Midnight Diner 3

by Edoardo Albert

  "My Algonquin’s rusty, but I think this here symbol means ‘he in lonely places always hungers’." Hartley offered a flat grin. "Ye know all about the hunger, I’m guessin’."

  His guts twisted as he thought of Eddie...and Shackleford. He squirmed. It was probably his imagination, but his clothes fit even tighter than before, his legs and arms sticking out several inches from the cuffs and sleeves. "And?"

  Hartley dangled the charm from its strap. "I’m guessin’ this is an old conjure for what they used to call a ‘Wihtikow’, roughly translated as Wendigo. Some dialects even call it Ithaqua..."

  Ia, Ithaqua!

  "...god of the wastes. Either way, it’s a thing of great power and hunger." "These...things...whitaka..."

  "Wendigo. Ithaqua. Whichever’s easier."

  "Whatever. They...uh...eat ..."

  "Ayuh." Hartley nodded. "Anythin’, livin’ or dead. They never stop feedin’, though. Always hungry."

  "And I’m..." "Yep. ‘Pears so." "How? Why?"

  Hartley shrugged. "A Wendigo spirit...or Ithaqua...is nat’rally attracted to those who hunger." His eyes narrowed. "You hungerin’ for somethin’, boy?"

  He opened his mouth...but stopped. What did he hunger for? What did he...want? Respect. To be something...different.

  Anything else. Just different than his old man. He closed his eyes and breathed. "Aw, shit." "Aye. Have ye worn it, yet?"

  Thin hope flared. "No! Not yet. I want to, though. Bad."

  Hartley smiled. "There’s a chance. Ye haven’t pledged it yer soul, yet." "What happens if I do?"

  Harley smiled, eyes burning.

  Later

  Derek stood on Bassler Road, before a small, dingy mobile home outside town. It had been a short trip through the trees and their snapping branches, and he’d run with uncanny speed, darting through brush with barely a rustle. His feet anticipated every rut and dip in the ground. He smelled his way on the breeze, smelled her—the fresh scent of her hair and skin. He smelled her fear also, which meant he was there.

  He’d come too late.

  Click. "Nothin’, here me? Yer nothin’."

  Swirling odors overwhelmed him. Shelly’s fear and pain. Aggression, hate; all burning, spicy odors; and here he stood, pulsing with them. Even from here, he heard the cries.

  A scream, a meaty smack. Broken glass tinkled, and a shrill, young voice cried, "Mom!"

  He sprinted up the driveway, leaped onto the trailer’s leaning porch, and slammed through the screen door. There was abrupt silence, except panting and breath whistling through a swollen nose. Shelly cowered on the floor, hugging Cody.

  "You? Un-fucking-believable."

  There he stood, looming over Shelly and Cody, left fist slick with Shelly’s blood and snot; twisted, fat little face sneering at him, just as it had every day of his life until he got big enough to fight back.

  Dad. Dear old fucking dad.

  His old man swung to face him, beer belly jiggling around first, stretching his stained yellow undershirt to its limits. Clutched in his other hand, Derek saw it, dreadful and gleaming: The .38; the same one Pa had stuck under his chin, night after night.

  The hammer clicked and snapped his focus back. His old man pointed the gun at his head and waddled towards him. "So you’re the one? More balls than you ever showed, for sure."

  Derek glanced at Shelly. Brown hair spilled over her face, limp strands plastered to her cheeks with sweat and blood. Her eyes darted back and forth between him and Pa.

  Pa stepped so close; Derek could smell his sweaty aggression, as he had for so many dark and lonely nights, growing up. "So now. Young rooster thinks he can diddle the old man’s prize hen? That it?"

  He said nothing, just swallowed and reached into his pocket...but pain and stars burst in his eyes when the .38 slammed into his temple. The floor rushed up to meet him. His forehead cracked against wood. Pressure built inside his skull as his old man bent over him. " Teach ya a lesson about touchin’ what’s mine, boy..."

  No.

  Snarling, he lunged upwards. His jaws latched onto a mouthful of cloth and flesh at the old man’s belly. Pa screeched a high, shrill note. He bit down and twisted. With a jerk, he ripped a mouthful of fat and cloth away. Blackish blood squirted from a ragged hole in Pa’s undershirt as he gurgled and crumpled to the floor.

  He spat out wadded, bloodied cloth and chunks of flesh, slumped forward and breathed into his hands. Pa’s blood tasted sour. Impure. Bad. On the floor, Pa curled into a shivering fetal ball.

  Derek grunted and wearily stood.

  Shelly and Cody had crawled into the den. She stared at him, trembling...scared. Of him. Maybe more than she’d ever been of Pa.

  He bent, grabbed the .38 and tossed it to Shelly. It landed at her feet. Next, he pulled out his wallet, tossed it next to the gun, grabbed Pa’s wallet, added it to the pile.

  "You packed?" She nodded, eyes wide. He could only imagine how his blood-streaked face looked. "Go. Quick."

  She collected the wallets, jammed them into her back pockets, palmed the .38 and slid it under her belt. She stood and pulled Cody up. The boy stayed a half-step behind, eyes unblinking. She opened her mouth. For a second nothing came out, until, "Are you..."

  "No. Gotta finish this." He toed Pa’s moaning form, then met Shelly’s gaze. She nodded and shuffled for the door. When near him, she stopped, reached out...but pulled back at the last moment. He didn’t blame her.

  She searched his eyes and swallowed. "I’m sorry."

  "Me too."

  Cody looked at him for several seconds but said nothing. Something lingered in the boy’s gaze. Sadness, but not fear, and something else. He wasn’t sure, but he thought...maybe ...

  Shelly pulled Cody out the door.

  He closed his eyes. Something stirred deep within. He opened his eyes and looked down at his wheezing father. He’d almost screwed up. He’d forgotten what he’d done with the charm before leaving Hartley.

  Reaching under his shirt, he pulled it out. Newspaper wrapping scratched his skin. Dim heat pulsed through newsprint. He stood that way for several minutes, thinking hard. Had he done this for Shelly? Or himself?

  Didn’t matter. It was time to be something. Finally.

  He tore the newspaper away. The charm blazed and filled him with something wonderful and powerful and awful. Reverently, he pressed it against his skin.

  Something inside him rushed towards a crescendo. Bones and joints popped, ligaments snapped. Glorious pain filled his limbs as they stretched and grew. Facial plates cracked, the skin on his cheeks ripped. The world blossomed into a rich miasma of blood, meat and sweat. He turned and grinned, jagged teeth and jaw clicking.

  He took his time. Pa screamed.

  For a long time.

  The Ocean Thief

  Colin McKay Miller

  The man who put the ocean in a book put it in there when no one was looking. How he did this, no one knows, because someone somewhere is always looking, but that’s what he said. People expected this man to not be a man at all, or the book to be bigger than the earth, opening its large pages to absorb all that water, but both appeared normal. What normal meant when it came to the ocean, however, had changed. Beaches kept going, the sand getting deeper where the ocean used to push it down. All sea life was gone, sucked into the pages, seaweed and all. Those in boats and submarines had to call to get helicopters to come pick them up. They had not noticed the ocean draining around them; they did not know how they got left out of the book. Naval forces disbanded. Fishermen went back to being men. The desert of the ocean was a popular vacation spot until people realized they didn’t need any more deserts.

  The man who put the ocean in a book was not old and wise like people thought either. They couldn’t tell where he was from, not by appearance or speech. He could speak many languages, but with each new language he spoke, a new accent seemed to shift his origin. When he spoke French he sounded South African. When speaking English, he sounded Japanes
e. Another argued that he sounded more Korean than Japanese, but that wasn’t the point.

  Most thought him quite stupid to put the ocean in a book to begin with, but everyone thought him foolish for showing people that it was he who had done so. Someone will kill him and pour out that book, people said, but no one killed him and no one could pour out the book. Most people were afraid, but a man in Germany—a great big strongman who could pull a train with his teeth—said he would take the book if the author of the ocean did not give it to him. Some argued about this name. He shouldn’t be called the author of the ocean, they said. He’s the thief of the ocean; that’s what he is. They argued about what to call him because they could not explain him. History tells the same story: What people don’t understand they debate, but soon even the debaters lost interest.

  The author of the ocean held out the book, with two fingers on top and his thumb underneath, but the German could not take it. He pulled and tugged and even put those great teeth around the binding, but the book would not budge. Finally, the author of the ocean told the German to hold out his hands, and as he did so, the author of the ocean placed it gently on his fingertips. When the author of the ocean let go, the book slammed to the ground, crushing the German’s fingers underneath. Though he screamed and flailed, the strongman could not get his fingers free. The author of the ocean said, "What did you expect? The whole ocean is in there."

  After that, no one tried to take the book. One time, the author of the ocean opened the book to a small American girl, told her to dip her arm in, and as she did so, she laughed as the saltwater splashed up to her elbow, but she was quickly pulled away by her mother, the drops falling from her fingertips. No one could explain this. This unexplainable thing sat down next to all the other unexplainable things in the universe, and like those things, people got used it and went back to living their lives as they did before.

  People learned how to survive. They had to. Impossible technologies became possible. More water was created from the water they had. Now people peed into filters, but it was considered impolite to offer recycled water to anyone who wasn’t related. Old problems went away; new problems arose. Many people died, but the status of those left behind shifted. Despite the novelty, life was the same, though the ocean was never replaced.

  When the ocean first went into the book, people wanted to know why. Some said it was the earth dying, others said it was God, but even the reasoning behind the judgment was debated. Some said it was because people didn’t take care of the environment. Others said it was because people didn’t take care of Israel. One man, clad in a silver spacesuit made at home with his elderly mother, said aliens had pulled the ocean inside of Mars and that all that was left to do was follow. Regardless, the author of the ocean would not explain why he took the ocean. He did not say whether or not he would return it. In general, the author of the ocean did not answer questions, not even the ones asking if he was God. The author of the ocean preferred to read his book all over the earth. The pages appeared blank, but he knew what was in there. He said he liked to travel, but no one knew how he got around so fast.

  One day, a crowd of people found the author of the ocean sitting underneath a tree. He had fallen asleep reading his book as he often did, but in the heat of the summer he had lain on his back, the book casting a shadow over his face, and there it rested. People approached, bold in his slumber. No one could move the book or the author of the ocean, but his head was not crushed as the German’s fingers were. His body did not decompose, but no one cared to debate about this. Finally, there was one thing the people agreed upon, one thing that was clear: The man who put the ocean in a book had drowned.

  Hanlon’s Folly

  Chris Mikesell

  My cherry pie was down to crust and the clipped edges of a few imperfectly removed stones bleeding red into a pool of melted vanilla. Dixie’s wasn’t a bad diner, nor Bayerton a terrible town, as places go. But, like the pie, I’d had my fill for now. I was swirling coffee grounds in the bottom of a ceramic mug, trying to divine my future, when the counter stool next of mine filled in. I had to turn halfway around on account of my blind side to get a look at him: youngish sandy-haired man, hazel eyes, still clean-shaven at lunchtime, Mitch embroidered chest-high on his blue coveralls. Like with most, he met my glance, then turned his attention to whatever was convenient. Dixie’s menu in this case.

  "Hey, ol’ timer. What’s good here?"

  Since the only thing at hand was my dessert plate I said, "Pie’s homemade," by way of not quite answering his question. Truth was my burger plate had been halfway decent—the patty a little gristly, the bun fresh yesterday, the fries a shade too pale—but while the food might have been wanting, the price wasn’t. Lunch at Dixie’s was about Bayerton’s only draw for travelers on the Pacific Coast Highway; the smell of grilled onions got you in the door, the prices kept you coming back. Rumor had it the diner was being subsidized by the local chamber of commerce so Larry Dix could keep his prices where he’d set them back in the Seventies. If you can believe stories second-hand, they were afraid folks’d make for the cafés out of Cambria and San Simeon if the price of coffee rose above fifty cents, all-your-bladder-can-hold. But you get what you pay for. Based on the grounds at the bottom of my cup it’s a wonder my filter still worked at all.

  The counter girl, Rosie, came over for the newcomer’s order: Coke to drink, bacon-cheese, onion rings, slice of lemon meringue for dessert. "Mr. Kessler,"—the name she knew me by—"want a warm-up on that coffee?" She fished my ticket out of her apron when I declined.

  "Hey, that house falling down on the north edge of town," Mitch said as Rosie turned to go. "It worth fixing up?"

  Miss Rosie shrugged and moved off to the gleaming stainless steel pass-through window where she spun the order ticket around to Larry Junior.

  Mitch swung off his stool without so much as a toodle-oo, settled into the overstuffed banquette at a window booth. His van, the only unfamiliar vehicle beyond the plate glass of the diner, advertised "renovations and custom windows, industrial and residential" along the side panel. The place he’d mentioned was more than a spec-job. Probably dismiss it altogether after taking a closer look. Still...I checked my wristwatch, more of habit than having somewhere to be. I was itching to go, but staying put to tell the story would be all right. In the long-term, a view that was rapidly becoming synonymous with "the short-term" the older I got, it might even do a couple pieces of good.

  As Rosie bustled by with a tray of chili sizes and patty melts, I said, "Rosie-bird, believe I will have a refill, over by the window." I wrested my bones up, dropped a ten with my check—five for the grub, five for Rosie’s college fund—on the worn Formica counter, and grabbed my cup. Rosie still beat me to Mitch’s table with his order.

  "Hanlon place," I said, sliding across the empty seat. Intentionally misinterpreting his what the—, I continued, "That house north of town, the Hanlon place. Best leave it be."

  Mitch none too subtly dart-glanced for an empty table. Today everything was full—even the two stools we’d vacated at the counter had filled in. Window booths are a rarity at Rosie’s during the lunch rush; despite my intrusion he should have counted himself lucky. As if I wasn’t the biggest disappointment of his meal, he turned his attention to his anemic rings and the wilted lettuce and limp bacon on his burger. Smelled like heaven, but while I could’ve warned him about the presentation outright, some lessons you have to learn for yourself.

  "What’s left of the Hanlon place doesn’t do it justice. Before the fire in ’72—well before the fire it had been majestic, the envy of the county. Three stories of white that, come summer, watered the eyes to see it. The door, in amethyst purple, had been Mrs. Hanlon’s idea. ‘Want my man to come home like a king, through his royal door, and into his castle.’ She was a one to dote on her husband, was Jessie. Zeke Hanlon was overseer for the biggest of the Bayer family’s farms. Being the bossman for the children and grandkids of the town founders, Hanlon
did well for himself and his own, three boys and the wife who treated them like princes."

  Rosie arrived with coffee as flat brown as the mouth of the glass pot she poured from. I took a long swallow while Mitch bit deep into his burger. Mustard, ketchup, and silver-white grease dripped and pooled on his plate.

  "Of course nothing good can last forever," I continued, "and when the Lord decided to end

  Zeke’s run of fortune it was by delivering Jessie her great reward fifty years sooner than she’d business collecting it. Zeke gave in to drink, lost his prime job, saw his boys turn horse-faced in adolescence. Finally lost his mind when the youngest, Sammy, got himself a closed-casket funeral courtesy one of the big Bayer combines."

  "Unbelievable," Mitch said, wiping a smear of red from his face. He threw the napkin beside his plate, grabbed another from the dispenser and put it in his lap. "I’m eating here, y’mind?"

  "Sorry. Skip ahead a few years and the house had fallen to disrepair, and folks took to calling it

  ‘Hanlon’s Folly.’ The door, once brilliant, turned a bruised purple. You half expected it to fade—" I caught myself about to add some fool thing like ‘to that dingy yellow-green, cross between a four- minute hardboiled egg yolk and rotten apple meat,’ and interrupted myself with a sip of coffee. "But it never did. The rest of the house, termite-bored plank walls and madhouse window panes, sunken chimney, and a patched roof like a mothworn crazy quilt, dulled to a splotchy gray. On foggy mornings, and evenings when the sea breeze blew in thick, the house itself disappeared save for the door. Evidence the Hanlons were still there, Zeke and the boys at first, then just Zeke as the boys, David and Asher, left one after the other. Through it all, the door stayed.

  "Round’ bout the time Ash Hanlon left they say Jeffrey Bayer took it to mind that the Hanlon parcel would be good for farming. ‘They say,’ and if you look me in the eye you’ll see I believe it. So began the plot to defraud the poor crazy drunkard. His mind was already gone, but they—the Bayers and their partners through business and marriage, the Denhams and the Pitts—were determined to break him body and soul as well."