Chapter 5
"Yesterday with eyes away, the briefness of a moment,
As in a blinding flash of light the world came remade,
Vague my life, a distant shadow filtered through my mind,"
-Within, by the Crüxshadows
"My, my, up a bit late, aren't we Mr. Gardner?" Kelly Aprils laughed, pulling a notepad and pen out of her apron.
"I don't know," Samuel Gardner sighed, "I just couldn't sleep, and some time around half past midnight, I started getting hungry. So, half an hour later or so, here I am, ordering a cheeseburger and a 7-up."
"Oh come, come now, surely you can pick a better drink than a 7-up to go with that burger."
"Nah, no caffeine in it, don't want to be up any later than I already am."
The bell hanging over the door chimed as someone walked into the diner. Those who looked up to see the source of the footsteps were not surprised by what they saw. A man with a slightly dirty black sweatshirt and torn jeans walked through the door. He looked slightly dazed, as though he were in that state of waking from a surreal dream. At the point where the dream still seems real, and the world of the waking to be the one which is unreal. The man looked at Kelly and his gaze lost its dreaminess as a wry smile spread across his face. While Kelly felt the man looked familiar, she couldn't quite place who he was.
"Table for one please," the man said. Michael grabbed a menu and showed the man to the only open table, the one at the front of the diner. All the while, though, the man kept staring at Kelly with that wry grin on his face.
After Kelly arrived with his drink, Samuel Gardner tapped her on the shoulder, "Who's that man who keeps staring at you?" he whispered.
"I don't know, but he's starting to make me nervous."
"Hey, can I have a word with you in the back?" Michael asked, coming up and tapping Kelly on the shoulder.
"Yeah…" Kelly answered, still gazing nervously at the man who was staring at her from the seat by the window. "Okay, what is it?" she asked once they'd gone back into the kitchen.
"That guy who's staring at you wants you to be his waiter, not me."
"What?"
"Yeah, so, uh, you wanna take him?"
"Guess so," Kelly sighed, "I mean, hey, he'll probably try an' make a good impression by leaving a big tip."
"Probably right," Michael chuckled.
"Alright, what'll you have?" Kelly asked the strangely familiar man at the table by the window.
"Just give me a slab of raw meat and a glass of water," the man snarled.
"You know you're gonna get sick if you just eat raw meat, right?"
"Who's the one paying?"
"Good point."
About a minute later, Kelly came back with the slab of beef on a white plate in her left hand and a glass of water in her right. As she set the raw meat down in front of the strange man, some of the blood that had dripped from the meat spilled from the plate onto Kelly's apron and dropping from there onto her dark navy blue and white Converse sneakers. Looking down at this, Kelly muttered a few obscenities.
The man grabbed the huge hunk of cow flesh in both hands and raised it up to his mouth. He sunk his teeth into the meat and pulled his head back to tear off enough to fill his mouth. He messily chewed the meat without closing his mouth. Blood from the meat dribbled down his chin and stained his sweatshirt. He soon washed down the bloody flesh by gulping his water, which likewise ran down his chin.
After staring disgustedly at this for a while, Kelly went back to the kitchen to see if Samuel Gardner's meal was ready yet. She returned to the dining area with the preacher's cheeseburger and soft drink. Sam looked up and when he beheld the strange man by the window, it was as though a veil had been torn away from in front of his eyes. The man's flesh was beginning to rot and his throat had been torn out. In this sudden burst of insight, Sam realized that the reason the man ate so messily was that so nobody would notice when things fell out of the area where his throat had once been. The rotting man suddenly rose to his feet, staring intently at Sam.
"BE THEIR SHEPHERD!" cried an echoing voice that only Sam could hear; it was a very familiar voice, his own in fact, though more thunderous, more resounding, more authoritative.
"Everyone! Get to the back of the building!" Sam shouted as he stood up, knocking over Kelly in his hurry. He pulled his silver cross on a leather string off of his neck and brandished it toward the creature. "Stay back!" he screamed as the cross began to give off a brilliant white glow.
Everyone was panicking as they ran toward the back of the building. Kelly, however was still laying on the floor, trying to figure out why everybody was shouting. She looked up and one moment she saw the strange restaurant patron who'd been staring at her all night, and the next, she realized why he was so familiar, he was the throat-less man that she'd stepped on yesterday. A bit of his flesh soaked in the saliva from his gaping maw fell down onto her apron and she become conscious of the fact that he was rotting while he stood.
"Oh fuck…" Kelly whispered. Then, she heard a voice that she'd never before heard while she was awake.
"This is to be your cross…" whispered the voice that, in her dreams, had always belonged to Jesus. Then, Kelly pulled herself to her feet and knocked the rotting man to the ground with a strength that she'd never had before and held him pinned to the ground by his shoulders. The man's left shoulder blade shattered beneath Kelly's newfound power. One of the man's rotting yellow teeth sunk into one of the waitress's wrists. "There's a service entrance in the back of the kitchen," Kelly shouted to Samuel Gardner, "Get the people out through there!"
A glowing ward surrounded Samuel and the people who had no idea what was going on as they made their way to the kitchen. Then, the rotting man pulled his legs up to his chest before raising them up into the air with as much strength as he could muster; this was, unfortunately, enough strength to knock Kelly off of his chest and flying into the wall.
The monster rose back up onto his feet and began shambling toward Kelly, who was, unfortunately, too worn out from tapping her previously unknown strength to keep on fighting. Then, as the rotting beast loomed over Kelly and began to kneel down as if to feast on her flesh, it's head caved inward as a frying pan that seemed to be wreathed in a green flame crushed its skull.
"Margaret Shaw," said the woman holding the flaming pan as she extended her empty hand for Kelly to grab.
"Kelly Aprils," the girl with the fire-engine red hair answered, grabbing Margaret's hand with her own ghoulishly pale hand.
"What just happened?" Michael asked as he came out from the table he'd been hiding behind, "there was no way that could have been real."
"Wish I could say," Kelly panted, "wish I could say…"
