A Night At Memoren Diner Read online

  stampeded to the phone and picked it up. “HELLO?!”

  A static noise. Static, followed by a gravelly voice, emerged from the crackled fuzz. “I only have one request, one thing to save us from this misery, finding this one truth from tonight. The question is which tonight,” Static suddenly overcame the voice mid-speech, returning to say, “Outside. Origin,” a flat-line dial tone followed.

  My body turned back slowly. In my seat was the dead corpse I saw before. Its neck jutted at an angle, with a bone sticking out from one side. A giant grin remained on its face, and the rest of its torso had no shape of muscle, nor no sign of naked flesh--just grey.

  In that instant, I ran. I ran and ran back into my car. But the farther I ran, the farther I sprinted from the light, the darker my vision went. I eventually lost my path.

  *******

  Memoren Diner. How convenient my car would break down in the middle of a diner. Someone in here should have contact info for a mechanic. I entered the diner and searched around. A waitress and an old man. “Excuse me,” I shouted out, “Does anyone know a mechanic? My car broke down, I have no phone and am in dire need of help.”

  They both stared at me, vacantly. I was the supposed freak who came and shouted that the sky was green. My eyes drifted to the clock. Its hands spun counterclockwise. It reminded me of a saying my college professor Shocavsky once said regarding the flows of time. I can’t quite remember at this point.

  But the spins continued at an alarming pace. The beat of my heart matched its tempo, as did my consciousness; spinning, ready to shut down and collapse from an anxiety attack. My eyes remained fixated on the clock. I continued speaking to bring myself back down to ground zero. “All I need is some help. Please?”

  The old man turned away. The waitress, however, replied, “I can help. Let me check the yellow pages for this one guy. He’s reliable, definitely not greedy like a lot of them.”

  “Thank you so much,” I said, bowing out of grace.

  “Let me walk around back real quick.”

  “Sure, I’ll take a seat here,” I sat on the barstool. What a wonder all the hundreds of miles I’ve driven that car to still be in one piece. But, a 1969 vintage Mustang is a beauty to take care of. The commute from home to work is awful, though--my work as a gravedigger. Wait, no, as a Brand Designer...no, no, no, no, no, no. Brand design doesn’t involve equations, does it?

  “Hm?” The waitress re-emerged to my vision, sounding something at me.

  “What?”

  “Did you say something?”

  “Um...no, nothing,” My gaze lowered to her pale hands. Blue veins extended from a black ring to around her forearm. “Your...”

  “Fuck, I gotta make sure I stop hearing random things. My roommate always gives me that shit,” she laughed. “What’s your name, honey?”

  “I’m Derrick. Yours?”

  “Dol.”

  “Thanks again for your help, Dol. Not often I come across a kind soul.”

  “Plenty of kind folk out in the world,” Dol shrugged with a smirk, “I’m only one out of a billion of them. More or less. What do I know, right? I work at a diner.”

  “I’m sure you have plenty of crazy diner stories.”

  “What about you? To be this far out in the middle of nowhere. Usually, people that stop here are on a trip or a journey of some kind.”

  Sounds like I was a rare case. I’ve been alone for so long. Isolated. At work, I’m the only one in my department, so the most interactions I get are 2 or 3-minute talks with people before a supervisor’s glares at us to report back to our desks. I don’t have the pleasure to go home early to see my family.

  All I have left is my brain and my imagination. To play stories in my head of another world. Where I could be freed of the 9 to 5 and live my life. I’m sure if I told a free spirit about this, they would say I’m just giving myself excuses because I want to be this way, or that I’m too scared to be free.

  I’m neither of those things. Who wants to be caged and alone? I’d rather watch myself slowly fade to ash for 30 days, waiting to take my last breath. I chuckled, “Right.”

  “Come on, share some with me.”

  “No, I just don’t have anything particularly interesting.”

  “Please. Here, I’ll tell you a story, and then you can share a story with me. Deal?”

  This is gonna be fun. With a reluctant sigh, I accepted the deal. I was running on a time constraint, impulsively looking at my non-existent wristwatch, and then beaming back to the clock in its continuous erratic. I’m waiting for steam to start emanating from this apparatus, like a wildfire, but

  nothing.

  Dol’s hand, now pigmented as fresh, peach skin, touched mine, bringing me back to her attention. “Now see,” she began her story, “I was in Florida, right? I took my kid to Disney World. He was about seven years old. What kind of mother wouldn’t remember her son’s age? We went to the magic castle, y’kno, the popular one. Light blue and with dark blue roofs. But you can’t go inside.

  My son wanted to go inside. I told him I wish, but no, Mickey Mouse and the rest of his friends have to take a breather there and plan the rest of their day. He stomped his feet around as a rebuttal. I swear were we not in a park, he would’ve gotten more than an earful.

  As my gaze wandered past the castle towards the clouds, my tongue dried up. I yearned for something bitter and acidic, like an old-fashioned sprayed with a hint of Coca Cola. Or whatever cold drink I could wash my stress out. Kids can sometimes be stressful, I won’t hesitate to admit that.

  Then, I hear a loud scream of some baritone man in pain. I look to my right, and there’s my son,” Dol paused for a moment to hold back her laughter, “towering over the mascot, screaming ‘How do you like that, Mickey Mouse?!’” Dol burst into laughter, as did I.

  As I caught some air in my chest, I replied, “Well, with that much money to get into the damn park, I wholly agree.”

  “Right? Anyway, what’s your story?”

  I wanted to find a memory from anything in the past, but I couldn’t all of a sudden. I thought I knew about myself. And I was not the type of person to be this forgetful about my own things.

  All I could remember was a photo. A photo of my mother holding me. In

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  Suffice to say, I loved this novel and it is in my top 10 list of 2020. I have recommended it to friends with a varying preference in reading material and they were all hooked. Give this novel a chance, you won’t regret it.

  - Clarence B.

  I definitely could not put this book down! It was super exciting and always kept me at the edge of my seat. I love the twists! Definitely would recommend this book!!

  - Laura L.

  This is a phenomenal book! I grew pretty attached to the characters and enjoyed their growth. It’s a sporadic thriller with a unique twist to the plot points within that enhances the character development and story plot. Pick up this book if you are an avid reader in fiction. Well done!

  -Efren S.

  The acclaimed thriller novel, book 1 of a planned series, has received praise such as:

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Victor Vahl is a writer, designer, and the author of the debut novel Mad City. He wrote a novel, so that‘s a pretty solid credential for a start.

  A graduate of Florida State University, Victor Vahl excelled in multiple classes involving creative writing and rhetoric. His best discovery through this journey was his innate love for storytelling, and thus continuing to perfect his craft that focus
es on creating entertaining stories on the complexities of morality and the ingenuinity behind raw human emotion.

  His luck knows no bounds, ranging from the unconditional support of his loving wife to receiving a pizza delivery with no pizza. You can learn more about Victor Vahl and his updates on www.VictorVahl.com