Hell's Kitchen

Content warning: mentions of death and swearing.

The man’s stormy gray eyes were barely visible over the top of the menu. They flicked back and forth as they scanned the small printed letters. Everyone else at his table had ordered, how come he was taking so long?

“Er…would you like me to come back to you, sir?” I asked. The woman sitting next to him gave me an apologetic smile, reaching up to adjust her small glasses. At least she was polite. I expected most of the dolled-up rich people that came to the restaurant to be obnoxious shits, so it was always a breath of fresh air when one wasn’t. 

“No, no, give me a minute!” The man buried his nose deeper into the restaurant menu, grumbling something about, “kids these days,”. 

As I tapped my pen against my notebook, trying to nurture myself with the thought that we don’t have that many entrées on our menu, the smell of cooked meat wafted in from the kitchen. Oh, man, I would just kill for something out of that kitchen right now, I thought. Only a bit longer, and then you can go get yourself something to eat. 

Except how could a soggy McDonald’s quarter-pounder ever compare to what they were serving up in that kitchen? 

Truthfully, I wouldn’t know. I've been working here for two or three weeks now, but I’ve never been in the kitchen before. Occasionally an arm would dart out and leave a plate of steaming hot food on the table outside of the door, but that was all I ever saw of the cooks. It was for sanitation purposes, I think, but what other restaurant does that? I mean, I guess there must be some other-

“Did you hear me?” I snapped back to the present. The man was now staring at me, his brows knitted together. 

“Er- no, sorry. Could you repeat that?” 

He scowled, uttering more comments about my generation being incompetent (insert a word I’d rather not use to describe myself). I scribbled down his order as he repeated it begrudgingly. 

The rest of the evening went rather smoothly. There were more people that came in with inflated egos who never thought twice about treating the people who were handling their food with more respect, but that’s my job for you. Besides, I’m not gonna do anything about it. It’s not like I keep rat poison in my back pocket at all times, and even if I did, I’m way too chicken of a person to actually use it. 

I can tell what you’re going to think, and before you do: don’t. That was not foreshadowing in any way. I’m not the kind of guy who could be pushed to the point of harming another person. No way in hell. 

“Hey, are you coming?” Was that directed at me? No, no way. I turned around carefully to see another waiter watching me, his eyes mirroring my confusion.  

“Huh?” I watched back, my mouth hanging open as if it was waiting for a bird to nest there. “Yeah, I- what do you mean?” From what I could remember, this guy had never talked to me in his life before. I didn’t even know his name. Jonah? Jacob? Dave? 

“You’re going out to eat with us, right?” 

My mind grasped around the empty space in my head to try and answer that question. What did he mean? 

I struck the thought with a mental ding! That’s what he meant.

I tugged at the skin under my eyes, my shoulders sagging. “Shoot, I totally forgot. I, uh…,” I was supposed to get food with a couple of coworkers. I had made the plans…two? Five? I don’t know how many days ago. God dammit. I had even written it down in a notebook. And then probably banished the notebook to some remote desk drawer. Out of sight, out of mind. 

Look, it had been a really long evening. Social interaction is hard. Try it yourself if you don’t get what I mean. I wasn’t up for a generous serving of awkward silence with a helping of trying to make small talk on the side. 

“I’m so sorry, but that completely slipped my mind,” I said after taking some deep breaths to steady my voice. “I actually have a date with my boyfriend tonight. I’m sorry!” I squeaked as Jonah/Jacob/Dave turned away, rolling his eyes. 

Yeah, you guessed it. No boyfriend. I wish. 

“Er, maybe you could invite one of the cooks in my place?” I suggested, gesturing towards the kitchen door that hadn’t opened this entire time, despite the restaurant being closed. 

My coworker only turned back to give me an odd look. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Morgan.” Oh, good. He had taken the time to learn my name. 

The door shut behind the group as they disappeared into the night. 

I rubbed my eyes. I can’t believe that I whipped out the fake boyfriend excuse. That was only supposed to be for emergencies!

And what was that reaction to me suggesting that they dare bring a cook along? Did they all band together to make you an orphan or something? Christ. 

Huh. My hands fell from my face as I looked back towards the kitchen. Still no activity from around that area. 

The day was over, surely they wouldn’t mind if I peeked in to check in on them? They could all be horrifically murdered or something. 

And maybe I was just a little bit curious as to what was hiding behind that big ol’ door. 

I approached cautiously. 

Hold up. Why cautiously? This was a kitchen I was heading towards, for fuck’s sake. I chuckled. The scariest thing in there would be a pig’s head. 

My stomach clenched. Pig’s heads aren’t scary, I told it, but it seemed to disagree. 

The door was cold against the palm of my hand. I took a deep breath, in…out. Then I opened it. 

It opened a lot easier than I expected, so I stumbled forwards when it swung away from me. I glanced up, trying to regain my balance, and was met with yellow eyes. They all narrowed in sync and a symphony of hissing began. 

Hold on- humans don’t generally make that noise. Or have yellow eyes, I think. 

“What are you doing in here?” One of the cooks demanded. I blinked, thinking that it must’ve been a trick of the light. 

Nope. Definitely not. I’ve just lost all of my sanity, then. 

All of the cooks had deep red skin, fangs as sharp as mini knives, and piercing yellow eyes. Looking up, horns poked out of all of their mops of curly black hair. Looking down, long, elegant tails poked out from their pants.

Okay. I’m done. I’m probably just under too much stress from this job. Dealing with obnoxious rich people for hours on end doesn’t come without a price. 

I turned around and walked out. 

At least, I tried to. One of the creatures seemed to simply materialize at my side and hold out an arm to block me from exiting the kitchen. 

“You’ve seen too much,” it hissed. 

“Wh-,” I sputtered, trying to find the words to explain myself. My stomach was tying itself into knots as if it was trying to send me a message. Probably “I told you so!” 

“A-are you gonna kill me?” I stammered. It came out less like: go ahead, I don’t care and more like: please don’t, I care very much. 

The creature huffed. “Unfortunately, none of us are allowed to do that. Something about “it’s against the law”, whatever that is.” It paused, its eyes flicking back and forth, trying to read my expression. “That was a joke. You can laugh.” 

“Oh. Ha, ha.” I croaked out a nervous laugh.

“So, no, we aren’t going to kill you. Since apparently torturing is not an option, either, the least we can do is explain the situation in the hopes that it may cause you permanent mental damage.” Unfortunately, the creature seemed dead serious about that. 

“Er...thank you…for your generosity?” I tried for a smile, ignoring the hot sweat trickling down my neck. 

“You’re welcome!” The creature grinned, showing off a mouthful of sharp, sharp teeth. “Diego, are you ready with the musical number?” 

“Ah! Maybe- we don’t need that?” I interrupted. “I don’t- process music very easily. I’ll understand it better if you just speak it.” 

“No, you’re right.” A sound like nails screeching against a chalkboard came from the creature as it cleared its throat. “We’re all demons. We tortured a couple of innocent children to the point of insanity, which apparently isn’t allowed. Even though they were really annoying children, Satan was all like “they haven’t committed any sins yet, so you can’t technically punish them,” which is so unfair, right?”

I nodded hastily. 

“I thought so! Anyways, he banished us to the human realm to work in this kitchen for like…three hundred years?” A demon in the back nodded. “Yeah. Anyways, I’m Maxim. That’s Lillian, and that’s Silas, and that’s…,” Maxim started listing off all of the names of the demons in the room. 

“Yeah it’s- it’s nice to meet you,” I said, still trying to be polite, although, in all honesty, I was still trying to wrap my head around how I was trapped in a kitchen with half a dozen demons. From Hell. 

Would now be a good time to tell them that I’m an atheist? 

“You seem nice enough,” Maxim said. “And we are gonna be trapped here for three hundred years, and it is probably gonna be pretty boring. So, anything you need help with? We can’t directly kill anyone, but Satan never said anything about helping out.” 

“And, you know, some of the people out there are complete assholes,” the demon called Lillian added.

Recall what I said about foreshadowing in the beginning. I am not that kind of person. No matter how much I hate the people that come to our restaurant. No matter how much stress and pressure I am currently under, not even considering the new information my brain is trying to process. I would never even consider committing something as horrible as murder.

***

The door to the kitchen swung open, a hand carefully placing a tray of dishes on the table outside. I smiled, just in case Maxim could see me. It was always better to be on the demon’s good side, just in case. 

I picked up the tray and reached into my back pocket, making sure that the bottle of rat poison was still there.