“Yeah.” The other snickers. “Let’s get a bottle a syrup and yous on a plate!”

“’Ey! What an idea!”

They both throw their hands up in victory, nearly smacking knuckles into their milkshakes. Tiffany flinches as the glasses teetertotter on their bases, threatening to fall over and crack. When they finally roll back into stability, she lets out a weak chuckle.

“Ooh, aren’t you two funny?”

They continue on, but she doesn’t hear their next few comments. Their voices muffle in her ears like the whomp-whomp of a large air-conditioning unit. A high-pitched tone follows. She no longer hears the customers and she no longer sees them. In fact, she’s not even sure if she can feel herself, the pulse in her chest having suddenly petrified and the pad and pen in her hands growing weightless.

Her eyes are caught on something through the diner’s dark windows. Something that siphons the life from her body like a straw plunged into a milkshake.

An apparition stands on the other side of the street, watching her from the shadows of a dark alley. She could feel it before, the eyes on her like an anxious tug in the pit of her stomach. Only now does she realize it wasn’t coming from the two drunks at the table—it was coming from something far worse.

This is it.

She stares and it stares back. Its unwavering body is barely definable beneath the black trench coat, but hauntingly tall. Its blue eyes and silver hair shine like scales even through the thin streaks of streetlight. Its presence sets her nervous system on fire.

She gulps.

Shit.

Her hands start to shake, scribbling black lines of distraught lace across the pad. An image of blood-stained steel flashes into her mind. The itch in her throat nearly causes her to squeak. She presses her fingernails into the palm of her hand, digging red crescent moons into her skin, forcing herself to control her tremors.

Cautiously, she puts the pad and pen back into her apron. She doesn’t want to look away nor make any sudden movements. She doesn’t want to set it off.

“Hey, lady! Aren’t ya listening?” Fingers snap at her.

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, yes. If you’ll excuse me . . .” She backs away from the table toward the diner counter, ignoring their now irate complaints. She doesn’t break eye contact with the figure across the street. Not until it turns and walks up the road.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck . . .” she murmurs under her breath.

It’s coming for me. Whether it has to walk through those doors or not, it’s coming.

She spins around and lifts the partition, stepping behind the counter toward the kitchen.

Tony, a stubby man with a scruffy beard wearing a dirty chef’s hat, the stench of wet food and sewage forever leaking from his moist pores, steps out and blocks her path.

“Hey! You okay? Ness keeps botherin’ me. Those boys givin’ you trouble?” A concerned look stretches across his large face. “’Cause I’ll kick ’em out if they are.”