with no one aware of her arrival. She walked in as if it were her own home.

Now what?

Well, first, again, she could have left. She took in her surroundings, getting a feel for the floor plan. From where she stood, a big kitchen/dining area met the living room. Voices came from that direction.

Leave, Annie. Get in your car and drive away, stupid girl.

Annie walked toward the voices. A high snack bar, stocked with liquor bottles, beer, chips, dip, and chicken wings, divided the living room from the kitchen area.

Two young men stood by the stove and adjacent sink. They looked to be around Annie's age. One was white, scruffy-haired, and a bit overweight, with jeans and a T-shirt a slight too small for him. The other was his opposite: black, and dressed in a coordinated shirt, pants, jacket, and shoes.

"So, where'd you end up?" the black gentleman (Vaughn, but Annie had no way of knowing this) asked the other (Elliot, and ditto.)

"Well," Elliot said, running a hand through his curly, overgrown hair, "for now, I'm working with my dad. He owns the Firestone. I'm gonna be changing oil, and, you know, whatever."

Annie helped herself to a bottle of beer and a small plate of food. She ignored eyes on her back.

"How about you?" Elliot asked Vaughn.

"Me? Shit." He straightened his jacket. "You are looking at the ground floor of Lockheed Martin, my friend."

Elliot took a bite out of some chicken. "Shit? Lockheed Martin?"

"That's right," Vaughn said.

"Cool," Elliot said.

Vaughn noticed Elliot looking down at the floor. "What?"

"Oh. I'm sorry, but what, what's Lockheed Martin?" Elliot replied.

"You're kidding, right?"

"Yeah. No. I mean, it sounds real important. Always is, with the two names like that. I just never heard of it, Vaughn."

"You've never heard of Lockheed Martin?"

"Nope. Sorry. Haven't."

"It's one of the biggest technology and security corporations in the world, Elliot. They got connections in everything."

"Wow," Elliot said. "Connections in everything? And you're working for them?"

"I start next week," Vaughn said.

"That's great." He took another bite. "It is. Me, I'm gonna be, you know, working with cars and shit."

Annie moved on, intending to explore the rest of the house. As she was leaving the kitchen, she overheard Elliot ask, "Who's she?"

"I dunno. Mason's girlfriend, I think," Vaughn replied.

A door to the right of the kitchen led to a hallway. It connected two bedrooms, with a bathroom between them. It was the same on the other side, except the two bedrooms were bigger and had walk-in closets.

Annie ate off her plate as she poked her head in the rooms. The beer bottle, though, wasn't designed for human hands to open, so she carried it instead of drinking from it. Elliot and Vaughn continued to talk as she returned to the kitchen.

"I'm gonna be a living example," Vaughn said. "Worked my way up from nothing, you know."

Annie threw her empty plate in the trash can. Her unopened beer switched hands.

"And this job? It's gonna be, I'm telling you--oh, hang on, I'll get that for you."

Vaughn used a bottle opener without looking at her. "This is oil, you know. This is striking gold."

By now Annie had explored almost the whole house, except for one last door in the kitchen. Opposite the stove and countertop, it led out onto a back porch.

"Whoa, whoa, Charlie. You're among friends now. Calm down. Breathe."

On one end of the porch, near a window looking into the kitchen, stood three more people. It was difficult for Annie to see them in the dark, save their hair color. One was blond, the others brown-haired and red.

Charlie, the one with the blond hair, was fuming. "I'm gonna kick his ass. I don't care. If I see him right now, I am gonna beat him down."

"Well, he ain't here tonight, Charlie," the brown-haired one said.

"I know that. You don't think I know that, Caleb?" Charlie said.

"Yeah, we know that," the reddish-haired one said. "So why are you so angry if he's not here?"

"Oh, I'll tell you why, Arthur," Charlie said. "Because he already crossed me once, and he knows how. We agreed it wouldn't happen again. But guess what? Now it's happened again. So, yeah, he's gonna get what's coming to him."

"Well, what is it that he did?" Arthur asked.

Caleb put up a hand at Arthur. To Charlie, he said, "try not to worry about it, man. Like I said, he's not here. You're at my place. You've got your friends here. There's food. There's beer. There's shit a lot harder if you wanna drink that instead. Try and forget about him, at least for a while?"

"Oh, alright," Charlie said, looking at the ground.

Annie went back inside.

"Who's she?" Charlie asked.

"Oh, I don't know. Elliot's girl, maybe?" Arthur replied.

By now Annie had run out of rooms to investigate, and reasoning caught up with her. She wondered if it was time to go. It wouldn't be long before they figured out she was a stranger. Best be getting on before she got in trouble.

She exited through the front door. She'd almost descended the steps when she sensed a presence.

There was an old, green loveseat on the end of the porch. Someone was sitting on it. A familiar smell lingered in the air, one Annie recognized when her roommates brought it back with them.

The final stranger ignited an orange ember in the darkness. He stared at Annie through watery eyes until she went back into the house.

Did Vaughn bring her here? Mason thought to himself.

#

Several voices overlapped when Annie returned. The guys were together in the same place now. Worried about discovery, but also unwilling to leave, Annie stepped into the eastern side bathroom and closed the door.

She looked at herself in the mirror. Too late, she thought. They would talk to each other soon. "Is she your girlfriend?" they would ask. "No, is she yours?"

She was a textbook party crasher. A stowaway. She could almost hear the sirens closing in.

Well, they might not call the police right away. First, Caleb, who owned or rented this place, would ask her to leave. If not, he'd ask her to identify herself, then ask her to leave.

You wanted to do something stupid, Annie thought. Well, here we are.

The front door opened. "Hey, there he is!" Caleb said.

"Are you trying to O.D. out there, or what?" Vaughn said.

"Working on it, man," Mason said.

"Let's drink, everybody," Arthur said.

"Hell yeah," Elliot said.

"Wait, hold on," Caleb said. "Before we all work on passing out, I wanna make a toast..."

While Caleb made his speech, Annie contemplated her situation, past and present.

Her first thought was that she ought to step away while the guys drank. In the morning, while they regretted their mistakes, they would think about a girl they may or may not have spotted and wonder if she existed. She'd be a glitch in their imaginations.

A ghost.

Annie sighed. Whether he'd been right or wrong to dump her was irrelevant. She spent eight years as a ghost. Her idea of fun between cram sessions had been Sudoku and handheld gaming. She'd ignored parties. She'd ignored casual gatherings. She'd ignored being stupid.

Now school was over. All there was to look forward to now was the mundane world of a working stiff adult. Working stiff adults didn't have excuses for acting out, did they?

Join the party.

Annie almost laughed aloud at the thought. Join the party!? They didn't know her! She wasn't invited! She didn't belong here!

Join the party or hide in the bathroom all night. Or leave.

Annie ran through her list of options. She needed to leave, but something kept her here. She couldn't hide in the bathroom, either. Although there were two bathrooms in the house, someone would need one tonight.

Maybe, she thought, she ought to wait half an hour. Then they might all be drunk, and in their plastered state, not pick up on an intruder in the house.

Oh, but what fun would it be if nobody knew she was there? How would that make up for anything?

Annie opened the bathroom door.

She walked--not out the front door, but toward the living room area.

Terror ran through her heart and mind. Intruding was crazy enough, but now she was topping that ten-fold. There could be no mistake now that she was a stranger among them.

Mason noticed her first, then Arthur, then Charlie. Caleb nudged Elliot and pointed. Vaughn stopped sipping his drink. Their eyes followed Annie to the snack bar.

She put some ice in a glass and poured...something. She wasn't sure what, but she threw the liquid back anyway.

"Hey," Caleb said. "Who the..."

Annie approached the six partygoers. They continued to stare while whispering to one another.

Caleb opened his mouth to say something else, but he stopped. Annie found the volume for the music and cranked it louder.

All the conversations ceased; not that talking would have been much use. Annie began to dance, and she'd never danced before, nor learned how. The part of her mind that still had reasoning left reminded her she was making an ass of herself. But after adhering to self-imposed conformity for so long, she let the thumping music guide her erratic movements.

Annie danced with her back to the crowd. Eyes landed on her, watching her. She understood why; she was the last person they had expected to see that night.

She also couldn't help but wonder if they noticed her for other reasons. She spun around, continuing to dance, as she did a quick check of their nonverbal cues. Caleb had, for the moment, stopped questioning her presence, though he still appeared confused. Vaughn watched her. Charlie looked her up and down. Elliot smiled.

She moved toward them now, trying to stay in sync with the music, not sure how well of a job she was performing, not caring either way. She wondered, again, if she inspired certain thoughts in their minds.

They parted to let her through. She thought back to movies she'd seen in the past, and the ways actresses attempted sensuality. She mimicked that as best as she could, moving her butt, or running her hands down her stomach and thighs. During this show, she brushed up against Arthur.

Then she did the same to Mason. The six of them stood still, entranced, as if a spell held them in place. They watched her brush against Charlie, the angry one from earlier. His cheeks were still flushed, and his mouth was still turned downward. But he moved the arm that held his drink when Annie reached him.

She turned and pushed her ass against him, wriggling it into his jeans. Something familiar swelled and sprang up when she made contact. Now, despite her seclusion and studiousness, Annie was not a virgin. There were two in her past. Her first time was a disappointing three-pumps-and-done in the front seat of a pickup. The second had been the boyfriend that dumped her for being a 'ghost.'

Now, in the present, it was clear her lap dance had given Charlie an erection. I did that, she thought, smiling.

A sense of pride went through her. Annie, who had never been to a club, and never did anything like this, had the right moves at her disposal. Or did she? How much did it take to arouse men, anyway?