CHAPTER 7
THE BREAKFAST CLUB
Cameron whipped the SUV into the parking lot next to the diner and pulled into the spot closest to the street. He hadn't even shut off the engine before Randal and Dustin jumped out of the car.
"Race you inside, fucker!" Dustin jeered at Randal before taking off like a rocket around the corner and into the diner. Randal raced off behind him, disappearing into the building, leaving Cameron alone with Taylor.
"Christ, those guys can be so immature," Cameron remarked. Taylor wasn't paying much attention; instead, she was focused on the building itself.
The Springwood Diner was situated on the corner of the street, four blocks from the school and just up the road from the comic shop. The place was done up in a style reminiscent of diners from the fifties, with the black-and-white checkerboard tile patterns, among other little details. But something about the building seemed familiar...
"Like it? It's brand new," Cameron said. "Well, not brand-spanking new; it's about ten years old. The old one burnt down back in the nineties."
"I can't shake the feeling that I've been here before," Taylor looked at Cameron, hoping for an explanation.
"Glitch in the Matrix," was the only thing he offered up as he walked around to the entrance, Taylor following him closely.
Inside the diner, it was like stepping back through time. The walls were the same checkerboard pattern as outside, but were decorated with fifties-era memorabilia, such as photographs of autos, movie stars, and several booths were mockups of era cars. Neon signs hung from several spots, and all the seats were red leather. It was a true fifties-style place.
Taylor spotted Randal and Dustin at the far end of the diner in a round corner booth. Jake was there as well, with a girl sitting in the booth with them and facing away from Taylor and Cameron, so all Taylor could see was the girl's auburn hair.
"Who's that?" Taylor asked as they started walking towards them. Cameron shrugged, but couldn't shake a fishy feeling that was brought on by the wide grins on Randal and Dustin's faces.
"Taylor," Jake spoke. "I'd like you to meet a very old friend of ours."
The girl turned to face Taylor with a smile, which quickly dropped when she saw Cameron. Cameron's face went blank for a moment, almost like he had seen a ghost.
It had been a very long time since he had seen those emerald-green eyes.
"Amy?" Cameron's eyes widened, almost as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Immediately, the girl jumped out of the booth, threw her arms around Cameron, and began kissing him wildly, causing Taylor to jump back in surprise. The girl, and Cameron, much to Taylor's amusement, started squealing in delight. She cast a cursory glance at Jake, who merely smiled and took the opportunity to remove himself from the booth.
"Oh my God, when did you get back?" Cameron gushed as he continued kissing the girl.
"Yesterday," she said in a stage whisper. "God, I missed you!"
"I missed you too, baby." Cameron smiled widely and turned to Taylor. "Taylor, this is Amelia, my girlfriend," he said.
"Hi," Taylor said, extending her hand. Amelia looked skittish at first, but a gentle nudge from Cameron helped her to return the gesture.
"Nice to meet you, Taylor," Amy said softly. The long lock of hair on her face blew apart ever so briefly, and Taylor caught a quick glimpse of her left eye; it was milky white in color with a faint blue tint on her iris, and Taylor knew instantly that Amy was blind in the eye.
"Jesus, what happened to your eye?" Taylor asked before realizing that she was potentially being rude. At once, Amy's face dropped in what Taylor would later describe as fear. But before she could apologize, however, Cameron offered up an explanation.
"It happened when she was fifteen," he said as he ushered Amy into the booth. "She had a dog, a Rottweiler that got excitable real easily. Jumped up and got her."
"Left me blind in my left eye," Amy lifted up her hair and showed it off to Taylor. There were also four faint scars going down at an angle across the eye.
"Oh my God," Taylor gasped. "I'm glad it wasn't worse."
"You and me both," Amy said as she squeezed into the booth. Cameron got in next to her, but Taylor decided to sit with Randal on the other side.
"Scoot your tush," Taylor gave Randy a playful shove deeper into the booth and sat down. Then, she looked up at Jake,
"Are you not gonna eat with us?" she asked.
"Not today," Jake shook his head. "I've got things to do before I head to the shop."
Taylor was somewhat taken aback by how vague he was being. He'd been this way for a few days now, and it was starting to get on her nerves. Why was he being so mysterious all of a sudden?
She didn't have much time to wonder because the waitress soon came up. She was quite a bit older than the others, but still looked incredibly young for a woman her age. Her hair was deep auburn, save for a single lock above her forehead, which was silver in color, and made Taylor think of "Rogue" from X-Men. In her hands, which were folded across her chest, was a pen and paper for taking orders.
"Dustin Wallace, is that you?" The waitress had an excited look on her face as she glanced around the table. "And you brought the whole crew! Christ, boy, where've you been? Haven't seen you in a while!"
"I've been getting ready for school last few weeks, Heather." Dustin said. A smile crawled across his face, which nearly caused Randal and Cameron to burst into fits of laughter, though Taylor was perplexed as to why. She also took the moment to realize that Jake had vanished.
"It's senior year for all of you, isn't it?" Heather looked down and noticed Taylor for the first time. "You, too?"
Taylor nodded eagerly, and Heather continued. "You'll love it here, sweetie. I graduated from here myself."
"Really?" Taylor asked.
"Class of '84. Are we all getting the usuals today?" Heather pulled out her pen and paper and looked around the table.
"We're kinda on a time crunch this morning, actually," Dustin said to the waitress. "So a stack of flaps, some pig meat, and barn rocks for everyone."
"Can do," she said. "Bacon, sausage, or ham?"
"Bacon!" Randal, Dustin, and Cameron shouted simultaneously.
"I'll have ham," Amy said. Heather looked at Taylor, who softly said, "Sausage."
"Eggs?" Again, Dustin, Randal, and Cameron were nearly simultaneous with their answer of "scrambled." Taylor requested "scrambled," as well, though Amy was the oddball with "sunny side up."
"Alrighty, we'll have these out ten minutes." Heather said as she ran off for the kitchen.
"She's nice," Taylor said. "I guess you know her?"
"A little bit," Dustin said. Both Randal and Cameron sniggered loudly.
"He used to work for her," Cameron said.
"He used to fuck her, too," Randal laughed.
"I think he still does," Cameron added with a chuckle.
"Lay off, guys," Dustin whispered. "Don't everyone need to know my business…"
"Heather got your business, know what I mean…?" Cameron nearly gave himself an asthma attack from laughing so hard. Dustin turned to Taylor.
"Don't listen to these chuckleheads; story is, I used to work here a few summers back. I was here for a couple years, saving up the money to get my first car. Heather was my trainer, and later my supervisor."
"And later, your lover," Randal added, a comment which rewarded him with a jab in the ribs by Dustin's elbow.
"Yes, we did have sex," Dustin admitted. "Once. Which is one more time having sex than this bozo's ever had!"
Now it was Randal's turn to get defensive. "I have too had sex!"
"Yeah, with Molly Palmer and her five sisters, perhaps," Cameron shot.
"No, he's had sex with Pamela Hand-erson, too," Dustin added.
"Scarlett Jo-hand-son," that one from Amy.
"Lindsay Lotion?" Taylor suggested. Randal's face went beet red, and he buried his head into his arms on the table, barely able to contain his laughter. Dustin was howling himself.
"I think that one may be our winner," Cameron suggested. At that moment, Heather came by with a tray full of coffee mugs.
"Anybody for coffee?" Everyone nodded, so Heather sat the tray down on the table. Everyone grabbed a mug, though Randal and Dustin both reached for the blue one. A quick game of rock-paper-scissors later, Dustin was sulking with the ugly brown one while Randal waited for Heather to return with the pot with a wide smirk.
"So are you really a virgin?" Taylor asked Randal.
"No, I'm not. In fact, I lost it before any of these jerkwads did." Cameron and Amy flashed each other a look, but said nothing.
"Allegedly," Dustin said. "It was during the game homecoming last year. He claims he snuck off with Sara Bell to the band room during the second quarter. Well, a few months later, we all learn that she's pregnant. Well the timeline fits, and that would normally be the smoking gun in his favor. But she's claiming the baby isn't his, so we have no solid proof one way or the other."
"So either he dodged a bullet, or one of them's lying," Cameron added.
"I don't know anything, except that I had sex with Sara Bell on homecoming night," Randal laughed confidently.
"What about you, Taylor? Still the proud owner of the v-card?" Dustin asked. There was a dull thud from under the table, and Dustin's face dropped like a stone. Randal smiled smugly and pulled his balled up fist out from under the table.
"Fucker…" Dustin whispered breathlessly in a slightly higher tone of voice.
"That's not a very nice thing to ask a lady," Randal as he cracked his knuckles. Before Dustin had the opportunity to ask anything else, Heather came back with a small tray of different flavored syrups.
"Food will be out in just a moment, guys. What happened to you?" Heather asked as she looked at Dustin, clearly in testicular agony. "Does he need an icepack?"
"He'll be fine," Randal insisted. "Unless you have one for his pride…"
"Alrighty, see you kids in just a sec with your food."
Thirty minutes later, the food had been brought out and nearly completely demolished by all except Amy, who was taking her time with it.
"So how long have you two been together?" Taylor asked Cameron.
"We started dating when we were about fifteen, so three years now, a little over."
"I'm jealous. I've never been able to keep a guy longer than four months," Taylor added as she took a sip of her drink.
"Randal's record is twenty minutes," Dustin laughed.
"And where's your girlfriend, jackwipe?" Randal mocked.
"She's currently in the kitchens, brewing another pot of coffee." The whole table was disturbed by a watery snort, which turned out to have come from Taylor, who had been in the middle of taking a drink when Dustin said that and had wound up blowing her soda out her nose. The drink blew out of her nostrils and onto the table like liquid buckshot, spraying her's and Randal's plates with Dr. Pepper.
"Oh fuck!" she shouted as she pulled a napkin to her nose, a shout that was half-embarrassment, half-pain. "That shit burns!"
"Good thing it wasn't coffee," Cameron joked.
"It's not funny!" Taylor shouted, but her uncontrollable giggling betrayed her attempt to be serious.
Suddenly, there was a clinking of metal right next to Taylor's ear. Still smiling, she turned to look at it. There were four knives on each of the fingers on the hand of the man standing over her! He wore an apron that appeared to be a shade of Christmas-green underneath, but was covered with dark red blotches of what looked like blood! The man himself was older, bald and with a short beard of gray. He smiled wide, almost grinning, and said…
"Can I take your plate, sweetheart?"
Taylor looked back at the hand, which was in fact only holding the knives, not attached to them in any way. She glanced back at the apron, and discovered that the blotches were clearly just dried ketchup.
"Yeah, please," she said, feeling a great sense of relief.
"Anyone else?" the man asked, and everyone except Amy, who still had food on her plate, nodded. The man grabbed the plates and then looked down at Amy.
"Need a box, sweetheart?" he asked kindly.
"Yes, please," Amy nodded.
"I'll have Heather bring you out one," he added with a smile as he left with his cart.
...
"Thank you for breakfast," Taylor said as her and Randal walked down the hallway of Springwood High. Dustin was walking briskly behind them, but wasn't paying the least bit attention to the pair ahead of him. "I think that's the first time I've gone out anywhere since I moved."
"Well I'm glad I was able to do that for you," Randal replied with a wide smile. "If you want, we could do it again another day." Taylor flashed him a brief smile, but gave no answer; instead, she looked down at the sheet of paper in her hands, which told her what her locker number was and the combination for it.
"Locker four-twenty-six… Do either of you know where that is?" she asked.
"That's a senior locker. Those are right over here," Dustin said as he squeezed between Randal and Taylor to get ahead of them. Taylor followed close behind until Dustin came to a stop next to a short row of isolated lockers just down the hall from the office.
Unlike the other lockers, which were short and double-stacked with built-in locks, these lockers were old school full-length tall lockers with rotating combination locks hanging from the handle. The lock on Taylor's was quite beaten up.
"Shit," Dustin said. He grabbed the lock and gave a quick yank down, opening the shackle with a satisfying click. "They gave you the bum lock."
"What does that mean?" Taylor took the lock from Dustin and looked it over, closing the shackle and then pulling it open again without entering the combination.
"It means you need to get yourself a new lock," Randal added. "If you don't, people are gonna go through your locker and steal your crap."
"Can I get one from the office?"
"You can try, but they typically don't hand out new locks," Dustin said. Just then, the bell sounded for five minute warning. "What's your first class?" Dustin asked when the bell stopped.
"I have AP English with Mrs. Shaye," Taylor said.
"Shit, that old bat's been here longer than the school she works in," Randal laughed.
"I figured she would have got the principal job when Mr. Shaye passed away."
"What happened to Mr. Shaye?" Taylor asked.
"Car wreck," Dustin answered quickly.
"Fell asleep at the wheel," Randal added. "It was a huge deal when it happened."
"May he rest in peace," Dustin crossed himself, and then tapped Randal on the shoulder. "Come on, Mr. Scott is waiting for us." Dustin ran off down the hall and Randal was about to go after him when he felt Taylor's hand on his shoulder. He quickly turned back to face her.
"Were you serious about wanting to go out again later?" she asked him.
"Uh... Well, I…" Randal stammered for a moment before regaining his composure. "I-Yes, I did." He nervously popped the knuckles on his hands as he spoke. "If, you know, you want to, and all that-"
Taylor quickly put a finger on his lip, and he instantly shut up.
"You talk too much," Taylor smiled widely. "What are you doing Saturday?"
Randal crossed his eyes to look down at Taylor's fingers, and his mind drew blank. He opened his mouth to speak a rather eloquently worded sentence that would have conveyed his desire to take her out to dinner, and perhaps a movie, and then a trip to the fountain at the center of Springwood Park, but the only word he managed to get out was nowhere close to that.
"Xbox," he said, but he quickly caught himself and tried to say his real idea. However, Taylor answered before he could.
"Sounds like a date. I'll bring the Hot Pockets." She smiled brightly at him and turned to walk towards the office. Randal tried to watch her as she went, but she had already disappeared into the crowd of students. When she was gone, Randal spent a moment to attempt to process what had just happened, but finally shrugged it off and accepted it.
Taylor looked back at the crowd for Randal, but couldn't see him. She smiled wide and bit her lip in excitement. She couldn't remember the last time she had been excited to go out on a date with a guy, but it was before her parents had died.
She pulled out her phone and was about to text Carson what had just happened (not that he would really care), but she overheard a loud whispering coming from a door nearby. She looked up and realized it was the counselor's office, and the door was cracked slightly open. She walked in closer in an attempt to hear what was being said.
"I'm telling you, there is nothing to worry about. Freddy Krueger is dead," a woman's voice said. Taylor swore the voice sounded familiar, but she couldn't immediately place it. "He's been gone for years, and there's no reason to think he would pop back up now just because someone is in his house."
The woman's voice wasn't loud, but she was clearly speaking angrily to someone, perhaps over the phone. However, Taylor heard the response loud and clear.
"He has before, or do you remember? Lori Campbell and her dad moved in to that house, and then it all went to shit. And that was after a decade!"
No, it couldn't be! Was that Jake's voice?
Taylor looked around and, realizing that nobody was paying her any attention, she slipped in through the door way and into a short hallway with a large glass window to her left. The blinds were closed, so the people arguing inside couldn't see her, but she ducked under a table near the door into the room anyway.
"And what do you think we should do? Just demolish that house with that girl and her family living inside?"
"Better late than never," Jake muttered. Taylor's jaw dropped; were they talking about her? There was silence for a moment, and then the woman spoke again.
"If he does come back, then we'll all be ready for him. We've already taken him on once, and in the three years since then, we've all gotten stronger. And maybe this new girl can help us."
Their whispering got quieter and Taylor had a hard time making out what they said next, but the next thing she heard clearly was Jake saying, "I'm sorry," and then a few seconds later, his footsteps walking out the door. She bit her lip to keep from making a sound as he walked past and out the door into the main hall.
The desk suddenly moved and Taylor gasped, quickly looking up and seeing Carla, the woman from the office, standing over her. Taylor tried to catch her breath from the sudden fright.
"Go to class," Carle said, nodding her head towards the door. Taylor couldn't have gotten out of there fast enough. She bolted up and made a beeline for the door.
Once she was out and down the hall, she stopped to catch her breath and to wonder what Carla and Jake were talking about.
She had many questions, such as who Lori Campbell was, and were they referring to Taylor's new house?
And who was Freddy Krueger?
Proceed to next chapter...
