GRAVY CHEF

  Julie quickly shoved her vape into her pocket as headlights lit up the dark street. Trying to look nonchalant, she started walking, swinging her arms as if she didn’t have a care in the world. A stab of fear shot through her chest as the car slowed to a stop beside her. Picking up her pace, she intentionally didn’t look over at it, even when she heard the window rolling down. 

  “Julie? What are you doing out so late?” 
  
  Turning, Julie was surprised to see her sister Cathey staring at her. The car was packed with Cathey’s obnoxious friends. 

  “What are YOU doing out so late, loser?” Julie shot back. 

  The expression on her sister’s face shifted from surprise to anger.

  “I’m nineteen! I’m allowed to be out late. You’re fifteen, wandering around the bad part of town alone at 3 am. Which one of us sounds like a loser to you?” 

  Julie turned and started walking again. 

  “Get your life together, Julie!” Cathey yelled at her. “Before it’s too late!” 

  Not wanting to hear anything more, Julie started to run, cutting through an abandoned parking lot. Soon, she was surrounded by nothing but silence again, accompanied only by shuttered businesses and crumbling buildings. She scowled as she cut through a side alley. Maybe she was a loser, but she’d been born in a loser town to loser parents and was stuck with a loser sister. What else was there to do but wander aimlessly? 

  Before long, she was back in her usual rhythm, taking long puffs on her vape and paying little attention to where she walked. No cars passed, it was just her, alone in the dark city. 
  
  Julie paused, catching an odd scent in the air. She sniffed, trying to place what it was. It reminded her of Sunday dinners when she was a kid and her parents had forced her to visit her terrible grandma. Turning in a slow circle, she realized she was in a part of town she’d never seen before. Across the street was a closed-down restaurant. Half of the front was collapsed, and most of the windows were broken. Graffiti covered the walls. It looked like it had been closed for years. Across the bricks on the portion of the front that still stood, she could faintly read the painted name of the restaurant. La Tuerie. She also saw that somewhere deep in the decrepit structure, a light was on.

  Walking over to the building, she confirmed it was definitely the source of the smell. It filled her nostrils and her stomach grumbled, reminding her how long it had been since she ate. Was someone inside cooking? Peering through the broken windows, it looked like the light was coming from the kitchen. Not wanting to risk cutting herself on the jagged, broken glass in the window frames, Julie walked around to the back of the restaurant. She stopped as she turned the corner, her heart skipping a beat as she saw that the back door was slightly cracked. Suddenly, the potential stupidity of what she was doing struck her, and she took a moment to consider whether she should turn around and run. But run where? And for what reason? It’s not like she had anything else going on in life. 

  Julie approached the door, her mouth going dry and her heart thumping in her chest. She reached for it, and just as her fingers grasped the edge, something struck it from the other side, flinging it open. The door slammed into her, sending her flying. She cried out as she smacked the dirty pavement back first.

  A man of immense size came stumbling out of the door. Sitting up, Julie’s eyes went wide and her lip quivered as she saw him approaching. He wore a full buttoned-up chef’s coat that barely contained his enormous belly, and a chef’s hat. Both looked stained with ash and grime. His face was gaunt and pale, eyes sunken unnaturally deep and ringed with heavy black. In his hand was a large sauceboat. Whatever was inside was steaming hot.  

  “Goûte la sauce, petit!” he screeched, revealing black and yellow teeth.

  Julie started to shuffle away on her rear, eyes wide with fear as the man bounded toward her. He tipped the sauceboat forward, slinging gravy at her.

  “Bon appétit!”

  Julie covered her face with her hands just as the gravy splashed onto her. She screamed as some of it landed on the back of her left hand. Her skin sizzled where the molten hot gravy hit her. The shock of pain threw her body into panic mode. She scrambled to her feet just as the chef tried to sling more of the steaming gravy onto her. It sizzled as it hit the pavement where she’d been just seconds before. 

  “Help!” Julie screamed as she turned to run. 

  There was no one around to hear her. She turned off the street and headed into a patch of woods. During better days of her childhood, she and Cathey rode their bikes through these woods. If memory served, she’d be able to get to her house by cutting through. But she’d never been out there in the dark, and immediately she slammed her foot into a rock and nearly fell. The heavy footfalls of the chef drew near. 

  “Je vais cuisiner ton âme!” he howled.

  Julie glanced over her shoulder just as the chef threw the sauceboat. She ducked and it flew over her, hitting a tree. Drops of the scalding gravy hit the back of her neck, causing her to yelp. Tears escaped from her eyes, but she didn’t stop running, breathing heavily as she moved as fast as she could. After a minute, she realized she couldn’t hear the chef’s footsteps anymore.

  “Tu es banni de mon restaurant!” he screamed, his voice distant. 

  Julie didn’t stop. She sprinted all the way home, crying the whole way there.