Koffi at Midnight
The recession was a difficult time for all of Beach City, but an especially trying time for its restaurants. Pancake n' Pals, BBQueen, Max's Café, and other long stay family eateries had had no choice, but to close up shop for the final time.
Not Fish Stew Pizza though. Not on Koffi's watch. He'd sooner starve than throw in the towel. And when it became clear that this economic crisis wasn't going to let up any time soon, that's exactly what he did.
He starved the dough.
He starved the sauce.
He starved the toppings
He starved the cheese.
He even starved the light bulbs.
Nanafua was devastated. "How dare you skimp on the pies? How dare you cheat your customers? How dare you hollow out your legacy? It's in your name! If your father was here..."
But he wasn't there. Koffi wished he was. His father had been a stern, diligent man. Maybe he could've helped. And with Kiki too young to work the kitchen and Jenny too lazy to assist - TOO lazy? Just being a little lazy was too much! - Koffi would've welcomed some divine intervention. Of course, none came. Koffi had to help himself. So he decided to help himself a little harder.
When his mother stumbled on him doing so, they were both speechless at her discovery. For the next three days, no words left her lips. Then on the fourth, she had but one thing to say: Beware.
She might've cursed him, Koffi thought. He almost wished she had. Everything that followed might have made more sense if that had been the case.
Lazy, little Jenny - always dragging her feet - limped home with tears running down her face, saying that a dog had bitten her on the ankle as she passed. That was just the start of it.
A chewed through wire.
A punctured tire.
Stool on the stoop.
Missing keys.
The strays that hung around the block all-day and scampered off with the falling sun
"Beware."
What Koffi wouldn't give to pin it all on his mother, but inside he knew it was his responsibility. So he tightened his belt a few more notches and stayed out after dark even longer.
Then came the perfect day. No pungent presents on the curb. Nothing of his marred or misplaced. Not a single mangy fleabag in sight. And business had been good.
Incredibly pleased with himself, he willingly approached his mother and in a voice dripping with contempt asked, "Beware? Hah! Beware of what?!"
His severity was answered with a small, sad smile, "Soon."
That night, Koffi couldn't sleep. Not that he wasn't tired; he was exhausted. But more than that, he felt tense. He felt sick. He felt like he was being watched.
THUD
In seconds, Koffi had tumbled out of bed and grabbed the aluminum baseball bat he had washed just hours prior.
He came down the steps slowly, carefully, recalling which of them he could walk on without making a noise. When he arrived in the restaurant proper, he noticed that the door leading outside was still in place and every window in sight remained intact. He stole a careful glance at the bolted cupboard where they kept their lockbox and silently rejoiced when it too appeared untouched.
The smell was rather strange though. What was that? From over the counter, he sniffed at the air in the hopes of finding the source of the odor and eventually thought to look down. Then he saw that whatever had made that noise had left something behind. Something torn and broken. Someone.
Koffi didn't scream. Rather, he called up the authorities about what he had found and waited for them outside of Fish Stew Pizza. By the time they arrived - no blinking lights or sirens as per his request so as not to wake his daughters - he had stopped shaking and had wiped all the tears from his eyes.
Beach City was far from a regular town, so the police that tried to protect it afforded themselves extraordinary allowances in credulity. Obviously the man on the restaurant floor had been savaged by a feral animal, possibly several, and had crawled his way into the store in search of help before expiring. How he had managed that with all the doors and windows still sealed, they shrugged. Hopefully we can find that out.
They never did, but as they were about to leave with the body, the officer in charge assured Koffi that he was aware of how hard his family was struggling and he'd keep things as quiet as he could so it wouldn't hurt business. In the dawn's creeping light, Koffi saw that the man was one of the restaurant's regular customers. If only more of them had been so loyal.
Koffi received a call the following week. The mauled man had been a drifter, a vagrant, a John Doe in a town where everybody knows your name. Don't loose sleep over it.
Koffi still did sometimes.
He quickly came up with new ways to pinch pennies, and the pies returned to a semblance of their former glory. Jenny and Kiki would have to stop going to school for a while to help him in the store and repeat a grade when things got better, but that was fine. Jenny had been failing all her classes anyway and Kiki...well, maybe they could put this on her college resume when she was older.
Naturally, the two of them were quite upset at this They nagged him to no end, but Koffi knew he'd have the last laugh. One day he'd show them what he had hidden from the police. One day he'd show them the foot-long piece of cardboard laid atop the slashed, desecrated body of that poor, nameless man. They'd understand then.
Years later, he can still remember every single detail of that tucked away artifact. How light it had been when he had lifted it. How damp it was with human fluids and something else. How it had smelled of dead fish and wet dog. How even in the dark, he could still make out what was written on it, the letters moistly glistening when they caught the light of the moon:
Stop
Serving
Us
The End
Author Note: Would you believe that I thought this up while I was eating? Happy Friday the 13th. Take heart. It's Valentine's Day tomorrow.