SUNDIAL SHARES: GRAVEYARD SHIFT by Jensen Manelski

11/7/2019

Marie Campione (lk)

To read more spooky selections, check out the SUNDIAL HALLOWEEN COMPILATION 2019

Graveyard Shift by Jensen Manelski

Humston has a legend as old as the dirt beneath it.

The legend lies in strange places, they’ll tell you; the alleyway next to the old movie theater, graffitied, grey foam stuffing bit out from its red-and-gold trim seats; the private school a little ways from 43rd, unkempt in its state of disuse, its second floor caving in just a bit too far for comfort; the forest in the Jacksons’ backyard, not that anyone could get there - the Jacksons’ haven’t been seen in town since ‘48, but they’ve got to be around, really, ‘cause the lights are still on at nighttime. They’ll tell you that the legend lies in the smoke coming from the chimney of the Inn, a bed-and-breakfast run by a mother and her daughter, two strange little women with the same hooked nose and the same pair of bifocals. They’ll tell you that the legend lies in sundown, in the game of kick-the-can you really shouldn’t be out playing this late, young lady. They’ll tell you that the legend lies right outside your door, but it won’t get you, just as long as you’re in bed having taken your syrup by nine o’clock sharp, and I mean on the money, kid - no playtime, we’ll be home by eleven. They’ll tell you, later, that it was never there at all, and you’ll believe them, ‘cause you’re thirteen now, and you don’t believe in boogeymen at thirteen, no sir, and just because you rush home on your silver bike after cheer practice doesn’t mean you do. You’ve cut the pink bell off of the handle because it’s an awful lot of noise for a silent street, not because the silence begins to scare you after dark. You’re cautious, that’s all. There are stranger things you have to be watching out for, lying in even stranger places. [click headline to read entire story].

There’s a diner in the town, one that everyone was excited to get back in ‘53, back when you were still small. You go there with your friends sometimes, all a year or two older, and your boyfriend, too, just to get milkshakes or fries or a warm meal after practice. You don’t go there in the morning, though - never in the morning, ‘cause you used to do that with your parents, and you’re far too old for that now. But if you had gone in the morning, if you’d taken your silver bike with its pink bell cut off from the handle and drove it all the way to the edge of town, all the way to the parking lot of your diner, early enough for the OPEN! sign to illuminate darkness, you’d find Adrianne, age twenty-three, working the graveyard shift.

Adrianne, they’ll tell you, is a sweet girl. She’s there all day and all night, working to get her little brother through university, just like she worked to get through hers. She’s got an unfortunate upbringing, they’ll say, and that’s all they’ll say, ‘cause that’s all they know about it. She’d moved in one day, carried boxes upon boxes of trinkets and things up the front porch steps of the vacant house, her brother, Max, in tow, and she’d been buttering up the residents of Humston ever since. She’s a pretty girl, they’ll tell you; pretty of the simple sort, with pinned light curls and pink lips and freckles dotting just her nose, real charming. Sometimes the local businessmen would come in just to look at her, just to say things under their breath and laugh about it softly, and their wives wished they could hate her, but they couldn’t, not of pure conscience.

Adrianne of the graveyard shift was a darling, a dream. Adrianne of the graveyard shift was Vietnamese cinnamon and American apple pie and French-tipped nails. Adrianne of the graveyard shift made the best buttermilk pancakes in town, and everybody knew it.

There are things you would notice about Adrianne of the graveyard shift if you looked hard enough, but no one ever did. You’d notice that she was there all too often, there at the diner all the time, and she nearly never left. You’d notice the sharpness of her teeth, perhaps the point of her nails, perhaps the red underneath them.

If you looked hard enough, you’d notice that after every full moon, Adrianne of the graveyard shift, Adrianne of every shift, would get to work quite early. You’d notice that the diner was full, and that it was full of laughter, and that the people in there were strange, too strange, far too strange for Humston. You’d notice the way they clink their cups together, the way their mouths move, the way their jaws open up a little too wide. You’d notice the hair on their knuckles, the hair on their face, the snaggleteeth protruding from their mouth. You’d notice the language they use is not one you’re familiar with, maybe Cyrillic, almost pagan in its nature. You’d notice they like Adrianne’s buttermilk pancakes, too.

Humston has a legend as old as the dirt beneath it.

The legend lies in strange places, they’ll tell you.

They’re right.

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