Leon offered her a polite ‘thank you’ nod. After she
left, the tall, sombre man resumed looking at his son as the youngster pawed
over the half eaten burger on the plate in front of him. He rested his chin on
his closed fist and quietly sighed.
“Come on Joey, please finish up.” He asked
sympathetically.
The boy, thirteen years old with a scruff of thick
black hair just like his Dad, had his eyes cast downwards at the plate with a
half hearted tedium, and scraped the plate with the fork as he ignored his
father’s command. He swirled the pool of ketchup around and traced out a long
red line along the edge of the plate.
“I don’t need your mother thinking I don’t feed you
properly.” The words came out as if he’d already admitted defeat. “And that was
the most expensive thing on the menu.”
Leon picked up the mug of coffee, which had lost
enough heat by now to make it barely drinkable, and held it in front of him. He
would have to drop Joey off in an hour and so far this had not been the bonding
experience he wanted. He’d been given two days to try and repair something that
had been broken for far too long, something of a gift from his ex, but the
whole time Joey had been in a bad mood. Maybe it was unrelated, but it still
hurt given how hopeful he’d been about it. They were blood and Leon had been
putting a lot of effort into their relationship for the last 48 hours to
absolutely no avail.
Just as he brought the coffee to his lips, he was
disturbed by something in the cup. Not a piece of food or foreign object
floating on its surface, but a number of ripples, as if it had been disturbed. Leon
looked up and around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary to him nor could he
feel anything under his feet. Everyone else also seemed oblivious. Leon looked into
the cup again, and there they were, small, unexplained waves moving across the
dark liquid.
From somewhere in the back of the restaurant, a plate
could be heard smashing. Leon was the first to snap his head quickly towards
the source of the noise. His eyes were wide, alert, and a small amount of
apprehension was visible in the contort of his face.
Now Joey looked up too, first with a childish smirk
but then, after a couple more plates smashed, a confused look. There was
clearly something happening behind the swinging door leading to the kitchen and
Leon both wanted and didn’t want to find out what.
He stood up, the other dozen or so customers immediately
looking in his direction, expecting him to be the hero he supposed. It might
have happened, he might have gone to the back room to find out what was going
on, but the next sound that came from the back now though wasn’t a smash; it
was a yell. And then a scream.
The colour sunk out of his face. Suddenly, he felt an
undeniably powerful surge of responsibility for his estranged kid who still sat
gazing at the source of the commotion.
“Get up Joey.” He said, reaching forward to grab both
his jacket and his sons, pushing the latter into Joey’s arms as he got up
stiltedly from the chair. “We need to leave!”
Leon spun on his heel and took two steps to reach the
front door, beating all the other customers to it and making sure to usher his
frightened son through first. As he did so, he took a final look back, but he
saw something that took his breath away.
The kitchen entrance had been pulled from its hinges
and the thing that appeared from the other side was not of this world. It had a
long head like that of a horse except much larger, but instead of a smooth
shape the outline was jagged and dragon like. It was mostly in silhouette
somehow, despite the cool glow of many overhead lights in the serving area, but
two eyes were set in the top half of the dark shape. They glowed a deep, exotic
red, like two pieces of coal that glowed with searing heat. It terrified him
because he felt like they were staring directly into the very depths of him and
for a second he couldn’t escape.
Joey’s hand locked into Leon’s suddenly and he felt
his son pull him, though did not hear the words he shouted, and suddenly he was
able to move again, to pull away from the strange creature only a few feet
away. Leon ran.
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