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C harlotte wiped the sweat from her brow, tucking a long strand of honey-gold hair that had escaped from her ponytail behind her ear. The heat from the cookers in the kitchen of the run-down diner she worked in overwhelmed her.

As she watched the extremely overweight cook scratch his ass with his hand, then place the toasted bread onto the plate for some poor customer, she shuddered. She only had to get through fifteen more minutes, and her twelve-hour shift was over. Then, she wouldn’t need to be back in this cockroach-infested place till Monday morning.

The cook gave her a repulsive toothless grin.

“Orders up, hot stuff.” He winked.

The vulgar way he raked his gaze over her was nauseating. Charlotte was too tired to deal with the non-stop sexual harassment from Barry, the disgusting pig of a man who was the cook at Hal’s Diner. She hated her shitty job; she hated the cruel owner, Hal, who had boringly named the diner after himself.

How unoriginal .

She hated her tiny, crappy apartment, which she shared with Ava, her best friend, and because she couldn’t make ends meet with this job, Charlotte was about to knock off and head to her second job. More waitressing that she hated as well.

This was Charlotte’s life: a repetitive, boring cycle of working, eating, and restless sleep.

She was exhausted. For as long as she could remember, she’d been having terrifying nightmares. But over the past six months, they’d been happening more frequently, becoming so realistic and terrifying that the lack of sleep had started to disrupt her day-to-day life.

Charlotte had been a young girl when the nightmares first started. They’d been fleeting images of horrifying creatures she couldn’t believe were possible. She would wake screaming in terror. Her dear grandmother, or Ya-Ya as Charlotte would always call her, was always there, pulling her into her warm embrace, soothing her, and wiping away her tears.

My angelos, don’t fear, she would whisper, making Charlotte feel safe again.

Her chest tightened, sadness washing over her as she thought of her beloved Ya-Ya. When Charlotte turned eighteen, she passed away suddenly, bringing the world as Charlotte knew it to a devastating halt. Her loss was almost too much to bear.

Charlotte pushed the sad memories away.

Lately, her nightmares had become increasingly intense. The dreams had gone from the creatures searching for something to suddenly deciding that Charlotte was the thing they were searching for.

The nightmare last night had felt so real… There had been a dark figure taunting her, whispering that she was his and he would have her soon over and over. All around her, thousands of people were screaming in agony while everything, as far as her eyes could see, was on fire. The frightening creatures had crept closer and closer, almost touching her.

Charlotte had screamed, waking herself, leaping from the bed, and huddling in the corner of her dark room, unable to block out the wailing she’d heard in her nightmare. There she had stayed, unable to tell what was real and what wasn’t, until Ava had burst into the room, shaking her back to the present.

There were times the nightmares would be so terrifying she was sure her heart would burst, and she’d die from fright. Other times, a dark, tattooed man with strange purple eyes came out of nowhere. He had beautiful black wings and would save her, sneak her away right before the creatures would find her. She had been a little girl when he’d first appeared in one of her nightmares. He’d found her hiding in a small cave on a hill. With gentle coaxing, he’d got her out, wiping away her tears from her little cheeks. He’d taken her tiny hand in his giant one, then picked her up, hugging her tight and promising her the monsters couldn’t hurt her when he was around. She had always called him the big guy. The soft-spoken warrior. During the years, she had spoken to him about everything in her life. He had held her as she’d cried over the loss of her Ya-Ya. Comforted her through her teen years as she spoke of the stressful things happening in her life, problems that only a typical teenage girl would find overwhelming. She loved him like a big brother and was excited to see him whenever he would appear in her dreams. Charlotte always felt safer when he was there, trusting him to protect her.

He’s not real, idiot. None of it’s real.

She’d never spoken of him to anyone. She knew she was crazy. Knew how crazy it would sound if she ever spoke aloud about the winged man in her dreams, let alone the monsters. Her grandmother had been the only one to know about them.

“Charlotte.” Hal’s angry voice pulled her back to reality. “If you leave that food there any longer, I will take it out of your wages.”

The stern-looking Indian man would do it, too. He’d taken money out of her wages before for less. He loved to make her life, as well as the other struggling waitress’ lives, a living hell.

“Sorry, Hal, it won’t happen again.” She gave him a fake smile, quickly picking up the plates.

She glanced at the clock: 3:55 p.m. Five more minutes, she told herself as she made her way to the old, worn leather booth in the far-left corner. Three men who gave her the creeps sat there, watching her walk over to them. They’d been in every day this week, always sitting in the same booth, always watching her.

They had been sitting there for a good half an hour, and during that time, she’d caught them continually staring at her while she’d been moving about the diner. The way the men watched her made her inwardly shiver. Charlotte couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was something about the three of them that made her nervous. They weren’t right. Charlotte felt silly even thinking about it, but all week, she’d had the eerie feeling the men weren’t what they appeared to be. She got the same feeling from them that she got from the creatures in her dreams… RUN .

She couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there. Trying to ignore the unwanted fear that crept up her spine as she approached them, Charlotte plastered on her fake smile and placed their orders in front of them.

“Here you go, guys. Would you like anything else with that?” she asked, politely forcing herself to look at them. She couldn’t afford to lose any more tips.

The man sitting on the right side of the booth had shaggy red hair and a messy, long beard, and when he smiled at her in a disturbingly perverted way, he revealed repulsive yellow teeth. “How about you? Are you on the menu?” he chuckled.

The pale, skinny man with long, oily black hair pulled into a ponytail next to him laughed along, raking his gaze over her.

Charlotte’s stomach churned. The red-haired man said the same stupid joke every goddamn day.

Creeps!

She stood there, awkwardly staring at them. She’d never been good at sticking up for herself; that had always been Ava’s job. If she’d been standing here now, she surely would have snapped some amazing comeback, putting them in their place.

The man on the left turned to her, his bald head shining from the lighting above their table. His sharp features and bird-like nose made it hard not to stare at the odd-looking man.

“No, nothing else,” he said in a low voice, giving the red-haired man an irritated look.

He was the quiet one out of them. He never looked her over like she was a piece of meat and never laughed along with the other two. But he was just as creepy. He looked at her differently… like she was a dead woman walking.

“Enjoy your meals,” she said, retreating behind the counter.

Charlotte was about to sneak off to the staff room and get ready to leave when she noticed Kate, her co-worker who was eight and a half months pregnant, leaning on the counter, looking exhausted as she rubbed her hand over her enormous belly.

“You okay, Kate? Do you want to go sit and have a rest? Hal’s in his office, so I could cover for you.”

She was only eighteen and about to become a single mother. The dead-beat dad did a runner months ago, and the poor girl was struggling to make ends meet. Ava and Charlotte had taken her under their wings like an adopted little sister, watching over her as much as they could.

She shook her head, her light brown hair falling out of her messy bun. Her snow-colored skin seemed paler than usual. She looked on the verge of passing out.

“No, I’ll be fine. Go on and get the hell out of here while you can. I only have half an hour of my shift left, then I better go home and rest before I start my early shift tomorrow.”

I hate him, Charlotte thought angrily.

Hal wouldn’t care if someone was on their deathbed. He would still make them come to work until they collapsed. And that was exactly what Kate looked like she was about to do.

“What do you mean, early shift? You’re not supposed to be rostered back on until Monday morning like me.”

Tears welled in Kate’s eyes. “I was, but Hal pulled me into the office a few hours ago and told me I had to start at five a.m. tomorrow or he’d fire me.”

Charlotte’s blood boiled. She could imagine exactly how the conversation would’ve gone, with Hal inappropriately trying to touch her. The weasel had a thing for young girls, and he’d taken a particular liking to poor Kate.

Charlotte shook her head, gently placing her hand on Kate’s shoulder. “No, you don’t have an early shift tomorrow because I’m going to take your shift, and don’t even try to argue about it. You know you won’t win.”

“Oh, Charlotte, thank you so much. I’m so tired, but what about Hal?” she said, wide eyes looking over her shoulder.

“Don’t worry about him. I will sort it out in the morning. It won’t be a problem. Make sure you go home and relax. And you better have a sleep-in tomorrow. You need to, for yourself as well as your baby,” Charlotte told her with a smile, giving Kate’s giant belly a loving rub. “I will see you on Monday.” She headed into the staff room to grab her sweater and bag.

Charlotte didn’t have long till she needed to be at her next job to help set up and serve for a cocktail party up in the Hollywood Hills. She threw on her sweater and slung her bag over her shoulder, ready to head out past the customers and through the front door. She stopped, peeking around the corner, looking over to the corner booth. The three men were still sitting there, gazing around the diner. She knew they were looking for her. They had touched none of the meals she’d given them. They were just sitting there, watching the entrance to the corridor she was hiding in. Fear slowly crept up her spine as goosebumps broke out over her arms, making her hair stand on end.

Charlotte had a bad feeling. She didn’t trust she would be safe going out the front door. She didn’t know why, but a voice in the back of her mind was telling her they would follow her this time and that she wouldn’t be safe from these frightening men.

Slowly, Charlotte backed up, heading down the small corridor leading to the back door. She would leave that way, and they would be none the wiser. Charlotte would be long gone before they realized she wasn’t in the diner anymore. If they came back and were hanging around again tomorrow, she would call the cops, she decided, as she headed out the back door, racing off so she wouldn’t miss the bus.