Chapter 3: The Banging in the Freezer

Chapter 3: The Banging in the Freezer

The banging was supposed to be background noise.

In the twisted symphony of Smiley’s after dark, the steady, rhythmic thump… thump… thump… from the walk-in freezer was the bass drum. It was the one constant Leo could count on, a metronome for the madhouse. He’d learned to tune it out, just as he’d learned to ignore the way the ketchup dispenser sometimes seemed to weep or the faint whispers that occasionally slithered from the floor drains.

But tonight, the rhythm broke.

It happened around 3:14 AM, though Leo felt sure only minutes had passed since the void at the drive-thru had receded, stealing an hour of his life. The steady beat faltered, replaced by a frantic, desperate pounding. THUMP-THUMP-THUD. THUMP-THUMP-THUD. It wasn't rhythmic anymore; it was violent. A primal, furious hammering that vibrated through the greasy tiles and up into the soles of his worn-out sneakers.

Leo froze, a dirty rag in his hand. Every nerve ending screamed. This was new. This was wrong.

His eyes darted to the employee handbook, which now sat permanently open on the prep counter next to the saltshakers. Its cracked leather cover seemed to absorb the sickly yellow light, and the spidery, hand-written script within promised answers, if not comfort. He’d spent the last hour since the drive-thru incident devouring its pages, his fear warring with a desperate need to understand. He’d read about the Man with No Face (‘The Collector’), the entity in the void (‘The Silent Patron’), and a dozen other horrors yet to come.

His trembling finger traced down the crudely drawn table of contents until he found it: Section V: Kitchen Equipment & Occupants. He flipped through pages that felt unnervingly like dried skin until he landed on the right entry. The ink was a faded, brownish red, as if penned in old blood.

Rule #17: The one in the freezer is always hungry. The banging is its dinner bell. Do not mistake it for a cry for help. Never, under any circumstances, open the door unless specifically instructed for an order.

The new, frantic banging suddenly made a terrifying kind of sense. It wasn’t a cry for help. It was a demand. Something inside was starving, and its patience had run out. The heavy, chrome-plated handle of the freezer door seemed to mock him, a gateway to a fate worse than being the daily special.

As if on cue, a sharp burst of static crackled from the drive-thru speaker, making him jump.

“Hello?”

The voice was small, innocent, and achingly familiar. It was the voice of a little girl, clear as a bell despite the static. Leo’s heart seized in his chest, a cold fist closing around it.

“Welcome to Smiley’s,” he managed, his own voice a dry rasp. “Can I take your order?”

“Lee-Lee, is that you?”

The childhood nickname hit him like a physical blow. It was a name only one person had ever called him. Chloe. His sister. Dead for seven years, the victim of a hit-and-run that had shattered his family.

“Who is this?” he whispered, his knuckles white where he gripped the counter.

A soft, sweet giggle echoed through the speaker, a sound he hadn't heard in years and had prayed he would hear again in his dreams. “It’s me, silly. I’m hungry. Can I have a Smiley Sundae?”

His mind reeled. This was a trick. A cruel, elaborate trick. One of them. He flipped frantically through the handbook. There had to be a rule for this. His eyes scanned the page, blurring through warnings about mimics and phantoms until a single sentence leaped out.

Rule #24: The lonely must be served. Their hunger is of a different kind. To refuse them is to invite their loneliness inside.

He felt trapped. Two contradictory commands were pinning him in place. The thing in the freezer was demanding a meal, and opening that door was forbidden. But this… this voice at the speaker was a customer, and to refuse it was to invite a horror of a different, more personal nature.

“Please, Lee-Lee? I’ve been so lonely,” the voice pleaded, a heartbreaking tremor running through it. “Mommy said you’d get me a treat if I was good.”

The banging from the freezer intensified, the thick metal door shuddering in its frame. THUD. THUD. THUD. It was an ultimatum.

“What… what kind of sundae?” Leo asked, his throat tight with unshed tears.

“The usual,” Chloe’s voice chirped. “Vanilla with extra-special strawberry sauce. You know, the kind you keep in the big metal box. The really cold one.”

Ice flooded Leo’s veins. The big metal box. The freezer.

It wanted him to open the door.

This wasn’t two separate problems; it was one perfectly designed trap. The entity at the speaker was working with the monster in the freezer. One was the bait, the other was the hook. He imagined opening the heavy door, the frigid air rushing out, followed by… what? A hulking shape? A tangle of limbs? Something that would tear him apart before he could even reach for the "special" strawberry sauce that he knew, with chilling certainty, wasn't on any menu, real or secret.

But the alternative… to invite its loneliness inside? What did that even mean? He pictured the hollow ache he’d felt after the Man with No Face had taken his memory, and imagined that feeling magnified a thousand times, a permanent, soul-crushing void where his own identity used to be.

“Leo? Are you going to help me?” The voice was losing its childish innocence, an edge of something cold and ancient creeping in. “Don’t you love me anymore?”

The banging stopped.

The sudden, absolute silence from the freezer was a thousand times more terrifying than the noise had been. It was a patient silence. A waiting silence.

Leo’s mind raced, a cornered animal looking for an escape. Rule #17: Never open the door unless specifically instructed for an order. Rule #24: The lonely must be served. He was being instructed. But he knew it was a lie. The handbook was a guide, but it wasn't foolproof. It was a set of rules for a game that was rigged from the start.

Think. He couldn’t open the door. He couldn’t refuse the order.

The answer, when it came, was born of pure, animal desperation. He wouldn’t break the rules. He would bend them.

“One Smiley Sundae, coming right up,” he said, his voice shaking but firm.

He ignored the freezer. He turned to the humming soft-serve machine, pulled a lever, and let a swirl of perfectly normal, processed vanilla ice cream fill a plastic cup. Then he grabbed the standard-issue strawberry topping from the refrigerated prep line. It was bright red, artificially sweet, and utterly, blessedly mundane.

His heart pounded a frantic rhythm against his ribs as he walked to the drive-thru window. He slid it open. The oppressive, silent darkness he remembered from the last customer wasn’t there. Instead, the parking lot was just empty and dark, bathed in the sickly orange glow of a single streetlamp. There was no car. No person. Nothing.

“Here’s your order,” he called out into the night, placing the sundae on the external sill.

For a long moment, there was only the hum of the kitchen lights. He had failed. The trick hadn't worked. He was about to be punished for his insolence—

“Thank you, Lee-Lee.”

The voice was right beside his ear, a sibilant whisper that carried no breath. He flinched back, stumbling into the counter, his blood turning to ice. The sundae vanished from the sill.

“It’s cold,” the voice whispered again, now seeming to come from every corner of the kitchen at once. “Just like you were when you didn’t come to my funeral. But that’s okay. I’ll see you soon.”

The speaker clicked off.

Leo stood frozen, gasping for breath, the ghost of his sister's voice—or whatever had worn its shape—fading into the hum of the machinery. He had survived. He had found a loophole. A wave of triumphant relief washed over him, so potent it almost brought him to his knees.

Then, from the freezer, came a new sound.

It wasn't banging anymore. It was a low, guttural growl that resonated deep in his bones. It was the sound of a predator that had just watched its meal be given to another. It was a sound of profound, simmering rage.

Leo stared at the freezer door, the cold sweat returning. He hadn’t solved the problem. He had just angered them both. And he still had two hours and forty-six minutes until dawn.