Blinking in the bright light, his eyes slowly adjusted after hours on the dark road. The first thing that hit him was the comforting smell ofgrilled bread and cheese. It was intoxicating. His stomach rumbled. It smelled like heaven.
The next thing he noticed was that the diner had fallen silent. The buzz of conversation ended abruptly the moment he stepped into the room. There were only muffled noises coming from an ancient boxy TV fixed high on the wall behind the long, tiled counter.
But the thing that stopped him dead in his tracks was the group of dusty, disheveled customers who had all dropped whatever they were doing and turned to face him.
There were no strangers here.
He knew all six of them better than he could ever want to. Six faces he’d thought he would never see again, not in this lifetime.
One of them stood up from a booth seat and, pushing her messy, dark hair away from her all-too-familiar face, looked directly at him, smiling.
“Long time no see, Ellis,” said Ana.
44
Ana
Ana enjoyed the look on Ellis’s face.
No traces of his usual smug arrogance. Even the cruel twist at the corners of his mouth disappeared as his jaw dropped, a shocked flush brushing his cheeks.
He knew he was fucked. She could see it in his eyes.
Everyone had fallen silent; the only sound was the TV playing in the background, the cheesy theme from some vintage sitcom, plinking happily away, scoring the moments until Ellis could speak again.
“What the…? You all died…I saw you…” Ellis stammered.
“Died?” Ana cocked her head and looked at him. “No. I think some of us might say we were murdered.” She smiled and caught Alex’s eye—he was enjoying this every bit as much as she was.
Ana imagined Ellis’s brain was jumping through hoops right now, trying to recalibrate, trying to process the unthinkable.
They’d all been through it when they first arrived at the diner.
Caden had the hardest time of it.
He was the first across the line, and the first to be dropped off at the diner. When he woke up, lying on an army cot on the porch, alone and high, he’d convinced himself this was the afterlife. In true Caden style he went for a little explore around the deserted diner, made himself a grilled cheese sandwich, and went back to sleep on a comfy booth.
The sound of the red truck pulling up outside woke him. He’d watched as the two bandana-wearing cowboys carefully lifted Jax out of the back and placed him on the cot, before silently driving off to collect the next victim.
When Jax woke up, he rocked Caden’s worldview. They spent the first hour arguing about whether they were in purgatory or California. A small distinction.
About two minutes after arriving, Raya had the whole thing figured out.
Each hour, on the hour, the red truck would arrive, and the cowboys would drop another sleeping student on the cot and hightail it out of there.
They contemplated ambushing the cowboys upon their next delivery and demanding they take them home. But no one was up for it—the memory of being shot was too recent. They’d survived this far, no need to push their luck.
There was no cell reception at the diner and no way to call for help, so Raya worked up the courage to ask the cowboys if they possibly had a radio that she could borrow for a minute. They just ignored her, and she backed away as fast as she could.
They came up with a plan. They would wait for the next hour to pass, making the rest of the grilled cheese and creating sodas from a box of flavored syrups they’d found behind the counter. Then they’d feed the new arrival—the food seemed to settle them a little and help with the disorientation.
When they were calm enough to listen, Raya would take the lead and explain what was happening: “It’s okay, you’re not dead. They shot us with some kind of tranquilizer. You’re safe. Here, have some more grilled cheese.”
As they waited, the mood was subdued. There had been no time to deep-dive into processing what had happened to them. They just knew that they were alive—they had walked through fire, twice. They were survivors.
By the time Jade arrived, a sense of heightened anticipation settled in as they realized that it was down to the final three, it was almost over. In a few short hours, the Balloon Game would have played out. This fucked-up, miserable day would be at an end.
Unwelcome thoughts started to seep in through the cracks. Flashes from the last few hours—jumbled, messy images. Eyes flicked down; faces turned away as memories played out in their heads—choices made as they faced their darkest moments. Things they’d done as they died.
