Chapter 2
VICTOR
Victor ran a mile every day, meal-prepped on Sundays, and was a business owner and an active member of the Pumpkin Festival planning committee.
He’d run the diner’s food cart at the festival for the past ten years, and whenever someone called out at the diner, he was the first person to volunteer to cover their shift.
When he adopted his freshly turned zombie son, he’d been lavished with praise by his elders.
Who better to usher in the next generation of undead youth than him, a reanimated corpse and man designed to be perfect?
Even Frank had given him a rare nod of approval.
Praise from his usually stoic business partner had been the cherry on the sundae.
Life was perfect. Until Frank died.
Frank had been acting strangely that day.
Messing up orders when usually he’d have the bacon on the flat top before it was rung in.
That same day, Victor had caught him napping in the stockroom.
Victor asked him to take the day off, but Frank refused and Victor had brushed it off, assuming Frank was tired, and clocked out for the day.
They used to say, the only person who worked harder than Victor was Frank.
Then the call had come from the hospital, and Victor felt like someone had upended his entire life.
In the past week, he’d hardly slept. Frank did so much around the diner that Victor hadn’t realized he was literally propping the entire place up.
Between putting out literal and metaphorical fires, Victor had temporarily moved him and Brayden into Frank’s place.
It was behind the diner, which meant he could be on call for the diner twenty-four-seven without worrying about Brayden.
Victor stared down at the egg burning in the pan.
“Fuck,” he swore.
“Language,” Brayden said as he shuffled into the kitchen with Igor, Frank’s pet raven, perched on his slumped shoulder. The bird was nipping at Brayden’s tussled hair, as if to tell him to brush it.
“I’m allowed to swear. It’s an occupational hazard,” Victor informed him.
“So you’re allowed but not me?” Brayden arched a single brow. “Talk about double standards, bruh.” He shook his head, and his messy blond hair flopped against his gray forehead.
“Sit down, I’m making you eggs,” Victor said, ignoring his sarcastic remarks.
“Looks like charcoal.” Brayden peered at the pan of burned chorizo that Victor had attempted to make before getting distracted by a delivery from the local bakery.
The food was edible, but Victor couldn’t settle for less than perfection.
Not when he could hardly get Brayden to eat as it was.
Being resurrected changed your taste buds.
Victor, for example, had to eat everything spicy.
Otherwise, food tasted like ash. In zombie support groups online—the closest approximation to what he was—Victor had found people talking about dousing everything in vinegar, in addition to hot sauce like he did.
Neither option seemed to work for Brayden, though Victor kept trying.
Victor turned down the heat in his pan and cracked his third egg.
He’d worked in kitchens for two decades.
At the very least, he should be able to cook a fried egg.
He’d keep making eggs until he got it right, or he’d think about it all day, and he had enough on his plate as it was.
“I’m remaking it before I head in,” Victor said.
“Pass.” Brayden shrugged and shuffled over to the fridge and pulled out a meal replacement shake with a bony hand.
Victor resisted the urge to argue as Brayden’s therapist’s voice echoed in his ears: He’s adjusting, give him time. Victor’s perfectionist nature made him want to be the perfect dad and perfect chef. Having a kid who refused his cooking was killing him.
“I’ve got homework to finish before school,” Brayden said waving over his shoulder on his way to the guest room.
Igor flew off his shoulder and swooped onto the counter next to Victor, tilting his head as he supervised Victor’s cooking.
Victor nudged the partially burned chorizo and fried egg towards Igor, who tore at it with gusto, flinging bits of egg yolk and crumbs of chorizo onto the counter.
“At least you appreciate my cooking.” Victor sighed.
He’d tried refusing to give Igor human food, but attempts to feed Igor raven-appropriate foods resulted in him pecking at Victor’s fingers or head until he got a patty melt, milkshake, or whatever else he was craving in the moment.
Igor had been living with Frank as long as Victor had been working at the diner, which had been close to twenty years.
And according to Frank, he’d belonged to his father before that.
Apparently Igor had acquired a taste for diner food.
Being a familiar meant he had odd little quirks other birds didn’t possess.
Plus, he made an excellent taste tester.
Igor finished his breakfast, cawed, and then flew into the living room towards his favorite roosting spot by the window.
Victor satisfied himself by making a perfect fried egg, which he inhaled before washing the dishes, and wiping down the counters.
He could let the rest of his life fall apart, but he’d never leave a kitchen dirty.
The driveway to the house faced the back of the diner.
And normally he’d enter through the back door, but he decided to take the long way and go in through the front.
It was early, the sun had yet to rise, and a thin, misty fog hung over the asphalt.
The retro, red neon diner sign was flickering, and Victor added replacing the lights to his long to-do list.
He entered, and the bell chimed, alerting the staff to his arrival.
It was that liminal time of the morning before the sun rose and the morning rush began—which was at most three to four people—and after the midnight crowd of nocturnal residents had left.
In a small town like Pumpkin Hollow, everything moved at a pretty steady pace.
Which is why he shouldn’t have been surprised to see Gertrude, one of his most notorious regulars, behind the counter pouring herself a cup of coffee.
“I’ve told you you’re not supposed to be back there,” Victor said with a sigh.
“Frank always let me,” she replied.
“Frank’s not—” He choked on the words. Their usual banter soured his stomach.
Gertrude would do as she pleased. She would act like she owned the diner, and he’d scold her, and she’d lie and say Frank let her.
He’d tell her Frank wasn’t there, but trying to say it now felt like he was getting hit by a mallet of grief.
Frank had been a friend, a mentor. He was the reason Victor was able to stand up to his creator and chase a job he loved.
Gertrude came out and patted him on the arm. “Sorry, dear.”
She perched on her usual red stool as Victor took his place behind the counter and automatically reached for the creamer in the mini fridge there.
The same routine, the same conversation he’d had a thousand times before as he slid it over to her.
She added a small splash of creamer; it hardly changed the color.
“Since you’re here now, can I order?” she asked before daintily sipping her coffee.
“Didn’t Annalise or Trudy get your order already?” Victor frowned.
“Trudy isn’t here. Late again, I bet.” She shook her head as if they were her tardy employees.
“What about Annalise or Jason?” They weren’t supposed to clock out until he and Trudy clocked in for the morning shift.
He turned around and peered through the kitchen window. The overnight cook, Jason, was missing as well, and Victor groaned.
“Maybe she’s in the supply closet looking for ketchup again,” Gertrude said with a pointed look at the rows of filled ketchup bottles on the counter.
“Excuse me,” Victor said calmly, but on the inside, he felt like a duck gliding on still water while furiously paddling beneath the surface.
The dry storage room door was ajar, and the wet sucking sounds and hushed giggles were enough for him to want to turn around and run. Victor knocked on the door to alert them, and he heard Annalise’s surprised laughter followed by Jason’s mumbled curse.
He waited outside the door, arms crossed, as they slunk out. Annalise smoothed her hair, smiling coyly as she tried to cover the bite marks on her neck, while Jason wiped the corner of his mouth. But his heavy-lidded eyes gave it away.
Victor ran a hand over his face. At this rate, he was going to rub his nose off.
“Guys, you promised me if you both worked overnights I could trust you…”
“It was dead, and Jason was thirsty…” Annalise said with a smile, but it quickly faded at the look on Victor’s face.
“Sorry, chef,” Jason murmured.
Victor shook his head. “Not a chef. You know what, go. We’ll talk later. It’s almost sunrise.”
“Thanks, and sorry.” Jason dipped his head in apology, hardly disguising a yawn.
“Yeah, sorry, Victor.” Annalise smirked as she ran back to gather her purse.
“I’m gonna have to change the schedule,” Victor muttered aloud to himself as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
Jason was a vampire and could only work overnights.
Annalise was a great waitress with a theoretically flexible schedule, but now that they were dating and blood swapping, clearly they couldn’t be left alone.
He didn’t have time to babysit them overnight, and he couldn’t ask the daytime waitress, Trudy, to work overnights.
She was a single mom of two kids. The afternoon staff had similar limitations.
Frank would have seen this coming from a mile away and never allowed the schedule change.
Maybe that was why he’d always been working.
Things had run smoother when he was around.
Victor returned to the dining room and took Gertrude’s order, not that he needed to ask. She always got a cup of plain oatmeal and a couple sausage links on the side.
“You’re doing a great job,” Gertrude said.
Victor scowled at her. She wasn’t the type to give praise. “You’re being too nice.”
“I can compliment you, can’t I?” She sniffed.
“I suppose.” He went around to the kitchen to start her order, tossing a few sausages on the flat top and heating up the instant oatmeal. It was a strange combination, but he’d never asked her why she insisted on getting it daily.
“Frank’s girl is coming back? Little Lizzy?” Gertrude asked from the other side of the service window.
“Oh, you were buttering me up for gossip, is that what it was?”
“Bah,” she replied.
Victor laughed as he peered at her through the window. “Yeah, she should be here today, coming back to settle the estate.”
“It’ll be good to see her,” she replied. “I remember her running around here as a kid, then there was that summer she worked here. Wasn’t that the year you started hanging around too?”
Victor ignored her teasing and went back to the flat top.
The old bat was too observant for her own good.
He’d never admit it, but he had started hanging around Frank’s Diner because of Lizzy.
He’d been hopelessly in love with her back in high school, though he never admitted it.
She saw him as a friend, as she’d told him.
With her, he felt like himself—no pretending, no need to be perfect, flawless Victor.
He’d wanted desperately to tell her how he felt, but feared ruining the one easy relationship he had.
Then she’d moved away before he’d gotten the courage.
They’d attempted to keep in touch, but Victor got kicked out by his creator and they started to drift.
He’d mostly forgotten about his childhood feelings.
Then Frank had died, and he realized he’d be the one to tell her, and maybe even see her again.
And then he saw her name on the will, and it all brought those old feelings surging back to the surface on a wave of nostalgia.
He was excited to see her, but he was over her.
He’d been a kid, and he was forty-two now.
What he’d felt was nothing but a teenage infatuation, right?