by Anthology
“Mom?”
“Huh?”
“I said are you alright? You look pale mom. You look like you’re sweating.”
Stephenie focused on the road, knowing she could have driven the car straight into a river without knowing it. She said, “I’m okay babe.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
Carrie put her hand on the Coke can then pulled it away as if her fingers had been burned. She squeezed her legs together and snuck a hand in-between them.
She said, “Okay mom. Just checking.”
“I love you babe. Don’t worry about me. Things are going to be all right. You just watch.”
Up ahead was something; Stephenie wasn’t sure what the something was but it looked promising. Less than twenty seconds later everything came into view. There was a gas station with a restaurant attached to it. Carrie could go to the bathroom and she’d be able to fill up the tank. Everything was going to work out just fine.
“Look babe,” Stephenie said. “A place to go to the bathroom.”
Carrie looked honestly relieved. “That’s good,” she said. “I thought I might go pee-pee in my pants even though I said I wouldn’t.”
“Can you hold it another minute?”
“I think so.”
“Well try babe. Try.”
3
Stephenie pulled off the highway and onto the establishment’s asphalted driveway. A large neon sign said KING’S DINER. It looked seventy years old or more. She pulled her car next to a pair of gas pumps that looked as old as the sign, if not older. Above each pump a weather-faded notice read: WE SERVE.
Carrie opened her door with a grunt, jumped out of the car and tossed her photo-album on the seat. The pavement felt hard beneath her feet. The book bounced and fell open to a random page. The page had a photo of Carrie sitting on a swing with Stephenie standing behind her.
“Wait a minute babe,” Stephenie said, reaching for her ignition keys. She thought she heard the words, Okay, mom. But then she watched Carrie shaking her head in total disagreement.
“I can’t,” Carrie shouted. “I’ve got to go to the bathroom super-duper or I’m going to make an uh-oh in my pants!”
Carrie hustled towards the restaurant like she was in a hurry, leaving the car door wide open. She squeezed her knees together and struggled with the restaurant door, which seemed to weigh a thousand pounds or more. She pulled on the handle with all her might; in the end she managed to wiggle herself inside. Just.
Stephenie turned the car off, unlatched her seatbelt and felt it slide across her waist. She unlocked her door, swung the door open and stepped outside, leaving her keys dangling in the ignition. The sun had begun to set but the temperature was still hot. It was muggy out; the air felt thicker than most days.
Her eyes scanned the parking lot for an attendant. Didn’t see one.
Across the road a single bungalow sat before the backdrop of undeveloped land like it had been misplaced. It had dark windows and was made of brick. It had a long driveway on the right hand side. There was no garage, few trees. Thick green grass was growing long. There was no sidewalk in front of the building, no curb either. The grass just shrank away, diminishing into rocks, pebbles and sand until it came to the clearly defined edge of the highway, which was old but in good condition, faded but not overly weathered.
She dismissed the house and all the details that defined it. She walked towards the gas pump and looked over each shoulder, once again trying to locate the man in charge. She didn’t see him. There was a greased-out gas-shack attached to the restaurant. Maybe he was there? Or perhaps he was picking his ass inside the restaurant, ordering coffee and making time with the waitress. That seemed about right. For a moment she wondered if the attendant might actually be a woman, but for reasons unknown the idea didn’t seemed to fit. So assuming the attendant was a man, where the hell was he?
The attendant’s hiding place was unknown, a lackluster mystery.
Didn’t really matter, she supposed. She knew how to pump gas and if the attendant didn’t like it he could suck on a lemon and piss up a rope.
After she unscrewed her car’s gas cap, she lifted the nozzle and switched the pump on by lifting an ancient looking metal lever. She stuck the nozzle into her tank and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened. She opened her fingers, waited a moment and squeezed the trigger again. Still nothing.
“Huh,” she said, with an eyebrow lifted and her tongue peeking out between her teeth.
Stephenie flicked the gas-pump switch on and off a number of times and squeezed the trigger a number of times and still nothing worked. She returned the nozzle to its place and walked around in a circle.
It was a hot day. Nice, but hot.
She waited ten seconds that seemed like ten hours and walked towards the restaurant feeling like a failure.
Between the entrance to the gas station and the restaurant’s main door was a patio swing made of wood. The swing could hold three people, two comfortably. Sitting on the swing was a thin girl with dark hair. Her name was Christina Split; she wore an attractive brown dress covered in white polka dots. The dress looked retro. She looked about eighteen. Stephenie noticed her earlier but ignored her because she was clearly not the person in charge.
Christina––who had been quite literally, twiddling her thumbs––lifted a hand from her lap and waved, offering a sad little smile.
Stephenie waved back. She considered saying ‘hi’ but didn’t. Instead she pulled the restaurant door open and stepped inside while nodding her head and making a face that felt comfortable to wear but might have been humorous to see. Bells rang. Not the electric kind, but the old-fashioned, ‘bells hanging above the door’ kind that made every day seem like Christmas. Carrie didn’t open the door with enough gusto to make them cry out, but Stephenie had. Then the ringing faded and the door closed behind her. Stephenie’s eyes popped open. Her heart started pounding, her breathing became labored and she thought she might be sick.
The restaurant was a slaughterhouse.
The customers and staff were splattered everywhere. They were slumped over in the booths and in pieces on the floor. Body parts were on the tables and chairs. The walls were soaked with blood. The carnage was nearly immeasurable.
Stephenie stumbled; her mouth became dry.
Spinning, the world was spinning.
She put her hands on her knees and felt her stomach heave. Somehow she held it in. She wasn’t sick on the floor but she wanted to be. Not that being sick would fix anything. It wouldn’t. And her view wasn’t better now that she was crouched over like an umpire at a ball game; it was worse.
She was looking at a corpse.
The corpse wore a yellow waitress uniform that consisted of a loose button shirt, glossy black shoes and a miniskirt. The dead woman was twenty-five years old, give or take a year. Her nametag said SUSAN; her head was twisted awkwardly towards the door. Her skull had been cracked apart like an egg.
Stephenie could see the woman’s brain just as clearly as she could count the bone fragments lying on top of it. And still, she held her nausea at bay. She held it because she didn’t want to vomit on the girl. She didn’t dare move, fearing her stomach would revolt against such action, leading her into a bought of illness that would last fifteen minutes or more.
She closed her eyes and squeezed them tight.
When she opened them nothing had changed. She was getting a real close look at this waitress named Susan, whose eyes were wide open, shockingly open, dreadfully open. Her face held an expression of terror so absolute she seemed to have died of fright before the killing blow had been able to claim her.
In time, Stephenie lifted herself to an upright position.
There was a puddle of blood around Susan’s head and tiny footprints were in it. Tiny footprints. Carrie’s footprints.
“Where’s Carrie?” she whispered.
Then she closed her eyes, telling herself she was trapped in
side a dream, a terrible dream––a nightmare in fact. More than anything else, that’s what she wanted to believe. Otherwise she’d need to face the fact that she was standing in a horrific bloodbath and her five-year-old daughter was suddenly gone.
4
The scene was tranquil. Everything was calm. The customers were eating and socializing, the staff was working and everyone was happy. There was no blood on the walls, no bodies slumped over in the booths, no body parts lying amputated on the floor. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing disturbing. Nothing to suggest there was a problem big enough to have people shaking their heads in disbelief. It was a diner, just a simple diner with no strings attached. It had stools with red seat covers, which were bolted to the floor in front of the counter. It had booths with divisional walls that were a little more than waist high, giving privacy but not too much privacy. It had cheap paintings on the walls between the dark windows. Florescent lights buzzed in the ceiling and ceiling fans spun below. It was the type of place that gets labeled a greasy spoon and often times deserves the label. It smelled like coffee, toast and bacon. The smell alone was enough to get your stomach rumbling and your waistline expanding.
Stephenie felt a tug on her finger. She heard a voice. It was a child’s voice, her daughter’s voice.
The voice said, “Mom?”
Sitting inside a booth in the center of the diner was a woman named Angela Mezzo. She was a beautiful Italian lady with dark hair and an exotic appearance. Her lips were full and her cheekbones were high. She was roughly the same age as Stephenie, twenty-nine, maybe thirty. But unlike Stephenie her youthful exterior was no longer present. Not in a bad way, in a good way. She had womanly features that weren’t restricted to the curves of her body, but on her face too. In contrast, Stephenie’s appearance suggested that she might carry her inner-girl around with her until the day she died.
Angela lifted a coffee mug from the table with delicate, manicured hands. She swallowed a sip of coffee without making a sound.
The mug had a yellow happy face painted on the side. It was the same yellow happy face that had been produced and reproduced a hundred million times and can be found on cups and glasses in dollar stores around the world.
Stephenie felt another tug on her finger. She heard the voice again: “Mom?”
Angela sat the mug on the table in front of her. She started to grin, but the grin sat on her face wrong somehow, like it didn’t belong there, like it belonged somewhere else.
Stephenie’s eyes narrowed. She had seen that smile before but didn’t know where.
Angela’s grin thickened, growing hard across her features like old gravy left forgotten on the stove.
Now Stephenie knew.
The smile was lifted from her late husband Hal. It was the same smile he made in her dreams, in her nightmares. Not when he was falling, but the moment before he hit the sign that said DANGER and his body was severed at the waist. But why was Hal’s smile on Angela’s face? It had to be a coincidence.
Angela began changing. Her eyes turned blacker than oil and her mouth crept open like a squeaky door in a haunted house. Her head tilted, hair swooped in front of her face and her skin became pale. For a moment Stephenie thought she might crumble into dust.
Then came a third tug on her finger.
The tug seemed more urgent this time, but still, it was gentle. A child’s hand was wrapped around her finger and Stephenie knew it was Carrie’s hand, which was good news indeed because if Carrie was pulling her finger Stephenie knew exactly where the girl was hiding and there would be nothing more to worry about, nothing at all. Nothing except the cold hard fact that a room full of strangers was chopped into a million pieces and somebody was responsible. Strangers don’t kill themselves when they step out for a bite to eat––no way, no chance, no how.
But the room wasn’t filled with dead people. The room was just the way you’d expect it to be: the staff were bustling about and the customers were enjoying their meals.
Except for Angela Mezzo.
Angela was sitting at the table with her happy face mug in front. Her eyes were black and her mouth hung open like someone had snagged it with a hook on a string and given the string a good yank.
Now she was about to say something.
Stephenie didn’t want to hear it, not a single word. Once Angela started talking everything would be so bad she’d want to scream.
She felt another tug on her finger. Then the hand slipped away and that was the end of it. The finger tugging was over. If Carrie had been there she was gone now. She was gone to wherever she may be.
Stephenie was alone. Alone in the room with the cheerful people that didn’t notice Angela’s eyes had turned black and the color was draining from her skin. She was alone in the room with a ghoul that was opening her mouth so horrifically wide that a rat could crawl from her throat with room to spare.
Now Angela did speak. She did. And when she spoke it wasn’t a woman’s voice Stephenie heard. It was a child’s voice. It was Carrie’s voice. Carrie’s voice was creeping free of that cavernous void that needed to be shut.
The voice said, “Mom?”
And Stephenie opened her eyes.
5
Angela Mezzo was indeed dead. Her lifeless body was lying awkwardly across the table. Her fingers were wrapped around the coffee mug like she was about to take a drink. The yellow happy face on the mug smiled in spite of the carnage around it.
Stephenie lifted her stare from Angela, but everywhere she looked there was a new horror waiting to be seen. The restaurant was a killing box, simple as that. It was a killing box that had been exhaustively used.
She said, “Carrie?” Her voice sounded weak and shrouded in terror. “Where are you?”
She stepped forward. Her foot brushed against Susan’s corpse. A spike of fear and panic gripped her with such strength she thought she’d faint. She turned quickly and reached for the door. Her foot slipped in the blood, not enough to knock her off balance; just enough to let her know what she was standing in. The walls seemed nearer; the ceiling seemed lower.
She pushed on the glass. The door opened, the bells sang and out she went.
She was outside.
Yes. Outside. Outside was good. The clean air and the open sky eased the claustrophobic feeling that had clutched her so tightly a moment before. She put both hands on her knees and breathed hard, like she had gone running. Her throat felt dry now, the sweat on her neck gave her a little chill.
This was bad, so very bad.
She stood up army straight and looked over her right shoulder. The swing was empty. Christina was gone. She looked over her left shoulder. Nothing.
The reality of the moment came rushing in, hitting her with enough power to knock her right out of her shoes.
Where is Carrie? Where’s my daughter?
At first she didn’t know what to do, what to think. The car was empty. The parking lot was empty. So what did that leave?
It left the restaurant; that’s what it left. It left that fucking slaughterhouse, the gore-zone, the abattoir. And she didn’t want to go in there. She didn’t even want to think about going in there.
Stephenie stumbled away from the restaurant like she had one too many at the local pub, more anxious now than anything else. She said, “Carrie? Carrie where are you?”
There was no answer.
“Carrie?”
Nothing.
Carrie was in the restaurant. She had to be. There was nowhere else to hide unless she, she––what? Wandered onto the highway? Sprouted wings and flew away? Disappeared into black-hole void like a spacecraft from a science fiction story?
She was inside. Goddamn it, she had to be inside somewhere.
Maybe she’s dead.
Stephenie spun around quickly, holding a hand at her chest.
Don’t think this way, she thought. Don’t think she’s dead, not even for a minute. My daughter isn’t dead, just misplaced. Whoever’s responsible for
this mess is long gone, which means there’s no danger here. None. So don’t start thinking Carrie is in trouble; it’ll only make matters worse.
She eyed the door.
The door looked the way you’d expect an old restaurant door to look: big and grimy with a large glass window. The bottom half had little splotches of dirt and mud clinging to the chipped paint. The glass was tinted dark and nearly impossible to see through. Behind the glass, a thin, dirty curtain hung from a cheap gold colored rod. The curtain needed to be cleaned. The rod needed to have its screws tightened, otherwise it would likely fall from the door before the season’s end.
Stephenie stepped towards the building and wrapped her fingers around the door handle. The handle felt like trucker sweat and french-fry grease. She tightened her grip; then taking a deep, stabilizing breath, she pulled the door open. Bells rang. The carnage became visible before she even stepped inside.
“Carrie?” She whispered.
The door closed behind her. The room was awful; it was also very quiet. But there was something, a sound of some kind. She wasn’t sure what the sound was but it was there, no louder than the buzz of an electric heater. It didn’t sound like a heater though. She didn’t know what it sounded like. Scratching? Was that it? Did it sound like something scratching the wall?
“Carrie? Are you here? Hello? Anybody? Is anybody… alive?”
No response.
Stephenie’s eyes found Angela again, but she didn’t want to look at the woman because Angela did one thing very, very well: she made Stephenie nervous––beyond nervous, actually. She made Stephenie feel like she was ready to die of anxiety. So she looked away, looked towards a dead body that was slumped against the counter, because that was better. Sure it was.