Photo by shraga kopstein on Unsplash
“Mandatory fry steal.” A dark hand snuck into Tim’s view, where he had been dead staring while eating the free lunch that came with his job, to steal one of the golden shoestring fries. He lifted his eyes to see Kiara slipping into the plastic chair bolted on the other side of his table munching on her stolen treasure. He blinked, studying her dark face. The cuts that had streaked blood down her face had healed overnight, but he could still see the vivid blood pouring from them and hear the words “Run” whispering in the corners of his mind. Her brown eyes, with just a touch of green, so like Mandy’s met his and he broke contact, skidding from her head to her hands and over her clean jeans and button-up blouse.
“You cut your hair.”
Kiara touched her short curls, only a few inches out from her head. “I don’t want to be grabbed that way again.”
“Oh, right.” Tim dropped his eyes to his half-eaten sandwich. “Sorry. I so sorry.”
“You’re not forgiven. I liked my hair.” She knocked her knuckles against the table. “But I’m not here about that.”
“Then why are you where?” he asked as she grabbed another fry.
“To apply for a summer job, duh.” Kiara waved back to where the store’s manager was reading an application.
Tim winced. “Um, maybe not a good idea.”
“Why?” Kiara tilted her head.
For a second, Tim expected to hear beads clatter. Kiara had beads in hair since they were in kindergarten together. Not hearing the clatter was unsettling. Somewhere, deep down, where human terror lived, his core shivered and released poisonous acid out to churn his stomach at the sound’s absence. He whispered, “Well, I mean, he is in a club with my dad.”
“Oh.” Her thick lips turned down. “The one who wears sheets?”
“Yes.” He hissed back.
“Damn it. I didn’t know.” She took two fries and chewed them thoughtfully. “This is the only fast food in walking distance that has been safe. Maybe I can get James’ old moped repaired and hit up one of the places along the other highway.”
“Ain’t nothing there either,” Tim reported, tapping his phone where it laid beside the paper wrapping to check the time and then he took a big bite out of what was left of his sandwich. Talking around the food, he said, “Mandy and Granger looked. Luis, from track, asked if I wanted to help him with the landscaping business his father runs, but I’m already locked in here. With Vinny as the store manager now, and his relationship with my dad, I’m guaranteed to be shift manager before the end of the month. Maybe you could check with Luis. You like plants and shit, right?”
“Thanks, I’ll text him.” Kiara leaned back. “I still got his number from that science project.”
“The ancestry one?” He slurped down some soda. “That one was brutal.”
“Not really, Mr. D let you off the hook if you hit a dead wall, like, say, being brought over on a boat unwillingly.”
“You nig–, blacks get all the–” Tim broke off what he was about to say. “I guess that isn’t a give-me like I thought.”
“Nah. It did help that the Old Dock plantation kept really good records. Mandy and I had about seventy years given to us.” Kiara shrugged, reached for the cooling fries but stopped midway. The shoestrings were only good hot. “Mom’s side, though, that was a mess. Half of them had been sold to the Louisiana sugar plantations without records.”
“That seems…stupid? I mean, and pardon the wording, livestock lines are important.”
“Unless you just bought animals to work them to death. The sugar plantations were where you sent trouble to die. Tobacco and cotton had the breeding couples.”
“Why…” clearing his throat Tim continued, “do you even stay around here? Why not move north? It’s got to hurt to see the Docks every time you go outside of town.”
“We have family buried here. When you’ve been cut off from everything else, what little you got is important.”
Tim tapped his phone again. “Five minutes. Been nice seeing ya—”
“One other thing.” Kiara interrupted.
Blanching, Tim asked, “What?”
“What are you going to tell the po-po when they come a’knockin’?”
Timmy crushed the paper wrapper and fry sleeve together in his fists. “Police?” His voice whispered, but scraped high.
“Your friends are missing. Sure, no one is asking questions yet since it’s still the weekend and they could be hitting Myrtle Beach. But Monday or Tuesday, people will start asking where they are and where they were last seen, and you know Office Baumgardner is going to throw us under the bus once the video shows y’all chasing me into the woods.”
“What video?”
“The video, you know, the entrance and around the school.”
Timmy frowned. “There isn’t anything like that.”
Kiara rolled her eyes. “There is exactly stuff like that.”
He snorted in laughter. “Of course there isn’t, they would have caught us spraying the school when we were Juniors.”
“You are white and children from the club. Welcome to your privilege.” Shaking her head, she said, “Really, how do you survive? Anyway, Office ‘call-me-Kenny’ Bumgardner is not going to take the fall for three missing youths. So what are you going to say?”
“Um, what are you going to say?”
“That I ran into the woods behind the school and hid until I saw parents dropping kids off and then returned to the school. You were there and said, ‘next time we’ll catch you’. And then I went inside. Sounds good?”
“Right, I forgot we had talked.”
“So how should our stories line up.”
“Two minutes.” Vinny shouted.
“Be right there.” Tim shouted back. “Okay, I chased you into the woods but we couldn’t find you. Chuck and Mandy started making out like normal, so I went back to the school to wait and you came out. I said something stupid, I don’t remember, to prank you. Don’t know what happened to Granger. He was determined to find you. I had work, so I walked home because who knows how long Chuck and Mandy were going to neck. Damn, it feels wrong to lie about it.”
“Why?” Kiara looked confused. “They threatened to kill you too.”
“They were kidding.” He put the trash into the bin. “They did that all the time.”
Kiara froze a moment, before she gently touched his shoulder. “Tim, people don’t threaten people they love. They were not your friends, just people you grew up with.”
“That…” He shook his head. “Um, are…are they, okay?”
“They’re dead.” Kiara stated flatly.
“No, I mean, are they zombies or ghosts or whatever… Are they going to be angry…” He trailed off before whispering, “I had nightmares.”
“Oh, that. They have completely moved on. I went back last night and cleaned up everything and made sure they aren’t going to hang around and cause more trouble.” Kiara shouldered her purse more securely. “They are wherever they are supposed to be. No lingering pain on this plane.”
“Thirty seconds!”
“Got to go.”
Tim clocked in with two seconds to spare and washed his hands before joining Vinny at the front and letting the other worker go on their late Sunday lunch/dinner break.
“What are you doing talking to that cun…girl?” Vinny corrected himself mid-word since the other worker that day was female while Tim counted the till under the supervisor’s watchful eyes.
“We go to school together.” Tim shrugged, keeping his eyes down. “She was just asking what are the chances of getting this job.”
“What did you say?”
“That we were full up.” Tim glanced at the twenty-year-old before returning to the money count. “That okay?”
“Sounds great.” Vinny picked up the application and ripped it in half, put the pieces together and ripped it into quarters and dropped it in the trash. “Don’t need her type around here. But, word of advice from a friend, don’t go being nice to the niggers. It will get you into trouble, no matter who your daddy is.”
(words 1,361; first published 6/28/2026)
Ordinary Monsters series
One) Monsters in the closet (5/10/2026)
Two) Monsters in the school (5/24/2026)
Three) Monsters in the Restaurant (6/28/2026)
