I noticed it in small things. Foggy windows, a dead ladybug on the ground, and our milk kept spoiling.
Two men in black came in, ordered four coffees, and then left without taking them.
When I asked where they were, my colleagues looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
But it was when Kai twisted to me, his expression panicked, that was when I started really noticing it. Kai was a newbie, and I was still trying to figure out why he’s chosen a coffee store as a job. You would think he’d pick a job at a library, or somewhere less stressful.
Kai was the epitome of stress itself, and just looking at him made me feel jittery, like I wasn’t doing enough with my hands.
“Do you guys smell gas?” Kai said, eyes cartoon wide, and I shot him a glare. Announcing at the top of his lungs that he could smell gas, really wasn’t a good look for us. Kai was carrying a tray of donuts, and I could see each of them shaking along with him.
Elena glided past him with a chuckle, sticking out her hand to stabilise the tray. Two years older than the rest of us, and the girl treated us like little kids. “Kai, sweetie,” she didn’t even try to hide her patronising tone. When the boss was put on business, Elena was our self appointed leader. Which meant she had full control of the Alexa, and we were subjected to hours of Olivia Rodrigo. “Nobody is dying, okay? Calm down.”
Kai shook his head. “No, but seriously, can you smell it?” he sniffed the air. “What is that?”
Elena rolled her eyes. “Your imagination,” she said, her tone hardening. “I’ve checked, like, multiple times. There’s no freaky gas smell.”
Another colleague, Casper, a broad shouldered college football player, shoved him playfully. Originally from Australia, this guy’s accent was too much on a Thursday morning. Casper had too much energy and was one hell of a control freak. I could sense his smile was a little too wide because we weren’t all working at the speed of light.
My colleague, however, was.
Casper could make coffee with his eyes closed.
“Dude, chill!” he grabbed a plastic cup and steamed milk, already preparing another with his other hand. “There’s no smell!”
Fifteen minutes later, I glimpsed the windows fogging up. The clock on the wall above the door didn’t have a time.
It had a date. 12.21.12.
Strange.
Still though, I didn’t think anything of it. Ever since starting as a barista, I had mastered the ability to delve inside my own mind. I could blink, and time would jump forward. I came to when my throat started to tickle. The windows were growing foggier, though it was a fairly warm day. Casper hadn’t spoken in a while, silently making drink after drink, hot cocoa and lattes, like he was being held at gunpoint. Kai was bouncing up and down in front of me, a manic energy around him that was starting to grate on me. This guy didn’t know how to dress. His apron was backwards, a mess of curls in wide eyes. I didn’t blame him. The lunch rush was an introvert’s nightmare. “Caramel macchiato,” Kai hissed out a breath, “For, uhh…”
“Any day now.” I snapped.
Something pricked me, and I flinched slightly.
I didn’t realize I was digging the nib of my marker into my thumb.
There was a tiny blot of red, blossoming blood growing in the centre of my palm.
After frowning at it for a moment, I licked it clean.
Only for another blot to appear, this time larger.
Ignoring it, I turned my attention to Kai when Casper snapped at me to focus.
“Jamie, quit daydreaming, all right? Orders, now!”
“Got it.” I said back, half sarcastically.
“Well, we have customers! Snap out of it!”
Kai jumped. He didn’t like it when Casper yelled. I don’t think anyone did. Something about his accent alleviated his voice. Kai flipped through his notebook, hands trembling. I glimpsed a sheen of sweat glittering on his forehead. He was shaking. And not the normal ‘Kai freaking out shaking’ we had all come to know, the guy could barely hold his notebook.
“Thanksgiving.” He said through a sharp breath. “Umm, for table two.”
“What?” His words confused me for a moment. I paused scrawling the customer’s name. I could feel the slick wet feeling of something. I swiped my hands on my apron. “What did you just say?”
Kai frowned. “Latte,” he said. The kid was dripping in sweat. “For table two.”
Huh.
Maybe I misheard him.
Kai was practically vibrating with anxiety. “Wait, did I do something wrong?”
I shrugged, preparing the drink. “Did you… have a good Thanksgiving?”
Kai’s brow furrowed. “It was okay, I guess,” he looked at me like I was the crazy one. Like I was the one blurting Thanksgiving for no reason. Leaning across the counter, he fixed me with a frown. “Why? Thanksgiving was weeks ago.”
If he was playing some stupid prank, I wasn’t engaging. Nodding, I dumped the drink on the counter for my frazzled colleague to collect. Kai grabbed it and shot me a relieved smile over his shoulder. I took a second to drink him in fully. He was definitely running a fever, sweat pouring down his face and neck, strands of his dark curls glued to his forehead. He stumbled, catching himself with a laugh. “Thanksgiving, Jamie!”
“Huh?”
This time, my reaction startled a woman waiting in line.
Kai turned back to me, still smiling. “I said thanks!”
There it was again. Thanksgiving. With zero fucking context. He was freaking me out, and nothing really scared me. This was slow, starting like a shiver down the spine and creeping into my gut. I could feel it paralysing me to the spot, too scared to look at the boy. It wasn’t just Kai himself who was scaring me. The way he was moving, pausing and restarting, like I was playing a video game.
Maybe I was tired.
I swiped at my eyes, and he was right in front of my face.
“Thanksgiving?”
I shook my head, my own words slurring. Kai had drawn a smiley on his cheek. “Why do you keep saying that?”
“Saying what?” Kai surprised me with a laugh. “I said, can I go get milk from the storeroom?”
Was Kai… crying? “Oh, right.” I was sweating, my face hot to the touch.
“Yeah. Sure.”
I kept working, swiping at my own clammy forehead. I could no longer see out of the windows. The store was quickly filling up, customers screaming their orders at us. I did as I was told, taking orders and making drinks.
But at some point, something started to twist in the air. “Jamie,” Casper poured steaming milk over himself, unblinking. He didn’t even blink. That milk was at boiling temperature. I could see his skin bubbling. My colleague didn’t react, pouring what was left of the steamed milk into a bottle cap. “Can you hurry up? We’ve got customers to Thanksgiving. We need team work, people!”
I didn’t watch him claw at a lumpy, melted piece of his cheek.
But I did see him fling it on the floor.
I made coffee, my head growing lighter, my thoughts starting to grow thick and heavy. I need to get out. But I couldn’t move. Every time I tried, Casper was doing something progressively more insane. I turned to him after the milk incident, and he was chugging chocolate syrup. Then he did a clumsy cartwheel, landing on his head. Still though, my body worked like a robot.
I couldn’t fucking stop.
More orders were cried out, and our customers stopped looking like people. They were animals, throwing themselves a at us, starving hands reaching for coffee. Their words started to tangle into nonsensical screaming, and then Thanksgiving. I was preparing a coffee I didn’t remember, my own hands shaking, when a man jammed his iPhone into his right ear.
I didn’t know what the order was, and I was just pouring hot water. I was half aware it was splashing onto the floor, soaking my shoes. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the man. He was still smiling at me, awaiting his cocoa, streaks of red seeping down his neck.
There was something pulpy, a mass of fleshy red, dripping from his ear.
Something snapped inside of me, but my body wouldn’t stop. I plonked down a drink when the woman awaiting her latte plunged her fingers into her own eyes, lips splitting into a manic grin. With blood stained fingers, she grasped the styrofoam cup and poured it over her head. I stumbled back, straight into Casper, whose mouth was moving. But I couldn’t… hear him.
My head spun.
I blinked.
Casper was in front of me, screaming in my face, his fingers tangled with the glistening, pulpy mass of his own vocal chords. His apron was splattered red. I didn’t see the knife in his hand. He grabbed me, his lips stretching into a wide grin. I couldn’t tell what he was saying, or trying to say, choking through mutilated lips. Thanksgiving!
Casper was mouthing, along with the sudden laughing, screeching hoard flattening each other, tearing at their own faces, clawing their flesh from bone. It was both horrific and beautiful in my vastly deteriorating mind. I felt it like a virus leaching into my meat of me, bugs carving their tiny, skittering legs into my skull. Suddenly, my colleague waterboarding himself with milk was funny. Casper dove onto the counter, and I watched him, my vision blurring in and out of clarity.
There was a man in a hat outside the window.
I blinked.
Casper did a somersault into the crowd, whose words were hitting me in waves. Elena was stumbling behind me, pulling out her intestines, tangling them on her fingers. I didn’t even see her guts hanging out. I didn’t see her slice into her stomach. I just saw her, a confusing blur of gore, spiralling. Spitting blood, she giggled, doing a pirouette.
Elena was a great dancer. I found myself gleefully clapping my hands.
*Thanksgiving!”
Elena slipped in pooling red, joining hands with Casper.
“Thanksgiving!”
My own trembling fingers crept toward the silverware drawer, skimming over silver blades blurring into one. Thanksgiving. I dragged the blade across my cheek, and then into my own mouth, hysterical giggles escaping in a fountain of red. I pulled out my teeth one by one, sinking into the word, revelling myself in Thanksgiving.
Slipping to my knees, I found Kai already on the floor, sobbing into his knees. He was chewing into them, spitting out globules of fat. When he lifted his head, Kai coughed up his ear.
“Thanksgiving?” he spluttered in a giggle.
I nodded, and we high fived.
“Thanksgiving!”
One thought, heavily delayed, suddenly entered my mind.
Oh yeah, I could smell gas.
That was fucking strong.
Around half an hour later, I was still still screaming Thanksgiving in the back of an ambulance. Elena and Casper were dead, and Kai was clinging on. Somehow. Four Thanksgiving’s ago, I almost lost my mind. I will never, ever celebrate that fucking holiday again.
Needless to say, we should have listened to the newbie.
Because what the FUCK.