When you’re a trucker whose job requires you to cross multiple state borders and when your workhours are in the night, you see some things. Well, that’s me, my name is Tucker (rhymes with trucker, eh?) and I’ve seen some things. None of these things were as weird as that night years ago, when I stumbled upon a restaurant named Batty’s…a restaurant similar to Hooters in that all the waitresses wore tank tops…but these ones were all Goth. The events that happened to me are like the pieces of a puzzle I’ve never been able to solve.
Let us start on that dark night, the wind blowing hard as tumbleweeds flew down the road. I was the only driver on the road that night. If there were others, I didn’t see them. I hadn’t seen anyone in at least a couple of hours. Makes sense, as this was a desolate part of the country, but I was still feeling a little weird at the lack of traffic. I do remember seeing a bunch of coyotes mulling around a cactus by the side of the road, though, but that was it for life.
I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten since lunch. Yeah, no dinner for me that day, I was too occupied driving. I knew I was only an hour away from my destination, then the stoneworkers could unload my cargo and I’d buy a bite to eat. Luck had other plans, for it was then that I saw the large neon sign and the fast-food restaurant a couple blocks away from it.
There was a painting of a bat on the neon sign. The name of the restaurant, appropriately, was Batty’s. I remember looking at the sign and not thinking much of it. It was more like, huh, that’s a new restaurant I’ve never been to. Honestly, the thing that surprised me the most was the fact that it was midnight, and the restaurant was still open. I didn’t know any restaurant that stays open that late.
I pulled over, noticing there was no one else parked in the front parking lot. Oh well. It was midnight, after all. I put the truck in park and got out. My plan was to buy something to go and then eat as I drove, I didn’t want to waste no time having a leisurely meal. Hell, I had planned to walk right out if I came in and found out it was a diner instead of a fast-food place.
When I stepped inside, I remember being surprised at how red everything was. Red curtains, red tablecloths, red limo floor, ceiling, and walls, and it looked like the hamburgers being advertised were red too, at least the buns were. The exception was the waitresses. One approached me as soon as I entered, and damn.
She wore a white tank top like how the Hooters waitresses do…only there was a cartoon bat on the cloth of the tank top instead of the owl of Hooters. She wore heavy Goth makeup which made her skin deathly white, which contrasted with her obviously dyed black hair which came down in bangs. Her eyes were piercing green and she looked angry.
“How can I help you?” she drawled.
I noticed she wasn’t wearing a nametag. I made an order for three hamburgers, fries, and a soda. I told her to make it ready to go. She frowned and said, “There’s nowhere around for you to eat at.”
Come to think of it, what was a restaurant doing out in the middle of nowhere? Maybe it was a rest stop, at least that’s what I thought back then, but looking back I am no longer sure, as you will see as the story progresses. I told her I was going to eat on the road.
Her face wrinkled in disgust and she said, “No. That’s not safe. You eat in here or we don’t serve you.”
I was annoyed but my belly rumbled. “Fine,” I told her. “But you better make it quick.”
“You better eat quick,” she said, and I was shocked by the disrespect in her tone. As she left, I got the chance to look at the other waitresses. All of them were Goth women in their twenties or early thirties, except one wearing a black tank top who looked to be a teen, and another in a black tank top who looked to be in her fifties. There had to be a couple dozen of them, most of them were in the kitchen but some walked back and forth across the room and scrubbed down tables. I wasn’t sure why, because I was the only person eating here.
I noticed, however, that the ones in the kitchen kept shooting me dark looks when they thought I wasn’t looking. Whenever they saw me looking, they averted their gaze and quickly went back to work. But every one of these Goth women acted suspiciously. The ones cleaning the tables kept cleaning the same spots again and again. They seemed tense about something.
My burgers arrived. “Thanks,” I said to my waitress. “Why are the buns red?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, everything here is organic,” she replied with. “Can you please finish your food and leave, we want to close up soon.”
“You were the one that said I had to eat here,” I reminded her, and she stormed away without another word.
The burgers tasted fine. But they never got me a soda like I asked for. Instead, it was lemonade.
It was then that I saw it. Tucked in the skirt of the teenaged Goth in the black tank top, was a knife. Not a kitchen knife, this was an actual dagger. I began to get very suspicious.
Deciding to go to the bathroom as a pretense so I could snoop around, I went inside, noticing out the corner of my eyes as every waitress in the place watched me enter. After staying in there a few seconds, I slowly pushed the door open just a crack. One of the waitressed jogged across the floor and went outside. I watched as she approached my truck and peered into the windows. With a sinking heart I remembered that I’d left the key in the ignition since I expected to take my food with me. But this waitress turned and walked away from the truck, looking like if she was going to the backyard of Batty’s. I noticed the waitresses who had been pretending to scrub the tables were no longer doing this, they’d all entered the back areas and the kitchen and were out of view.
I’d only been in the bathroom for less than a minute. They probably thought I would be there for a couple more minutes, which meant I had time so long as I was careful. I crept out of the bathroom and was about to make my way outside when I saw the teenager was still here. Her hands were on her hips and her back was turned to me, but it was clear she was a lookout. As I approached, she sang a creepy song under her breath. “Greedy capitalist farmers poisoning our women & men with nitrates & preservatives, we’re going to kill you…” I reached out and took the knife from her skirt. She must have felt my hand because she gasped and wheeled around, but by then I’d already put her neck in a chokehold with my arms. “help,” she tried to shout, but her voice was muffled. I held on until she went limp, but I checked to make sure she was still breathing. I didn’t want to kill anyone, just knocking her out was my goal and I succeeded. I lifted up her body and put her inside the men’s bathroom in one of the toilet stalls, a good place to hide her.
I made my way outside. I followed the Goth who had been examining my truck, and in the back I found a basement door. Opening it, I looked down a long flight of stairs. At the bottom of the stairs were crates. Lots and lots of crates. White with red markings on them. I knew that seal. These ladies were storing explosives in their basement.
“Hey!” I heard someone shout.
I turned and saw one of the waitresses, but it was a new one. She was broad shouldered from working out and because of the white tank top I could see every muscle on her arms. She was the only one of the waitresses wearing a pants instead of a skirt, a black sweatpants. She was also taller than me, which means she was taller than six feet.
“I don’t want any trouble,” I said.
“I bet,” she snarled, and she advanced towards me. “You won’t be able to stop us. Those fucking factory farms are going down.”
I turned to run, terror going through me. There was no way I could beat her. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew I had to get out of there. She was hot on my heels.
I made it to the door, slamming it open just in time to hit her hard between the eyes. “OOF!” she grunted and clung to the side of the truck, blood running down her face as I turned the key and shifted to drive. Her face contorted in rage, she hit the window with her fist, cracking it. I jigged the truck back and forth, shaking her grunting form colliding with the truck but she held on, her balance perfect.
Even those muscles got to get tired sometime, I thought as I twisted & turned the truck, noting the way she gritted her teeth in pain as she collided repeatedly. She roared in anger and punched the glass, shattering it. I twisted the wheel again, and her shoulder involuntarily slammed into the broken window. Teeth clenched, she reached her hand into the car. I accelerated and drove straight for the restaurant. I swerved at the last second, but we were close enough that the wall hit the buff Goth, scraping her off with a sickening crunch. Before it hit her, there was a split-second where her eyes widened in terror as the reality of her situation came down on her. Her mouth opened wide to scream but then the wall hit her and that was that. I drove off and never looked back. There was a splatter of blood on my truck from where the wall had scraped buff Goth off.
I reported all of this to the police the next day, but when they went to investigate, the building was empty of everything, including the sign. Who were those people and what did they want?