by David Wood
“You two here to drink?” a woman asked from the hostess station to the right of the door. Kyle thought he recognized her, but her stained apron, badly applied makeup over ashen face, and stringy hair dulled her appearance. By the lack of recognition in her own eyes, she didn't seem to know him either.
“Uh, no, we'd like to get something to eat if the kitchen's open.” Kyle slapped on a smile and crammed all the positive energy he could into his face.
The waitress glanced at the ceiling and sighed as she grabbed two menus. “Follow me then.”
Without waiting to see if they were ready, the waitress crossed in front of them and walked to a booth sitting against the front wall to the left of the door. The next booth over was occupied, but he couldn't see by whom or how many. All he saw were muddy work boots and a faded denim pant leg. The rest of the dining area was barren save for a man and woman in biker leathers at one table and a man in a suit eating by himself at the bar, his slimy hands holding onto a rib bone as he gnashed his way back and forth across it, picking it clean.
After they were seated, the waitress pulled a pencil from above her right ear and withdrew an order pad. “Okay, what do you want?” The tone of her voice said she really didn’t give a shit.
Maya raised her left eyebrow. “A few minutes to look over the menu, for starters.” She paused to look at the waitress's greasy nametag. “Helen.”
Helen's nostrils flared as she shoved her pencil back into her limp hair and pocketed her pad. “Two waters it is then.” She turned and walked away without another word.
“Wow.” Kyle laughed. “She's a real tip go-getter.”
Maya tapped her fingernails against the booth's tabletop and shrugged. “She's a delight compared to the Klan folk I met earlier.”
“Really?” Kyle had little love for his hometown, but one thing he'd never have called it was racist. Then again, the first time he'd met an African-American in the flesh was after he'd left town and joined the Army, so the lack of non-whites in the area had probably dampened whatever latent bigotry the people of Stillwater harbored. “What happened?”
“I’m…sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.” Her eyes stared at the menu with a gaze as flat as her tone.
Kyle didn't want to press the point, so he let it lie and picked up his own menu. The sheet of laminated paper was as greasy as the offerings printed on it. The Basement wasn't a place you wanted to go to if you were a vegetarian or didn't want everything deep-fried. His mouth watered while his stomach flip-flopped in revulsion.
“Only in the south does something like fried pickles sound reasonable,” he said. “And I haven't had fried green tomatoes in years.”
Shaking her head, Maya looked up and offered a tiny smile. “I refuse to eat friend green tomatoes that didn't come from my Aunty Elle's kitchen. It would just be a letdown.”
“Seems reasonable,” he replied, grinning back at her. She lit up the room when she smiled, and he wanted to encourage it as much as possible. “Is there anything on the menu that isn't reserved for family meals then?”
Dimples formed in Maya's cheeks as she blushed and gazed intently at the menu. “There might be. Let me give it a good look.”
They sat in silence for a minute as they looked over their options and settled on what they wanted. By the time they'd lowered the menus back to the table, they were ready to order. Their waitress, though, was nowhere to be seen, nor was their water. Kyle didn't want the silence to turn awkward, so he coughed into his hand and reached for the first topic of conversation that sprang to mind.
“So, what's brought you to this shithole of a town?”
Maya picked at her nails for a moment, then looked at him with eyes that were as guarded as they were blue. “I'm a writer. A journalist, really. Well, to be more specific, a blogger. I'm here to uh...well, write.” Her light brown cheeks turned to roses in her awkwardness.
“Huh.” Blogger hadn't been the first thing he'd thought she would say, but it made as much sense as most everything else that had tumbled through his head. “Blogger. Interesting. That was some odd gear in your backseat for a blogger though. No offense.”
“I guess that depends on what you're blogging about,” she replied with a short laugh. “Have you ever watched one of those shows on cable where people go ghost hunting?”
Out of all the things the attractive young woman could have asked, that would have been the last question he’d have imagined. It left him flat-footed. “Umm… Not really. I think I’ve seen bits of ‘em while walking through post rec rooms, but – ya know – that’s it. I’m more a General Hospital kinda guy.”
A smile turned Maya's lips into a bow, and inwardly Kyle pumped a fist in victory.
“So was my grandmother, smart aleck. But, seriously, what those people do is what I do. Sort of. My site is called spookyamerica.com. I started it a couple of years ago as a part time thing, a way of indulging a...passion of mine, but now I do it full-time. I’m hoping if I can find a juicy enough investigation then I’ll be able to get a book deal. Then on to obvious fame and fortune.”
Questions popped up in Kyle's mind like plastic heads in a game of Whack-A-Mole, and he didn't know where to start. After a couple of seconds he went with what to him was the most obvious question. “What on Earth could there be in this town that would interest a person who writes for a site called Spookyamerica?”
“My website is populated with stories about famous places that are haunted or have a mysterious past, but if I want to make a name for myself I have to find places that aren't so well known. Places off the beaten track. So, a friend of mine wrote me a program that would search the internet for certain keywords and correlate data in the hopes of finding somewhere that had the markers of a haunting but didn’t also match up with previously known locations. Stillwater is the first place it spit out.”
He didn’t believe a word she said, but the tone of her voice and the look on her face said she did, so for the moment he was willing to put aside his personal beliefs. “So you’re saying that the town I grew up in is haunted?”
She raised her eyebrow and nodded slowly. “ Very. Do you know anything about the number of people who’ve died here?”
“No, can’t say I ever thought about it.” It was the truth. He’d been a kid while living in Stillwater, and to a kid death was something old people had to worry about.
“Death is the only real constant in the universe.” The way her head tilted to the side as she schooled him made him giggle inside. “Not life, not time, not light. All things end. All things die. But, because death is a moment when this world and the world beyond touch, it’s also a catalyst for supernatural activity.”
“You say that you’ve actually seen a ghost.” Kyle wanted the remark to come off as a joke, but the look in her eyes told him she took it very seriously.
“I know it sounds strange to you. Ghosts and hauntings aren’t something that most people come across in their lives. I’m not most people though.”
Her words intrigued him even if he had a hard time taking them sincerely. “Other than being beautiful, what makes you so darn special?”
Maya blushed, but her eyes never left his, and her expression was completely earnest. “I get…feelings…from time to time. If a spirit is near I can normally sense it. Sometimes I know what someone else is thinking. My Aunt Mozell called it a gift. She had it too. I grew up with it, and now I use it to help with the blog and investigations. If you want to laugh, now would be the time.”
He knew he should laugh, and had it been anyone else who said those things he probably would have, but the stillness of her eyes and the way she presented it as just a part of her life, stopped him. He didn’t know if he believed it, but she did, and there wasn’t any reason for him to make an issue of it. Perhaps – if things continued on and they saw each other again – she might even get a chance to prove it.
“No, I’m not going to laugh. I’m a man of little faith in anything, but I always try to
leave my mind open for surprises. Now, you were talking about death?”
Maya smiled and nodded. “From a pure numbers point of view, Stillwater is brimming with death. Compare the rates of murders and suicides in Stillwater to the rest of West Virginia and the percentages are off the charts. We're talking several orders of magnitude higher. I was shocked the FBI hadn't opened a field office out here just to see what the fuck is going on. The numbers are ridiculous, yet it's like no one's noticed.”
A shiver trickled down Kyle's back. “I knew I never liked this town, but now you're giving me all new reasons to be glad I left.”
“There is something very peculiar going on here, and I plan on figuring out what it is.”
As glad as he was that Maya was warming up to him, what she said had him puzzled. But, before he could ask her to tell him more, the waitress returned, two glasses filled with water in her hands. A single cube of ice floated in each one.
“You two ready to order or not?” she asked, drawing out her order pad like she was lifting the weight of the world. When she pulled her pen from above her ear, part of it caught in her hair, but she didn't seem to care as the strands tore loose from her skull. Kyle watched them bounce in the bar's weak light, the cap holding them against the pen like soggy bits of hay.
Maya stared up at Helen with narrow eyes, but whatever verbal jabs she created in her head died before they reached her mouth. Kyle was more inclined to make an issue of the waitress’s attitude, but the indifferent way she looked at them stole his thunder. He would have been shouting at a wall. Early on in life he'd learned to pick his battles carefully, and this one wasn't worth the fight.
“Yes, we're ready,” Maya said. “I'd like your catfish plate. Can I get corn instead of coleslaw?”
Helen barely nodded. “Whatever floats your boat. What do ya wanna drink?”
“Diet Coke.”
The waitress grunted as she scribbled on her pad, then shifted watery eyes over to Kyle. “And you?”
“I want a burger, medium rare, with pickles and some red onion if you have it. If not, no onion at all. No lettuce or tomatoes either. Add ketchup and mustard to it though. Oh, and for the fries I want a thing of mayo on the side.”
“Christ on a stick.” The corner of Helen’s mouth arched up, revealing yellowed teeth that hadn't seen a dentist in a good long while. “And to drink?”
Kyle looked over the waitress's shoulder and saw a neon sign for Coors Light. It wasn't his favorite brand, but it would do in a pinch. “Coors light in a bottle.”
Helen made another series of notes, then shoved her hairy pen back over her ear. “I'll be back with your drinks.”
Helen left with the same irritated air she'd arrived with, leaving Kyle and Maya to roll their eyes and laugh.
“Sorry about that,” he said, genuinely embarrassed for the town he'd once called home.
Maya shook her head and tapped her fingers against the glass of water sitting before her. “Not your fault people in this town are weird.”
“Speaking of weird,” Kyle said, hoping to steer the conversation back where it had been headed a moment ago, “so you’re a ghostbuster or something?”
She laughed, then opened her lips to reply, but her unsaid words hung in her throat as her eyes shifted from Kyle to something over his shoulder. He felt a shadow fall over him as someone came around from the neighboring booth, and then a voice dropped down on him like a ghost of school years past.
“You got a lot of guts showing your face around here, Mason.”
When Maya saw a guy with a thick beard stand up from his booth and hover over Kyle's shoulder like a raven settling on a gravestone, the bottom of her stomach dropped out. Is this town full of crazies or what? she asked herself as a chill spread across her limbs.
From the look in Kyle's eyes, a similar thought ran through his own mind, but as soon as the man spoke, a smile broke across Kyle's face and he jumped up from the booth like his seat was spring-loaded.
“Dirk, you son of a bitch! Oh my god.”
Maya expected the two men to greet each other in a bro-hug. It was the usual way for guys to embrace, with one arm around the back and the other held between them, affectionate without being too affectionate, but Kyle and Dirk went for a full-on hug. That impressed her. Most men she'd met were too afraid to show emotion out of fear of being called names she didn't care to repeat, so to see two men ignore all that and really embrace was a strange treat.
“You are a sight for sore eyes, man,” Dirk said as they parted. “I can't believe you're here.”
Dirk’s beard was the sort usually seen on lumberjacks and swamp folk, but his dark brown eyes were kind and genuine. He was a big guy, several inches taller than Kyle and broader across the chest, but the grin on his face turned him into a teddy bear. He was dressed in dirty jeans and a plaid flannel shirt unbuttoned to reveal a Big Head Todd And The Monsters t-shirt. The work boots on his feet were scuffed and caked in mud. He looked like a man who worked hard and played harder.
“I can't believe it either, man. Family stuff, you know.”
Dirk nodded like he understood without needing to hear another word. He then turned and looked down at Maya. She clasped her hands together beneath the table, hoping there wouldn't be a reenactment of the diner scene from earlier in the day. When he smiled and tilted his head, her fingers relaxed their death grip on each other.
“Please tell me you’re not really here with this asshole.” A laugh twitched the corners of Dirk’s lips as he extended a hand. “You have to be available, or I’ll die.”
Maya laughed as she reached out and shook his hand. “I'm Maya.”
“And I’m enchanted.” Dirk winked.
“You’re full of shit is what you are.” Kyle gave his friend a hard pat on the back.. “Wanna join us?”
Dirk nodded and stepped aside to let Kyle sit down first. He then leaned back into the booth he'd just been in and grabbed his bottle of Bud Light. “Just leave the check, man,” he said to whomever was still in the booth. “I'll take care of it. Oh, and remind dad I'll be getting those extra detonators in the morning, so I'll be late to the job. Okay?”
“Yeah, whatever,” the hidden person replied.
Raising an eyebrow, Dirk nodded and turned to sit down next to Kyle. Once seated, he shrugged his shoulders and grimaced. “What an asshole.”
“Speaking of which,” Kyle said, “how are you doing, man?”
Dirk laughed hard and opened his eyes wide, exaggerating how funny he thought Kyle's joke was. “Ah hah! I see what you did there. Nice. You haven't changed a bit.”
“True classics never do.” Kyle wore a smug smile. “But no, seriously, how have you been?”
Taking a sip of his beer, Dirk shrugged and pushed back into the booth’s seat cushion. “Eh, been better, been worse.”
Helen approached the table like a troll weary from its work. After dropping napkins on the table she put Maya's glass of Diet Coke and Kyle's Coors Light bottle in front of them. “You're food'll be out in a minute.” She hardly looked at them before shuffling off again.
“Is it just me,” Kyle asked, “or is she a complete bitch?”
“It's ain’t just you.” Dirk sipped from his bottle and stared down at the table. “I moved back into town a month ago, and since then shit has gotten bad, not that Stillwater was ever a shining example of southern hospitality. People treat each other like shit, fights have broken out at work, and even my folks are acting like they’ve been replaced with bitter, angry versions of themselves. That’d be bad enough, but lately everyone looks like plague victims with all the pasty grey skin and dark eyes. I know it sounds crazy, but…something ain’t right here. Not right at all. I’ve half a mind to skip town again.”
A chill settled across Maya’s shoulders. She’d been in town less than a day and sensed the very same thing. She hadn’t thought she’d been crazy – she’d wrestled with her own strangeness too long for that – but it was nice to have con
firmation.
Kyle closed his eyes as he took his first pull on the beer bottle, the oddness of Dirk’s words rolling off his unaware back. “I must have started a trend when I took off.”
“Hardly.” Dirk chuckled. “Unlike you, I didn't run out of town right after graduation like my feet were on fire and my ass was catching. I waited at least a week for the ink on my diploma to dry before I left to become a rock god.”
Kyle laughed and rolled his beer between his palms. “You never did dream small. So what happened? Why aren’t you on MTV or whatever the fuck?”
By way of answer, Dirk held up his left hand. A nasty scar ran across his palm from thumb to pinky. Maya and Kyle hissed in unison. He flexed the fingers into a loose fist and grimaced. “A couple of months ago I got into a bar fight out in Buttfuck, Kentucky. A drunk asshole stumbled into me, I tried to help him back onto his stool, and he cut me for my trouble. Fists start flyin’, and the next thing I know a doctor's telling me I'll never play a guitar worth a shit again. The guys in the band tried to talk me into working through it and staying, but...I'm no pity fuck. So I came home and started working for my dad. He always told me that so long as I could swing a hammer I'd always have a job with him, but I never imagined I'd actually have to take him up on it.”
“That sucks, man.” Kyle tipped his bottle in Dirk's direction. “You were a damn good guitar player.”
The right half of Dirk's lips curled up in a smile. “Thanks.”
Maya felt bad for Dirk. He tried to downplay the pain his lost dream cost him, but she could see it in his aura like a fractured light around his body.
“But that's enough about me and my tale of sorrow.” Dirk finished off his beer and slouched. “What about you two? You an item? If so, Kyle, you better offer up a prayer of thanks, 'cause she is waaaay too good-looking for your sorry ass.”