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 Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2011 12:41 pm
Happy Burger is a place inside the central square shopping center, and is also the location where Heather had fallen asleep and dreamed about Silent Hill, It is located in South Vale, on the corner of Neely St. and Sanders St., south of Neely's Bar, and isn't actually located inside of Silent Hill.
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Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2011 8:23 pm
Piles of shoestring fries, wedge cut potatoes, and steak fries were thrown into tubs of hot oil. Sour cream and melted cheese were dolloped over the ball of shoestring fries. Yes, that's it. Momma's cooking up somethin' special for you, she thought. Keep on stripping down your thoughts to get right back to those instincts. I'll watch as you feel those arteries clog in ignorant bliss, 'cause I know I love the greasy dribble of a Happy Burger Supreme just as much as anyone else in this town does. Fantasies of a colossal burger under the mercy of her voracious canines fluttered in and out of her mind. She could feel the hearty portion of the bun, the fresh, wet crisp crunch of bright spring green lettuce, a strong eye watering, tongue numbing combination of onions, garlic, basil, and chili powder, luscious tomato rings and gooey, stringy cheese...And how could she forget the poignant requisition of eye popping tang smothered in between the gorgeous layers of the Friday night special: Happy Nacho Chili Fries. One guilty pleasure she enjoyed after she got off work was to carry an armful or two of these home where she hoarded them and rationed them out like a pack rat in her refrigerator. As she daydreamed, there was a dark figure that towered over her.
She whirled around as the presence neared her back. "What's wrong with you, girl? You look like you might've seen a spook, or somethin'! I just wanted to ask you about Heather. Have you seen her around? I know she lives in the same apartment complex as you do." Bubba' Marc, the head chef of the popular local fast food chain, Happy Burger, and subsequently Shailynne's boss, wiped a sheen of greasy sweat from his brow with a lengthy, dirty towel clinging onto his waistband. His dark skinned shimmered in the fluorescent light of the restaurant, revealing sweat stains, grease stains and sauce stains on his apron. His chef's coat was pristine, though and he relished in his tall, hat.
"No, sir. I haven't seen her around. I'll be sure to tell her you wanted to see her." She stared down at the thick burger melts wondering in the middle of a humid atmosphere composed of grease, heat, and crackling oil why Heather Mason wasn't in attendance. He adjusted the hat on his round, bald head as he read off a small pile of papers in his large hands. The glasses he wore were incredibly old fashioned and tilted on the tip of his button nose as he gave Shailynne a stern look. "If she isn't here, Lynne, you'll have to pick up the slack, ya' hear? You know the routine. You're also helping me and Nathaniel close up for tonight, understand?"
"But, I have to get to the apartments before then–" She paled for a moment.
"I already talked to Ernie about it, he doesn't have a problem with you showin' up late. I've been around tha' block moren' once, so, don't you go and an' try ta' trick me, hm? Just 'cause I wear these old things and I'm getting crow's feet around my eyes don't mean, I'm not watchin'. Got it?"
"You know, I love ya', Bubba."Shailynne spun the spatula in her hands got right back to her duties. "How many times do I have to tell you not to do that, Lynne? You might end up flingin' oil on me or somethin'. In fact, you might accidentally swap that on my face when you're not lookin'!" He laughed, but then focused on the notes in his hand. The head chef's gigantic chest puffed out, he turned, and barked. "Order up! One Shoestring Special, two Happy Burger Supremes, one Happy Vegetarian Delight, four Chili Joy Dogs with extra Bliss, one Heavenly Heart Attack from Hell, and a Cherry Berry Coola! Get on it, Lynne!"
The blaring sizzle of seasoned raw meat patties and the vicious spackle of deep fried waffle-style potatoes bombarded Shailynne's ears in a chorus of sprightly cookery that simultaneously vented the collective, incredulous clamor of gurgling stomachs, salivating mouths, and shameless gluttons irritated from the lack of a survival mechanism turned addiction; a primal element all too familiar to the human psyche: hunger. She visualized the brain's chemicals from the thyroid and hypothalamus working in overdrive as wants, needs, and outside stimuli converged, meshed in a glob of partially constructed thought and expressed in the only socially integrated response of jumbled words feebly referred to as language. Snippets of the dialogue thudded and scraped against Shailynne's eardrums.
At least when Heather is here...it feels calmer, somehow.
A terrifying variety of customers described their orders in implicit detail, their tongues flapped and clicked in a blur of sound. Cries of impatience from a family table somewhere out in the front screeched in her mind, haughty laughter in mixed notes included a baritone and a high pitched, nasal staccato en mass flanked her left ear, and a thrum of buzzing banter from a throng of students towards the back ebbed and receded as she rushed from work station to work station. The grinding of her teeth and her set jaw offered little comfort to the malignant jungle of abrasive sounds. Elements of the restaurant kitchen smashed together in a warped amalgam of efficiency rolled in her ears like clothes tumbling in a dryer at high speed.
Where was that girl?
Immediately, she went for the Cherry Berry Coola, packing ice in a giant 72 oz. cup. She filled the container to the very top and gave it to the receiving customer. Her hands worked faster than she could think and before she could be yelled at, she had four, messy chili dogs cradled in a basket with hearty, chili sauce poured over the sides in gravy bath of spices with sliced red chili sprinkled on top. She watched the signs blatantly shown to her by the slight facial expressions of the customers she regarded with an obtuse sense of critical study. A temporal thought leaned towards the degradation of human nature as the patrons got closer to what they wanted. I wonder how many of these people would pontificate to know what exactly are in these burgers? She turned on the meat grinder and watched, her expression stolid. Her mind drifted back to the bleeding letters and the sinister face of Jonathan.
That letter.
The one written in what she assumed to be her brother's blood...knowing him, it wouldn't be his. It was always someone else who took the punishment when it came to Jonathan. It seemed that her life was shrinking like these patties did when she put them on the grill. Ever since she received that letter last night, sleep escaped her many times and she barely had enough rest to cull her expounding headache.
She couldn't do anything. She couldn't move about in the world and escape the whole of small towns throughout West Virginia's seemingly slow moving molasses of an economy. The juices of once living things pooled and evaporated on the grill. For a moment, the fading brown color of the beef patty's juice coagulated from the intensive heat and an image fractured her concentration.
His heavy breath was laced with unbridled need. She cried out as he pinned her down. She tried to scream, but he covered her mouth with a makeshift gag. It stank and smelled of musk. His musk. He smiled and a clean hit landed on her jaw. She bled and cried. He slowly licked her tears away and suckled the blood off her lips. "Shhh, don't cry, my Shy-girl..." The burgers began to burn as the curdled smell of semi-burnt meat filled her nostrils. She barely had enough to to save them, and instead threw them away to start all over again.
Where the hell did that come from?
Co–workers moved about in rushed movements, shoulders brushed passed connected to armfuls of cooking supplies, and frantic faces. Loud bellows, strings of profanity, the aggressive clang of cookware, and the roar of oil tubs bubbled and popped as chicken tenders covered in oozing batter transformed from a tallow, pasty, slimy mass to the golden brown crispiness of perfectly breaded appetizers. Shailynne managed the Heavenly Heart Attack from Hell and added extra green onions on top of the chicken tenders, cheese sticks, onion rings, and nacho base. More of the tenders floated upwards and were hung by their wired baskets to cool. All of the kitchen staff were under the mercy and the forceful demands of customers on a Friday night furiously burned urgency on the soles of their feet. Her nimble fingers procured the ingredients for two Happy Burger Supremes: chopped onions, roasted garlic, jarred pickles, sliced tomatoes, shredded lettuce, two kinds of delicatessen cheese, diced mushrooms and sizable roasted green peppers.
Could it be possible that Jonathan had something to do with this? How would he know where Heather lived? Shailynne tried to push the haranguing thoughts away, but she came away with the same conclusion: it had to be him.
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Meditatus Sanctum Mien Captain
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