There is no hunger like the hunger you feel when you’re on your fourth hour of driving in the pitch black of night, and you’re still nowhere near your destination. When I volunteered to drive for this road trip, I had no idea what I was getting myself into, especially after listening to Benny snoring for the last 2 hours.
Both of my friends had only been asleep for a couple of hours now, but I couldn’t wait any longer. Honestly, I’m surprised the growling of my stomach hadn’t woken them up, and the one teeny tiny pack of peanut butter crackers I had a half hour ago didn’t help. I pulled into the only gas station I had seen in the last 30 miles. A few cars were in the parking lot, so I knew it had to be open. However, I was really hoping the small restaurant connected to it was open. Its sign read “Papa Pete’s Pizza,” with a tagline under it saying “the cheesier, the better.” Pizza sounded better than gas station food, so I pulled into the parking lot. Since we were already trying to avoid taking too many bathroom breaks on the way, gas station food definitely wouldn’t help, if you catch my drift.
Ashton’s eyes popped open as I put the car in park. “Where are we?” she groggily asked. Benny woke up, too, at the sound of her voice.
“Well, looks like Papa Pete’s Pizza,” I responded. “I’m sorry, guys. My stomach feels like it’s eating itself, so I couldn’t wait any longer.”
“Are they even open?” Benny asked as he checked the time on his phone.
“It looks open,” I said. “No customers, but the lights are on.”
And so, with just a dash of sleepy grumbles and yawns, we piled out of the car. We stretched a bit before heading inside. The sound of the doorbell filled the small shop as we entered, but no one appeared at the front counter. A sign by the front door said to seat yourself, so we shrugged and did just that.
“Are you sure it’s open?” Benny asked once more.
The salt and pepper shakers on the table were shaped like little pigs wearing chef outfits, and I watched Ashton shuffle them around the table as if they were dancing. She paused to reposition the parmesan and red pepper flake containers as audience members before twirling the pigs again. “Why would the door be open if they weren’t?”
“Maybe they forgot to lock up,” he said as we watched Ashton’s dance recital.
Benny grew increasingly anxious after about five minutes of waiting and several pig break-dancing encores. I had to admit that I was, too, and it wasn’t helping that my stomach was also begging for someone to show up. Ashton sighed as she pushed her pigs away, and we knew what was coming. Where Benny was anxious, his girlfriend was a firecracker. “Babe, please don—”
“Hello?” she yelled.
Immediately, a woman’s head popped up in the small window looking into the kitchen. Benny released a breath he had been holding as the waitress headed toward us. She looked around our age, maybe a little older, and her aura was very standoffish. She stopped at our table and said nothing. Her apron was covered in stains of an unknown origin, her hair was plopped on top of her head in a messy bun, and she slowly blew a gum bubble in our direction.
“Uh…do you have a menu?” asked Ashton.
“We’re a pizzeria,” the waitress said matter-of-factly. “We serve pizza.”
Ashton’s face reddened with aggravation, but she didn’t respond.
Benny took over for Ashton, and he asked for a large pizza. When the waitress asked what toppings we wanted, he asked us what we were feeling. The waitress immediately diverted her attention to me, making me incredibly uncomfortable with her direct eye contact. Her eyes widened as she gave me an impossibly large grin. “What do you want, Sean? Do you want me to dice up your friends and use them as toppings?”
“Excuse me?” I snapped at her.
Her face instantly returned to normal before showing signs of offense. I looked at Benny and Ashton for help, but they just looked confused. Had I imagined it?
“I didn’t say anything to you,” snapped the waitress.
I apologized and told them to choose whatever toppings they wanted, and the waitress rushed off as soon as they had decided.
“We’ll have three cokes with that, by the way!” Ashton yelled in her direction.
We made small talk while we waited, and Ashton began to play with her pig friends again. The smell of pizza cooking filled the building, and it was making my mouth water. Just as I was about to ask them if they thought she had forgotten our drinks, Ashton shrieked. Benny asked what was wrong, and instead of responding, she launched the pigs across the room. They shattered against the floor, scattering the spices across the aged tiles.
“What the hell?” Benny asked.
“They smiled at me,” she whispered while staring vacantly at our table.
“Pizza’s hot.”
“Jesus!” I yelled as all 3 of us jumped. The waitress placed the piping hot pizza on our table, clearly having no concern for having scared us or possibly burning the table. She also paid the broken salt and pepper shakes no mind as she departed again.
“We had three cokes,” I called sheepishly over my shoulder. If she heard me, she did not acknowledge it. Benny and Ashton didn’t either as we stared at the pizza nervously. It had no partakers, and the dining room sat silently for a few minutes until I noticed another customer. I don’t know if he had always been there, but he was there now, staring straight at me with widened eyes.
His smile, which matched the one the waitress had earlier, unnerved me and made my heart drop into my stomach. His head was cocked at an unnatural angle, and the only difference in their facial expressions was that his eyes were completely white. “Are you guys enjoying your pie?” he asked.
I ignored him, unsure if he was real because my friends didn’t acknowledge him. He didn’t like that, so he yelled “Hey” at me with a volume that made me wince. I chose to keep ignoring him and turned to my friends instead. “Do you guys see him?” I asked them under my breath.
Benny shook his head with a look of concern on his face, but I don’t even think Ashton heard me. She once again had that same blank facial expression as she did earlier.
“Of course, they see Papa Pete. They are just lying to you,” said the man, leaning his head over him even more. I heard a distinct cracking noise that I knew could only be his neck. “They don’t like you, Sean, and they are going to kill you.”
“Sean,” hissed Benny as he snapped his fingers to get my attention. His voice had a level of aggravation that could only be due to repeating my name several times after I had not heard him. “We have to get out of here,” he told me. I noticed his hand was on the table, and Ashton clutched it until her knuckles were white.
Before I could say anything, our waitress appeared with a tray holding three beverages. As she placed them on the table, she asked us how our meal tasted even though we clearly hadn’t eaten. Benny opened his mouth to answer but let out a scream instead as we watched the waitress hit Ashton upside the head with her tray. Ashton recoiled, holding a hand against the cheek that had been hit. And yet, the waitress merely looked perplexed…because it hadn’t happened. Ashton’s cheek wasn’t even red, and the waitress’ tray was suddenly tucked under her arm as if she had placed it there after delivering the drinks.
Benny asked for our check, and the waitress shook her head. “Mmm…no.”
His brow furrowed. “Excuse me?”
I looked back toward where Pete had been, but he was no longer there. When I returned my attention to the woman, her eyes were as white as his had been. Their signature grin lit up her face as she said, “You three aren’t leaving us anytime soon.”
Ashton jumped to action by grabbing one of the cokes and throwing it into the server’s face. In response, she released an inhuman shriek and covered her face with her hands. Her skin began to melt off and fall to the tiled floor in sticky chunks, and I was suddenly thanking God that we hadn’t consumed anything given to us. We hightailed it out of there while we still had the chance, and I was shocked to see Pete and the server weren’t following us as I started the vehicle’s engine. Instead, they watched us from the establishment’s front windows, their menacing faces ever-present. As I backed up the car, they both waved at our departure.
It’s been a while since we left that hellish place, and I honestly can’t say we’ve faired well. Benny and I discussed it many times, trying to retrace the events so that they make logical sense in our heads, but what we’ve realized is that it simply isn’t meant to. While we were there, our minds had been distorted in different ways. While I hallucinated Papa Pete’s appearance, Ashton saw the pigs darting around the pizzeria, and Benny was being told what doom we would face by disembodied voices. Ashton also mentioned a terrible smile the pigs wore, and I’m quite sure it was the same one I saw on Pete and his servant’s face. I hadn’t even noticed they knew my name without me telling them until Benny pointed it out.
I spent hours searching for the restaurant on Google and finally found a single article detailing why it had been shut down. The article’s title read “Tragedy in a Local Gas Station Haunts Town 10 Years Later.” Considering the title, I thought it was incredibly odd that it was the only article I could find, but it detailed a memorial that had happened at the restaurant. The memorial wasn’t for the restaurant itself, though. It said it was for the victims.
Apparently, Pete had been up to some horrific business ventures. He was discovered using human flesh, blood, and bone in his cooking. He left behind a book on his cannibalistic recipes, and it also included detailed descriptions of occult practices that these recipes were used for.
Our waitress that night had been his first victim.
After it happened, Ashton barely spoke during our conversations about the pizzeria. However, here lately, she won’t shut up about it. It’s strained her and Benny’s relationship and my friendship with her, but she doesn’t seem to care. She has been urging us to go back, and she won’t stop talking about how wonderful the food was even though we didn’t actually eat it. It bothers me how her perception of everything has changed, but I know it’s not her fault.
The evil in that building is calling her back to it. The waitress warned us that we wouldn’t leave them any time soon, and we were stupid to think it was merely luck that we could get away. The place was just toying with us, just like it had been when we were inside its depths. I know it won’t be long until Ashton listens to the call, and I can’t help but lie awake at night and wonder when Benny and I will hear it calling to us next.