Lou's Diner

I fled the night I found the money.

My husband didn’t attend his mother’s funeral, but he was there for the posthumous legal proceedings that awarded him his inheritance. I knew he’d received a hefty sum, but, given his paranoia, I assumed he wouldn’t cash a check that large. As it turned out, I was wrong. Nate must have thought our steel, padlocked shed was safer than the rickety town bank with its half-asleep teller.

I found the windfall when I went to look for cleaning rags. The plastic-wrapped stash, $20,000 in hundred-dollar bills, was neatly stacked and labeled with “C/o Nathan R. Walker.” I quickly put the padlock key back into my husband’s underwear drawer. Hours later, after he returned home from the bar and passed out, I retook it. Before I slipped back into the shed, I rolled him on his side as a parting gift.

I heard a fox screaming in the forest as I hefted my purse over my shoulder and took one last look at our home. The windchimes on the wraparound porch sparkled in the moonlight, and the air smelled like woodsmoke.

Trailed by the icy stars in the sky, I walked two miles through the woods to the town border, where there was a 24/7 used car lot. During the trek, I picked up a rock and smashed my phone. The sound of stone striking metal echoed through the trees. I buried the fragments beneath a rotted log.

At the lot, I saw an old Ford and didn’t bother to haggle. The clerk barely looked at me when I handed him $1,500 in cash. I threw in an extra $40 for two gas cans.

I filled the tank and cans at a station outside of town and started driving.

I avoided main highways, so road signs were few and far between. Miles of plains, hills, and cornfields melted into a steady, golden-brown blur. I drove for hours before the hunger in my stomach became unbearable.

“Lou’s Diner,” in red-and-white lettering, caught my eye just seconds after I decided to stop, as though I’d willed it into existence. The sign was a jagged tooth protruding from asphalt gums, and only a few cars dotted the parking lot of the squat little building.

The clock on the dash revealed it was late morning. Surely Nate wasn’t awake yet. I had to eat at least one meal before he reported the money stolen, and my run became a sprint.

The glass door to Lou’s was marred with grease-stained handprints. The waitress greeted me politely, fidgeting with her apron and cap. When she reached for a stack of menus, I noticed a thick buildup of black dirt under her fingernails.

“Right this way,” she said, leading me to a booth. “What can I get you to drink?”

“Just water, please.” I paused. “And a chocolate milkshake.”

The waitress scribbled my order into a black notebook. “Coming right up.”

Most of the other customers ate alone or in pairs. A denim-clad man, buried behind a newspaper, sat at the counter. I checked the headline, half-expecting to see something about a wife and stolen cash. Instead, “KNOX MINING FLOOD KILLS TWELVE,” glared at me. Sad, but I breathed a sigh of relief.

A mother and son sat in the corner near a jukebox. The boy had on a cap with a propeller. Even when he moved, the propeller stayed still. I wondered if he was the one who’d left the handprints on the door.

“Poor Little Fool” by Ricky Nelson popped up on the jukebox, and my foot tapped to the beat. When the waitress returned with my drinks, I asked her, “What city are we near?”

“City?

“Yeah, like where’s the closest place to stop?” I knew from the few road signs I’d passed that I was a mile past the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. I needed to change my hair, clothing, and car.

She smiled. “Oh, that would be Jenkins Township. It’s real friendly.”

I nodded. “Great, thanks.”

I was halfway through my milkshake when I noticed I was being watched.

At first, it was just the mother and son. She kept glancing at me from across the room, quickly looking away when I caught her. Her son was less subtle. I waved at him, but his flat, unblinking expression didn’t change.

I understood. I knew how small towns could be towards outsiders.

“Ready to order?” The waitress had returned. I felt more eyes on me as I looked down at the menu. The air in the diner was surprisingly humid, and a trickle of sweat curled down my back.

“Sure, can I get a burger and fries?” I said. “Oh, sorry, I meant the ‘Leave It to Beaver Burger’ and ‘Fred Astaire’s Famous Fries.’” I chuckled at the names as she wrote them down.

“What’s so funny?”

I jumped, snapping my head up. A customer in a tan trench coat and tie had joined the watch party.

“Sorry?” I said, taken aback by his sour expression.

“Why are you laughing?” I saw the glint of a badge tucked into his right breast pocket. Did he recognize me? Had Nate already reported the money stolen?

I knew my husband would awaken at some point, but I didn’t think it would be this early. Maybe my timing had been wrong, and my face was currently being blasted on all stations.

“Oh, no, the names are just cute,” I replied. “In a good way.”

He gave a watery, hacking cough and sipped his coffee.

The man reading the paper turned another page.

I took a closer look around. The handprints on the door had been made from the inside. I saw more prints on the windows, and some were smeared as if the fingers had been dragged across the glass. The untouched cup of water on my table had turned a brackish, briny shade of green. I stood up, the back of my neck prickling. A primal instinct hammered in my skull. Something’s wrong.

The jukebox switched to “The End” as I walked up to the counter and motioned for the waitress.

“Excuse me, ma’am?”

She looked at me, and I saw that her nose was running. Watery liquid dripped from her left nostril and dampened her collar.

“Can I get my food to go? I have to leave.” My voice cracked. “Sorry.”

“No refunds.” She scratched her face, leaving a smear of black dirt on her cheek.

The music cut off.

“Actually, I’m just going to go. It’s okay.” I turned back to my booth, only to find the newspaper man sitting in it. I blinked. In less than a second, he’d moved from the counter to the table without me seeing. He flipped another page.

He was sitting on the side where I stashed my purse.

“Excuse me,” I repeated. “Give me my purse. This isn’t funny.”

Flip. I squinted at the paper’s date. January 2, 1959.

“It was funny to you earlier,” I heard the man with the badge say. He barked another thick, wet cough. The boy in the corner giggled.

“Move over.” Tendrils of panic spread from my gut to my chest. I began to breathe faster, nostrils flaring as I sucked in hot, damp air.

Flip.

My purse had the money and my car keys. I couldn’t leave it.

“Hey.” I yanked the paper down.

Horror stared back at me, and I screamed.

The man’s pallid face was bloated and gray, eyes swollen with broken blood vessels. His blue tongue lolled through black lips, and greenish water gushed from his mouth. The river splashed onto the table and down to the floor, seeping into my shoes.

Adder-fast, the man grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards him as his jaw stretched impossibly wide. I caught glimpses of broken teeth as the water from his mouth soaked my clothes.

The smell of smoke and dirt stung my nose, then all was still.

I jerked awake. I was sitting in my booth, a burger and fries in front of me. My milkshake had been refilled.

The diner looked the way it had when I first walked in, with no one staring and conversation buzzing cheerfully. The boy with the propeller hat rolled a race car across the table as his mother read a LIFE Magazine. My gaze shot towards the counter. The man was still there, and I froze as he put the paper down.

My shoulders relaxed when I saw that his face was no longer waterlogged. Our eyes met, and he shot me a blue-eyed wink.

I scrabbled for my purse. Relief flooded my body when I realized everything was still there. I wrapped my burger in a napkin and stood up, not daring to take my eyes off the monster I was sure I’d seen moments ago.

“You’re leaving?” the waitress asked. The dirt on her cheek was gone, and her nose no longer ran. I looked down. Her oval-shaped nails were clean and painted red.

I gave a weak nod.

She frowned. “Well let me get you a box, at least,”

I followed her to the counter. “KNOX MINING FLOOD KILLS TWELVE” still headlined the man’s paper. I got closer. The byline read, “Illegal digging caused the Susquehanna to flood mine galleries.”

“A second cup of coffee when you’re ready, Peggy,” he called. According to the nametag sewn onto his denim work shirt, his name was “Louis.” Louis caught me looking at him and winked again.

The waitress, Peggy, returned with a cardboard box and steaming mug.

“So, will you stay in Jenkins?” she asked as she took the burger from my limp hand and placed it in the box.

“No, actually.”

“That’s a shame. It’s a real nice area.”

“Just gotta keep on the road,” I said. “Thanks.”

I walked through the clean, print-free door and ran to my car. I threw my purse on the front seat and peeled out of the parking lot.

I was a mile down the road when I saw Lou’s Diner again.

“What…” I muttered. It was the same red-and-white sign. The diner itself was also unchanged. The cars parked in front were identical to the ones in the lot a mile before.

I sped up.

Five miles passed, along with five Lou’s Diners.

I looked for other cars to flag down, but there were none. The pavement was a dark vein under skin of blue sky.

Two more miles. Two more Lou’s.

Tears streaming down my face, I finally stopped at number nine. I left the car running and threw open the re-smudged diner door. “What is this?”

There was no newspaper to hide Louis this time. He laughed, water pouring again from his mouth as he fixed me with a red, pinpricked gaze. I screamed, ran back outside, and sped out of the parking lot. As I started down the highway, the sun went dark. The golden light disappeared like water through a sieve.

I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a wall of briny water rushing towards my car. Pale, drowned bodies swam in the surge like manatees. The tidal wave, so huge it blocked out the sky, was the same greenish shade that had come from Louis’ mouth. Behind the bodies, bigger, darker things stirred, their movements hinting at colossal depths. I slammed on the gas, reaching ninety miles per hour.

I wasn’t fast enough. The tidal wave slammed into my car, hurling it like a toy. Millions of gallons of water smashed through my windows, filling my mouth and lungs.

In the moment before drowning, I tasted wet coal.

I woke up in Lou’s Diner to the sound of “Splish Splash” by Bobby Darin playing on the jukebox. A burger and fries steamed on a plate in front of me. My milkshake had been refilled.