CAFE KILLER

"Sorry, say what?" I asked, my friends turning down the music to listen in. The lady scoffed at me and crinkled her eyes with frustration. She stared me down through her mess of ebony hair. If she was trying to be intimidating, it wasn't working.

"I said that you would die tonight if you go to Courtney's Cafe. Stay at home." She slithered off like a snake, murmuring "Heed my warning, heed my warning..." And almost tripped over the plastic Halloween decoration, I looked at my friends with a hidden chill; sitting back down with a sigh.

"Right, now that Miss Crazy's gone, it was Natasha turn to dare someone, right?" Natasha turned, her gleaming blonde hair shining in the wind.

"Yeah, okay. I choose you." I raised one eyebrow and sat forward to pay attention. "At midnight, let's go to Courtney's Cafe." I rolled my eyes as Adam scoffed at me.

"Oh come on, don't be such a scaredy-cat." I meowed at him with a smile like a Cheshire cat, then got up.

"And where are you going?" Jacob asked. I grabbed my keys and tossed them at him with a funny look in my eye.

"Well? Are you coming?"

We got up and headed to Courtney's, and as always, the little plastic flower pot greeted us. It was decked out in the most exquisite dollar ninety-nine decors, complete with a ransacked candy basket with a taped-on a piece of paper that read 'take one please'! The waiters were finishing up; I wasn't surprised that none of the staff wanted to work past eleven-thirty. We clambered in and leaned back in my rickety chair.

"Now, all we have to do is wait." I sighed, already bored out of my mind. Jacob started furiously tapping away at his phone and Natasha and Adam were doing their English homework. So, in a desperate attempt to look productive, I started scribbling nonsense math problems on a sheet of graph paper. I was well into my third self assigned overly intricate problem when I began to hear rustling sounds from the back.

"Do you guys hear that?" Adam asked. We looked up towards the back of the café with surprise. I laughed and turned towards Jacob, the self-proclaimed prankster.

"Hilarious, Jacob." I deadpanned. I've seen enough Halloween thrillers to know that it was always a prank. But he seemed just as confused as me.

"That wasn't me." Natasha rolled her eyes and gestured towards the sound.

"Why don't one of you just go check it out?" The boys looked at me with a hidden plead. I sighed and got up from my comfortable position on the chair. I took my precious time getting to the back, only to find that the sound was coming from a door labelled 'STAFF ENTRY ONLY' in big letters. I turned around and spoke with confidence.

"See guys, everything is-" A hand closed around my mouth, another around my waist, and I was flung back.

SMASH!

CLANG!

AAHH!