Author's Note: The Constant Gardener is an official category on ff.n now, right above this one as a matter of fact. I will love you forever if you go and review my lonely little fic. Oh, and if you wanted to write something…my fic needs company. I don't know how often I'll be updating it, since this is my priority, but rest assured, it will be continued.
Remember- 10 reviews, I update next Saturday, less, I update in two weeks.
Chapter 18
The smells never go away. The air, the employees' skin, every surface in the place is coated with grease, dust, and the smell of old onion juice. From the moment the door opens, the air seems thickened, congealed, filled with the cries of frustrated tired children and the tired how-may-I-help-you smiles of young employees already old enough to know that their only future is in flipping burgers and helping to silently aid the ever-growing health crisis.
Even in the dead of night, long after the last respectable patrons have left, the smells never go away. By night the little restaurant becomes a dark, hot furnace. The lights remain out to save power, but the fires in the ovens never ever go out. By night, the yellow plastic and smiley faced establishment turns into a dark volcano, shadows stretching under tables and behind the counter, the ovens a red-blue blaze of fat sizzling heat. Making the next day's wares. Always fresh, oh yes.
This night the smell is worse than usual.
This night the shop is buzzing with gossip. The memory of a strange man with a strange request still bouncing around the walls like a bad aftertaste from a bad fry.
This night the airconditioning is out, and though the windows are steamed with tiny water droplets from the near-frosty evening outside, the air inside is so thick with heat it is nearly impossible to move.
This night, only one unfortunate prisoner works the ovens, trapped in with the ghost of the man's request. The thought is jarring in her head, clanging around like scrapmetal in an incinerator.
Bending over one of the ovens, she brushes aside long curly hair and stops for a second, caught by surprise at the feeling of a draft of air. A draft of cool air. The air in here is like a wall, only moving to scorch, rising up in steamy plumes from the oven. Her task forgotten she turns, peers out from behind the counter and sees the door hanging open just a crack.
A breath, caught in mid-swallow.
There is something very wrong here.
This door stays locked after closing. Always. Locked for the employees' protection, or so the corporation says, but really, she thinks, to keep the workers in. To ensure that they don't leave just a few moments early. To keep the heat in as well.
From beyond the counter there is a creak, the sound of something striking one of the metal tabletops. Hard.
The girl leans over further, trying to see through the shadows. She contemplates going back into the kitchen, getting a hot poker out of one of the ovens. But this is ridiculous. There is nothing here. There can't be. It is simply windy outside.
Another noise, louder this time. Closer. Like something out of a bad horror movie.
Nearly laughing at herself now, the girl steps forward, away from the counter, searching along the floor. There are rats here, or so she's heard. Rats the size of small dogs.
Another draft, another clang, and she's not laughing anymore but crying instead. The fear surges back to the surface renewed with a vengeance. It is cold, and not from the outside.
It is cold from within, from the back of her mind, from the place in which the strange man's strange warning resides. It is cold, it is painful, it is frozen into slow motion by the fear and the knowledge of what is actually happening here.
It is in slow motion that she falls, struck from behind by one of her own hot pokers.
It is in slow motion that the knife comes down.
It is in slow motion that the blood puddles on the floor.
Nineteen years old, and already frozen in death.
Come join Astral Light: A Constantine Fan Forum.