Chapter 7: Where the Body Is

Chapter 7: Where the Body Is

Defeat was a cold, quiet thing. It settled into Leo’s bones, a permanent chill that no amount of coffee could warm. The futile battle with the locks had broken something inside him. He no longer fought. He no longer planned. He simply endured.

The coffee shop had ceased to be his workplace. It was a stage for a nightly, incomprehensible play, and he was the sole, captive audience member. He moved through the motions of his job—grinding beans, steaming milk, wiping counters—but his mind was elsewhere, trapped in a loop of dread, counting down the minutes to 8:58 PM.

The week since his failed fortification had been an exercise in passive terror. The patrons arrived as they always did, their appearances no longer governed by the physical laws of entry. One moment the shop was empty, the next, Pendleton would be sitting in his booth, the steam from his impossible coffee already rising to meet the stale air. Then Macy would be there, her damp-flower scent a prelude to her silent, unnerving patrol. Then the boy, a ghost in a hoodie, materializing to watch his private tragedy in a cup of hot water.

Leo had stopped trying to talk to them. He had learned that he was less than a ghost to them, a piece of the scenery they chose to ignore. He simply served them, his hands steady now not from calm, but from a profound, exhausted resignation.

Tonight was no different. He placed Pendleton’s black coffee on the counter. He took the boy’s two quarters. He watched Macy trace the familiar fault lines in the peeling wallpaper. He braced himself.

At 9:03 PM, the world plunged.

He was ready for it this time. As the light sickened to a jaundiced yellow and the oppressive heat descended, he didn't flinch. As the sound of reality was sucked from the room, leaving only the hammering of his own blood in his ears, he held his ground. He looked at them, frozen in their eternal tableau. Pendleton, mug half-raised. Macy, fingers poised over the sugar. The boy, a statue of sorrow.

He had started to notice things in these stolen, silent minutes. The dust motes that hung suspended and unmoving in the thick air. The way the shadows didn't just lie flat but seemed to have a terrifying, three-dimensional depth, as if you could fall into them. He saw the utter lack of life in their frozen eyes, a stillness that went beyond a simple pause. It was the stillness of things that had never truly been alive in the first place.

At 9:04 PM, the world snapped back. The sound, the light, the temperature—all rushed in to fill the void, and the patrons unfroze.

Pendleton took his sip of coffee. Macy picked up her sugar packet. The boy blinked.

But tonight, there was a variation. As Pendleton set his mug down, he looked up, and his mournful, weary eyes met Leo's across the room. It was the first time he had made direct, intentional eye contact since this all began. The gaze held for only a second, but it was heavy with unspoken meaning. It was not a look of malice, but of grim, sorrowful purpose. It was a transfer of knowledge, or perhaps a burden. Then he looked away, and the moment was gone.

Ten minutes later, they left. Not through the door, of course. Leo turned to put a rag in the sink, and when he turned back, they were simply gone. The only evidence of their existence was the black mug and the paper cup left on the table in the booth.

Leo let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. The release of tension left him feeling hollow and shaky. All that was left was the cleanup. He walked over to the booth, the familiar scent of damp earth and rot still hanging in the air. He picked up the boy’s empty cup and Pendleton’s mug, which was, as always, still half-full of the cold, black liquid. He resisted the urge to pour it down the drain immediately.

He set the cups on his tray and grabbed his rag to wipe down the table. He moved the metal sugar dispenser to clean underneath it, a routine he’d performed a thousand times.

It felt… wrong. The dispenser, usually sitting flat, rocked slightly. Frowning, Leo lifted it.

And there it was.

Tucked neatly under the base was a single, folded paper napkin. It was one of theirs, cheap and flimsy, but it was stark white against the dark, worn wood of the table. His heart gave a painful lurch. This was new. This was a direct communication. A message left just for him.

His hand trembled as he reached for it. The paper felt cold, almost damp, to the touch. He unfolded it carefully, his breath catching in his throat.

Scrawled on the napkin in a thin, spidery black script were nine words.

When the coffee cools, you’ll remember where the body is.

Leo stared at the words, his mind refusing to parse them. It was nonsensical. A line from a bad horror movie. A prank. But he knew, with a certainty that was colder and sharper than any fear he had yet experienced, that it was not a prank. Pendleton’s brief, meaningful stare flashed in his mind. This was the burden.

He read the words again. And again. The phrase "you'll remember" latched onto his sanity and began to twist. It wasn’t a threat of what he might find, but a horrifying accusation of what he already knew, what he had supposedly forgotten. It implied a complicity, a shared, buried secret. The body. Not a body. A specific one. One that he, Leo, was meant to know.

Panic, hot and acidic, rose in his throat. He crumpled the napkin in his fist, the flimsy paper crinkling in the profound silence of the empty shop. The words were seared into his vision.

His gaze snapped to the half-full mug of black coffee still sitting on his tray. When the coffee cools… It was already cold. Was that the trigger? Was he supposed to be remembering something right now? He squeezed his eyes shut, probing the dark corners of his memory, searching for a gap, a black spot, a hidden trauma. There was nothing. Only the monotonous, grinding reality of his life: his mother’s medical bills, the endless shifts, the bone-deep exhaustion. No bodies. No buried secrets.

But the seed of paranoia had been planted. The shop, his prison, transformed around him. It was no longer just a haunted stage; it was a potential crime scene. The familiar space became alien, sinister. Every shadow held a secret. Every closed door hid a potential horror.

His frantic eyes scanned the room. Where would someone hide a body in a coffee shop? The thought was so insane it bordered on laughable, but the laughter died in his throat. This wasn't a rational situation.

His mind went to the dumpsters out back. It was the most logical place. Driven by a new, frantic energy, he threw the shop's back door open and stumbled into the alley. The cold night air was a shock to his system. The alley stank of sour milk and wet garbage. He lunged at the nearest dumpster, the metal lid groaning in protest as he threw it open. He stared down into the mess of black trash bags, his heart pounding. Was he really about to do this?

He grabbed the edge of a heavy bag and pulled. It was full of wet coffee grounds and slimy food waste. He tore it open, the smell making him gag. Nothing. He tore through another, and then another, his hands covered in grime, his mind screaming at the absurdity and the terror of his actions. He found nothing but the sad, discarded refuse of a dozen lonely days.

He slammed the dumpster lid shut, the sound echoing down the empty alley. Relief warred with the unabated terror. Not here.

He stumbled back inside, his chest heaving. He leaned against the wall, trying to calm the frantic beating of his heart. His eyes, wild and searching, continued their sweep of the back room. They passed over the shelves of syrups, the boxes of paper cups, the mop bucket.

And then they stopped.

They stopped on the largest object in the room. A hulking, stainless-steel box that hummed with a low, constant, predatory energy.

The walk-in freezer.

The hum, a sound so mundane he hadn't consciously registered it in years, was suddenly the loudest thing in the world. It was a deep, guttural thrum that vibrated through the concrete floor and up into his bones. The heavy, insulated door with its thick latch handle was not a door to a freezer anymore. It was a vault. A tomb.

You’ll remember where the body is.

Leo stared at the freezer door, the crumpled napkin still clutched in his sweaty fist. His own reflection stared back at him from the polished steel—a pale, terrified stranger with wide, haunted eyes. The cold air seeping from under the door felt like the breath of the grave Pendleton’s coffee tasted of.

And he knew, with a dawning horror that eclipsed everything that had come before it, that he had to open that door.