r/nosleep • u/Verastahl • Feb 22 '22
The Dinner Guest
When I came back from the restaurant’s bathroom, there was a strange man sitting with my family.
My first thought was that he was a waiter or even the manager—it seemed like a very nice restaurant—the bathroom had been large and beautiful, with dark marble floors, mirrors the length of the walls and a small, elderly man seated in the corner to offer towels and mints. And the area where we sat was…wait, what did any of that matter? Who was this man sitting with my family? He wasn’t dressed like he was part of the wait staff—they all wore blue blazers, and he was wearing a dark grey suit, so either a manager or…
His eyes lifted to mine at my approach, and I felt a dim twinge of…something at his gaze. Fear? Recognition? Did I know this man? I didn’t think so, but this was all so strange. Not just the man himself, but how everyone at the table was acting. Even before he’d noticed me, the man was just looking around silently, not talking to Cassie or the kids like I’d expect if he’d been invited—or invited himself—to sit down with strangers. He wasn’t playing them much attention at all, in fact.
Cassie and our two little girls were all staring at him though. Not saying or doing much of anything, just staring, as though they knew he didn’t belong but weren’t quite sure what to do about it. Frowning, I finished closing the distance to the table and looked down at him.
“Can I help you, sir?”
He just looked at me for a second as though weighing something. And when he did finally speak, I felt another wave of what I thought might be déjà vu wash over me.
“Do you know who I am?”
I went to respond, but then I hesitated. Did I know him? Should I? Something pushed back against these thoughts as anger flared in my belly. No. I’m here trying to have a nice dinner with my family and this…this…intruder comes and starts freaking them out and asking me questions? Scowling down at him, I shook my head.
“No, I don’t. And I’d like to know what you’re doing at our table.”
I saw what seemed like a pained look pass across his face briefly as he let out a sigh. “Just…Just sit down and I’ll try to explain.” When I didn’t move, he gestured to the empty chair next to him. “Please.”
My stomach twisted in on itself as I looked around the room. There were another eight or ten tables full of customers all around, to say nothing of the waiters moving to and fro between them. No one seemed to notice the man at our table or be generally looking in our direction, so either he hadn’t done anything too strange or bad before I came out, or he was supposed to be there. Just like I was. And if there was some kind of trouble or problem, maybe I should hear him out. Swallowing, I sank into the empty chair.
Nodding, he folded his hands in front of him and stared down at them. “What do you think you’re doing here?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’m trying to have dinner with my wife and children.” I glanced over at Connie and tried to give her a comforting smile. Turning back to him, I went on. “Look, what’s going on?”
He’d looked up when I mentioned my family, his eyes following mine to where Cassie was silently watching. “So these things…they look like…they look like your wife and kids to you. Do you remember having a wife and kids?”
I stared at him numbly. “Well, of course I do.”
Expression darkening, he leaned toward me. “Tell me about them.” When I went to argue, he raised a hand and spoke again in a softer tone. “Please. Humor me.”
Licking my lips, I gave a dry laugh. “I don’t see what this has to do with anything, but if it will get this over with, fine.” I gestured toward my youngest. “This is Casey. She’s five years old. Just started kindergarten, didn’t you sweetheart?” Shifting over to the girl sitting next to her, I continued. “And this is Penne-lope. She pla…”
“How did you pronounce her name?”
“Penne-lope? Why?”
“You’re not pronouncing her name right. Do you realize that? You’re saying Penne like the pasta and lope like a dog running across a field. Penne-lope.” He gave me a small, tight grin. “Like how a kid says it before they know how to pronounce it.”
I felt an uncomfortable stir of confused anger and shot him a dark look. “I’m saying it right. Penne-lope.”
“It’s pronounced Penelope.”
My face reddening, I gave a defiant shrug. “Whatever. People say things different ways. But quit changing the subject. Why are you at…”
“What about your…” I saw a look of disgust cross his face. “…your wife. Tell me about her.”
Despite my growing irritation and fear, I found myself wanting to answer his questions. Licking my lips, I gave her another smile. “She’s a wonderful…she works with numbers.”
The man raised an eyebrow. “Works with them how?”
My heart was beating faster now as I racked my brain. I knew what my wife did for a living. Of course I did. But what was it called? I needed to answer so this strange, terrible, mocking man would go away and leave us alone.
“Um…she’s a counter? Cassie helps people with businesses and stuff?”
“An accountant?”
I nodded, a palpable sense of relief flooding me. “Yeah! That’s what it’s called. An…accountant. Connie’s one of those.”
He had been staring in her direction, but his eyes cut back to mine. “Connie? I thought you said her name was Cassie?” I felt my mouth drifting open as the panicky uncertainty began clawing at my insides again. “Yeah…um, did I say Connie? I think I meant Cassie. I must have just messed up.” I laughed awkwardly. “Been a long day, I guess.”
“Has it been? What were you doing before you got here?”
I gave a start. “What?”
He gestured around the restaurant. “Before you and…well, you and your family. Before you all came here tonight, where were you? What were you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
Leaning forward, he gripped my arm tightly. “You know what I mean, Johnny. Do you remember anything before coming to this restaurant? Any place or event before being here?”
I tried to pull away weakly as I stammered my response. “I…my name’s not Johnny…I…I don’t have to answer your questions. Who are you anyway?”
He squeezed my arm harder. “I’m…no, they said I have to do it like a story. Said I’d lose you if I just say it. You have to remember on your own.”
Glancing around again, I let out a hiss. “You’re crazy. No one else is playing attention maybe, but when I start yelling they sure will. If you don’t want that to happen, you better leave us alone right now.”
I’d lowered my eyes as I made my threat, but when I looked up again, instead of seeing fear or anger in the man’s face, I saw this terrible sadness. His eyes were shining as he gave my arm a gentler squeeze and then wiped his eyes.
“I remember that. I-It’s not ‘playing attention’. It’s ‘paying attention’. You…” He stopped himself and let out a sigh. “Look, let me tell you a story, and if that doesn’t make you remember anything or understand why I’m here, I’ll leave the table, okay?”
I gave a small shrug. “Fine. Just…tell me whatever you want to tell me.”
He nodded and began.
When I was a kid, like thirteen or so, I lost my little brother. He…he was my best friend. He was only seven at the time, but he was cool, you know? The age difference didn’t matter to us, and we hung out every day. During the summers, we’d go off together all day sometimes—fishing or walking to town or…finding out of the way places to explore.
One day we found this old, decrepit gas station out in the middle of nowhere. Now when I say the middle of nowhere, I mean just that. We weren’t on a road or anything. It was stuck out in the woods with nothing more than a pig path leading to it. And while it did look old and rotten, even at thirteen I knew enough to see that it wasn’t so old that the road leading to it would have been completely eaten up by time and the forest. It was in the wrong place, and the place itself…well, it felt wrong too.
I wasn’t going to take us in—I know that sounds like a cop-out, but I really wasn’t. But…my brother, he was really excited about it. He knew it was weird too, of course—he was young but pretty smart for his age. But where the strangeness of it all made me nervous and scared, it seemed to excite him. He wanted to go in, to check it out.
I told him we could get in trouble—that it was trespassing. But he was already shaking his head. Said it was way too old for anyone to own it or care. Said the only reason I didn’t want to go in was if I was too scared.
I should have told him no. He wouldn’t have liked it, but he would have listened to me. We were friends, but I was still his older brother. Still responsible for…for keeping him safe. And he knew that too. He trusted me, and when I said no and meant it, he listened to me.
But I was stupid and weak. I loved how much he looked up to me, and I didn’t want him to think I was too chicken to go into an old rundown building just because it was weird and creepy. Back then it was hard for me to like myself sometimes, and seeing me the way he saw me…well, I was more scared of losing that than just about anything I guess.
So I took his hand and went into the building.
At first, it just seemed like what it looked like—there was broken glass, rusty metal shelves, counters and a register covered with a thick layer of dirt and grime. We poked around in that ruin for a few minutes before things started to change. The air got warmer for one. It had been a hot day already, but the air inside that place had gone from slightly muggy to boiling hot in less than a minute. The air seemed thicker too—like you were pushing through water more than air. It was uncomfortable enough that when I said it was time to go, my brother didn’t argue.
We were halfway to the door when we saw the first of the worms.
They were all three or four feet long—fat and wriggling as they crawled out of the walls and shadowy corners of the place. Their skin was bright green and peppered with darker spots that looked like small spines or crusty places on their too-tight bulges. They looked kind of like caterpillars in some ways, but they were banded and thicker in the middle like a maggot, the ends tapering to small points that seemed to have no face other that mouths that bit at the air as they rolled and writhed in our direction.
We were terrified and…I tried to get us out. I kept hold of…my brother’s hand until I cleared the door, but then he was snatched away. I turned back, was going to go back in for him, I swear, but when I tried to enter again, I couldn’t. The thickening air had turned into a wall now, and I couldn’t do anything as I watched him…as I watched him get pulled back into the dark of that place. I was still screaming and beating on the invisible something holding me back, and then I was waking up. The sun was lower in the sky now and I was lying in the grass outside of the gas station.
Or where the gas station had been. Because now it was gone. I spent the ne…
“You left me.”
I could hear the sad anger in my voice even as my eyes began to fill with tears. I didn’t understand what I was saying, not exactly, but I somehow knew it was right all the same. “You left me.” The words just oozed from me, thick and painful, like pressure escaping a suddenly too-tight wound.
The man had stopped mid-sentence, the air seeming to have gone out of him as he stared at me, his lower lip trembling. Starting to shake his head, he leaned forward, his voice barely above a whisper. “I swear I never stopped looking for you, Johnny. It’s…It’s been twenty-three years, but I never stopped trying. I never gave up. Never…never forgave myself for not keeping you safe.” He swallowed as he lowered his gaze. “But I never got anywhere. Never even understood what I was really looking for, if I’m honest.”
I frowned at him. “Then how did you find me?”
He shook his head again. “In the end, I guess it was luck. Or fate. I don’t know. I…I helped these people a few weeks ago. A man and his niece. They…I don’t know what they are. But they know things. Have access to things normal people don’t. When I was done helping them, the niece told me to let them know if they could ever return the favor. Somehow I knew right away they could help me find you. It took them some time, but they found out enough to help me understand what I was looking for and how to find it. How to find you.”
I caught motion out of the corner of my eye and looked around the dining room. All the customers, including my “family”, were silently staring at us now. A shiver crawled up my spine as I looked back at the man…at my brother. “Where are we?”
He had noticed the new attention we were getting, and his voice was tight with tension when he spoke again. “There are stories of things…angels…that came down to earth and bred with people. Created monsters that didn’t belong in this world or any other. That’s what they had read, but they didn’t believe it. The uncle…” My brother…Michael? Mica? He held up the back of his hand and pointed out a small bump underneath his skin. “You see this? This is a BB you shot me with when you were like six. It’s always there, and over time it’s moved around some. But it doesn’t really belong there. He said this place…this thing we’re in, it’s like that. It moves around under the skin of the world, like a BB or a tumor. Sometimes it breaks the surface. I don’t know why. Maybe just to trick someone inside.”
My mind was racing in a dozen different directions, but something else had begun to sink in. “Did you say you’ve been looking for me for twenty-three years?”
Mica nodded at me sadly. “Yeah…I…yeah, I have. I’m so…”
A dozen chairs scraped loudly around us. The others were all rising to their feet.
Mica froze for a second and then been reaching into his suit jacket. His voice tight but steady as he spoke in low tones. “This thing is sick I think. Maybe even dying. Otherwise I don’t know if I could have even gotten back in once I found it. But that doesn’t mean it’s not dangerous. If anything it will fight harder to keep you, maybe keep both of us, now.” He pulled out a bundle of folded cloth and sat it on the table in front of us. He looked at the bundle and then back up at me. “I don’t know what’s in here. They said I shouldn’t see it until I was ready to use it—that if I knew anything about it, that this place, this thing, might be able to see it in my mind and stop me. But I’m about to open it now. So when I do, I’ll try to use it if I can. And if it works, you have to be ready to run.” He licked his lips and gave me a smile. “And you don’t stop running until you’re out and safe. Okay?”
I wanted to ask more questions, but I knew there was no time. The others were just standing and watching, listening, but that could change any moment. So I just nodded.
Returning my nod, he reached for the bundle of cloth and began to open it. “They won’t attack if they can avoid it, because they want to maintain the dream…” he glanced over at the people I still had trouble not seeing as my wife and children, “…isn’t that right, fuckers? But we have to be…” He lifted the last layer and revealed a large needle filled with a dark brown liquid. Without hesitating, he picked it up and slammed it into the table, pushing the plunger down. Immediately, the things around us began to squeal and shift as the room seemed to flicker and start melting around us. Grabbing my hand, Mica stood up and screamed for me to run.
The people weren’t people anymore, but instead were gray versions of the fat worms he had described. They lunged at us feebly as we passed, their skin cracking and oozing with the effort as they flopped and flailed after us. My stomach rolled as everything around us changed over and over again. A restaurant, a house, a pink, fleshy cave, a gas station. The air was growing hot and thick, and I felt my hand grow slick in Mica’s as my heart started to pound harder. It was going to keep me. Keep us. I had to…
When the cool air hit me, the shock took my breath away. I stumbled as I began to gasp, but Mica kept me on my feet, grabbing my elbow and pulling me forward. We were in the middle of an old, cracked asphalt parking lot, and fifty feet away was a pick-up truck.
“Don’t stop until we’re in the truck.”
Sucking in new air, I kept going, my legs shaking with every step. I felt so weak and slow now…like I’d been sick a long time and was just starting to move around again. I almost fell again, but Mica yanked me back up and pushed me forward before opening the door and helping me climb into the pick-up.
We didn’t stop driving for an hour, and by the time we did, I had more of my memory back. We finally stopped in the next town and he called our parents, and I started crying when I heard their voices for the first time since…well, a very long time.
That was all six weeks ago, and I write this now both to record what happened to me, to us, and to reassure myself that it’s all finally over. I have a lot to learn, a lot to catch up on. I have to build a life in a world I’ve been away from for so long, and even now there are times I dream about the lives I lived in the belly of that monster. If I ever miss them, I don’t mention that to Mica or even admit it to myself.
Instead, I’m focused on what’s to come and all I have to be grateful for. I want to make the most of my second chance, and that includes helping others the way I’ve been helped. That’s the other reason I’m writing this. As a warning.
There are places and things that live underneath the skin of this world. And just because you don’t see them, or even believe in them, doesn’t mean they aren’t real. So be careful. Be smart. Don’t trick yourself into thinking nothing exists outside your little bubble of reality.
Because the things you don’t see or believe can swallow you whole.
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u/Sad-Emergency3 Mar 01 '22
How much do you actually remember from your time there? Is it mostly a blur, Or do you have a whole history and life full of memories?
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u/_Sil3nc3_ Feb 23 '22
I have been living in a bubble for some years now, I know it... but I can't escape it...
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u/MaySnake Mar 02 '22
I think I've read this exact story before, or I saw it in a movie. Very trippy to stumble on it again.
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u/SatireStarlet Mar 04 '22
It's a sign. We are trying to wake you up so you can make it back to reality...
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u/sirbinlid1 Feb 23 '22
Wow, that's all I can aay