Friday, Dorice Winthrow’s favorite day of the week. After she was done closing up the diner, she’d be able to go home and prepare for her weekly tradition, Blokus night. It was her turn this week to host, she couldn’t wait to get home and try out the new bean dip recipe she found online. Hopefully Ernie and the boys will like it. Realizing for a brief moment she was worried about her cooking being well received, she shook those thoughts out of her head with an aged warm smile. Of course they will like it, they always do. I know my boys.
It had been forty years since she started working at the Stop-Spot, the only diner in town. Hell she’d dare say the only restaurant worth a damn in this town. She looked up at the picture she hung over the order window, it was her favorite. A picture of her and Ernie from 1980, the picture that hung there for twenty years. The picture (taken by the old cook, Anthony Larusso, God bless his soul) captured Ernie, with his mouth full of apple pie, attempting to flirt with Dorice. Back then he used to come in at least once a week to hit on her, like many other men in the town did at that time. Dorice in her old teasing teal diner girl uniform, with her blonde locks pulled back in a simple, yet timeless, ponytail. Despite the moving of time, Dorice’s beauty further refined itself. Accompanied by her emerald eyes, regardless of her age or what time period she was in, Dorice would be defined as beautiful. Ernie was wearing a simple red and black plaid shirt with jeans, and the sight of Ernie’s wild brown bush on his head filled Dorice with a loving warmth in her chest. “I love you Ernie.”
Anthony used to tease her, with his Italian accent (which was as heavy as his pasta sauce), that picture displayed the closest any man had come to scoring a date with the Dorice Winthrow, “You know Dorice, for a moment, I thought Icuras was going to make it!”
Dorice remembered after that picture was taken, Ernie left for a couple of years. Dorice went about her life by getting involved in local politics (won her first term as mayor that year) but always wondered where the man who almost got her to say yes to a date just up and left.
Before her thoughts could lead her into questioning, the simple chime of new hour interrupted. Looking through her cook nook, she read the hands with glee, one more hour. One more hour before she could rest her feet and have a nice glass of pinot noir. Can that little hand move any faster?
As Dorice attempted to bend time to her will, a phone began to ring. The chime played like an electronified version of a cicada's buzz, a sound so annoying that most people droned it out on a subconscious level. The snowy white hand of the phone’s owner, reached for it, and used its slender digits to see who called before answering.
Displayed on the screen was a young man of olive complexion, with untamed bushy brown hair covering his head and face, striking a triumphant pose over a slain keg of beer in the middle of the woods. He was wearing a heavy dark brown coat with an upside down arrow head on his shoulder, within the duck yellow arrow head was a generic black tree with four red letters running down it, M F S. The victor’s hands were holding the coat open, revealing the full attire of a park ranger, with the only thing out of place being his choice of footwear, that being old sandals on the verge of becoming dust. The sandals clung with ease, having formed to his muscular hairy feet. Overshadowing the picture were bold white letters reading, “Adam is calling.”
“Hey, where are you?” At the sound of the sole patron’s voice, Dorice came out from the kitchen to check on him, Duke. Him and Adam were the only two ever here at this time.
Her diner owner instincts kicked in, causing her to look around, assessing how much cleaning she’d have to do after she locked up. She didn’t have to look to know, because every Friday, Duke and Adam would clean for her. That’s every Friday was Blokus night, and they were just as excited as her to begin the weekly festivity. Just like every other Friday, the simple black and white tiles were spotless, the pie display had no smudges or fingerprints from the excited children pointing out what desert they wanted. The porcelain countertop was immaculate, gliding her fingers on top of the smooth surface she felt no crumbs or stains remaining. So satisfying. Her satisfaction grew with each step as she looked at each booth shining with a layer of freshness, and having the table return her reflection a look of approval. Having been so awestruck by the rest of Duke’s clean up job, she forgot to check the windows. If she had she would have been too inebriated with its cleanliness to notice the sudden engulfment of the diner in a heavy veil of fog.
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Dorice’s face was emulating a blinding radiance of appreciation for the young man sitting in the booth. The slender fair-skin man in a regal black suit adorned by his compact blonde curls, was oblivious to her presence, and continued on with his conversation, “Fuck, how long will you be?”
Out of habit, Dorice went into discipline mode and smacked some sense into the back of Duke’s head. Even though Duke and Adam were not her children, she and Ernie treated them as such, in both support and discipline.
Duke’s head twitched in immediate response to the wack. There was a frost of hostility coating his cool blue eyes, but upon seeing that it was Dorice (and realizing that he did deserve it), they warmed up, melting the frost. He mouthed ‘Sorry’ with the eyes of a child who was seeking forgiveness after a slip up. Dorice mouthed back ‘It’s okay.’ However, all of Duke’s attention was steered at the conversation he was having.
Dorice didn’t want to pry and remembered that Duke’s cleaning also included the windows. She tried to admire Duke’s handiwork, but was unsettled by the fog. The gray wall of melancholy flushed out any sort of visual stimulation from the outside of the diner, allowing for a pure reflection to be shone to Dorice. There she was, staring at herself, but even though the person in the reflection appeared to be her, there was something off about the double. Her skin was paler than Dorice’s (she was by no means tan). The double’s skin wasn’t white, nor was it off white, but an odd blend of bone and egg yolk. The unnatural pigmentation of her skin was enough to raise Dorice’s blood pressure a few notches.
While Dorice began mirroring her double’s hand movement up and down her arms, Duke dared to divert attention from Adam for a moment to lift the phone from his ear and take a look at the screen. 8:45 PM. “Alright, see you then,” before he could hang up the screaming of Adam calling his name drew him back, “Are you okay? Do you need my help?” Dorice couldn’t hear what Adam said, but whatever it was caused Duke to stifle an outburst of laughter, “Have I ever told you that you are an absolute idiot? Don’t worry I’ll make sure she does.”
Before putting his phone away, Duke sent one last message to Ernie before apologizing again to Dorice for swearing in front of her.
Duke: Message from Adam. Hunt. Bring the toys.
“Sorry about that Dorice, I know Adam is the one with the potty mouth. I-” Duke stopped talking when he saw Dorice sobbing at the reflection in the mirror in front of her. Her reflection’s head had turned into a boil and was beginning to inflate. Its skin was no longer the revolting blend of bone and egg yolk, in its place was a translucent shade of snot with splotches of blood red peppering it. Dorice’s reflection body began to wilt while the head expanded more and more. There was no longer any sign of original beauty in the double, all of that had been absorbed into some brown liquid sloshing about in the thin sac it called a head. The monstrosity’s eyes before him began to bulge, causing Dorice to shake in rhythm with its own cadence. Duke jumped out of the booth, and pounced towards Dorice, causing the double’s head to burst, spraying a faux brown liquid on everything in the diner in the reflection. In response, Dorice dropped hard, if it weren’t for Duke pushing her forward into the booth then her head would have cracked open and missed Blokus.
Duke scurried over Dorice to attempt to pierce the fog with his own gaze, but then decided it would be better to check for Dorice’s pulse. Phew. It was still there, but a bit faint from the freight. This time, with no influence from Adam, Duke cursed in Dorice’s presence…
...again…
“Fuck.”