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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/LucifersWitness on 2023-06-27 01:28:41+00:00.
Original Title: I’m the owner of a small diner in the middle of nowhere, and I like to give travellers who come in a discount provided they tell me a story about their lives. Over the last decade I’ve heard some really terrifying things.
Hey there strangers, my name is Allie-Mae. I’m the owner of a small diner tucked away in a town somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Kansas. The diner doesn’t really get much action aside from townsfolk and the occasional out of towner passing through and looking for a hot meal. And when those folk happen to come by I like to introduce myself, bring them their food, and then sit down with them and explain a little game I like to play to pass the time out here.
For some context, I inherited this diner from my parents, and have spent practically my whole life in this town aside from the rare trips to nearby events (markets, state fairs, etc) but those are really only reserved for special occasions. And I don’t mind that. I enjoy the peace and quiet that comes with my lifestyle and I can’t deny that as far as lives go, I happen to have myself a pretty good one. I have wonderful friends, the sweetest husband, and a beautiful baby girl named Kate. But as nice as my life is to me, I can’t deny that it’s also real slow. Not many big things have happened to me, if y’all understand what I’m saying.
And so whenever an unknown face walks into my diner, I ask them if they have any stories to tell me. And if they do I’m always more than happy to give them a discount on their meal. I’ve been doing this since I was twenty-two, so about ten years now.
Okay, I’m going to admit something a bit embarrassing to y’all. The reason I had when I first started to do this was that I had recently found out about the notion of cryptids and I thought the concept was pretty damn cool. More specifically I thought people viewing me as a cryptid would be pretty damn cool. You know, some girl in some diner in the middle of nowhere that you end up spilling your darkest secrets to and then never see again. Wouldn’t that be a kind of neat way to be perceived? Well, my spooky little young adult self thought so and that’s where it all began.
Normally people are quite hesitant to talk at first. However they tend to warm up to the idea after I remind them not only will we likely never cross paths again, but I don’t care about what kind of story they tell me. Whatever they feel like talking about I’ll listen to, I just want a break from the monotony of small town life. And boy, have I heard it all.
Love affairs. Childhood traumas. Batshit deathbed confessions heard by nurses. The story of a very intoxicating and very hush-hush two month relationship a customer had with another woman in college before she tragically passed in an accident that she’s never told a soul about since. (Especially not her very Catholic now-husband.) But besides all that jazz, there’s one type of story I keep being told. Horror.
Now I get why this is. Ghost stories, supernatural shit, whatever you want to call it, that’s the kind of thing people are hesitant to talk about. And in my opinion, half of it is because that’s the kind of thing people are hesitant to believe. But who cares if you tell it to me? You’re not going to see me again, so what’s the harm in finally telling someone? It even wouldn’t matter if I didn’t believe them, they’d still get the discount.
But I do believe the stories people tell me. It’s something in their eyes, I think. When I look into them I can see they’re being haunted by something awful. And I think it helps them to talk about it. To leave here with the knowledge they’re not carrying that burden alone. And carrying it with them is something I’m thankful I get to do. I listen to their stories, bring them sweet tea and dessert to cheer them up afterwards, I’ll hold their hands if they’ll let me, just generally try to help them. It’s one small way I can make an impact on some people who are really hurting, being the kind stranger they can confide in knowing that they’ll be believed.
But anyways, I’ve told my husband some of these stories over the years, and he recently started browsing this subreddit and mentioned to me that I should think about sharing some of them with y’all. And so here I am, sitting in my comfy chair after my baby girl finally fell asleep with my laptop and my absolutely darling cat Cinnamon. I really do hope you guys enjoy the story I decided to share today, and I’ll probably post some more soon. :)
It was about five years ago now, I think this happened sometime in early July so it was just after my twenty-seventh birthday. A young woman stumbled into the diner, I’d guess she was maybe a few years younger than I was? Twenty-three maybe? Well, the poor thing looked like she hadn’t properly slept in weeks, with eyebags so dark I had to take a moment to figure out if they were actually black eyes. She sat down at a booth and I came over to pour her some coffee, which she gratefully accepted. I took her order (waffles with powdered sugar and a side of mixed fruit) and moved to sit down across from her.
Instead of asking if she had stories to tell I decided to ask her if she was alright, as the way her eyes shifted around the room and the way her hands trembled so violently as she tried to use the cutlery made me nervous that she was in some sort of danger. She looked at me and her eyes began to water, and in the softest voice you could ever imagine she just told me that I wouldn’t believe her.
It was here where I explained some of the parts of my game, focusing on the fact that there’s really no harm from talking about it if she wanted to; our paths would probably never cross again. I remember the way she looked down at the table, as her hands moved to scratch quite violently at the skin on her arms which were just covered in long red marks already. My heart absolutely ached at the sight but I decided not to say anything for the time being, though it took everything in me not to reach over and take her hands away and hold them myself.
Finally she sighed and met my gaze as she nodded ever so slightly at me. She told me she had a stalker, and not one she thought was human. The first time she saw him was a few months prior, when she was walking to her dorm alone one night back when she lived right by the Appalachian mountains. She had gone out with some friends and didn’t realise how late it had gotten, and by the time she had started to make her way home it was nearly two in the morning. The fastest way to get home meant she had to use a small path that cut through the woods, and she told me she was too worried about the big test she had to get home to study for to really think about the dangers of walking through there at night.
As she walked she said she got that awful feeling that she was being watched, and out of nowhere she was hit with this horrific wave of anxiety; that her heart began to race like a scampering jackrabbit and she broke into a cold sweat. And then she noticed it watching her through the treeline.
It was tall and vaguely man-shaped, although she said she would hesitate to call it that. And by tall she meant inhumanly tall, roughly seven or so feet by her guess. Its skin was a sickly pale and its eyes were bloodshot, accompanied by an impossibly wide grin that revealed way too many horribly stained teeth. From what she could see the thing was completely hairless, and was dressed in camouflage type clothing; the kind that hunters and the military wear. She said that she froze up when she saw it, staring at the thing in absolute horror. And it just stayed there, smiling at her. Eventually she snapped out of it and bolted, yet the thing made no move to follow her. All it did was turn to face her and continued to smile as she ran off.
She told me that when she got back to her dorm just got this sudden urge that she was going to be sick. And this was super weird, since the girl had only thrown up twice in her life; once when she got a really bad case of the flu when she was ten and once when she got a little too drunk at a party in high school. Yet she had spent the next ten minutes throwing up everything in her stomach and the next twenty dry heaving over the toilet. Her roommate had rushed in to find her covered in sweat and violently sobbing as she puked her guts out for no apparent reason.
She had tried to tell her about the thing that she saw in the woods but her roommate had told her that she was probably just sick with something and her mind was playing tricks on her. She said that night she had supposedly had these beyond horrible nightmares and her roommate told her the next morning she had woken up screaming four separate times. That was her first encounter with the thing, but it certainly wasn’t the last.
At this point she had begun hyperventilating, tears ran down her cheeks and a strangled cry wretched itself from her throat. I quickly ran over to the counter to get her some napkins and a glass of water, before I finally gave in and grasped her shaking hands and held them tightly. I had asked her if she wanted to stop but she just shook her head, and so I held her hands and waited for her to continue with her story.
She said she realised pretty quickly that whatever it was came with the night. At first she genuinely had just believed she had come down with some kind of awful virus, but when she woke up the next morning s…
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