Her belly rumbled and Amber turned off the faucet, wiped her hands on her jeans, and left the restroom.

They were all dead when she walked out.

She went instantly cold. All moisture left her mouth, her knees weakened, and every nerve ending jingled and jangled and screamed at her to run. But she couldn’t run. Her legs wouldn’t obey. She could barely stay standing.

Some of them had been attacked where they sat – others while they tried to escape. Bludgeoned to death, every one of them. A woman in a brown cardigan was slumped over her table, blood leaking from the mess in the back of her head. A trucker in a plaid shirt had half his face caved in. The waitress had been dragged across the counter. Blood dripped from the dented gash in her temple, forming a growing pool on the floor beneath her. Amber couldn’t see the cook, but knew he was lying on the floor of the kitchen. She could see his blood on the wall.

Fourteen people when she’d walked in. Fourteen corpses. But now there was a fifteenth person. He was sitting in the booth next to the door, his back to her, wearing a baseball cap and a grey, faded boiler suit. He was singing along to the radio. ‘Every Rose Has Its Thorn’ by Poison.

The booth moved closer to her. Closer still. No, it wasn’t the booth that was moving – it was Amber. She frowned, looked down at her feet as they took another step. Apparently, they were on their way out of the door, and they were taking the rest of her with them. She was okay with that. She didn’t want to stay here, anyway, not with all those corpses. She just had to pass this guy and then she could run out into the quiet street, shout for Milo, and he’d come roaring up in the Charger and they could get the hell out of there. Easy. No fuss, no muss.

The man in the boiler suit had a claw hammer on the table in front of him. It was bloodstained. There was a chunk of scalp hanging off it.

“How you doing?” he asked.

Amber froze.

He didn’t have a nice voice. It was curiously strained, like he’d spent most of his life shouting.

She kept her eyes on the door and took another step. And another.

“Amber, isn’t it?”

She stopped.

“Yeah,” the man said. “It’s you. I expected something else, to be honest. All the things you’ve done, I expected someone a little more …” he licked his lips, “… impressive.”