Such A Thing As Fate
SUCH A THING AS FATE
By: Angelica A
Burnt coffee and frying pork fat fill the nostrils of fifteen-year-old Kimberly. Since her father Kirk insisted that they take the back roads they came upon this little dive tucked behind an old closed down plantation named Mill House that sported loose shutters, unruly grass, and chipping paint. The dive is named Wonderful World of Waffles, however, the smell inside is anything but sweet. “Believer” by Imagine Dragons plays through the ear buds of her new iPod. She crinkles her nose as something sour like ten-day old Chinese food wafts past. A fistful of food snakes its way up her esophagus. With great concentration and clenched fists, she forces it back down.
“You okay, Kim?” Kirk asks as he fans away the fly buzzing around his mouth. “You look sick.”
“I’m fine,” she says as a drop of sweat drips onto her iPod. “Just ready to get home and settled.”
Her little brother Kent makes gagging noises that cause her stomach to knot painfully. “Kim is gonna puke. Kim is gonna puke,” he sings in his squeaky prepubescent voice.
She leans over the table and slaps him hard across the forehead knocking off his new baseball cap that had been signed by some player from the Chicago Bears. The cap skitters across the floor and lands near a stool in front of the counter where a business man sits munching on waffles.
“Kim, that’s not nice,” Kirk says as Kent rushes over and retrieves the hat.
“That’s what he gets for running his mouth.”
The cook in a greasy apron manning the griddle looks over at them and shakes his head. To him her family probably resembles hoity toity highfalutin city folk in name brand clothes who like being catered to which could explain why he is taking his time coming over to get their order considering there were only four customers in there.
Smoke wafts across the counter, settling around the balding man in the suit. He’s hunched over in his seat now reading something on his phone.
The cook finally makes his way over to their table with an impassive look. He’s bald with a septum nose ring. His finger tattoos are on display when he hands them menus and scribbles down their orders. “Nothing for me thanks,” Kim says when it’s her turn.
“You have to eat something. We’ve been on the road all day.”
“Dad, I’m not hungry.”
“Bring her some waffles please and an orange juice.”
“Give it about fifteen minutes,” the cook says.
Kimberly rolls her green eyes and places in her ear buds. Her father just doesn’t listen to her. It’s frustrating being a teenager especially in this family. Due to her father’s cause they always have to be on the move driving around hoping to meet interesting people. But Kimberly no longer believes in the cause her father has held so dear. Though raised to always hold it in her heart, there’s no way she would ever raise a child this way. And being that she’s three months pregnant, she has a decision to make. Her father will never allow her to keep the baby and would insist on abortion. Since her mother had passed, he’d gotten strict about not allowing her to make friends with anyone who could take her time away from “the family business”. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think they moved constantly to keep her from making friends.
“Here.” The waiter places down the messy plated food.
Kimberly recoils as the scent smacks her in the face. She covers her nostrils with a quivering palm and breathes through her mouth. She stares at her dad’s large stack of waffles and her brother’s pork fiesta featuring sausage, ham, and bacon with a side of eggs. How either of them could eat after the busy night they’d had is a mystery to her.
“Kim, you’re food is going to get cold.” Kirk points at her plate with his butter knife. “Don’t be wasteful. Lots of people wish they could sit down and eat in a place like this.”
She rolls her heavily lined eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure many homeless are dying to make their way to the Wonderful World of Waffles to sit in a stinky dive with flies buzzing around their heads.”
“Don’t whine. Eat.” He cuts into the stack that’s drizzled with syrup and stuffs it into his mouth.
Her brother Kent stuffs his face with sausage, some of it spilling back out onto his plate.
Kimberly’s stomach gurgles. Another wave of bile snakes its way up. She can’t stomach the single waffle in front of her. In fact she hasn’t been able to stomach much of anything. She forces herself to swallow the acidic gunk her gut has shot up.
“You PMSy?” Kent asks with a smirk.
“Shut up, turd.”
“Damn,” the man in the suit says to no one in particular. He looks around for anyone to share something with and decides on the sweaty cook behind the counter. “Did you hear about that massacre?”
The cook looks up and wipes his forehead. “What massacre?”
“A family of four was tied up and shot to death last night and the teenage daughter is missing.” He waits for the cook’s reaction but he returns to his cutting board whistling. The man looks around and spots Kimberly and her family. He hurries over to them. “Did y’all see the news? The one about those four people and that missing soccer player?”
Kirk wipes his hand and takes the phone the man is giving to him. He reads for several seconds then returns it. “That’s a shame. No telling what this world is coming to.”
“I know.”
“Did they mention the motive?”
“Robbery or disgruntled customer I’m guessing. Guy was stockbroker. I sure wouldn’t mind killing mine,” he says with a hard laugh. “Just kidding. But no they don’t mention motive. Probably wanna keep it hush hush.”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe it was the Railway Munchers,” Kent offers with a smirk.
“They weren’t eaten you idiot,” Kim says.
“The Railway what?” the man asks.
“Pay him no mind. He’s talking about this case involving people suspected of cannibalism,” Kirk says.
“It’s true. They’ve killed lots of people.” Kent raises his finger. “I mean, they’ve eaten lots of people. The police suspect it’s two brothers who travel around making meals out of unsuspecting folks.”
“Wow, that’s crazy.” The man looks down at the floor at Kirk’s briefcase. “I see y’all are environmentalists according to those brochures.”
“Yes, sir, we go around preaching the gospel of good clean living.”
“Oh, how nice.” He backs away toward the counter clearly fearing he will hear their spiel about saving the world one recycled cup at a time.
Kimberly doesn’t get why they still do this. This isn’t the life she wants to continue to lead and yet she has no say or control. And now she’d gone out and gotten herself pregnant. Her father will not be happy. If she were lucky he’d disown her and let her be to live her life as she pleases. But that’s highly unlikely.
“Kimmy.” Kirk picks up a piece of Kim’s waffle and tries to put it in her mouth.
“Dad, gross.”
“You need to eat. We have to get back on the road and get some more preaching done.” Her father signals for the cook to refill their drinks. “Another coffee and chocolate milk.”
“And some coffee for me too,” the man in the suit says.
“I have to go to the bathroom.” She scoots out of the booth and rushes to the back in search of the restroom. It’s 2:45 pm. Who in the hell named it morning sickness? It should be called “what you get when you trust your boyfriend to pull out sickness”. She hasn’t told them about the pregnancy. It’d changed everything if they knew. No parent wants to hear that their teenager is pregnant.
Abort the pregnancy or raise the child?
The latter was impossible. Not with her family and their history of staying on the move. That’s no life for a baby.
She flushes and watches everything swirl around the toilet and into the dark depths. Kim opens the bathroom door and spots another door that’s slightly ajar. On the table partially hidden in the shadows is an open purse. No one is watching. A few bucks for the road won’t hurt and maybe she can use it to put toward an abortion. She eases down the tight hallway and pushes the door open. It hits something with a thud. Kim almost scurries away but after hearing nothing, she eases her torso inside hoping to snatch the wallet out of the white boxed purse. As she reaches in she looks down and spots three bloodied bodies sprawled out on the floor. A muffled scream escapes from her lips as she falls to her bottom.
In the room are the bodies of an old woman in a World of Waffles uniform and two chubby men in tank tops and boxer shorts.
“Oh god,” she cries inside of her palm and mistakenly stumbles backwards into a swing door. She ducks down when whistling is heard headed her way. Kim peeks through the crack and finds a man in a blood covered tee cutting into the gut of a World of Waffles employee. His intestines are pulled out, cut, battered, and then thrown into the deep fryer. Kim crawls to the front of the store as fast as her wobbly knees will allow. But as she reaches the edge of the counter, she spots her father face down on the ground holding his cup. The cook makes his way over with a meat cleaver. Before Kim can call out “daddy” one last time, he brings it down on his neck.
There must have been something in the food or the coffee, she thinks. The man in the suit is hacked several times on the back of the neck. Poor Kent. Though he’s barely conscious he tries to crawl away, but the cleaver comes down on him severing all life force.
Kim shakes. Her hand instinctively curls around her stomach. She pushes herself onto all fours and makes a break for the door. The cleaver carrying cook sees her and yells, “One’s getting away, Bruce!”
Kim runs toward her family van parked 200 yards away near the edge of the road. The cannibals are behind her. Just as she throws open the side door and dives inside, one of them catches her foot and snatches her back out. She struggles trying to get away before turning onto her back.
“Holy hell,” the one with the cleaver says as he stares down the barrel of the pump action shotgun.
Kim pulls the trigger.
The second cook turns around and runs.
Kim steadies her aim and fires a shot.
The bullet lands in the middle of his back.
The wind howls past her ears that are ringing due to the blast.
She looks down at the men who have murdered her family and reportedly eaten many others. It’s as if they were fated to cross paths, fated to meet their match. As she ponders on the chances, a thud is heard coming from the back of the van. Kim opens the doors and points the gun at the frightened brunette teen in a bloody soccer uniform.
The girl is terrified. She’d witnessed Kim and her family enter their home under the guise of spreading the word about living a pollution free lifestyle. They then pulled out weapons and demanded money, clothes, food, and tech gadgets. After they got what they wanted they shot her parents and her two older brothers and abducted her.
“You can go.”
The girl is skeptical seeing that her captor is still holding a shotgun.
“Go! Get!”
She stumbles out and waits for her restraints to be cut.
“You’re free now,” Kim says as the girl runs toward the road. “And so am I.”
The End
