vehicle trundle past, the sole witness to his arrival. The sky was grey in the predawn light, the streets empty. Rumbling slow down Galway Road like a tourist, taking in the sights of the sleeping storefronts and eerie stillness. Newspaper tumbleweeds.
The vehicle, a boxy Toyota FJ cruiser with a roofrack of floodlights, hewed up before the granite steps of the town hall. Parked in the handicap space right out front. The stranger swung out and looked over the building. He took the steps two at a time to read the hours printed on the front door. Two hours to kill before the county office opened for business.
A small poster in the window advertised the upcoming Heritage Festival. He skimmed the bullet points detailing a marching band, memorial commemoration and a classic car show in the park. A midway and softball games. Family fun for all. “Perfect,” he said.
He went down the steps and crossed into the middle of the empty street. Every window was dark, no welcoming neon sign calling out to early risers. Even the cat had disappeared from the sill.
And then miraculously, a light went on. A diner, half a block away, coming to life. A neon sign flickering and warming until it glowed a single word beacon. COFFEE.
The stranger leaned and spit onto the sidewalk, then climbed back into his vehicle.
Martin Gallagher sat on a cracked leather stool, the only patron of the Oak Stem diner. Shoulders hunched over the counter, warming his big knuckled hands around the coffee cup. A morning ritual, one the starting cook knew and accepted. Old man Gallagher lingering outside the door at six, waiting to be let in like some errant tomcat. Whether the old man woke at an ungodly hour or hadn’t gone to bed at all was a matter of conjecture among the staff. His nights spent at the Dublin pub, closing out the place at last call and showing up at the diner when the cook started his shift at six. Some believed the man never slept at all, or slept sitting up on his stool. Little catnaps between conversations over a whiskey or cup of joe. Lack of sleep would explain the old fool’s habit of muttering to himself or, unprovoked, barking obscenities to the room.
This morning no different from any other. The cook prepping for the morning rush and the old man content to sit and watch the empty street. Mumbling into his cup, occasionally turning around to bellow at the empty booths.
So, when the bell over the door chimed, both the cook and the old man startled.
The stranger looked up at the bells dangling on the trim and smiled, charmed by it. He took a stool at the counter, nodded to Gallagher and then turned to the cook. “Coffee please.”
The cook grimaced, disliking the upset to his routine. He clattered a cup onto the counter, filled it and went back to cubing potatoes.
Gallagher scrutinized the newcomer, closing one eye to take a proper measure. His eyes mistrustful, bloodshot as they were. No, no one he recognized.
“You all right, grampa?” The stranger leaned close to return the stare. Clapped the pensioner on the back. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”
“Do I know ye?” Gallagher shrugged, answering his own query. “I don’t know ye.”
“Aha. Awake and astute.”
“Ye passing through?”
“No. I’m here.”
Gallagher’s lips soured, deciding immediately the man was an idiot. “No, I mean are ye driving through? On your way somewhere? London, I’ll bet.”
“No. This is Pennyluck, isn’t it?” He swept a hand over the room, as if the diner encompassed the town. “But I am confused on one matter. Maybe you can help. Is this the asshole of the world or just the armpit?”
“Eh?”
“Either will do, I reckon.” He clinked his cup against the old man’s. “Refill?”
Gallagher’s eyes narrowed to rheumy slits. “Ye fucker. That’s more of what ye owe me.”
The cook stopped chopping, the blade hovering over the onions. He looked over his shoulder to see the stranger’s reaction. The man was grinning away, like he couldn’t be more pleased. The cook looked away when the man caught him peeking.
“Could you pour me one to go?” He stood, clapped the old man on the back again. “Think I’ll take in the sights.”
A takeout cup was poured. The stranger dropped a five on the counter and nodded at the old man. Said he was buying the round and left, laughing as the door chimes rang.
Gallagher wrinkled his gin-blossomed nose. “Jesus. Do you smell that? Like something burnt?”
The cook looked to his sizzling grill. “I’m not burning anything.”
“No. Him. That smell.” The old man tinkled his fingernails against the vermiculite countertop. “Sulphur or something. Can’t you smell it?”
The cook pointed the spatula at his nose. “I can’t smell anything.”
The old man rattled his fingers some more. “Not sulphur. What’s the word…”
The cook went back to his grill. Gallagher corkscrewed his lips, shaking his foggy memory until the word fell out. He snapped his fingers.
“Brimstone.”
Emma stood at the sink, looking sleepily out the window. The sun coming up over the trees, burning off the dew as the shadows receded. Jim already up and gone like every morning but not before brewing a fresh pot for when she woke. She was still at the sink when he came in and pressed up behind her. Hands wrapping under her ribs, kissing her tangled hair. She leaned back into him, her head notching into his shoulder.
“Did you sleep okay?” He slid around her and washed up at the sink. Emma had trouble sleeping sometimes, waking deep in the night and unable to fall back under. Exhausted and spent for the new day. He himself slept like the dead no matter what.
“Yeah.” She gave him a shy smirk, like they shared a secret. “Very well.”
“Where’s Travis?” Jim looked to the empty table and then his watch.
“Getting the paper.”
He sat down and she slid a mug of coffee onto the table just as the screen door banged shut. A sound Jim hated, knowing one day the bang would be the old door’s last. The house was set well back from the road and it was Travis’s job to go get the paper stuffed into their mailbox. He rode his bike out to fetch it and every morning let the screen door bang the frame no matter how many times he’d been told not to.
Travis dropped the paper onto the table, reached for the cereal box and was already pouring cereal before he noticed his dad watching him. “Sorry.”
“That door is just gonna fall right off the hinges you keep banging it like that.”
Emma brought the milk and Travis poured and ate noisily. Halfway through the bowl, he looked up. “What’s going on next door?”
Jim lowered the front page. There was no next door, their closest neighbour was a quarter mile away. “What?”
“Did someone buy that crappy old house?”
The crappy old house. It took a second before Jim understood what he meant. The derelict farmhouse on the property next to theirs, a crumbling tinderbox so old that Jim didn’t even see it anymore. Part of the landscape, no more visible than the weeping willows that surrounded the place.
Travis clocked the confusion on both their faces. “The haunted house. Up the road.” Travis had called it a haunted house since he was five. To Jim’s knowledge, the boy had never gone near it, death-trap that it was.
“What do you mean, honey?” Emma sat down, hands drawing warmth from her mug.
Travis poured a second bowl. “Some dude’s over there. Tossing junk out on the front yard.
Jim pushed his chair back and went to the window. He knew full well that the old house wasn’t visible from this window but he went and looked all the same. Nothing. Trees, the old fence.
“Did you recognize him?” Emma asked.
“No.”
“Maybe the town’s decided to finally pull it down.”
Jim crossed to the backdoor and slipped his boots back on. “I doubt that. Probably just some junk collector.
