What They Left Behind

Though the restaurant was too busy for her just to stop working, Lauren felt she had to. Ben never went over the allotted fifteen-minute break and usually returned to work after ten minutes. But twenty minutes had passed and she hadn’t seen nor heard him. She was probably being paranoid, but she felt that something was wrong. She had to check on him. She asked one of the employees to keep an eye on the stove and walked into his office.

  His back was facing the door and he lay slumped in his chair. It wasn’t unusual to see him like that. He liked to go in his office and rest his eyes for a little bit. But something was different. With his arms dangling off the sides, he looked a little too relaxed.

  “Hey, Ben,” she whispered, “are you okay?”

  Her body stiffened with panic when he didn’t answer. As much as her mind told her not to, she stepped in front of his chair so he faced her.

  His head was tilted awkwardly back and his eyes were wide open, but it was obvious that he wasn’t seeing anything. His eyes were glazed and the pupils were so dilated that they looked like two large black dots in a sea of white. A trickle of blood ran down from the corner of his mouth and dripped onto the chair.

  Lauren covered her mouth as she screamed uncontrollably.

  Chapter 82: October 10