23 Feb Rules of the Redwood Diner

Part I

It started with an ad.

At the time, I wasn’t in a position to question good fortune, and $35 an hour for an overnight shift at a 24-hour diner wasn’t something a person in my situation ignored. I didn’t stop to ask why a tiny diner on the edge of nowhere would offer that much to someone with no prior food service experience. I barely skimmed the details before clicking Apply Now.

I got a call less than an hour later.

The man on the other end introduced himself as Mr. Trevaldi. His voice was smooth and unhurried, the kind that carried an old-world patience that felt out of place in a business like this. He congratulated me, said he was impressed by my “interest” in the position, and asked if I could come in for an interview that same evening.

That alone should have tipped me off—how eager he was. How little he cared about my qualifications.

But I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking about money.

* * * * * *

I got to the diner just before sundown. It was a squat, weathered building with an old neon sign that flickered REDWOOD 24-HOUR EATS. The paint on the walls was peeling in places, and the parking lot had only two cars in it—one of which, I assumed, belonged to Mr. Trevaldi.

I stepped inside, expecting the greasy warmth of frying oil and the chatter of late-night regulars. Instead, I found silence.

The place was practically empty.

A single customer sat in the farthest booth, hunched over a coffee cup, and an older waitress wiped the counter with slow, mechanical strokes. The hum of a refrigeration unit filled the space between them.

Then there was Mr. Trevaldi.

He stood behind the counter, tall and thin, his suit too crisp for someone running a diner in the middle of nowhere. He didn’t greet me immediately. He just watched—his eyes dark and steady, like he was measuring something unseen.

“You must be Alvin,” he said finally.

I nodded.

He gestured to a booth near the front. “Let’s talk.”

* * * * * *

The “interview” wasn’t much of an interview at all.

Mr. Trevaldi barely asked any questions. He didn’t care about my work history, my availability, or even if I could cook. Instead, he explained the duties—restocking, cleaning, handling the occasional customer—and stressed the importance of following the rules.

“There are certain expectations for employees here, Mr. Coates,” he said. “Some of our policies may seem… unusual. You are to follow them precisely. No exceptions.”

I waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t.

Instead, he pulled out a single sheet of paper, crisp and white against the diner’s aged Formica.

“Read this,” he instructed. “If you agree, sign at the bottom.”

The list of rules was short.

1. You must never, under any circumstances, let the man in the brown coat inside. No matter what he says.
2. If the jukebox plays a song on its own, stop whatever you’re doing and listen until it ends.
3. If you see a woman in a yellow dress at Table 5, bring her a glass of water. Do NOT make eye contact.
4. Do not enter the walk-in freezer between 2:17 AM and 2:34 AM. If someone knocks, do not answer.
5. If the payphone rings, answer it immediately. Listen carefully. Follow the instructions exactly.
6. Customers will come in. Some will be real, some won’t be. If unsure, check their hands. Real customers have fingerprints.
7. You must clock out before sunrise. Staying past dawn means you belong to the diner.

I read the list twice.

Then I laughed.

Trevaldi didn’t.

“I don’t find humor in safety regulations, Mr. Coates,” he said, his voice even.

I looked up. He wasn’t joking.

“This is… serious?”

“Would I waste your time if it weren’t?”

I searched his expression for some sign of a trick, some indication that this was part of a weird workplace hazing ritual. I found none. His eyes didn’t waver. His lips remained still.

“Okay,” I said finally. “I’ll follow the rules.”

Trevaldi nodded, sliding a pen across the table.

I hesitated.

Something in my gut was telling me to walk away. That any place that needed rules like this wasn’t a place a person should work.

But I thought about my rent. My bills. My lack of options.

I signed.

Trevaldi took the paper and stood.

“You start tonight,” he said. “Be here by 10:45.”

And with that, he left me alone at the booth, the laminated list of rules still sitting on the table.

I stared at them a while longer, tracing each word.

Then, with a deep breath, I folded the paper and stuffed it into my pocket.

I didn’t know it yet, but I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life.

Part II

The first thing I noticed when I came back that night was the lock.

It was one of those heavy-duty deadbolts, the kind you’d expect on a warehouse door, not the front of a roadside diner. The windows were bolted too—thick steel bars fastened into the frame, cutting through the view of the parking lot like prison bars.

Trevaldi was already inside, waiting behind the counter.

He barely acknowledged me as I stepped in. He only checked his watch and nodded.

* * * * * *

The diner felt different at night.

It wasn’t just the emptiness. Places like these were meant to be full—full of voices, full of movement, full of the easy, predictable energy of people coming and going. Without that, the place felt… off. Too still.

The old neon sign outside pulsed against the glass, washing the booths in a dull, flickering glow. The jukebox sat silent in the corner. The payphone hung next to it, the receiver heavy and black against the yellowed wall.

“This is your workstation,” Trevaldi said, tapping the counter. “Customers will come in. Some will be regulars. Some will be strangers. If you are ever unsure… check their hands.”

I nodded, trying to ignore the unease creeping up my spine.

“Clock’s on the wall.” He gestured toward an old punch clock near the kitchen door. “I expect you to clock in and out. Don’t forget that last part.”

I didn’t need the reminder. The last rule on the list had made that part very clear.

He moved toward the office, but before he left, he stopped.

“One more thing,” he said. “The rules. Keep them on you. Read them again.”

I pulled the folded sheet from my pocket, smoothing it against the counter.

“I already read them.”

“Read them again,” he repeated. Then he disappeared into the back.

* * * * * *

The first two hours were quiet.

I spent most of that time cleaning—wiping down the counter, refilling the salt shakers, going over the booths one by one. It was easy work, almost laughably so.

At one point, an old trucker came in—tall, grizzled, with a faded Packers cap pulled low over his eyes. He ordered black coffee and a grilled cheese, paid in exact change, and left without a word.

For a moment, I thought that was it, that maybe this was just a normal diner after all.

Then, at exactly 1:12 AM, the jukebox started playing.

It was an old song. Something warbling and scratchy, like a voice caught in a radio transmission from fifty years ago.

I was behind the counter when it started. The moment the first note hit the air, my whole body went rigid—not from fear, but from something else. Compulsion.

The rule came back to me immediately:

If the jukebox plays a song on its own, stop whatever you’re doing and listen until it ends.

I set the coffee pot down, turned toward the jukebox, and listened. The song was slow and syrupy, a tune I didn’t recognize, but the longer I listened, the more it felt like I should know it. Like the melody had been buried somewhere deep in my memory, waiting to surface.

I stood there, stock-still, as the song wrapped around me. Then, as abruptly as it started, it cut out. Everything went still.

I blinked. I was no longer behind the counter.

I didn’t even realize I’d moved until I saw my own reflection—staring at me from the dark glass of the front door.

I’d walked across the entire diner without noticing.

I stepped away from the door like it had burned me. I was done pretending this was normal.

Before I could move, the payphone rang. The sound sliced through the silence like a blade. A deep, mechanical chime, old-fashioned and weighty.

The rule.

If the payphone rings, answer it immediately. Listen carefully. Follow the instructions exactly.

I did not want to pick it up. Everything in my body screamed at me not to.

I hesitated. But then I thought of the jukebox—of how wrong it felt to move while it was playing, like stepping out of bounds in a game where I didn’t know the rules.

I grabbed the receiver, brought it to my ear, and listened. The voice on the other end was dry and cracked, like old leather stretched too thin.

“Turn the sign to CLOSED. Now.”

I swallowed.

“What?”

“Do it. Now.”

I moved before I could think. I turned the sign.

Not even three seconds later, something pounded on the glass.

I flinched back. At first, I thought it was a person. The silhouette outside was tall and broad-shouldered, and it stood right against the door.

The neon glow didn’t reach his face. But when he leaned in, when I saw his hands, I knew.

He had no fingerprints.

I went cold.

The figure knocked again, the glass rattling under the force of it. Then, in a voice too calm for someone locked outside at 2 AM, he said, “Alvin. Let me in.”

I backed away.

The payphone was still in my hand, the receiver dead silent now. The figure knocked again.

“Alvin. You can let me in. It’s okay.”

My hands shook. And then, as if he could see my hesitation, he leaned in closer and said, “Don’t you remember me?”

Part III

The thing outside waited.

It stood just beyond the door, its head tilted slightly to the side as if listening. I knew it wasn’t human—not really. The rule had already told me that:

Customers will come in. Some will be real, some will not. If unsure, check their hands. Real customers have fingerprints.

I had checked. There weren’t any.

But it knew my name.

“Don’t you remember me?” it repeated.

The voice was wrong. There was something off in the pitch, in the way it carried through the glass without distortion. I had to remind myself that it wasn’t muffled, not the way it should have been.

It didn’t belong to the world outside.

I took a step back.

The thing pressed its hand flat against the glass. I couldn’t tell if it was testing the surface or showing me what I already knew.

There were no lines on its hands, and no ridges. Just a smooth, empty plane of skin where fingerprints should have been.

I swallowed.

It was smart, watching and studying my every move, and all of my reactions. I hadn’t spoken, but it was guessing, throwing out phrases like bait, waiting for something to catch.

“Alvin, it’s okay.”

I didn’t move.

“It’s cold out here, kid. Just let me in.”

Kid.

The word scraped against something in my head that I hadn’t let myself think about in years. A memory half-buried, worn down at the edges.

I knew someone who had called me that once. Not this thing. Not whatever was knocking at the glass. But it wasn’t guessing anymore.

It knew.

The knock came again, sharper this time. I forced myself to take another step back, and another. Then another. By the time I reached the counter, the thing at the door stopped knocking. It stood there a moment longer, its silhouette barely shifting in the neon glow, before it stepped back into the shadows.

One second it was there. The next, it wasn’t.

* * * * * *

I didn’t dare breathe until Mr. Trevaldi’s voice cut through the silence.

“Good,” he said.

I spun around.

He stood just outside the doorway to the back office, arms crossed. It was the first time I’d seen him since the start of my shift, but somehow, I knew he had been watching.

“How long were you standing there?” I asked.

“Long enough.”

He stepped into the main room, moving methodically. “You listened to the phone,” he said, “and you followed the instructions. That was the right choice.”

I wiped my palms against my apron. They were cold, slick with sweat. “What would’ve happened if I hadn’t?”

Mr. Trevaldi studied me. “You don’t want to know.”

* * * * * *

The rest of the shift was quiet. Unnaturally so. There were no more customers. No more calls. Even the distant hum of the refrigerator seemed muted.

I counted down the minutes, watched h the old analog clock tick toward sunrise. When it finally reached 5:45 AM, Mr. Trevaldi emerged from the back again, nodding toward the wall-mounted punch clock.

“Time to go,” he said.

I didn’t hesitate. I crossed the room, yanked my punch card from its slot, and slammed it into the machine. The mechanical ka-chunk of it stamping my hours sent a shiver down my spine.

I didn’t know why. Maybe it was because it felt too final, like something closing around me, securing me in place.

Mr. Trevaldi opened the door.

The moment I stepped outside, everything felt different. The diner looked the same from the outside, but I knew better.

Mr. Trevaldi locked the door behind me.

When I turned back, he was still watching.

I hesitated. “You were right,” I said.

“About what?” Trevaldi asked.

“The rules,” I said. “They’re not a joke.”

He didn’t blink or move. Then, after a long pause, he said, “No, Alvin. They’re not.”

I wanted to ask him more. Who he really was. What the diner really was. If I had just signed myself into something I couldn’t get out of.

But I didn’t.

Instead, I just turned, walked to my car, and drove home.

* * * * * *

I didn’t sleep when I got there.

I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at my hands, replaying the night over and over in my head. The payphone. The jukebox. The thing at the door.

Then I reached into my pocket. The list of rules was still there, crisp and untouched.

I unfolded it carefully, eyes scanning each line. I had followed the rules during my first shift. But something told me that next time, it wouldn’t be so easy.

Part IV

I thought about quitting.

That first night had been enough to tell me I wanted no part of whatever Redwood 24-Hour Eats really was. The money wasn’t worth it.

But when I woke up that afternoon, the envelope was waiting for me.

I should have ignored it. Should have left it sitting there on the counter. Instead, I tore it open and counted.

One hundred-dollar bills, neat and stiff, adding up to almost double what I was owed. And just like that, quitting didn’t seem so easy.

* * * * * *

I went back that night.

The diner looked the same. The neon sign still buzzed against the dark, the glass still caught the dim glow of the overhead fluorescents.

But I felt different. Something had shifted in me, even if I couldn’t put words to it.

Mr. Trevaldi was inside, waiting, when I arrived. He nodded when I stepped in.

“Good,” he said. “You came back.”

I wasn’t sure if it was a simple observation or if he meant something more.

The shift started slow.

A couple of truckers came through, ordered coffee, and left without fuss.

At 1:12 AM, the jukebox played again. Like before, I stopped what I was doing and listened intently. I didn’t move until the song ended.

There was no compulsion this time, just understanding.

But that didn’t mean I was safe.

At 2:03 AM, the door chimed. I turned, expecting another late-night straggler, or maybe some college kid on a long drive home. Instead, I saw her.

The woman in the yellow dress.

She didn’t hesitate. Just walked to Table 5 and sat down, hands folded in her lap, her posture too perfect.

A slow, awful chill worked its way up my spine. I knew this rule.

“If you see a woman in a yellow dress at Table 5, bring her a glass of water. Do not make eye contact.”

My hands shook as I filled a glass, not from fear but from the sheer, gut-churning certainty that if I messed up, I wouldn’t be leaving this diner in one piece.

I walked to her table, keeping my eyes low, staring at the chipped laminate surface, and carefully placed the water in front of her.

Then, without thinking, I glanced up.

It was a reflex. A stupid, instinctual moment of curiosity.

And it was a mistake.

She was smiling, but not in a way that made sense. Not in a way that belonged to a person. Her lips stretched too wide, well beyond the borders of her face, pulling toward her ears like the skin was elastic.

I felt my knees lock and my throat close.

And then she moved.

Just barely.

Just enough to let me know that she had seen me, too.

* * * * * *

I ran.

I didn’t even realize I was moving until I was behind the counter, gripping the edge so hard my knuckles ached.

She hadn’t followed. She hadn’t moved from Table 5. She just sat there, smiling.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

I never should have looked.

When I opened them again, she was gone. The glass of water still sat on the table, untouched.

I didn’t know if I had imagined it, if she had been real at all. But when I turned toward the office, Mr. Trevaldi was watching me.

I didn’t need to hear him say it. I already knew.

I had broken a rule, and he knew it.

And there would be consequences.

Part V

I didn’t sleep that day.

I tried, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face—that awful, stretched smile, the way her skin pulled too tight, like something underneath was trying to break through.

The worst part? She had seen me, too, and I knew that wasn’t the end of it.

* * * * * *

By the time I got back to the diner, my nerves were already shot.

The same neon glow flickered in the front window, casting the booths in pale blue. The same empty parking lot stretched around the diner like a black sea. But the place felt wrong. Like it was expecting me.

Mr. Trevaldi barely looked up when I walked in.

“You look like hell,” he said.

I didn’t respond, just grabbed a dish towel and busied myself wiping down the counter.

“Did you sleep?” he asked.

I shook my head.

Trevaldi didn’t say anything after that. He just watched me for a moment, then went back into his office.

And that was that.

No punishment. No warning. It was as if he already knew I was going to suffer for breaking the rule—just not yet.

* * * * * *

At 1:12 AM, the jukebox played again.  I stopped. Listened. Didn’t move.

The song ended.

At 2:03 AM, I didn’t go near Table 5. I didn’t check if the woman in the yellow dress was there.

I didn’t want to know.

At 2:17 AM, something knocked from inside the walk-in freezer. Three slow pounds.

I had never been so grateful for a rule before.

“Do not enter the walk-in freezer between 2:17 AM and 2:34 AM,” it read, I recalled. “If someone knocks, do not answer.”

I didn’t move and, thankfully, the knocking stopped.

I had just started wiping down the counter at 3:00 AM when I felt the sinking, gut-twisting sensation of being watched and turned toward the glass door.

And he was there.

The man in the brown coat stood just beyond the neon light, tall and unmoving. His coat hung loosely over his frame, dusted in something that might have been snow or ash, and his face was hidden by the glow of the sign. Still, I knew he was staring at me.

I didn’t move.

Slowly, he lifted his hand and knocked.

It was soft at first, almost polite. Then he knocked again, louder this time.

I recalled the rule:

“You must never, under any circumstances, let the man in the brown coat inside. No matter what he says.”

I stayed rooted to the floor.

His hand pressed flat against the glass, fingers splaying out, palm wide. He wasn’t testing the door. He was showing me his hand.

My stomach dropped.

There were no fingerprints.

“Alvin,” he crooned.  His voice was calm and somehow familiar. “You can let me in.”

I didn’t answer.

“You should let me in,” he repeated.

The neon flickered. His outline changed, just for a second—like something taller, thinner, wrong was underneath the coat, shifting its weight.

I gripped the counter.

He pressed his forehead against the glass. “You look tired, kid.”

Kid. The same word the thing from the night before had used. He wasn’t guessing—he knew me.

“You remember me, don’t you?”

His voice was warmer now. It sounded like someone I used to know. A childhood friend, perhaps, or a neighbor, or a relative. Someone I should trust.

But it wasn’t them. I knew that. I had to know that.

Because if I started believing otherwise, I would let him in.

I backed away and, as if in response, he lifted his hand again, palm open. I watched as something dark slithered across his fingers—almost like veins shifting beneath the skin, pulsing in time with the diner’s flickering light.

“You don’t have to be scared, Alvin,” he said. He paused a moment. Then, softly, he said, “I can help you.”

I turned, walked straight to the back office, and didn’t look at him again.

I half expected Trevaldi to stop me, to tell me I should be watching the door, that this was some kind of test.

But he didn’t. He just nodded.

“You handled that well,” he said.

I sat down hard in the chair across from him. “What is he?” I asked.

Trevaldi folded his hands on the desk. “Something you don’t want to understand.”

I stayed in the office for the next hour, staring at the wall, waiting for the neon hum to return to normal. When I finally went back out front, the man was gone.

But the glass was warm where he had touched it. And I wasn’t sure if he had ever really left.

Part VI

I should have quit.

I should have walked away that night and never looked back. But I didn’t. Because when you spend enough time in a place like this, you start to believe the rules are enough to keep you safe.

* * * * * *

My next shift started like the others.

Trevaldi locked the door at 11:00 PM sharp, gave me his usual nod, then retreated to the office.

I went through the motions. Restocked the sugar dispensers. Wiped down the booths. Poured coffee for a lone trucker who left without saying a word.

Everything felt normal.

But I knew better than to trust that feeling.

At 1:12 AM, the jukebox started up again, playing a slow, whispering tune, like something crawling through an old radio. I stopped and listened.

When the song ended, I wasn’t where I had been before. I was standing by the front door.

I hadn’t moved on my own.

At 2:03 AM, I avoided Table 5. I didn’t check to see if she was there. I didn’t so much as  breathe in that direction. But when I walked past to bus another table, I heard her glass slide across the surface.

She wanted me to know she was watching, too.

At 4:00 AM, I turned to grab a coffee pot—and suddenly, every booth was full.

They hadn’t been a second ago.

The people sitting there were… wrong. Their clothes were out of date, some styles decades old, others older still. And they were too still, their hands resting on the tables, their eyes trained straight ahead.

And their faces were perfectly symmetrical, like mirrors of each other.

The rule came back to me immediately.

“Customers will come in. Some will be real, some will not. If unsure, check their hands. Real customers have fingerprints.”

I didn’t have to check. I knew.

I backed away from the counter. The figures didn’t move. They just sat there, watching.

I swallowed hard.

Then the payphone rang.

I turned too slowly. By the time I reached the receiver, it had already rung once. Twice. Three times.

The moment I lifted it, the entire diner went quiet. No humming appliances. No buzzing neon. Just abject silence.

I put the receiver to my ear. At first, there was only static. Then a woman’s voice came through the line, soft and smooth, but completely wrong.

“Alvin… you shouldn’t have looked.”

The line went dead. I shuddered, and turned back toward the booths. The figures had changed.

Their heads were turned toward me now. All of them. Their lips were all peeled back in identical smiles. Too wide, too hungry.

Then, as one, they started to stand.

I ran.

I didn’t think or look back. My feet barely touched the tile before I slammed through the swinging door into the back.

Trevaldi was already there, sitting calmly at his desk, like he knew this was coming.

“I messed up!” I panted.

Trevaldi didn’t blink. “I know.”

He pushed something across the desk. A timecard.

“Clock out, Alvin.”

I stared at him.

“That’s it?” I asked.

“That’s it,” he said, matter-of-factly.

The voices outside the door were getting louder. Low, whispering things that didn’t belong in any human mouth.

I didn’t argue. I grabbed the card and inserted it into the machine. The moment I did, the whispers stopped.

When I stepped back onto the floor, the booths were empty again.

The figures, with their unnatural smiles, were gone.

Trevaldi met me at the door. “You did well,” he said.

I turned to him. “What happens if I don’t clock out in time?”

His gaze lingered on me, just for a second. Then he smiled. “You don’t want to know.”

* * * * * *

I left.

I got in my car, and sat in the parking lot, hands gripping the wheel, watching the diner from the safety of my own headlights.

It looked normal again. But I knew better.

I had survived another night, but I also knew it wouldn’t be my last. Because when you take a job like this, you don’t just quit.

It doesn’t let you.

Part VII

I should have known the diner wasn’t done with me. Not after the payphone. Not after the figures in the booths turned their heads in unison, watching me with those too-perfect smiles. Not after I nearly forgot to clock out.

I had thought that would be my worst mistake.

I was wrong.

I came back the next night, because that’s what you do. When you’ve already spent too long inside, when you’ve already seen too much, the idea of leaving feels like a lie.

You tell yourself the rules will keep you safe, that as long as you follow them, you’ll make it to sunrise.

But that night, I realized the truth. The rules weren’t for my safety. They were for the diner.

When 3:00 AM rolled around, I was behind the counter, rinsing out the coffee pots, trying to ignore the feeling that something was different tonight.

The diner’s walls seemed to have stretched, its windows leaning in at impossible angles. Something was shifting, and I didn’t know why.

Then, the jukebox started playing. This time, it wasn’t the same old tune, the one that forced me to stand still and listen. This one was off, slower and lower pitched.

It brought to mind a record melting under a heat lamp, and was accompanied by the sound of voices dragging, twisting into something almost human, but not quite.

My chest tightened. I turned toward the jukebox.

The song kept playing. Kept dragging itself further and further out of tune.

And then, just like before, I wasn’t standing behind the counter anymore.

I was in the middle of the diner, my back to the booths. I didn’t remember moving or stepping away from the counter. But I had. Something had pulled me forward, placed me right where it wanted me.

The jukebox stopped. And then the payphone rang again.

That’s when I heard a whisper, from right behind me:

“You don’t belong here.”

I turned to find every booth full again. Their heads were turned toward me. And they weren’t smiling this time.

Behind them, near the farthest booth, something moved in the shadows. A shape taller than the others, shifting in the dim glow of the flickering neon.

It wasn’t the man in the brown coat.

It was something worse.

The payphone kept ringing. I lunged for it, knocking over a tray, my hands shaking so badly I nearly dropped the receiver. The moment I lifted it, the whispering stopped.

There was a pause. Then, the static came through, and I heard a recognizable voice.

Trevaldi’s.

“Alvin,” it said.

I clutched the phone.

“Mr. Trevaldi?”

“Go to the punch clock.”

I glanced toward the office door. It was closed. I could see the light on inside, the shadow of his chair through the frosted window.

But he was on the phone.

I opened my mouth. Then I stopped, staring in a stupor. The figures in the booths had started moving. Slowly, one by one, they stood. They were not rising in unison like before.

Something had changed.

The game was over.

“Alvin,” Trevaldi’s voice said again, interrupting my reverie. “You need to clock out. Now.”

I backed toward the hallway.

The figures stepped forward, and one placed a hand on the counter. The shadow in the back of the diner started moving toward me.

I ran.

* * * * * *

I reached the office door just as something touched my back.

I didn’t stop. Didn’t look. I yanked open the door—

And Trevaldi wasn’t inside.

The chair was empty. His desk was empty. But the clock was still there, waiting.

I grabbed my timecard and slammed it into the machine. The punch clicked.

And everything went silent.

The moment the card slid back out, I turned around. The figures in the booths were gone, and the jukebox wasn’t playing anymore.

The diner was empty again, like nothing had ever happened.

I stumbled toward the door, legs unsteady.

Trevaldi was there, waiting. He held the door open for me. Outside, the sky was turning gray with sunrise. I stopped and looked at him.

“You weren’t in the office,” I said.

Trevaldi smiled. “You did good tonight, Alvin.”

I swallowed. “Where were you?”

His smile didn’t fade. “See you tomorrow night.”

And then he shut the door.

I walked to my car and got in, my hands still shaking. But when I started the engine, I felt something else. Something worse than fear.

Because I knew what had almost happened.

I had almost forgotten to clock out.

And I didn’t know what that meant.

But I knew that next time, I might not be fast enough.

Part VIII

I don’t remember the drive home. I know I made it. I know I parked in the same cracked driveway, walked into my same cramped apartment, locked the door behind me, and collapsed onto the couch.

But I don’t remember any of it.

Because my mind was still in that diner. Because I had almost forgotten to clock out. And I had the sinking, gut-rotting feeling that if I hadn’t punched that card in time, I wouldn’t have left at all.

* * * * * *

I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t. Every time I shut my eyes, I saw the figures in the booths, the way their smiles faded when the rules stopped mattering.

I saw the shadow in the back of the diner, its shape shifting, stepping forward.

I heard Trevaldi’s voice on the payphone—but I didn’t know if it had really been him.

That was what haunted me the most. Because if it wasn’t him… then who the hell had been giving me orders?

I sat there until the sun came up, until the logical, thinking part of my brain forced its way to the surface.

I needed answers, and I wasn’t going to find them by sitting in my apartment. So I made a decision. I was going back to the diner.

* * * * * *

I arrived just after 11 AM.

The place looked different in daylight. The neon wasn’t buzzing. The glass wasn’t reflective.

It looked… ordinary.

I almost believed it. But then I saw the lock on the door.

The same heavy-duty deadbolt Mr. Trevaldi turned whenever he locked up.

I had never thought about it before. But now, in the daylight, something about it felt wrong.

I realized then that it wasn’t just keeping people out when it was in use. It was keeping something in.

I tried the door, and to my surprise, it opened easily. There was no resistance, no supernatural force trying to keep me away. It was just a normal door leading into a place that was anything but.

* * * * * *

The inside was exactly how I left it. The same booths and counter, the same jukebox sitting silent in the corner. But something was missing.

Trevaldi.

I looked toward the office door. There was no light on inside. No frosted window casting a shadow of his chair. Just an empty room waiting for nightfall.

I moved behind the counter. I checked the kitchen, and then the freezer, taking care not to step inside.

I found nothing. Trevaldi wasn’t around.

That’s when I noticed the timecards. They were sitting on the counter by the punch clock, stacked in a neat, orderly pile.

I picked one up. Then another. And another. Each one had a name. Each one was stamped in—showing the start of a shift. But none of them were clocked out.

Dozens of names. No clock-outs. No endings.

I flipped through them, looking for something, though I wasn’t sure what. Then I found it. My own card. Alvin Coates. The last two shifts were stamped in, and both clocked out.

I was the only one.

I was the only name in the entire stack with a completed shift. The only one who had ever left.

A sharp knock sounded behind me. I jumped and turned.

And there he was.

Mr. Trevaldi.

He was standing in the doorway, watching me.

“You shouldn’t be here, Alvin,” he said. His voice was calm and unbothered, as if nothing about this was strange. Like he hadn’t been missing all morning.

I held up the stack of timecards. “What the hell is this?”

His gaze didn’t move. “Records.”

“Of people who never clocked out?”

Trevaldi sighed. His shoulders relaxed, like I had just asked a question he had been expecting. “You were supposed to leave it alone,” he said.

I gritted my teeth. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Trevaldi didn’t answer right away. Instead, he stepped inside, walked to the counter, and tapped the punch clock once with his knuckle. Then he looked at me.

“The diner always needs staff, Alvin.”

I swallowed. “And the ones who forget to clock out?”

Trevaldi’s expression didn’t change, but something flickered behind his eyes. Something I didn’t want to see.

“They stay.”

The silence that followed was too long. Then Trevaldi’s voice cut through the quiet.

“You’re free to go,” he said.

I stiffened. “What?”

“You’re not on shift.” He gestured toward the timecards. “You clocked out. You always do. That means you’re not bound to this place.”

He met my eyes.

“But that can change.”

* * * * * *

I don’t remember leaving, or how I got home after my shifts. One second, I was standing there, staring at Trevaldi. The next, I was in my car, with the diner behind me, the timecards still sitting on the counter, waiting for the next name.

That was the last time I stepped inside Redwood 24-Hour Eats.

I never went back. Not to quit. Not to pick up my last paycheck. Not to ask any more questions. Because I knew if I went back one more time, I wouldn’t leave.

Because the diner always needs staff.

And one day, it’ll find someone who doesn’t follow the rules or who forgets to clock out.

And they’ll join the long list of those that never made it home.