Dust filled our lungs as we walked through the seemingly deserted town. It was a small town; just big enough to be called a town yet still too small to be a real 'town'. You could walk everywhere... maybe that's why when we first pulled into town, the few people we saw gave us weird looks as we passed by in our van. Maybe there was a more sinister reason; but I guess only time can tell.
My group and I just happened to be passing through the town on our way to travel across the country. We were hungry and tired, so our guard was completely down... we didn't even notice the town didn't have a welcome sign. We checked into the small inn- it only had two rooms. We put our limited luggage away and went back down. We had hoped the inn would have some food, but it didn't.
The innkeeper gave us directions to supposedly the best food in town.
"What town?" I asked. He just stared at me.
We awkwardly shuffled out the door, looking at each other before laughing. By the old man's directions, food was close and we were starving. We cracked jokes as we walked, not even noticing the cold, empty stares the townspeople gave us.
"Maybe it's too small to have a name," Alan chuckled.
"I wouldn't doubt it. There's like nothing here." I responded. I wasn't wrong. We soon learned that the town only had four public places; everything else was just houses.
The innkeeper was right about the small restaurant being close. It was just a street- no, a walkway- away. I never really noticed that there were no cars until I looked back on it. The restaurant looked sketchy, but our stomachs didn't care. We just wanted food.
It was a family run restaurant- the mother cooked while the son took orders. I think it was called Kuru. We hustled into a booth. Stuffing showed from tears in the booth seats.... It wasn't normal tears though; they were like scratch marks from a feral animal. The table was covered in stains of what I had thought was ketchup. Yvette had joked that it was blood.
The kid, a sweet teen about the awkward age of 16, came up to our table.
"My name's Jeremy and I'll be your server. What can I get you?"
I looked behind him, into the window that went to the kitchen. Chills went down my spine as I noticed his mom, with bloodshot eyes, was pressing her face against the window. I can't forget her creepy grin or how out of her mind she looked. I lost my appetite.
I quickly looked down at my hands as Alan and Yvette ordered off the menus that had suddenly appeared. Jeremy looked at me, asking what I wanted. As I looked up to meet his eyes, I noticed he had a scar trailing from his ear to the corner of his mouth... it didn't looked a day old at most.
"What happened...?" I asked, gesturing a line on my own cheek.
He looked back at his mom in the kitchen who had dropped her smile. "I'm not the best with knives," He lied through his toothy grin. He left, into the kitchen, to give our orders to his mother.
I shared what I saw with my group. They laughed it off, saying she was just excited to have customers. It was a rational thought, considering how we were the only ones in the restaurant... yet that just unnerved me more. I asked what they thought about Jeremy's scar. They didn't think he was lying.
Food came soon and I regretted not ordering anything. The food looked amazing. The buns on the hamburgers were the perfect golden color and instead of a slice of cheese, nacho cheese oozed down the sides of the burgers. The fries were thin and soft, the perfect amount of crisp... just how I liked them. I was lucky that Alan and Yvette were kind enough to let me eat their fries.
It was weird... the ketchup was, not the fries. The fries were probably the best thing I've ever had. Seasoned and cooked to perfection. The ketchup on the other hand tasted somewhat metallic. It had a faint taste of water from a rusted faucet. It was a bit salty now that I think of it, but I guess I just thought that was the fries.
