Nick instinctively checked for headlights before placing his head on the steering wheel and forcing his hands to release their death grip on the wheel. He cried for a few more seconds until his heart rate slowed back to a normal pace. He futilely told himself to stop thinking about Joel, at least until he could get off this God forsaken road. But he knew deep down it was going to be impossible and he felt guilty for even thinking it.
He thought again about the old man. He thought about how he had almost just killed himself on a deserted mountain road because of him. If he traced it all back, this whole thing was his father’s fault. Joel might still be in the back seat today if…
Then the old feeling was back.
It wasn’t the sadness that took hold of him. It was what came after sadness. He slipped into the anger like an alcoholic falling off the wagon. He knew he shouldn’t but it was so easy, and the first sip tasted so good. Once he let it take him over there was no point in restraint. If he had wanted to be in control, he wouldn’t have let himself slip into the rage in the first place. It blossomed in his stomach and warmed him. It was fueled by the fact that his father no longer had to live with what had happened. He was the lucky one. His brain was eating itself and along with any memory of the pain he had caused.
Nick slapped the steering wheel and then the dashboard. He kicked at the floorboards and punched off the rearview mirror. When he unleashed on the window his wedding ring broke the glass. The resonant click of his ring shattering the window wrenched him out of his fit. He stared at the mosaic of glass where his window had just been.
He knew he shouldn’t touch it but he couldn’t help himself. The lightest touch from his finger made the shattered glass drop in a shower on his leg, covering the floor. Rain began to blow in through the hole where the window had been.
He restarted the car and turned it in the direction he felt he should be heading. He turned up the heater and leaned forward to keep the spray coming in through the missing window from hitting his face. Nick smashed the gas pedal and blazed on into the night.
The road was foreign to him now. There were no landmarks to speak of and no way to tell if he was heading the right way. He trusted his instinct and kept the pedal down. If he was going the right way he would soon be at the park. If not, he would come to the last town he passed on his way in. Whichever it was, it would tell him which way was which.
Straining his eyes against the dark, he saw something ahead. In the distance, he could see a flashing ball of light. As he got closer the ball of light became a sign. The sign was in the shape of a giant arrow pointing to a small café, set back from the road on a small hill. Nick had never seen the restaurant before, but then, he had not been here in years.
Painted on the sign in a happy script were the words,
“The Kindly Stop Café”.
The lights in the lobby were off. Further back, in the main dining room, lights were on. Nick looked through the window for a few minutes searching for any sign, other than lights, that hinted that the place was not abandoned. As he pressed his face against the glass, a neon sign flickered to life in the window next to him.
“Open”.
He tried the door and it gave so he walked in. His presence was announced by a bell above the door. In the warmth of the lobby he realized how wet he was. His left side was drenched on top and his entire lower body was soaked. The flashing neon “Open” sign in the window behind him cast a red glow over the unlit lobby. There was a counter with an old cash register on his right and a set of fake leather couches off to his left. Next to the cash register was a round display case for pies. It was empty and looked like it had been for quite some time. Positioned at the entrance to the dining room was another sign that told him to seat himself. He checked the floor underneath him to make sure he was not leaving a puddle and then slowly, cautiously made his way across the lobby towards the dining room.
“Hello…” he called into the dining room before stepping through the doorway, “The sign says open”. There was no response. Considering the eerie silence of the place, he would have been more surprised if he had actually gotten a reply. He strained his ears trying to pick up any hint of life in the moldy old café. There was not so much as the clink of utensils coming from the back.
The dining room was windowless. The perimeter of the room was filled with high backed booths, which were upholstered in faded, red vinyl that was quilted with large, brass buttons. The light in the room came from sconces on the wall in between each booth. Every booth also had a framed black and white photograph hung behind it on the wall. The carpet was burgundy, or at least it had been once. Now it was uniformly stained so that it almost matched the phony wood paneling on the walls.
“How can this place be so old, and yet I have never seen it before?” Nick thought. But just as quickly as the thought came, it left again. Obviously, the place had been here for quite some time. He had probably just never noticed it. He must’ve never had a reason to stop, so close to where he was going. And why had he stopped now? His father was no more than a few miles away, lost and confused, waiting for Nick to come and…
Why had he pulled off the road? He didn’t remember deciding to turn off. He had seen the sign and the next thing he knew he was peering through the lobby window. He shook his head to clear it. He had stopped for directions, to make sure that he was going the right way. He would ask whoever worked here which way he was supposed to be heading to get to the mountain and then he would be on his way.
“HELLO! You have a customer!” Again he strained to listen and again he heard no sign of life. He swept the room with his eyes one last time and was about to leave when something caught his eye.
Above the booth in the farthest corner of the room was a picture in a frame, just like there was above all of the other booths. This picture though, Nick recognized. The same shot had hung in his parent’s house since before he could remember. Nick crossed the room and kneeled on the vinyl booth to get a closer look. The booth squeaked under his weight.
The photo was black and white. It was a picture of two men, one of them older than the other. He appeared to be in the kind of shape that can only be credited to a lifetime of hard work. The younger man was well built also, but didn’t have the look of weathered toughness that the other had. The men wore work pants, boots and tank top undershirts. Bags of tools were belted to their waists. The faces of the two men were the same. The only thing that differentiated one from the other was the effects of thirty additional years. They even wore the same expression. The “look-alikes” stared down the camera as if they were trying to sear a hole into the film with the sheer intensity of their gaze. They were positioned on opposite sides of the frame and the space between them was filled with the real subject of the picture.
The cabin looked different, but the same. The trees that Nick had climbed and swung from on ropes as a child were far smaller in the picture. None of the other cabins around it were built yet, and there would be no driveway put in for another forty years. Nick had grown up seeing the picture in his father’s den, but he had never studied it like he studied it now. He felt himself going back in time and becoming part of the snapshot.
“I didn’t hear you come in”, said a voice behind him. It was soft and old, but it made him jump nonetheless. Nick backed out of the booth and turned to face the hostess. She was an older woman. He couldn’t tell her age exactly; it was somewhere between sixty and eighty. She wore a long utilitarian skirt and a men’s short-sleeved button-down cotton work shirt. She wore a waitress apron that matched the greasy, burgundy carpet. Her hair was thin, but a striking titanium white. It was pulled back into a leather clip with a pin through it. She looked at him over the top of her half lens reading glasses. “I didn’t know I had a customer,” she said.
“I’m… The door was open…”
“Well, if the door is open, we’re open,” she said with a smile. “Is this where you are going to sit?”
Nick looked around
at the three dimensional still-life that was the Kindly Stop Café. Even if he had stopped here to eat, he didn’t think that he would have gone through with it. The lack of patrons was disconcerting enough; he could just imagine what sort of fare would come out of that kitchen. A good restaurant was never empty.
“I’m not here to eat. I just need directions.”
The hostess acted as though she hadn’t heard a word he said and went about pouring him ice water in a short amber glass and arranging a menu on the table.
“I’m sorry, miss—”
“Angie.”
“Angie?”
“You’re my only customer. We might as well be on a first name basis.”
“Angie, I can’t stay to eat. I need to be somewhere.”
“You are somewhere, darling,” she winked. “And you need to eat.”
“There’s someone waiting for me, I mean…”
“He’ll be there when you get there,” she patted him on the chest with one of her well worn hands and looked him squarely in the eye. “Trust me, he’ll be there.”
Nick considered protesting again, but a peaceful feeling of submission came over him and he eased back into the booth. She was right. It couldn’t hurt to clear his head a little before he faced the old man.
“That’s better,” said Angie. She reached over him and picked up the menu that she had just placed on the table. “As a matter of fact you won’t even need this. I’ve got something special prepared just for you.”
For the first time since he had entered it, the room felt warm. He laid his hands on the wooden table. It was warm, too. Nick studied the grain of the table, then his hands. He noticed that the arms of his coat were dry. The warmth of the room began to wash over him and the physical sensation slowly transformed inside of Nick into a sense of well-being. He thought back to Angie’s reassuring words and they now seemed true. He was somewhere. And for the first time since memory allowed, he did not need to be anywhere else. He listened for a sign of commotion from the kitchen, telling him that whoever was back there was busy preparing his dinner. He expected the clatter of pans or the tell-tale squeak of an oven door opening. It never came. There was not so much as the clink of silverware.
The warmth of the café grew. It didn’t actually get warmer, as in temperature. It got… better. The feeling of contentment that Nick had, sitting in the badly upholstered booth in the rickety old café warmed him from the inside. It was as if he had instantly been cured of a cold. Suddenly, he could breathe more freely than he had in years. His senses snapped to and sharpened. The smell of food, faint though it was, caught his nose. He chased the smell and it grew stronger. The most fascinating aroma he had ever smelled. His body was at total ease. He no longer felt encumbered by his own weight. He no longer felt the strain of unconsciously supporting his own mass. He simply… was and he felt incredible.
Then there was a sound, scarcely perceptible at first, but it began to rise. Like an orchestra warming up it started as a low hum, but within seconds Nick was able to pick out the clink of silverware and then… voices. He could not make out words but there were definitely voices. He scanned the restaurant to see who was making the sounds and saw that he was still alone.
But the room had begun to change. First, the well trampled trails in the carpet began to fade. The rutted routes of thousands of customer’s and waitresses footsteps over countless years came back to life in their original burgundy brilliance. The wood paneling was gone, now replaced by beautifully textured, deep green wallpaper. The crowded hum of a packed restaurant grew even louder. Then he saw the people.
One by one, the booths began to fill. In each booth, people were conversing cheerfully. Even a man that was holding the hand of a beautiful woman, one-third of his own age, was weeping out of joy.
Nick’s eyes took in the reborn Kindly Stop Café. Every booth was now occupied. In one corner, young lovers sat wordlessly, soaking up the comfort of each other’s embrace. In another, two middle-aged women held hands across the table and bowed their heads, eyes closed, locked in a silent vigil from which neither seemed willing to disengage.
Nick saw a father in another booth surrounded by his three young children. He went from hugging and kissing their heads to looking them in the eye while soaking up every word they offered. Any other time this would have put Nick into a tailspin of despair. He would feel gut shot by an overwhelming longing to hold his son just one last time. Now however, he felt something else. A tear came to his eye and another wave of warmth bathed him. He wanted to tell the man about his loss. He wanted to make him understand how lucky he was right now. He wanted the man to understand how something as simple as the brush of a child’s unruly hair on his cheek while he gave his son a kiss, could vanish forever…in an instant. How, once these things which you never noticed were taken away, they became the things you missed the most.
At that moment, the man looked up from his children and looked squarely at Nick. Nick was caught off guard by the man’s sudden gaze. They locked eyes for a moment. Each of them brimming with tears for reasons both the same and different. And then a smile broke across the father’s face and he nodded to Nick in understanding.
The kitchen door swung open and Angie backed through it, her arms laden with a tray of plates. The plates were piled with amazing looking food. Nick tried to discern exactly what the meals were, but a growing sense of euphoria made it impossible for him to focus.
Angie set the tray on a pedestal. The amazing aroma Nick had caught so faintly minutes ago, now filled his senses. He didn’t recognize a single dish on the tray. He had no idea what to be excited for. Angie took a plate and set it opposite Nick. As she set it down he looked at her in puzzlement. She simply winked and nodded her head towards the place where she had set down the plate. Nick turned his head.
In the seat that was empty just seconds before, was Nick’s father. He looked younger than he had just a few days before. His face no longer bore the weight of all of the suffering of the last couple of years. His frame, strong as ever, had lost the dejected slump of one whose mind had slipped away, taking with it all hope. He seemed buoyant—new. His father smiled at him for the first time since Joel had been gone. For the first time also, Nick smiled back.
Angie set a plate in front of Nick. He did not even look at it as his eyes and his father’s eyes were still locked. She reached across both of them and placed the last plate from the tray on the back of the table. She pulled back and clapped her pudgy hands together.
“I hope you enjoy. I’m sure you will.” The tray that had been brimming with food was now empty.
“Is all of this for us two?” asked Nick. Angie looked him directly in the face with a look that melted the last bit of discontentment that Nick had left in his soul. Then a tiny voice next to him broke the silence.
“It’s for me too, Daddy”.
Nick did not want to look. If he turned to the voice once more and there was nothing but an empty seat, it would be more than he could take. It would be the end of hope. He began to shake. A hand came down gently on his shoulder. It was old and papery but it rested on Nick with a gravity that belied its frailty. His father’s hand on his shoulder along with Angie’s encouraging nod gave him the courage to turn and hope, one more time.
This time the seat was not empty. Smiling up at him, with radiant perfection was his beautiful baby boy. The mere inches that separated them seemed like miles as Nick’s hands went out to Joel. Joel raised his tiny arms to his father and just for a moment, Nick felt the old gut shot feeling. This time though, it was a twinge of guilt because he didn’t believe what he was seeing. When he finally put his arms around the boy and drew him in, the pain vanished. When he felt the feathery brush of his son’s tussled hair against his cheek, he knew he was real.
He knew he would never let him go again.
Robin Parrish
You're in for a wild ride when you pick up one of Robin's books. Ever on the edge of where modern storytelling is
going, Robin's suspense/thrillers defy labels and refuse to be pigeonholed. Robin is a full-time writer and reporter. He and his wife and two children live in High Point, North Carolina.
Only One
"CANDIDATES, SEEKERS, AND DREAMERS. You have traveled far, prevailed over many challenges, and proven yourselves worthy.
"Thousands tried to reach this place, but only the five of you remain. Each equally noble, equally capable, equally ready for what lies ahead. You know the risks. As the entire world watches, you will each make your final attempt. We still do not know where it came from or where it leads. We know merely that it was sent to us."
A gentle breeze brushed across his face as Zak fought the urge to yawn, as the speaker -- the commissioner -- paused his speech for dramatic effect, before finishing with:
"For only one... can open the Door."
Zak had heard this phrase thousands of times now, yet despite himself, the magnitude of this moment caught up to him and his heart quickened once more. For years, Zak had dreamed of reaching this place. He could still remember how it all began on A-Day, as they called it.
Arrival Day.
The day the Door arrived on Earth. In a lovely courtyard in Ecuador, a few hundred feet away from a monument standing on the Equator, a massive, monolithic structure had simply appeared. Over five stories tall, its flat, metallic sheen gleamed brightly enough to be seen for miles away. Yet scientists had never identified exactly what its molecular structure was composed of.
Intrigue (Stories of Suspense) Page 18