Next to All the Dead People

I.

       I was to hang garlands from the lanterns and the walls in order to make the place look more lively. Mike had told me to do so. He was in the kitchen, talking to the chef. “No mistakes tonight, guys.”, I heard him say through the glass window. One of the features of our restaurant was a huge glass window looking into the kitchen from the dining hall. Our customers liked it. The chef not so much. If you could call a “chef” someone who spent most of his time being high from snorting coke. I wondered why Mike let a guy like him around knives. He never told me, even if we were a couple at the time.

        Mike was such an angry person. Angry all the time. About the bad food, the lazy waiters and pretty much everything else. He was passionate, though, and that was what saved our relationship for almost a year. I was the maitre d', if you could say that a place like Mike's Burgers really needed a maitre d'. Truth be told, I went to the interview to be a waitress, but the positions had already been filled. Mike didn't want to turn me away, -something tells me he had other plans for me on his mind- so he invented that position for his small-time restaurant. So I greeted the customers and showed them to their tables, really polite, being the best hostess I could be, and not a month later, I was sleeping with Mike. That's my story, but it's not what’s interesting for you.

Now, I know that saying these things will probably get me killed, but not telling you what I know is equally as bad as the alternative. As I was hanging the garlands, the first customers walked through the door and I rushed to greet them. The place looked really nice, classy and elegant and I was proud of myself. I'd made that happen.

-Good evening, everybody! Let me show you to your table.

A party of four had walked through the door. All men. All dressed kind of weird, now that I think about it. Suits, I think. But then again, if I was the maitre d' at Mike's Burgers, why wouldn't there be suited customers?

Mike usually expedited and was rarely out of the kitchen. But that night was different. “Linda fell sick”, Mike had told me when I arrived earlier that day. “What's wrong with her?” I asked partly fearing her husband had hit her again. “It's not what you think.” he reassured me. “She called and said she had the flu. That's all.” he said and kissed me on the forehead, as if he wanted to make me believe that things like domestic violence are far, far away and never happen to people like us.

Since Linda was sick, Mike decided to take her place as a waiter and something told me he wanted to keep an eye on the tables anyway. The suits ordered our specialite, the New Yorker, times four and sparkling water for the three of them. Only one ordered a beer and I realised that was unusual from the look he got from the other suits. Normally, at this point, more people would be coming in, but the minutes were ticking away in that big clock next to the “American Gothic” painting, and no one seemed to come through the door. As if Mike's Burgers were the gates of hell and only four brave heroes had dared to enter. But the suits were neither brave nor heroes. They were mercenaries.

“You got a minute?” Mike whispered. He did not want to be heard by the suits. I followed him into the pantry, thinking maybe he wanted to make out. How foolishly in love I was at the time... “Anyway, be careful tonight.”, he said in that deep, husky voice of his. “That's it? People might be coming in right now and there's no one out there to greet them!”, I protested. “They're not.” He sounded so sure of himself. “Just be careful, okay?” And again, that kiss on the forehead, making me think he was my father and I once again was scared from the monster under my bed.

But this time, the monster was not under my bed. It was just entering the restaurant. He came alone, as monsters often do. He had a kind of rugged look upon him and one of his eyes was red. Not very tall and not very muscular either. A lean figure, if anything. A big scar on his left hand, where he also missed a nail. Short white hair, almost bald, but didn't look old. I would say thirty-five to fourty but could as easily be fifty. Couldn't exactly put my finger to it.

“I want a table overlooking the street.”

“This way, sir. Follow me, if you will, please.

I wished my voice wasn't trembling and he couldn't smell the fear in the back of my neck. I showed him to his table and supplied him with a menu. I told him the waiter would be with him shortly and I walked away quickly, wanting to forget his haunting face. But I couldn't.

The bell rung again, putting me out of my disturbing thoughts. A woman around fifty-five walked in, short with long dark hair, along with a taller man in his thirties. Could have been her son, could have been her lover. Hard to tell. I could hear Mike's voice in my mind, judging her: “Another cougar with her boy toy.” Didn't agree, but I didn't voice my disagreement, either. I showed them to the table near the glass window. I found that women were more interested in seeing their food being prepared than men. Although I could be wrong, because the monster was looking a lot towards the kitchen, with his scary, red eye. He ordered a salad, two cheeseburgers, a hamburger, three sides of fries, two large cokes and our sweet of the day, a chocolate souffle. It made me wonder whether he was expecting company or he hadn't eaten for over a week. With someone like him, it wouldn't surprise me either way.

While he carefully started eating the souffle, and I say carefully meaning really slowly, the brunette and her “boy toy” ordered a salad and two glasses of red wine. They completely ignored the salad and dived right into the wine. The expensive kind, too. That really made me wonder. Expensive wine, suits and a monster had replaced our usual crowd of middle-class families and teenagers. What was going on to-

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!”

Blood splatter all over the glass window from the kitchen side and the chef's deafening scream woke me up once again.

“The f*cking idiot cut his finger!” Mike said furiously. “I told him I didn't want any mistakes tonight!”

Everyone's heads turned to the kitchen and some customers even stood up to see what was happening and why there were people in the kitchen screaming and interrupting their quiet dinners. Not even the suits remained calm. The one with the beer stood up extremely fast and I think I saw him looking first to the monster and then towards the kitchen. I am not sure, however, because my attention was turned to the chef, too.

A few moments later, Mike came out of the kitchen and said with a kind of grave and taut voice: “There has been an accident in the kitchen. Our chef has been hurt. However, there is no reason to worry. An ambulance will be here any minute. You can continue your meal for free, or if you prefer, we are more than happy to reimburse you for the evening's unfortunate... um... incident.” I could hear the tremble in his voice. Ηe looked more afraid telling these people it's his fault their dinner was ruined than for his chef's luck.

I, on the other hand, turned out to be the lucky one of the night. Being the nearest to the exit, I could have escaped rather quickly when the shootings begun. Only I didn't.

As soon as Mike finished his speech, a gun appeared in the monster's hand, aiming at the kitchen. The bloody glass shattered into a million pieces, hurting the brunette that was sitting in front of it. Her younger companion took out two guns almost at the same time the suits took out theirs. The woman took cover under her table and Mike ran to the exit, completely forgetting about me, but didn't make it. A stray bullet hit him in the leg, right under his left knee. I was too shocked to move at the time. From what I could gather, the monster really wanted to kill the brunette, but her friend was doing a really good job at protecting her. The suits were a completely different story. In the beginning, they appeared to be helping the monster, but as soon as he signaled back-up from the street, they turned against him. One of them died from the young man's bullets and another one from the monster's. From now on, it was every man for himself.

The kitchen staff was desperately trying to hide, but the bullets caught up with them. Christie, Hank and Andy all died along with their chef. So much blood that day... I'll never forget it. Almost as bad as when I had my baby in a dirty basement. But that's another story.

A few moments later, the younger man took one to the head and fell over the mixture of broken glass, blood and uneaten salad. Red and green and his face, all smashed into one. The woman screamed in fear as the monster approached her as carefully as he had his chocolate souffle. She must have known her end was near. By that time, the suits had killed the monster's back-up and vice versa. Everybody had died but for the monster, the brunette, me and Mike, who was lying down in front of me, bleeding, but not yet dead. But the monster wasn't paying any attention to us. He was fixed on the woman's eyes that were pleading him to let her live. He didn't seem to cave in to her wishes though. With one hand he pushed violently the table that was protecting her and it smashed into the wall with one big crack that terrified me.

I suddenly realised what was happening. The monster wasn't looking at me. I could escape. Leave and never look back. Then I thought of Mike. Could I leave him there, wounded? But how could I save him, though? Impossible, I thought. And then the door opened wide with a loud bang. I hoped it was the police. That someone had called them. A bystander, perhaps. But it was not. It was Linda.

Blood was seeping from between her legs. One of her eyes was closed and swollen. She was bruised all over and her left shoulder was definitely out of place. “Help” she tried to say. “He's coming after me” but then she saw all the blood, and all the bodies and all the chaos and screamed. A single bullet to the head. That's what ended Linda's piercing scream forever.

Now I bet the monster regretted it. While he turned to the brunette once more, Linda's husband walked in. He saw her body and with a steel determination that any soldier would admire, he silently walked towards the monster. He picked up a chair and brought it down to his head. “No one hurts my Linda.” he uttered while the monster fell and never came back up again.

“But you”, I added.

He didn't say anything. He kissed Linda and was ready to move her. But no, I wasn't gonna let her rapist take her body and keep her at a pantry somewhere to rot.

“Leave her!” I yelled but he didn't even flinch. So I took the gun that was lying on the floor next to all the dead people and aimed it at him.

“I said, leave her!”

He glared at me, with the look of a person depraved enough to hurt me too, but I didn't care.

“Go away, little girl, or you'll end up dead, just like everyone else in here.”

But I wasn't a little girl anymore. I wasn't scared of the monster under my bed anymore. So I pulled the trigger. I pulled the f*cking trigger and nothing happened. No more bullets in the gun, apparently.

Did I mention that Mike was an angry guy? Angry as hell. He was bleeding and hurting a great deal, but that didn't stop him from stabbing Linda's rapist with one of the broken tables' legs. They both screamed in agony as the wooden leg pierced his heart from the back.

I looked the other way because I simply didn't want to see all of the blood in front of me. That's when I realised that the brunette was gone. I don't know how, she probably left from the back door which doesn't really make sense, considering the real danger for her was over.

Mike and I were the only ones still alive, I think, when the cops arrived a few minutes later. He ended up losing his leg and I ended up here, giving a statement to the police, physically unharmed, but emotionally damaged. I still remember today with every excruciatingly painful detail that made this the second worst day of my life.

Now could you please tell me why all these people decided to shoot each other in such a place like Mike's Burgers? Because I'm dying to know.

(The police officers looked at each other and said nothing).

By Sini