Strange Lights by Mira Gonzalez releases in just over two weeks (AHHHHH) so today I am incredibly excited to share a short story by Mira from the world of Strange Lights to wet your appetites as we count down the days to release! Enjoy and make sure to let us know what you think in the comments!!

Strange Events
at the Waffle House

by Mira González

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Content Warnings
Farm animal death mentioned
Blood
Mild spooky circumstances
Swearing
Suspected child abuse/imprisonment (no actual child abuse or imprisonment)

____________

I think there’s a poltergeist in the Waffle House. That line about “hazard pay” in my contract should have tipped me off that there’s more to this job than waiting tables and cooking breakfast foods. And who ever heard of a Waffle House tucked way up in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, anyway? But I desperately need the money, and the hourly rate is enough that I swallow my misgivings and initial the NDA subsection of my job contract. For the amount I’ll be paid, if Bigfoot himself walks in, I’ll cheerfully serve him waffles without questioning a thing. 

“And stay out of the basement,” my new manager, Lenny, says after finishing my orientation.

“What’s down there? Top secret waffle recipes?” I joke. 

Lenny doesn’t crack a smile. “Corporate stuff. Above your pay grade.”

“Sure. What happens in the Waffle House basement stays in the Waffle House basement.”

“Pronouns?” Lenny asks, fiddling with a label maker.   

“They/Them.” Lenny doesn’t blink as the label maker churns out a sticker she affixes to the badge under my name. I’d clocked the bisexual pin on her uniform and the “she/her” in her email signature when I replied to the job posting. Another reason I am willing to overlook a few strange terms and conditions of employment. 

Lenny hands me my nametag. “Welcome to the Waffle House team, Finn.” 

***

A few weeks in and I can safely say this is the easiest job I’ve ever had. Hardly anyone comes to this Waffle House aside from a cast of quirky regulars and the occasional lost traveler. Lenny is my only coworker, and she’s there for every one of my shifts. She washes dishes, takes out the trash, and busses the tables right alongside me. I quickly learn Lenny is not one for small talk, to my immense relief. But she isn’t prickly, so much as reserved.

“That’s just my thinking face,” Lenny had said with a blush when I asked if everything was okay after she frowned at one too many of my questions. Now that I know she isn’t mad at me, her frowning face is kind of an adorable quirk.

I spend a majority of my shifts listening to paranormal podcasts Lenny plays over the speakers or watching ghost-busting documentaries on the TV that hangs on the wall about booth three. Not sure I believe all that supernatural stuff, but it’s better than sports, and certainly a conversation starter. Lenny takes it seriously, jotting notes on her order pad and frowning when something piques her attention. 

When the bell above the door tinkles, signaling a customer, I run to the kitchen to start up the griddle while Lenny chit-chats with the regulars. She might not be one for small talk, but once she’s going on about a cryptid, it’s hard to get a word in otherwise. The people in this town are big fans of the strange and unexplained, and even bigger fans of Lenny. She’ll sit for ages with the guy who comes in every Tuesday to order an omelet and discuss aliens. They rehashed the latest UFO sightings in Spokane for nearly three hours one week. 

Then there’s the pair of local Bigfoot researchers who’re filming a documentary. The two of them bring Lenny a cast of the latest footprint they found. They share a waffle flight and Bloody Marys while Lenny inspects the footprint with a magnifying glass. The regulars might be a bit kooky, but they’re harmless. 

***

One morning while Lenny is taking a call in the office, an old pickup truck—Ford engine roaring like a jet plane—pulls into the parking lot. An old man in Wrangler's hiked up with suspenders over a garish plaid flannel comes stomping through the front door. Cowboy boots thunking heavily with each step, he shouts for Lenny. “I saw the lights again!"

 I wince, preparing myself for the worst. “Welcome to the Waffle House. Would you like to hear about our specials?” I try to use my perky customer service voice, but I overshoot it; accidentally land on surly, punk-ish youth instead. 

“You aren’t Lenny.” He squints at me suspiciously, baldly eyeing me up and down. 

“I am not Lenny,” I agree. 

“Well, who the hell are you?”

“Finn,” I say shortly, pointing at my name tag.

“What do you know about crop circles?” he asks. “I need to talk to an expert. You don’t look like you know anything about crop circles.”

“I know some guys over in England admitted to creating a bunch for a hoax.” I shrug. 

“Elmer!” Lenny has emerged from the office. The smile fades from her face as she notices Elmer's glare and his rapidly reddening face. “No more missing goats, right?” 

“Nope. Not since you came out to the farm. They’re safe as bugs in a rug at night now.”

“I trapped and relocated an orphaned baby mountain lion for him this past spring,” Lenny explains.

“Thought you said it was a bear cub,” Elmer says. 

“I must have misspoken?” Lenny’s voice lifts at the end, like a question. 

“Doesn’t matter.” Elmer waves his hand impatiently. “My point is, I came out here to tell you about the lights in the sky last night and the crop circles I found this morning but this young man here,”–he points at me–“is accusing me of perpetrating a hoax on my own property. Destroying my own crops, my livelihood, for a god danged laugh.”

“I did not—” I start.

“He said I’m a hoaxing old man—"

“They,” Lenny says firmly, pointing to me, “are a skeptic. I showed them that interview about the crop circle hoax for educational purposes; it’s my fault I didn’t tell them the rest. I’m sure Finn wasn’t calling you a hoaxer.”

Elmer wilts like a chastised toddler. When Lenny clears her throat pointedly, jerking her head in my direction, Elmer finally mutters, “Well, if they want to continue their education on the subject of crop circles and animal mutilations, I’ll be at table two. You can put their meal on my tab too.”

Not quite an apology for misgendering me, but I get out of dish duty and learn more than I ever need to know about corn. Elmer’s actually quite funny once I give him a chance. Elmer draws a picture of the symbols carved into his field that Lenny puzzles over for hours after he leaves, then pins it to the bulletin board in the office where she keeps the timesheets, newspaper articles about local cryptid sightings, and the like. A regular X Files conspiracy board. 

***

Sometimes, I wonder why Lenny even hired me. But I don’t want to ask in case she realizes she doesn’t need me and fires me. There’s hardly enough work for one person, let alone two. Lenny never makes me work late; in fact, she’s a bit of a stickler about closing by 6 pm. Waffle House is supposed to be a 24/7 establishment, but this one seems to be an exception, and I understand why. I can’t imagine anyone would come all the way out here at night. Lenny’s always at the restaurant before me, usually a carafe of coffee into her day by the time I arrive at 7 am sharp. I offer to open the store, let Lenny sleep in for once, but she turns me down before I even get the words all the way out. I offer to alternate days off and run the place solo twice a week so she doesn’t have to come in every day of the week. But she turns down that, too.

“I don’t mind; I like the company here.” Lenny shrugs and gives me a rare smile before taking the mug of black coffee and heading for the booth in back where Pam—a seventy-something, blue-haired retiree who knits Lenny something new every week—likes to sit to discuss time travel, prophesies, and fortune telling. They’re still talking when my shift ends, a new forest green knit cap perched on Lenny’s head.  

“I pulled you a tarot card,” Pam calls after me. “The Lovers.” She winks, waving the card in the air. 

Lenny’s eyes lock with mine, her mouth dropping open for a moment before she claps her hands over her face with a groan. I splutter something nonsensical before ducking out the door. 

“Smooth. Real smooth. Smooth as sandpaper.” I’m muttering to myself, fumbling in my pocket for my car keys when I hear the chime of the bell, the door opening behind me. 

“Sorry, she’s like my surrogate grandmother, but she’s got no understanding of work-life boundaries.” Lenny blushes crimson. 

I’ve gathered that. Pam sidles up to the front of the restaurant, peering out the window at us. She’s got the subtlety of a steamroller. 

I marshal my courage and say, “I mean, it doesn’t hurt to blur boundaries every once in a while.” Okay, that’s better, sandpaper still, but a smoother grit.

But Lenny only frowns. 

“You’re wearing your thinking face.” A chilly wind whips the leaves up around us, and I shiver. 

“Here.” Lenny thrusts something at me. A royal blue knit beanie. “The color will look good with your hair.” She refuses to meet my eyes as she flees.

Whatever her motives for hiring me, at least she’s not very motivated to fire me. I pull the blue beanie over my head and wink at Pam through the window, who gives me a salute.

***

I’m itching to call my mom and tell her all about this place, despite my NDA. But then I remember my “hazard pay” and the balding tires on my car that need replacing by winter. So I bite my tongue; reply to her inquiring texts with only a vague “The new job is great!”

And the job is great, for the most part. There’re occasional strange things though; reasons I’m starting to wonder if this paranormal stuff isn’t all fantasy and maybe there is something supernatural going on. Nothing that scary, but, like I said, small poltergeist-type shenanigans. Unexplained noises that seem to resonate up from the basement in quiet moments. I catch Lenny mopping a weird trail of mud from the floor first thing one morning. I didn’t get a good look, but I swear I saw a distorted footprint with unnaturally long toes. Dishes end up in weird places; the cupboards are periodically rearranged like someone’s been carelessly digging around in them. Maybe we’ve got a raccoon. Might explain why Lenny wants to keep it hush-hush, lest the health department investigate. 

And there’s the missing steak. The first time we got a wholesale order, I assumed there’d been a mistake as the delivery person ferried in box after box of sirloin. I thought Lenny must have ordered too much. Maybe I’d input inventory wrong. 

Lenny had brushed aside my concerns. “It’s for next week's special. Steak and eggs.” We didn’t run a steak and egg special the next week, or the next. And even when we finally did the following week, we only sold one order to an out of towner who watched the Mothman documentary Lenny had playing on the TV with a slightly bemused expression on his face before hurrying back out of the restaurant. But the next time I did inventory, all that remained was one old, freezer-burned pack, thawing in the walk-in fridge. “You sure go through a lot of steak for a Waffle House,” the delivery driver commented the next time our wholesale order arrived with even more meat. 

It’s not all weird stuff, though. One perk: my grocery bill has nosedived; I get unlimited free food and coffee on shift. Only the drip coffee, unfortunately; the fancy espresso machine is broken. The first time I tried to use it, it pelted me with espresso beans. I looked like I’d been on the wrong end of a paintball gun for a week. Lenny must be trying to repair it though, it’s always on a different counter, sometimes surrounded by a mess of tools or scattered coffee grounds. And I often spot her frowning at it, probably contemplating how expensive it will be to replace. One time I find it by the back door. 

“Want me to take it out to the dumpster?” I ask.

Lenny blanches, her eyes widening. “No. Nope. Don’t touch it, just leave it there.”

“Noted.”

I wouldn’t risk throwing out a valuable appliance without asking first. I bet it’s worth a lot of money. The espresso machine is back on the front counter the next day.

I try to fix it one stormy afternoon when I’m bored. “If I can’t fix it, maybe I can strip it for parts,” I think aloud. I’m prying at the faceplate with a screwdriver when the back of my neck prickles and a warning tingle shoots up my fingers. I leap back. The lights in the entire restaurant surge with a woom before we’re plunged into temporary darkness with a jarring pop. 

“Sorry, I really thought it was unplugged,” I call to Lenny, rubbing my tingling arm as she resets the breakers. I double check, peering behind the behemoth of a machine. And the thing is, it isn’t plugged in; it doesn’t have a cord at all. Strange. Maybe it was electricity in the air from the lightning, I reason. “Can I at least move it to the basement?” I ask Lenny.

“Stay out of the basement,” she says automatically. “And didn’t anyone ever teach you not to mess with electrical stuff?”

“You can’t even plug it in; it’s useless,” I complain. But then I notice a power light I’d overlooked pulsing angrily, as if to contradict me. “It’s taking up so much counter space.” I wrap my arms around the thing, straining to lift it. It’s even heavier than I thought, doesn’t budge an inch. Lenny must have super strength to shove this thing around all the time. She does have nice biceps.

“It’s no use,” Lenny mutters, “It’ll be back up here by morning even if you do manage to move it.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, nothing, just don’t try to put it in the basement.”

Lenny is the most chill manager I’ve ever had, except about the basement thing. But I don’t have time to ask her any more questions before one of our regulars walks in; Otis, a grizzled old hunter who’s been hunting jackalopes—unsuccessfully trying to prove their existence—since the eighties.

“Lenny!” Otis says, “Have I got a story for you today.”

“Jackalope sighting?”

“No, better! Finally figured out why I haven’t caught one yet. There’s a predator hunting them down. See, I found this rabbit the other day, thing was completely dry. Something sucked its blood—” 

Lenny’s eyes bug nearly out of her head, and she follows Otis to his usual table, listening with rapt attention. 

Lenny’s frown lingers long after Otis leaves. She sits in booth two, staring out the window at the forest, chewing the end of her pencil while we listen to one of  her favorite monster-of-the-week style podcasts. This episode is entitled, “El Chupacabras: Goat Sucking Terror of Puerto Rico.” 

I sit with Lenny, doodling a cartoon-style drawing of the vampiric creature the host describes in lurid detail. A reptilian-like monster with a ridge of spikes running down its spine and big, buggy eyes. Sharp fangs and claws. 

“Do you think creatures like chupacabras really exist?” I ask Lenny. 

She gives me a searching look. “I think there’s a lot out there that we haven’t discovered yet.” She gestures to the woods outside. “I don’t know how you could look at the world around us and not think that there will always be more mysteries to solve.”

“You make a good point. But do you really think there are cryptids and monsters out there, or you know, maybe just a different species of bear or something?”

“Is there a difference? Aren’t we all just animals living in different niches? Maybe cryptids aren’t anything more than beings with lifestyles or adaptations science hasn’t explained yet. Maybe what we call monstrous or supernatural—simply for being different—is just another carnivore. I feel bad for the goats, but chupacabras have to eat too.”

I don’t make it a habit to die on hills I can’t defend, so I don’t argue.

Lenny eyes my drawing. I slide it toward her for closer inspection. Somewhere along the way I’ve left my original design behind; thrown in a pirate theme. Added a flag with a goat's skull and crossbones. Given the chupacabra an eyepatch and a parrot on its shoulder.

Lenny snorts a laugh, shakes her head fondly. She pins the drawing to the corkboard in the office.

***

In October, I make a safe bet that Halloween is Lenny’s favorite holiday, and I plan to surprise her with themed décor.

It’s easy enough to sneak into the office and borrow the spare key to the front door the next time Lenny’s distracted reviewing Otis’s latest blurry video of a supposed jackalope.

“See the antlers?”

“I think those are its ears, Otis.” 

My wages have afforded me some disposable income. So I buy plastic bats, red string lights, build a few table arrangements with black fake florals and carnivorous plants I found at the local garden store. I splurge on a life-size skeleton and wrangle its unwieldy plastic limbs into a spare knit sweater Pam gifted to me. 

I’m not sure what time Lenny gets to the Waffle House in the morning; I think she must have insomnia; she’s always tired and has been known to send texts at every hour of the day. Once I showed up early at five, and she was already there, so I drag myself out of bed at three AM to be safe. 

“There better not be any backseat driving,” I joke as I load the skeleton into the car. I’ve gotten so complacent, driving the same winding route through the woods daily letting my guard down completely by the last curve, that I don’t see more than a flash of red eyes and a strange ripple in the pavement almost like a mirage before I hit something with a loud thunk, slamming on my breaks and coming to a stop with a jolt. I swear, put the car in park and hop out for a look, already feeling terrible for whatever creature I just reduced to roadkill. Except—there’s nothing. Only a massive dent in my car. But oddly, no fur, no blood, no feathers, no debris of any sort. I look up and down the road, under my car, on top of my car, and scan the surrounding forest. 

I glimpse something that might be a flash of red eyes, small and fast-moving in the underbrush: gone so fast I might’ve imagined it. Maybe it was just wind rustling leaves. Aren’t there cougars in these woods? Hungry bears readying for hibernation? It was probably a deer. Or a Not-Deer. Didn’t Lenny say some people believe Bigfoot is a fourth-dimensional being with shielding powers? A Rolodex of cryptids flips in my mind. I’ve clearly been spending too much time with Lenny. Too much time at the wackiest Waffle House this side of the Rockies. 

Goosebumps prickle my skin, but I refuse to run. Instead, with a deliberate, measured pace, I walk back to the car. Confident, casual, not at all worried about potential cryptids in the woods. 

I pull into the parking lot not a minute later and stare at the darkened windows of the Waffle House, the car still idling. For a second, I think I see movement inside, a flash of red eyes. But no, surely not. Must be a trick of the headlights glaring off the glass. I contemplate the long stretch of pavement between me and the front door, the dark woods all around, the empty parking lot, lit only by the stars and my headlights. It might as well be a mile. I won’t be able to juggle my phone as a flashlight, but my headlights will stay on automatically for at least two minutes. So eventually, I gather my courage, along with the box of table arrangements and the bag of décor with one arm, and the skeleton with the other—there’s no way in hell I’m making two trips—and make a run for safety. I burst through the front door in two seconds flat, haphazardly tossing my baggage into a booth, as I throw myself against the front door, sighing with relief when the deadbolt clunks into place.

Creak. Squeaky hinges whine behind me in a moment straight out of a horror movie, and my blood runs cold. The key is still in my pocket. The door was unlocked when I burst through it. Creak. 

From here, the restaurant is illuminated by my still-glowing headlights; I can see all the way down the hall to the basement door. The basement door that is ajar. The basement door that is inching slowly open. 

My feet move without my permission. I duck down, shielded by the front counter, and edge carefully behind it, rising up just enough to peek through the warming shelves that partition off the front from the kitchen. Something is moving back there. Something made of shadows and glowing red eyes. 

My headlights time out, plunging me into darkness. I drop to my knees, cowering behind the front counter. I’ve changed my mind; this was a terrible idea. I don’t want to know what’s in the basement. This place is haunted. Or worse. And speaking of worse, I hear the tinkle of the bell, the shuffling of something up front: something large and not afraid to be loud, Bigfoot—out for revenge against a hit and run driver, a predator—

“Boo—” someone says, and I scream in high-pitched, undignified terror as I leap to my feet, smacking my head on the counter on the way up, before I realize it’s Lenny. 

Despite being the one to lob a well-placed “Boo,” Lenny seems just as surprised to see me as I am to see her, a box clattering to the floor, its contents spilling.

“Finn, what the hell are you doing here?” she yelps, flipping the switch for the lights and glaring at me. This isn’t a thinking frown, it’s a “I’m thinking about firing you,” frown.

“I was trying to surprise you,” I croak. I can’t resist a look back down the hall. The basement door is shut.

“Mission accomplished,” she snaps. She isn’t looking at me; her eyes are flicking around the room, searching, she looks terrified and I realize—

“I’m not here to steal anything or, like, ambush you.” I grimace, rubbing my head. “I was trying to decorate. For Halloween. As a surprise.”

“Oh,” Lenny says, disarmed. “That’s sweet, I love Halloween.”

“What are you doing here so early?” It’s absolutely not necessary to be here this early just to open the restaurant. 

Lenny seems to remember herself, hurriedly collecting the scattered contents of the box: a pack of markers, a preschool workbook, a set of matchbox cars, and inexplicably, an astronomy textbook. “Working, obviously,” she snaps. I lean down to help, pick up a stuffed leopard that Lenny snatches from me. “Scout! I’ve had him since I was a baby.” She examines him tenderly for a moment before placing him in the box.

“What’s all this for?”

“Old stuff I’m throwing out,” Lenny says.

Yeah right. Totally believable you’re tossing the stuffed leopard you’ve had since you were a baby that you still call by name, is what I don’t say.

I half expect to be fired, but Lenny only drops subtle mentions of the NDA in my contract. Hints at the big Christmas bonus coming up soon. I never claimed to be immune to bribery and blackmail. 

But a splinter of guilt stubbornly burrows under my skin. What reasonable explanation could Lenny have for sneaking kid stuff into the Waffle House in the middle of the night? And why is she so set on keeping me out of the basement? I was worried about what was in the basement; now I’m wondering if I should be more worried about who is in the basement. 

Lenny distracts me from my ruminations, gushing about the Halloween décor, putting on a documentary about carnivorous plants, and treating me to a lecture on her favorite gothic foliage. Someone like that couldn’t possibly be a kidnapper, could they?

Pam stops by, claps her hands in delight at the skeleton sitting in the front booth wearing one of her sweaters, and knits him a cap on the spot. 

Lenny prints a nametag. “Max, short for Maxilla.” 

Someone who gives a plastic skeleton a cute nickname surely doesn’t have it in them to conceal a child in a basement, the angel on one shoulder reassures. Then who makes the noises? Why can’t you go in the basement? The devil on my other shoulder insists.

“How’d you get in last night?” Lenny asks as I’m walking out the door at the end of my shift.

I finger the spare key inside my pocket. “Oh, the door was unlocked.” 

“I’m putting up security cameras. If you try to do it again, I’ll know.” That steel in her voice—this new version of Lenny—raises my hackles.

I force my voice to stay light, casual. “Well, if you catch the Waffle House poltergeist on film, maybe I’ll start believing in ghosts.”  

I’m going to find out exactly what’s in the basement and why Lenny doesn’t want me to open that door. I’ll find out what kind of monster is in the Waffle House. I’m just afraid it might be the human kind of monster. 

***

“My stupid tire is flat. Can you give me a ride to work this morning?” I say over the phone. The guilt in my voice is genuine. I hate lying, especially to Lenny. I don’t have a flat tire. In fact, I’m only a short drive away; parked just down the road past the turnoff to the Waffle House. Which means I need Lenny to drive in the opposite direction, into town.

“Of course! It’s no bother. You know Elmer doesn’t usually come in until past ten, and he’d be disappointed if you weren’t here anyway. What’s your address?” 

I rattle off an address and say, “Call me when you get there and I’ll come out.”

There’s the jingle of keys and the soft tinkle of the bell above the door before the phone disconnects. I wait five minutes to be sure she’s on her way, then drive down the road to the Waffle House. 

I’m going to investigate; find out exactly what Lenny’s hiding in the basement. But I’m doing it in the light of day. I must’ve imagined the red eyes in the dark, but the memory lingers. I’ll have to be fast and thorough because it won’t take long for Lenny to realize I haven’t given her my real address. She’s sure to race back here. The only warning I’ll have is her phone call. I try not to mourn my job, because I definitely won’t have one after this. I dread what I’ll find in the basement. If I find a child, I have to call the police. If I find a monster, I’m getting eaten. And if I find nothing, Lenny fires me. Each scenario is its own special flavor of shit stew.

My heart gives a brief pang, picturing Lenny bent over her order book, scribbling notes, her forehead scrunched into a frown. I’ll miss Lenny. Even if she turns out to be a monster, I’ll miss her company even more than I’ll miss the possibility of the “more than friends” we could have been. Pam got it all wrong when she pulled that Lovers card. 

Lenny’s locked the door this time, but I have the key. The bell tinkles an ominously cheerful greeting. The Waffle House looks like it always does: diner nostalgia. Plus Halloween decorations. Plastic bats on strings hang from the ceiling; red lights are strung around the windows; the plastic skeleton sits in its knit sweater in booth one. The espresso machine is sitting on the front counter. As I walk past, it beeps loudly and emits a harsh sound like beans jammed in the grinder. A plume of steam spews from the wand. I jump and hurriedly continue through to the kitchen. 

I pause at the prep counter, a creeping unease climbing up my spine as I see the task my call must have interrupted. Several raw steaks rest on a cutting board next to a bloody knife. There’s a child’s plastic bowl piled with raw steak pieces. And next to that, a child’s plastic cup with several inches of…is that blood? It looks like Lenny’s filled it with as much of the raw meat juice as she could squeeze from the steaks.

Creak. The hinges squeal. 

The basement door is open. I reach for the handle, trying to calm my racing heart; this is why I came here after all. A pattering noise like racing feet echoes from below. I open the door, peer down the stairs into the darkness. Is my imagination running away with me, or is that a pair of red eyes at the bottom of the steps? 

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I jump. I pull it out and stare at Lenny’s number flashing across the screen until a missed call notification pops up. I return it to my pocket as it begins to buzz frantically again. It’s now or never. Reaching along the wall, I grope for a switch and flood the staircase with light. It leads down to a room of some sort, just visible to the left. 

“Hello?” I call. I hear a scuffle, but nothing answers. My cell phone buzzes again; I have to get moving. Racing down the stairs, I turn the corner to find…a bedroom. A kid's bedroom. As cozy and comfortable as a basement room could be. A twin bed with rumpled space-themed sheets, plush pillows, and—my heart twists strangely—Lenny’s old stuffed leopard, Scout. An astronaut nightlight projects a solar system onto the ceiling, there’s even glow stars on the walls. A racetrack and matchbox cars in one corner, a baby doll nursery in another. Along one wall, there’s a tiny armchair next to a bookshelf filled with picture books. Art supplies strewn across a table. Additional doors lead to a small bathroom and a closet filled with 4T clothes on hangers, a dresser stuffed with even more. 

But there’s no sign of an actual child anywhere. No sign of anyone—anything—else down here. Somehow the screechy sounds of steam escaping the espresso machine are growing louder alongside the scream building in me. 

“Lenny, what did you do?” I say, “What is this?” I look desperately around the room for something I’ve missed, some innocent explanation, and my eyes land on a child’s drawing lying on the tiny table. It’s clearly supposed to be Lenny, in her Waffle House uniform, frowning, her order pad in one hand. I suck in a sharp breath. Next to her, holding her hand, is a small, dark figure with red eyes—

The hangers rattle in the closet behind me. I spin, stride toward the closet and shove aside the clothes, peering intently into the back. 

Bright red eyes blink up at me from a rumpled pile of clothes. Then the pile of clothes moves. A small figure, skin the same pale green color as the paint of the wall behind it, takes a step toward me. I blink my eyes rapidly, trying to understand what I’m seeing. A child-sized creature with green skin and red eyes stands in front of me. 

“What—who—” I stutter.

“Boo,” the small creature says, mouth opening wide to show a mouth full of sharp teeth—no, fangs. “Boo,” they say again, insistently, reaching for me with a hand, fingers tipped in long claws. 

I’m not proud of it, but I scream. The small creature throws itself at me as I try to run. I make it halfway to the stairs before I trip on the espresso machine—how did it get down here?—and the small creature hits me like a boulder, tackling me and knocking the breath from my lungs. 

When Lenny finally appears, I’ve found my breath again. I’m screaming, the tiny creature is yelling “Boo!” while hopping on my chest; the espresso machine is blasting coffee beans everywhere—it’s grown tentacle-like appendages from somewhere. Lenny puts two fingers in her mouth and whistles shrilly. The creature hops off me and darts back into the closet. I shove myself to my feet, intending to make a run for it, only to feel the damn espresso machine wrap a tentacle around my leg and hold me back.

“Run, Lenny!” I shriek, forgetting for a moment that this is her mess to begin with. 

“Beans!” she shrieks back. Her forehead is wrinkled in tense lines.

I’m so confused I forget to be scared. “Beans? What the hell do you mean, beans?” I yell. “Beans?”

“Boo!” A voice answers from the closet at the same moment the espresso machine pelts me with another round of coffee beans. 

“What the hell is going on here?”

Lenny snorts. 

“Are you laughing right now?” I gasp.

She is; rather hysterically too. A full body laugh as she sinks to the floor. “Beans. Beans is the espresso machine,” Lenny explains once she’s marginally regained her composure. The figure that darts back out of the closet and into Lenny’s arms now appears to be a completely normal human child of about four: skin a light shade of brown, eyes and hair in matching shades, no fangs or claws in sight. “This,” Lenny wipes her eyes and taps him on the head, “is Radley. Mostly I call him Boo, though. He was just trying to tell you his name.” 

“Yeah, I’m gonna need more information than that.” 

“Alright. You did sign the NDA.” 

We take an unplanned day off, leave the open sign flipped to closed. Lenny makes me French toast while she talks. I’m so relieved Lenny isn’t an evil kidnapper that the news she’s been hiding a cryptid in the basement is easy to absorb.

Boo sits in booth one, across from Max, eating the bowl of raw steak with his fingers, feet swinging and humming nursery rhymes happily. Lenny and I sit at the front counter, watching Boo eat.

“Manners, Boo,” Lenny calls. Boo rolls his eyes and picks up his fork.

Beans sits on the counter, making a continuous stream of grinding and hissing noises that manage to sound disparaging, but also makes a damn good latte once I ask nicely. 

“Cheers,” I say. “I won’t try to repair you anymore. My bad, sorry.”

“Boo was the bear—or cougar, I knew I should have written down my cover story—that I found at Elmer’s place this past spring,” Lenny explains. “I could tell right away Boo was not a kid and not a monster. But his behaviors: his preferred diet of goat and chicken blood, the crop circles and the strange lights that appeared around the same time he did; all of it pointed to him being a chupacabra. He’s an expert little chameleon, can fend for himself pretty well, but he’s still just a kid. I couldn’t leave him in the woods; I couldn’t take him to the wildlife rehabbers. So, I brought him here. Then Beans showed up not a day later, acting really protective. I let him stick around for Boo. And because I don’t think I could get rid of him if I tried, to tell the truth. I’m also pretty sure he’s the one who keeps sneaking out to terrorize Elmer. But he’s turned out to be kind of a crap burglar alarm.”

Beans lets out a puff of disgruntled steam.

I give a sheepish shrug. “Or maybe Beans is good at reading people and knew I meant no harm.” 

“Maybe. I had a good feeling about you. Honestly, I hired you with the hope that I could eventually trust you to babysit. It’s just…I worry. This man in black showed up a week after Boo arrived. Government type in a suit, asking loads of questions. It felt wrong to tell him about Boo, so I didn’t. It’s why I had you sign the NDA, why I kept putting off telling you about Boo. I don’t want anything to happen to him.”

I can’t believe I ever worried Lenny might be a kidnapper.

“Boo’s super smart. Learning language fast. His diet is a little peculiar; he’ll only eat raw meat. Prefers blood. Not sure if he came from a lab or spaceship or what. I’m hoping he’ll tell me more once his English is a little better. I’ve been spending as much time as I can here at night with him. He’s been so good about leaving the wildlife and the farm animals alone once we’ve had a little talk and I’ve gotten him on a steady meal plan. He’s quite shy, really.” 

A horrifying thought suddenly occurs to me. “Did I hit another one of them? Yesterday I hit something in the woods—”

“Oh no! Don’t worry. It was just Boo you hit,” Lenny says, shockingly blasé about my concern.

“What?” I yelp. “Is he okay? Did I—”

“He’s fine.” Lenny waves a hand as if he took a tumble off a swing set. “He’s pretty much indestructible. Sorry about your car, though.”

I wait in silence for the second shock of the day to wear off.

“You’ll keep quiet about him, won't you? Boo’s a sweetheart; he can’t help being a carnivore.” 

“Of course,” I promise. “Even after the NDA expires.”

“Good, I won’t have to murder you then.” I can’t tell if she’s joking. Is it wrong that it only makes me want to kiss her more than I already have been wanting?

Now that my blood pressure has returned to normal and my adrenaline levels are no longer at “I’m about to be mauled to death by an espresso machine and a preschooler,” I have to admit she has a point about Boo. He’s given up on his breakfast after licking his bowl clean and sits quietly with his paper and crayons, his hands sticky, spreading mess on the table. He’s kind of cute in that sort of disgusting way kids are. 

And Lenny, the fond look on her face when she looks at Boo, the way she blushes when she sees I’m watching her; well, she’s more than kind of cute.

“So, do I get to keep my job?”

“It’s yours if you want it. Comes with a condition, though: You’ll have to accept a promotion to co-manager.” 

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”

I feel a tug on my leg, look down and see Boo holding out a paper. “I’m honored; it’s a masterpiece,” I say, taking it and holding out a hand for Boo to high-five before he shyly runs back to his booth. It’s a drawing, a self-portrait: Boo in the middle, Lenny and me in matching Waffle House uniforms on either side of him. An espresso machine, Beans presumably, at his feet. It’s a pretty picture, this vision of the future, if I’m only brave enough to take a chance.

“Hey Lenny,” I say.

“Yeah, Finn?” she says. 

I lean forward, “Can I?” And when she nods and leans it, I press a kiss to her lips, slow but not tentative. “Let’s have dinner. After work hours. I’ll babysit Boo while you pop out and pick us up some takeout. There’s this great Italian place that makes a mean beef carpaccio. How about I call in an order?” 

“I’ll have to tell Pam she was right about the Lovers card after all.” Her smile is even better than her frown.