There’s something to be said about restaurants with really fucking weird logos. It draws you in, makes you want to know just what they’re about. You see a lot of them at ribfests. They usually feature pigs (usually dressed as cowboys) happily peddling their own meat. I even know of a burger place in Vaughan called ‘Holy Chuck’ where the logo is a cow holding up its own severed head on a plate, while a cheeseburger sits in place of its actual head. This is a real restaurant. Look it up… It’s actually one of the best burgers I’ve ever had… But the grand champion (in my mind at least) of absurd fucking logos goes to Chickenzoid Arcade and Wings. That place had a logo that was a whole new level of weirdness. It was the exact sort of head turning madness that I love.
It depicted a chicken on a skateboard, in full cheesy 90s attire, at an arcade cabinet. He had a shit eating grin, wing sauce around his mouth/beak and was triumphantly holding up a chicken drumette with a single bite taken out of it. It was beautiful… Violently 90s, slightly morbid, and all around absurd. If I didn’t have treasured childhood memories of that place, I’d go in just on the sheer power of the stupid logo alone.
Chickenzoid opened up sometime back in the 90s. I remember watching them build the place back when I was a kid. Every time I drove past, I’d see it, and from the very moment I saw that logo, I knew I wanted to try it.
There aren’t a lot of restaurants out there that do food and arcades these days. There’s Dave and Busters, obviously. But outside of that, I can’t really name any major players aside from Chickenzoid and that place wasn’t really a franchise. Honestly, I’m not sure why there aren’t more of them. They’re a fucking blast!
When Chickenzoid first opened, it immediately became the place for birthday parties! I remember that the first time I went there was for my friend Chris’ 9th birthday party and I never wanted to leave! Naturally, when my birthday came around, I insisted we hold it there… Then my other friends wanted theirs to be there. So on, and so forth.
The years went by, we grew up and we all changed as people… But one thing that didn’t change was Chickenzoid.
Now, I’m gonna be honest, I’d sorta pushed the place into the back of my memories during recent years. Occasionally while I was in town I’d drive past and think:
‘Oh yeah! Chickenzoid! That place was awesome! I’m glad it’s still open.’ and then go on with my day. Very rarely, I’d stop by with some friends for wings while I was in town. But we never really played any of the arcade games.
That all changed about three years ago.
When I was 18, I left town for college and spent a couple of years working in Toronto. I still went home to visit my family and friends obviously, but I wasn’t there full time. Then my Dad got cancer and thinking that he wasn’t going to live much longer, I came back to be with him…
Fortunately, my Dad’s a tough, stubborn old bastard, and cancer only really proved to just be a minor inconvenience. He went into remission and was declared cancer free within the year… But I was already back in town, reconnecting with old friends and pretty comfortable, so I figured I might as well just deal with the daily commute and stayed. Best decision I ever made.
About a few months after I moved back to my hometown, I was talking with one of my old friends, Chris and he suggested I hit up Chickenzoid with him and a couple other old high school buddies of ours that Friday night.
Obviously, I wasn’t going to say no.
Friday night rolled around and I drove down to Chickenzoid to find that it had barely changed a bit. The sign with that goofy logo was a little sunbleached, but otherwise, the place barely seemed to have changed. They’d gotten plenty of new games over the years, but they still had all the classics.
Chris and I were the first ones there, but about ten minutes later Jesse showed up. He and I had been good friends back in High School. We’d texted back and forth occasionally over the years, but never really met up… The second I saw him though, the years just melted away and we were talking as if we’d only seen each other yesterday.
Carter came in next. He was always a big guy, and looking at him ten years after High School he looked like a bear trying to pass itself off as a human… I mean, I guess technically speaking he was a bear, since he brought Mikey, his boyfriend with him. I’d never really known Mikey that well since he’d been a few years younger than us, but Carter and I had been friends ever since we were little kids and I greeted him with the biggest bear hug I could muster. He greeted me with an even bigger one.
Then lastly came David. David was always sort of the quiet kid, but he had the best sense of humor. All these years later and I hardly even recognized him. He was an entirely different person. The David I met was confident, he smiled more, he looked thinner. Yet at the same time, he hadn’t changed at all. He was more confident, sure. But the jokes were just as lame as they’d ever been. About ten minutes after he’d sat down, he pulled out the same joke he’d been telling since 9th grade.
“Alright, so these two nuns were heading to Church one Sunday and decided to take their bikes there. While they were on the road, the first nun says: ‘Follow me, I know a better route down this cobblestone path.’ So they go down the cobblestone path. The second nun says: ‘I’ve never come this way before.’ And the first nun says: ‘It’s the cobblestones.’
We’d all heard this one a thousand times before, but it still got a laugh.
“Dude, what is it with you and nuns?” Jesse asked, pretending to be annoyed although he couldn’t hide his grin.
David had just smiled and replied:
“Sorry. I’ve got a bit of a fetish for them. It’s just a habit I’m into.”
Awful…
But fucking spectacular.
We spent more time at the table just shooting the shit together like that. Listening to Davids bad jokes and talking about where life had taken us. It was like nothing had changed since High School. Sure. We’d all grown up and we were different people… But it was nice to see that we hadn’t changed that much. That night, we gorged ourselves on wings, drank pitcher after pitcher of beer, then bought a fuckload of tokens and played arcade games until closing time.
It was the best night out that I’d had in years…
So when a couple of months later, Chris texted me, asking:
“You wanna come out with me and the guys to eat an amount of chicken wings that would frighten God himself?”
My response was:
“Hell yeah.”
Since then, Chickenzoids been part of my life again.
Every few months, me and the boys will meet up there. Usually it’s just the six of us. Sometimes, we don’t all make it. Sometimes we bring other friends in… Either way. It’s incredible. We eat as many wings as we can, along with a plethora of greasy fried foods that we probably shouldn’t be eating… We drink cheap beer and play games. My stomach usually regrets it all in the morning, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. It’s like being a kid again, only infinitely better. But… Unfortunately, life happens…
The news of David’s death hit us all like a brick to the face.
He’d been on his way home from work when a snowstorm hit, and it had hit hard. Pure whiteout conditions. Maybe David was going too fast, or maybe he just got unlucky and hit some black ice. Either way, somewhere along the highway he’d lost control of the car. He’d slammed through the guard rail, gone into a nearby pond and that was it. The paramedics and the hospital did what they could… But David was beyond saving.
I’ve lost friends and family before… It never gets easier. The five of us were all at his funeral. Carter, Chris, and I were even pallbearers.
I remember seeing his Mom there… Jesus… The grief in her voice still haunts me… I remember the way she thanked us for coming, barely even holding it together. Carter had pulled her into a hug and the poor woman had just broken down. I didn’t blame her one bit…
A couple of days after the funeral, Chris had suggested we all go to Chickenzoid for a drink. Sort of a last toast to David. I was down. So were the others
The five of us met the next night at the restaurant, parked ourselves in a quiet booth ordered ourselves some beer, and did exactly what we said we were going to do. We drank to David.
Carter and Chris quietly reminisced about him, bringing up old memories as the night went on and they got drunker. Mikey didn’t really talk much at all, he just sorta sat and drank quietly. As for Jesse, I’d never seen him look so grave before. Suddenly, the world around us felt a whole lot darker. We didn’t talk like we usually did. Every smile seemed forced. We didn’t even look at the games. It was like all of the laughter had suddenly been sucked out of us, and even the weak smiles we offered seemed forced.
Me? I reminisced with Chris and Carter… Brought up old childhood stories that still brought a smile to my face, although the smile never really stayed for that long. Like everything else it faded fast.
Throughout the night, a sixth beer sat untouched at the table, a stark reminder that David wasn’t there anymore… And I kept looking at it, wishing that he’d just walk up to our table, grab it and say: “Hey guys, what’d I miss?”
Sadly, life doesn’t really work like that.
The next time we went to Chickenzoid, about two months later, everyone’s spirits were a little better. David’s death still sort of hung over the whole affair, but we still got together and I was glad for that… If it had been me who’d passed, I wouldn’t have wanted the guys to stop going on my account, and I was sure David would’ve said the same.
We still ordered a beer to leave at his spot on the table… Chris had actually ordered it by mistake when the waitress had come around. He’d said: “Six Alexander Keiths.” Then he realized there were only five of us. I still figured it was a nice touch.
That beer sat untouched as the night went on and after putting away a few pounds of wings, an order of deep fried mac and cheese balls, and a tower of onion rings, we were in the mood to play some games.
I’d wandered around the arcade with Jesse and Chris for a bit, trying to get them into some of the rail shooters they had, and Jesse indulged me on a few of them. We shot up zombies, dinosaurs and terrorist in a few of the classics, swapping out whenever somebody ran out of lives.
About an hour into the night though, Chris started acting different.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when it happened, but at some point, he started wandering off more and more, as if he were looking for something. He’d either finished or abandoned his last beer and every time the waitress offered him a new one, he just quietly shook his head. At one point, while Jesse was kicking ass at skee ball, I put a hand on his shoulder and asked him:
“You alright, man?”
He’d just given me a wide eyed look as if there was something on his mind, but he didn’t want to out and say it for some reason. After a moment, he’d just hastily nodded.
“Yeah… Yeah, I’m fine, man… I’m fine.”
He’d glanced around as if looking for something before gently pulling himself out of my grip.
“You don’t look fine.” I’d said.
“It’s just my stomach… Probably ate too much. Really, Mark… I’m alright.”
He’d forced a smile, but I knew all too well that it was bullshit. All the same, I’d dropped it for the time being, figuring that if he wanted to talk about it, he would.
Jesse had just gotten a new high score at skee ball, and I had to put the mouthy little bastard back in his place and remind him who the true champion was. I’d just finished reinstating myself as the Skee Ball God when I’d looked over to find Chris, only to see that he was gone. Jesse was still there, beer in hand and everything. But there was no sign of Chris.
“Yeah, he said he was going home.” Jesse had said when I’d asked, “He was looking kinda pale.”
I’d considered leaving Jesse there to go looking for Chris, but ultimately I figured there wasn’t much point to it. He was probably long gone.
I texted Chris the next morning to see if he was feeling any better, although he never got back to me. This wasn’t like him… Chris wasn’t the sort of guy who left you on read. Even when he was sick as a dog, he’d usually at least reply. My gut told me that something was wrong…
I had the day off from work and a few errands to run, so I figured I’d check in on him. Chris’s apartment wasn’t too far from my place, so I stopped by.
When I buzzed him to get through the front door, he sounded off when he answered.
“Hello?”
“Hey man, it’s Mark… You good? You seemed pretty sick last night. I was just checking in on you.”
“I’m fine…” He insisted.
“You sure? I can pick something up for you if you want. Some gatorade or something, gravol. Whatever you need.”
“It’s fine… I don’t…” He trailed off, before sighing and hitting the buzzer, “Come on up.”
He’d changed his tone so abruptly that it threw me off guard. But the door unlocked and I stepped inside.
Chris lived up on the 6th floor, and he was waiting in the doorway when I got there. As soon as I got close enough, he ushered me in with the kind of urgency that seemed reserved for somebody in a spy movie.
“Jeez man, what the hell?” I’d asked, “What’s with you?”
“Did anyone follow you?” He asked.
I raised an eyebrow.
“Follow me? Dude, what the hell are you talking about?”
Chris just stared at me, then shook his head.
“You weren’t even looking… Of course you weren’t… You didn’t see it.”
“See what?”
Chris had gone over to his window and looked outside. He stared down at the apartment parking lot and some of the nearby houses before closing his curtains again.
“You didn’t see David, last night.” He said.
What the fuck was he talking about?
“Chris… Davids…”
“Dead?” He finished, “No… I saw him…”
“At Chickenzoid?”
Chris nodded before making his way over to the fridge and grabbing a beer. His hands seemed to be shaking a little.
“He was there, Mark… I saw him.”
I sighed.
“You sure you’re feeling alright, man?” I asked, “Do you need to go to a doctor or-”
“I SAW HIM, MARK!” He fixed me in a death glare before taking a swig of his beer, “He was bussing the tables! I saw him!”
I tried not to stare at Chris like he was a complete goddamn lunatic… And I failed.
“You’re going to tell me I’m crazy…” He said bitterly.
“Yeah. Kinda.” I said. There really wasn’t any point in sugar coating it, “Look man, I know we’re going through some shit right now… You’re going through some shit. But do you seriously think you saw David bussing tables at fucking Chickenzoid? Come on, man. Be realistic here.”
“I know what I saw.” Chris said, looking me dead in the eye, “I know it was him… I didn’t just see a guy that looked like him. It was him.”
He took another swig of his beer.
“You and Jesse were playing one of those shooters. Carter and Mikey were at the pool table. I had a moment so I’d gone back to get another beer… Then there he was… In uniform, clearing off the fucking table… It was him, Mark. It was him.”
Another swig of his beer before he let out a low, almost trembling breath.
“I… I said his name. I didn’t want to believe it… He looked at me… He looked right at me… And he didn’t say a word. He just… He just cleared off the table and left. Then when I tried to talk to him, tried to follow him. But he just kept walking as if I wasn’t even there.”
The way he spoke… I knew that Chris truly believed what he was saying, even if I didn’t.
“It was probably just some random guy…” I tried to say but Chris cut me off again.
“How many times do I have to tell you that it wasn’t!? David’s been my friend for almost fifteen goddamn years! I know what he fucking looks like! I didn’t leave town and come back ten years later like you did! I’ve been with him for fifteen fucking years! You think I’m just gonna confuse some busboy for him! I spoke to him, Mark! I saw him up close! It was David!”
I took a step back as he ranted at me, and when he was done he panted heavily, looking as though he was fighting to hold back the tears.
“He’s not dead, Mark… He’s not dead… They… Someone did something to him… I don’t know what but they did something to him…”
I took another step back. Chris looked at me, a single tear rolling down his cheek.
“If you really want to help me, Mark… Then help me figure out what’s happening with David… Please.”
I stared at him, unable to find an answer… Or I suppose more accurately, unable to find the right way to tell him no.
“I’m sorry Chris…” Was all I managed to say before I left.
I wish to God that I’d said more than that…
The last time I saw him he was standing in his kitchen, watching me go.
I got the call from Jesse around noon the next day. Chris had been found in his apartment a few hours earlier.
Apparently… He’d hung himself.
And the moment I heard that news, my heart broke all over again. I sat there in my cubicle, in stunned silence, struggling not to break down before finally, I failed.
Chris’s funeral was harder than David’s… Maybe it was the fact that I’d lost two friends so close to each other. Maybe I was just closer to Chris. Either way, the weeks after his funeral felt hollow and empty… Like a part of me had died with him.
I replayed our final conversation over and over again in my mind… Logically, I suppose it was easy to believe that Chris had just taken David’s death really hard. But I’d been with Chris during the months after the funeral… He’d been upset, sure. We’d all been upset! But he wasn’t suicidal. Of that much, I was positive. Even the last time I’d seen him… Nothing he’d said to me had given me any indication that he was thinking of ending things. Hell, given the timeframe, he couldn’t have died more than a few hours after I’d last seen him.
In the back of my mind, I’ll admit I did wonder if maybe I’d somehow killed him… If my dismissal of his wild fantasies had been what had driven him over the edge but… Well.
Maybe I was just looking for reasons to absolve myself of any blame I might have had, but that didn’t seem like Chris… Then again, Chris hadn’t really been himself that day, had he?
I remembered the way he’d been looking around before he let me into his apartment. Hell, I remember him asking me if I’d been followed! At the time I thought it was a stupid question… Now I wasn’t so sure.
Come to think of it, the fact that Chris hadn’t left any sort of suicide note was also kinda weird too. His last post on Facebook was from the night we’d gone to Chickenzoid.
‘Beer and games with the boys!’
Right up until he’d supposedly seen David, he’d been doing pretty damn good. And now he was dead… This didn’t seem right…
I spent the afternoon after I’d learned about Chris’ suicide at home, digesting the news and thinking on all the things that didn’t seem to add up around it.
After a while, I decided that since I had nothing to do and needed a distraction, I might as well go out and get a drink. And I felt inclined to get it at Chickenzoid. It was still fairly early in the day, so the restaurant wasn’t that busy. I’d made it right before the dinner rush.
I planted my ass at the bar and ordered myself a beer. The bartender, a bored looking brunette who was barely 20 and still had braces quietly obliged me. As I drank, my thoughts turned back to Chris. Nothing about his death sat right with me. Maybe it was the grief… But this felt different. Like something else.
The grief was that gnawing pit in my chest… That sense of loss that weighed in my stomach like a stone. This was concern. Anxiety. A nagging at the back of my mind. Worry. Christ… I didn’t know what to think or what to feel. It was all so confusing… I downed half of my first beer and made up my mind on the spot that I was going to need several more to help me figure this out.
Midway through my third beer, I brought up a photo me and the boys had taken a few days prior. Chris sat between me and Jesse in a booth at Chickenzoid. He was grinning from ear to ear, like nothing was wrong… I know people always say that you never know what a person is going through… But I knew Chris, goddamnit… He wouldn’t just kill himself… He wasn’t in that headspace! He was fine a couple of days ago!
He was fine…
I finished my beer and scrolled through a few more photos. Me and Jesse playing a shooter. Carter and Mikey sharing a silly kiss over a chicken wing. An old photo of Chris drinking a beer we’d taken several months ago… Then David…
David…
This must’ve been one of the last pictures we’d taken of him. It was from a few months back, during the last dinner we’d had at Chickenzoid before he…
In it, he sat at our table, holding up his mug of beer and laughing. I stared thoughtfully at the photo. David had dark hair that fell down to his shoulders and a slight scruff. He was wearing a gray beanie in that picture. He probably wasn’t the most unique looking human being on earth, but he would’ve been easy to recognize if you knew him. It would’ve been unusual for Chris to get it that wrong, even if he was still grieving over him.
The brace faced bartender came back over to fill up my beer again. As she did, I showed her my phone.
“Hey, you ever see a guy like this working here?” I asked.
She leaned in and squinted at the screen.
“Maybe?” She said, “He looks familiar, but he’s definately not part of the regular staff. Might be one of the bus boys or dishwashers. Management hires them in from this staffing agency.”
“Staffing agency?” I asked.
“Yeah. A place called Romero, I think? Between you and me… Seems a little bit scummy. But that’s not really my business.” She said with a shrug.
“Romero…” I repeated, before frowning.
I took a sip of my new beer before bringing up Google and looking up the Romero Staffing Agency.
I just ended up on a fairly plain-looking splash page advertising the business, but there wasn’t much there, save for a button someone could press to email the company. I got the feeling that emailing them Davids picture wouldn’t get me very far… Even if they did happen to have an employee that looked exactly like him, they probably wouldn’t just give me his information because my dead friend looked like him. I was just wasting my time…
Over the next six months… I moved on with my life. It feels wrong to say that. But that’s the truth. I grieved. I examined the final conversation I’d had with Chris from every possible angle… But in the end, I really had no choice but to just carry on.
David had died in a tragic accident.
Chris had taken his life out of grief.
Neither of these realities were pleasant to accept, but they ultimately were the ones we had to deal with.
I didn’t hear much from Carter and Mikey after Chris had passed. I think they both needed some time to deal with everything on their own terms. I’d occasionally text with Carter and had hung out with him and Mikey once, but that was really it. Jesse on the other hand… I talked to Jesse a lot.
We’d both been pretty close with Chris and losing him hit us pretty hard. We met up a few times for drinks. At first, we were just drowning our sorrows together but in time, it became a little more lighthearted. Neither of us suggested going to Chickenzoid at first. It felt… Wrong, somehow. That had always been our thing as a group of friends. Now that two of us were dead, it didn’t feel the same… But in time, that stopped mattering.
When he suggested we go out to Chickenzoid for some wings, beer and games… It sounded like a nice idea. A good way to shake off the stress from a hard week at work and to return to something resembling a sense of normalcy after everything. Because sometimes, that’s just what you need to do… Get back to normal.
We met up at Chickenzoid around 8, got ourselves a table and ordered some beer.
“Hey… To Chris and David.” Jesse had said, offering up his glass in a toast.
“Yeah. To Chris and David.” I’d replied before clinking my glass against his.
We left two beers on the table for them as a sort of tribute, before ordering ourselves some wings and getting some tokens. Once we’d eaten enough greasy deep fried food to ensure I’d be feeling like shit the next morning, we turned to the games.
With just Jesse and I playing together, the vibe wasn’t that much different… I still had fun. It wasn’t the same as it had been with Chris and David but it was still fun. That’s what mattered the most to me. For a few hours… It was almost as if nothing had changed. Nobody was dead. We weren’t pushing 30 and worrying about jobs, dating, and bills. We were just a couple of kids having fun.
Of course, whenever you’re having that kind of fun, sooner or later reality always catches up to you again.
Jesse and I were playing one of those newer arcade games that was basically just an app from 2008 on a bigger screen when we saw him. He was moving between some of the tables, collecting the used dishes. He didn’t speak to anyone or even look at the customers. He just collected the dishes and moved on. I still recognized him from a mile away though… And so did Jesse.
We both caught each other staring at him, and exchanged a look for a moment. Jesse had just forced a laugh and a fake smile.
“Shit, for a moment I almost thought that guy looked like Chris.” He said.
I didn’t laugh with him. My eyes were trained on that busboy.
He did look like Chris. He looked exactly like Chris. He had same short, blond hair. He was roughly the same height and build. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve said it was Chris…
Without thinking, I started walking toward him.
“Mark?” I heard Jesse say, and he hesitated for a moment before following me. The busboy didn’t so much as look over to me as I approached him from the side and the closer I got, the more sure that I was…
This was crazy, it had to be crazy…
I reached out to put a hand on the busboy’s shoulder and when I did, he finally turned to look at me. My breath caught in my throat as I looked into his eyes. I heard Jesse swearing quietly beside me, although it was almost drowned out by the noise and arcade sounds around us.
“Chris…?”
The busboy just stared at me. There was no expression on his face. Just a quiet, almost mindless focus.
“Jesus Christ…” I said under my breath. This shouldn’t be possible… Chris had been dead for six months! We’d been to the funeral! Christ, we’d seen his body in the casket! This shouldn’t have been possible!
And yet here he was.
My mind returned to that last conversation we’d had… The things he’d been saying about finding David at this exact same fucking restaurant, working the exact same job!
Oh God…
Was David alive too?
Without thinking I pulled Chris into a hug, although he calmly just slipped out of my grasp and wordlessly kept pushing his cart along.
“Chris, wait!” Jesse called, stepping in front of him to stop him, “Jesus Christ, man. What the hell are you doing here?!”
Chris gave no response and just pulled the dish cart out of Jesse’s grasp and kept on heading for the kitchen.
“Chris?” Jesse asked, his voice faltering a little.
Still no response.
“Excuse me… Can I ask that you not harass our staff?” A new voice asked. I looked over to see another man standing behind us. He was portly with thinning hair that had once been black but was slowly going grey. I’d seen him in Chickenzoid before over the years although never really spoken to him up until then.
“Your staff? That’s our friend!” Jesse snapped.
The man… I assumed he was the manager, just narrowed his eyes.
“And you’re causing a scene, harassing him during working hours.”
“Working hours… What the fuck did you do to him?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice low. A few people were staring at us, but nobody seemed that invested… This probably just looked like a couple of drunks arguing with the manager.
“I didn’t do anything.” The manager said calmly, “I hired them on to do a job… It’s difficult to find good help these days…”
“Bullshit…” Jesse hissed, “What the fuck is going on here?”
The manager just sighed.
“If you have any issues with our staff, you’re free to contact the staffing agency… Now, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Fuck you, man! I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what the fuck is going on here!” Jesse snapped, loud enough to turn several heads.
The manager took a half step back before reaching into his pocket.
“Calm down now… Before I have them deal with you…”
In his hand was a small clicker, like the kind you’d use to train animals. He clicked it twice, and as he did, I saw several passing staff members pause. All of their heads turned toward us.
At that moment, my blood turned to ice in my veins.
So many people were looking at us… Most of them just casual onlookers, looking for drama. But the others… The staff… I could see their dead eyes fixated on us. No expression. No emotion. No thought… Nothing.
I know that Jesse saw it too and his voice had suddenly died in his throat as he realized that in that moment, the fact that we were in public wouldn’t save us. We looked like just a couple of drunk assholes causing a scene… Nobody would question it if the staff took us away… Hell, they were probably waiting for it.
Nobody there would know if we never came home.
The two of us stood rooted to the spot, the only ones who could see the hollow figures surrounding us. Even that bartender with the braces was watching us… Her eyes just as empty as all the rest. The only staff who didn’t look dead were the waitresses and the manager himself. In fact, the manager almost looked like he was having fun with this with a small, knowing smile plastered across his cracked lips.
I looked back to see Chris standing a few feet away from us, his eyes focused on us like all the rest although I could’ve sworn I saw something in them… A faint hint of emotion. A deep, unconscious terror… An awareness of exactly the situation he was in.
“Now… Will you be leaving, or will I need to have you removed?” The manager asked.
Jesse remained rooted to the spot with a quiet fear and I reached out to grab him by the arm.
“I… I’m sorry…” I said quietly, “We’ll leave…”
“Yes you will.” The manager replied coldly, before gesturing towards the door.
Jesse didn’t put up any fight as I dragged him out. All the while, I felt the eyes of the staff on us, and from the corner of my eye, I saw a few of them following us to the door. When we finally made it out, I released the breath that I didn’t know I’d been holding.
Jesse looked pale as a ghost and kept glancing back at the restaurant. I could see the bartender with the braces standing just outside, still watching us with a cool, vacant expression.
“Let’s go…” I said quietly.
Jesse opened his mouth to protest… But in the end, he knew better.
We disappeared down the street as fast as we could go, glancing over our shoulders until we’d put Chickenzoid Arcade and Wings far behind us.
Our little incident at Chickenzoid was about three days ago.
Yesterday, Jesse supposedly died in a tragic car accident. Apparently, his car broke down on some backroad, and somebody had run him over.
Convenient…
Last time I spoke to Jesse, we’d been talking about what to do to help Chris. We’d been trying to figure this whole fucking thing out. I’d wanted to go to the police, but he wasn’t sure how much good it would do. What would we even tell them? How would we prove it? None of us had thought to take any pictures of Chris while we were there…
We considered telling Carter and Mikey… But we don’t want to drag them into this if we don’t have to. As far as we know, they’re safe… They should stay safe, which means they should stay far away from Jesse and me… Well… Just me now, I guess…
I’ve been jumping at every little noise I hear for the past few hours. I don’t know how much time I have left, but it’s not much. I saw a weird van on my street earlier. It has a logo for ‘Romero Staffing’ on it. I guess I know too much now. They’re coming for me. Just like they came for Chris and just like they came for Jesse…
I ‘know too much’ and yet I still know nothing at all… I don’t understand why or how this is happening. I don’t really understand what the hell is going on. But… I guess there’s a pretty good chance I’m going to find out soon, isn’t there?
I… I don’t want to let them get me… I don’t want them to do… Whatever the fuck it is they’re going to do to me… I’ve never been so scared in my fucking life. But I can’t make this easy on them… If they want to shut me up, I’m gonna put up as much of a fight as I can. So I’m writing this as a last resort.
Once I’m done, I’m leaving the house. Then I’m going to drive as far away from this town as I can. If I can make it out of the country, great… I don’t know what my chances are… I don’t know if I even have a chance. But I’m not waiting around to suffer some kind of ‘accident’ like my friends did and I’ve got no better ideas. Best case scenario, I’ll buy myself some time to figure this out. Worst case scenario… Well…
Carter, Mikey… If you end up reading this, then don’t try and save me. Just run. I don’t know how much danger you’re in. But don’t chance it. Maybe if they get me, you two will figure all this out. And if not… Then I guess we’ll all get together at Chickenzoid, one more time.