The neon sign over Mom's 24-Hour Eats buzzed like a drunk cicada, throwing pink triangles across Wes Huang's bug-splattered windshield. He killed the engine and the Corolla gave a death-rattle sigh, as if it already knew gasoline was about to become the least valuable thing on Earth. Rascal, the flat-faced raccoon plush tethered to the rear-view mirror, spun slowly and stared at Wes with black button eyes that screamed, "You should have stopped in Flagstaff."
Wes hadn't slept in twenty-one hours unless you counted the micro-nap that ended with him swerving into a cornfield outside Tucumcari. His tech-support badge still hung from the rear-view, the laminated photo showing him smiling like a guy who believed resetting routers was a noble calling. That badge was now a punch line. Three days earlier he'd told a screaming customer to "try turning your life off and on again," and HR suggested he pursue outside opportunities. Hence the cross-country cannonball run back to Sacramento and the growing certainty that his degree in Communications was mainly communicating failure.
He pushed through the glass door, bell jingling, and the diner smell hit him like a warm pillow soaked in bacon grease. The place was a time capsule: checkerboard floor, jukebox glowing with Beach Boys titles nobody had punched since 1987, and a rotating pie case that probably doubled as a museum for mummified desserts. A single waitress in a peppermint-striped uniform leaned against the counter, filing her nails to a lethal point. Her nametag said "Cass" but the bored expression said "Graduate Student Who Knows Exactly How This Story Ends."
Wes chose a booth under a flickering EXIT sign because irony needed a front-row seat. He opened his laptop, winced at the 12 % battery, and prayed the Wi-Fi password wasn't another dumb pun. Cass appeared instantly, pouring coffee before he asked. The mug read WORLD'S OKAYEST DAD. He was twenty-five, childless, and still felt seen.
"Kitchen closes in twenty," she warned. "After that it's pie or perdition."
"Perdition sounds gluten-free," Wes muttered. "Can I get the password?"
"APOCALYPSE-NOW, all caps, hyphen included. Boss thinks it's edgy."
Wes typed, fingers shaking from caffeine deprivation. The connection icon spun, died, spun again. Somewhere in the distance a semi downshifted, sounding like a dinosaur with smoker's lung. He imagined the driver shambling in, eyes milk-white, jaw hanging by a tendon. Stop, he told himself. You're not that special. The world doesn't end for guys who own plush raccoons.
Cass left the check facedown: seven bucks for coffee, existential dread complimentary. Wes stared at the line labeled TIP and remembered his final paycheck, currently twelve dollars and thirty-three cents in a checking account that charged a six-dollar monthly fee. He drew a tiny dumpster fire in the tip line, because art is free.
A trucker in a CAT cap stomped in, boots leaving mud commas on the tile. He parked at the counter, ordered chicken-fried steak "so rare it moos," and slugged coffee like it owed him money. Wes labeled him Background Character #3 and went back to refreshing Indeed. Then the bell jingled again.
The newcomer wore hospital scrubs the color of old spinach. One sleeve was shredded, revealing forearm skin that looked chewed by an angry stapler. Blood dripped from his elbow in perfect metronome beats: drip, drip, drip onto the checkerboard. Wes noticed the man's ID badge still clipped to his waist: St. Eligius Emergency, Dr. R. Menendez. The doctor's eyes were red roadmaps, pupils the size of pinpricks. He opened his mouth, and instead of words came a sound like wet laundry flopping on pavement.
Cass reacted first. "Sir, you okay? We've got a first-aid kit, but the Band-Aids are mostly cartoon princesses."
Dr. Menendez lunged. Not a bar-fight lunge, not even a meth-head lunge, but the kind of commitment you only see in nature documentaries when leopards lock onto antelope throats. He crashed into Cass, teeth finding the soft triangle between shoulder and neck. The waitress screamed, a high operatic note that shattered the pie-case glass. Blood sprayed the rotating desserts, turning coconut cream into strawberry shortcake.
Wes's laptop slid off the table. The screen cracked but still showed a buffering wheel, as if even the internet needed a moment to process stupidity. Background Character #3, the trucker, leaped up yelling, "Hey, hey, HEY!" like volume could undo anatomy. He grabbed the doctor by the collar, got a faceful of arterial backsplash for his trouble, and slipped on the blood now pooling like melted cherry slush. His head hit the jukebox hard enough to punch up "Kokomo." The Beach Boys harmonized about tropical getaways while Cass's body did a twitchy break-dance, heels drumming linoleum.
Wes couldn't move. His feet felt nailed to the sticky floor. Every horror movie he'd ever half-watched from the corner of his dorm room flashed unhelpful advice: aim for the head, double-tap, don't trip. None of the advice covered plush raccoon morale. Rascal, still in the car, seemed like the smartest mammal in the county.
Dr. Menendez released Cass, her corpse sliding off the counter and folding into a sitting position like a kid ready for story time. The doctor's jaw worked, chewing something that used to be part of Cass's clavicle. Then he turned toward Wes, teeth clicking together with the enthusiasm of a stapler hungry for paper.
Wes grabbed the first weapon within reach: a glass ketchup bottle. He hurled it. The bottle spun, red comet trailing Heinz 57, and smacked the doctor square in the forehead. Glass shattered. Ketchup exploded. The doctor blinked, looking almost offended, then kept coming, now wearing a mask of tomato paste that made the situation feel like grotesque dinner theatre.
"Okay, okay," Wes babbled, backing toward the kitchen swing doors. "You want rare? Let's talk terms."
The doctor answered with a moan that smelled of copper and old pennies. Wes's shoulder hit the doors, and he stumbled into the kitchen, fluorescent lights humming like hornets. Stainless-steel counters reflected his terrified face in fun-house angles. A fryer bubbled, french fries turning golden while the world turned red. The cook, a tattooed giant named RayRay according to the embroidered oval, spun away from the grill. His spatula flipped a burger patty into the air; it landed on the floor with a wet splat that sounded weirdly final.
"What the hell, man?" RayRay barked.
"Zombie," Wes managed, pointing behind him. "Eating waitress. Possibly keto."
RayRay's eyes narrowed. "I told Cass smoking on break would kill her." He seized a cleaver the size of a paperback and stepped forward like a man who'd waited his whole life for permission to butcher more than brisket.
Through the round window in the swing door, Wes saw the trucker rise, clutching his bleeding scalp. The man's pupils were already milking over. He bit into his own tongue, chewing thoughtfully, then turned toward the kitchen. Two monsters, one exit.
Wes exhaled a laugh that tasted like copper pennies and burnt coffee. "Rascal," he whispered to the absent raccoon, "if I die, donate my body to the Wi-Fi router museum."
RayRay raised the cleaver. "You gonna stand there quoting stuffed animals or help me redecorate?"
Wes grabbed a pot of gravy, heart hammering Morse code for regret. Somewhere outside, sirens started wailing, a lonely ascending howl that sounded like the world itself was getting throat-surgery from the universe's dullest dentist.