The Diner

A man walks into a diner. He had the unfortunate luck to break down on the most desolate stretch of highway. It had started to rain about a half mile back and he was beginning to lose hope when a beacon of hope in the form of a truck stop diner appeared before him. His boots hit the mat just inside the entrance just as the clock struck midnight. He sat down, ordered a slice of pie and a cup of warm coffee to help with the rain's biting chill. But something strange was off about this place it wasn’t all it seemed-

“Need a refill on at coffee sweetheart”

Clive startled from the files he was pouring over and looked up at the waitress. She snapped the gum between her cherry red lips and gestured with the pot of coffee in her hands to the cup half filled coffee that has long since gone cold.

“Ah-” Clive hurriedly shuffled his papers out of the way and handed the waitress, Lorraine according to her name tag, the cup “If you would be so kind.”

He tried his best to give his best calm smile but by the look on Lorraine’s face it must not have been too convincing. She quickly filled up the orange juice and turned to leave when she spotted something on the table and stopped mid spin. Her cherry red lips dipped into a frown as she cocked her head to the side.

“Whatcha got there?” she said, casting Clive a sideways glance.

Clive followed her original line of sight to the photo that he forgot to clean up from his file. In the picture was a man smiling big and bright. He had windswept brown hair and green eyes just as happy as his smile.

“It’s a photo of a man that went missing around here. Sources say that he was last seen here”

“Here?!” Lorraine’s eyebrows shot up and dropped her mouth open so wide her gum almost fell out of her mouth.

“If anyone went missin’ after visiting this place I would have heard about it. Not much goes on ‘round here and that is a months worth of gossip right there”

“Are you sure? It would have been about a month ago during that heavy rainstorm. Around the 15th. His name is Garrett Livens” Clive said, handing her the picture in case a closer look jogged her memory.

Lorraine studied that picture for a few moments. Her brows furrowed in deep concentration before relaxing again after a minute and handed Clive back the photo.

“I’m not sure” Lorraine said shaking her head, “I see a lot of guys come and go from here. It’s hard to keep track of all of ‘em. Especially a blonde man like him, Sorry.”

Clive took back the photo with a nod. He glanced at the man again and his wind swept blonde hair and put it back into his file. He didn’t blame her. The diner is the only place to stop for food and gas for miles. He figured that the turnover of customers here would be higher than most places and finding anyone on the staff to remember a single person, from a month ago no less, would be nothing short of a miracle. Lorraine left to continue her duties leaving Clive to ponder his case in silence. It wasn’t even a second before a flash of light lit the night sky and the sound of thunder rattled the diner shortly after. The rain came shortly after. Soft at first then mounted into a torrential down pour. It seemed that this night was beginning to shape up to be a night like when Mr. Livens disappeared.

Clive sat in silence while he began to pour over the case once more while listening to the sound of the rain. It was calming and helped him focus better. He didn’t know how much time had passed when he heard the sound of clicking heels heading his way. He looked up to see the familiar face of Lorraine once more.

“Sorry to bother you again Mr.-”

“Clive”

“Mr. Clive” Lorraine smiled and nodded slightly. “I was going about my work but I couldn’t help but be thinkin’ about that man. You said that he came on a rainy night? About a month ago?”

“Yes that’s right”

“Could you tell me more? Not sure If I’ll remember anythin’ but maybe there was something from that night that could have stuck out. I’m pretty sure I was on shift the 15th.”

Clive quickly nodded his agreement and gestured to the other side of the booth. Lorraine slid into the other side and turned her undivided attention onto Clive. A small chill raced down Clive’s spine the moment she turned her eyes to him but this woman could potentially give him the lead he needed to put this case to bed so he chose to ignore it.

Leafing through the case files Clive began from the beginning. Garrett Livens was a model citizen. He was also a beloved husband and father. He could do no wrong according to everyone Clive talked to. So him up and disappearing was something that nobody expected him to do. According to his wife Garrett left on a business trip about two weeks before his disappearance. The days leading up to it nothing seemed amiss but the trouble started when he came back. He began to act paranoid, as if something or someone were out to get him. Mrs. Livens said that he kept muttering about nonsensical things like “he should never have gone inside” or “it was as if they were digging up the past”. She tried everything to get him to tell her what happened but every time she did he would just shut down or lash out at her. She stopped asking after the third outburst.

After a few days Garrett seemed to go back to his former self. After a week he finally opened up to his wife about what happened. He told her about breaking down and finding this diner. He told her that something was off about it but he was cold, hungry, and wet so he pushed his concerns away. It was just after midnight and the place was almost deserted save for a waitress and the chef. But after a while strange occurrences began to happen. The diner began to morph and change. At times he felt that he had been in that diner before. The scariest feeling was when he felt like his mind was being ravaged from the inside out. As if his every thought was being torn out and examined. At that moment he tried to leave but it felt like his soul was rooted within the diner. He ran for the door but invisible hands tried to grab him and pull him back but somehow he managed to shake them off and flee. Then the moment he left the diner he woke up back in his car as if nothing ever happened. He tried to shake it off but every time he thought about it he felt as if he was back in that place.

For a while everything was fine and Mrs. Livens thought everything was finally back to normal. But one night as they were getting ready for bed there was rustling outside the window and Garrett looked out to check what it was. He hadn’t even looked for a second when he let out a blood curdling scream and dashed out to the door. His wife rushed outside just in time to see him speed away in his car. She tried to call him for a few hours to make sure he was ok but it always went to voicemail. That was the last time Mrs. Livens heard from her husband.

“Scary. Seemed like he had a few skeletons in his closet didn’t he?”

Clive looked up at Lorraine who now had a troubled look on her face. He reached out and gently squeezed her hand hoping to give her some reassurance.

“Though his wife wasn’t completely sure this would be the place Garrett-”

“Garret? Don’t you mean Grant honey?”

“What? I could have sworn-” Clive looked down at the page and there it was clear as day. Grant. How could he miss that? Must be the lack of sleep.

“Your right. She said Grant might have gone here so she told the police to check. But without hard evidence of his being here the police quickly nixed this place and moved their search elsewhere. That’s why she hired me”

“Oh are you some kinda P.I or something. Like that guy from T.V”

Clive straightened out his rumpled suit hoping to give her the impression that he was a competent private investigator. But anyone with eyes could see the sweat stains or the old suit jacket that was now one size too small on him. Lorraine gave him a small smile and Clive hoped that meant that she chose to overlook his clearly lacking visage and hoped she would think he was at least somewhat competent in his job.

Lorraine looked through the files again perhaps to help her remember Garrett when from somewhere within the diner a voice echoed out- “Ladies and Gentlemen it is that time of night. It’s the witching hour. So you know what that means! It’s time to take spooky tales from our callers and- Oh! It looks like we have someone on the line. Go ahead caller, what's your name and what's your story?”

A different voice crackled from where the original voice came from. It said a name that Clive could barely make out and started off their story by saying “It was a dark and stormy night-” before the voice was abruptly cut off.

“Ah sorry about that” Lorraine said coming out of the kitchen. Clive didn’t even realize she had moved. “Stan likes to listen to this show even though it comes on at midnight but I can’t handle that spooky stuff. Gives me the chills”

“It’s fine just caught me off guard for a moment”

Lorraine snorted out a laugh and said “Now where were we?”

“Ah we were-”

Clive stopped short when a dizzy sensation hit him. It felt like his very being was being turned inside out. One moment he was looking at Lorraine and the next his vision was completely white. His thoughts were slowly escaping him and he tried to grasp on to something, anything to stop this sensation.

A man walks into a diner. He had the unfortunate luck to break down on the most desolate stretch of highway. It had started to rain about a half mile back and he was beginning to lose hope when a beacon of hope in the form of a truck stop diner appeared before him. His boots hit the mat just inside the entrance just as the clock struck midnight. He sat down, ordered a slice of pie and a cup of warm coffee to help with the rain's biting chill. But something strange was off about this place it wasn’t all it seemed-

“Need a refill on at coffee sweetheart”

Clive startled from the files he was pouring over and looked up at the waitress. She snapped the gum between her bubblegum pink lips and gestured with the jug of orange juice-

Wait…pink? Clive looked closer and his eyes didn’t deceive him. Weren’t Lorraine’s lips red. He could have sworn it. Clive froze at the thought. Now that he thought about it, was he so sure about the color of her lips. This was the first time he saw Lorraine. In fact… how did he know her name?

Clive’s breath began to quicken when he felt a strange sensation take over his mind. In a blink his mind felt oddly clear and light. He looked back at the waitress and her cherry red lipstick. Yes, that's right. Cherry red. They had always been cherry red. Nothing seemed amiss here.

“You alright sweetheart?” The waitress said, tilting her head.

Clive nodded his head. Clearly the lack of sleep was beginning to get to him. He pushed his cup towards the waitress and glanced at her name tag. Terry. He blinked at it. Something about it didn’t seem right but he wasn’t sure why. Clive heaved a deep sigh and promised himself that once he was finished with this case he would take a long vacation and get some much needed relaxation.

Terry slid Clive his glass of milk and gave him a nod before turning to leave. Clive reached for his milk when he stopped short and stared at it. Wasn’t the waitress, Terry, holding a jug of orange juice? That couldn’t be right. Clearly he saw it wrong. He must have-

Lightning struck just outside the window and from somewhere deep within the diner a voice echoed “Ladies and Gentlemen-”. Clive sat in a confused daze. It wasn’t midnight yet. Why was this show airing? Once again another cold shiver ran down his spine. How did he know that? He knew it just as he knew that the waitress was holding a jug of orange-pot of coffee and that her name was Lorraine.

A cold sweat began to gather on Clive’s brow. He hadn’t put much credit into Grant’s, Garrett’s, story about the diner. But this was too much to chalk up to a trick of the mind. In that moment a pain hit Clive’s mind. It was as if a knife was rooting around and cutting into his very thoughts. This time Clive did everything he could to fight against this force. He wrestled hard with it and for a moment it felt as if this force was going to overwhelm him, but at the last moment he was able to shake it off.

Clive panted hard at the exertion. He braced his hands against the table for a bit more stability. He took a few deep breaths to calm his madly beating heart and when it finally calmed down he looked up to see Lorraine sitting right across from him.

“Pardon me sir I wasn’t expecting company so soon after the last one”

Lorraine smiled at Clive with the same smile from before but this time the smile didn't reach her eyes.

“What is this place”

“That’s the question of the day”

Clive clasped his hands in front of him, hoping that it would stop his hands from trembling. He didn’t know where he was but he knew that he was in danger. Clive waited patiently as he watched Lorraine turn away and a pondering look take form on her face. Time seemed to move slow as molasses when once again she turned her attention towards Clive and gave him an appraising look.

“Where do you think you are?”

Clive was dumbstruck. He didn’t know how to answer that question. He was in a place where nothing stayed static. It moved and shifted at will. He couldn’t trust his eyes let alone his mind anymore. Lorraine seemed to delight in Clive’s mental torment because she let out a soft laugh.

“Oh I’ll stop torturing you. Here how about this-” Lorraine leaned closer and a shock of pain radiated from Clive’s chest. He doubled over gasping for breath as he looked into her eyes. “You were kind enough to tell me a story so I should return your kindness. Let’s see. Where to start. Ah!”

A flash of lightning flashed once more outside the window. Rain began to fall. Softly at first but slowly turned into a torrential downpour. Lorraine leaned in close, cradling her head in both her hands. Her eyes were alight with excitement and her voice was just above a whisper.

A man walks into a diner, not realizing that he was already dead.