No Way Out

I'm barely paying attention as I rehearse what I might say to a customer. The Sizzle Burger would be closing early from an unexpected heatwave warning. The staff consists of me, twin siblings Janie and Oliver, our friend Tim, and the only non-college student, Joe Hanley. He is our head fry cook and the type of manager our sorry asses won the lottery with.

When my PTO was used for the week I took off (in advance) while recovering from a torn ACL, Uncle J as we call him, took over his immediate staff's scheduling from the regional team. He even gave me the remainder of his PTO days when a personal emergency cut his vacation short to make up for it.

The man was 59 years old and no longer played by corporate's rules. They started as an investor group who talked him into signing off fifty percent of his business to their franchise in the mid-90s. We love him, and mutually agreed to make him our honorary 'uncle' for the amount of times he bails us out of trouble.

The twins have been upping the stakes in their card game for the past two hours, while Oliver builds a tower out of plastic forks. We have been rotating the order station since this morning without any customers. Who could blame them? They're all probably hiding from the heat or enjoying a much needed beach weekend.

I simply lean over the counter with my head in my hands, vaguely listening to the weather report on the TV indicating high temperatures for the remaining week.

"No, that's not how it works!"

"You said every other face card rotates back to us!"

A smirk forms on my lips. It's gotten to be endearing whenever the two bicker with each other. Maybe it's because I could never remember being that close with my family, but hearing them like this gives me a taste of what the dynamic could be like. Plus it was a nice change from the usual tension lately.

When another uneventful 10 minutes go by, I nearly leave the floor to join everyone. That was before the front door swings open. If there were a fly in the way, it would have faceplanted at the impact. I do my best to hide my disappointment as Danielle from operations makes her biweekly appearance in her designer suit, filling the air with her gardenia fragrance. Of course, she picks one of our slack off days to make her rounds.

The woman talks into thin air but makes no acknowledgment of me. I have accepted these days that she was always on an important phone call. Usually with one of tens of faceless higher ups I have yet to meet. I no longer take offense to her dismissal, as we owed each other nothing. She scans the premises, and when everything was to her liking, strolls past me to her office. Would it kill her to say 'hi' once in a while?

I sneak a glance at my friends, where Janie is pretending to count our inventory while gesturing a gun to her head when she notices me. Oliver and Tim head down to the basement together where we keep everything stocked.

It was no surprise that Danielle was the reason for everyone being on edge. Out of nowhere one afternoon, corporate decides to officially shut down the shack by the end of summer. We were left with only our remaining shifts for the last month of operation.

"Those snakes! They want to close us down all because our clientele is too 'exclusive'?"

"Yeah, I mean, sure we get a lot of the same customers who have been coming here for over 20 years. Maybe that's because not everyone wants the nasty processed shit they sell at their franchise".

"It's about money and control. They tolerated us because we have the best product. Now they can mass produce Uncle J's recipes whenever they want".

Janie and the guys expressed their frustrations with me and Uncle J when we found out. He no longer wanted to burden us with his troubles anymore when it clicked that this was their way of letting us go. You kids have more to worry about than some dead-end gig paying minimum wage, he said. We tried arguing that it wasn't true, but the damage was already done. He had been preparing to retire anyway.

"Alright, kid, go on break. Get some air conditioning for fuck's sake". Uncle J comes up beside me.

"I look that bad, huh?"

"If you told me you snuck out to go swimming just now, I'd believe you. Now go". He sends me off with a thin-lipped smile that doesn't quite reach his smokey eyes.

I feel for the guy. His wife falling terminally ill, then finding out he lost his business couldn't be easy. I rest my hand on his shoulder for a moment, feeling his mournful gaze linger on me when I finally turn away.

Janie was sitting on the floor, scrawling something on her clipboard. I can hear thumping coming from the boys downstairs as they rile each other up. She rolls her eyes at me. 'Boys', she mouths. I smirk in agreement.

"So what's been going on with you and Tim?" I ask when I join her on the floor.

"Well, if you must know, we've decided to go on a real date after I reminded him I have all the options for a summer fling in the world".

I nudge her at the arm. "See? I told you".

"Pfft, whatever. How about you and my nauseating cousin then? He usually knows better than to get involved with my gorgeous friends, but, for the Gabby Collins? I understand". She winks at me playfully.

I search for the right words to describe my feelings for Oliver lately, but voices from outside cut my thoughts short. We notice a group of teenagers passing around a bottle of vodka through the single window the kitchen has. They take no consideration to how loud they yell as two of the boys relieve themselves on our dumpster.

At this point, Oliver and Tim have returned with a few boxes, confused at what has our attention. "What's going on?"

"These little shits are pissing in our trash," Janie scoffs.

"Come on, let's go out there". Oliver gestures for Tim to follow him outside.

"No," I say. "You guys keep an eye on them, I'm gonna go get Uncle J".

I'm met with the lights off out front, no sign of Uncle J anywhere. Danielle's office and the early afternoon sun are the only sources of light. I knock on her office urgently, but she doesn't turn around. I continue to knock louder, eventually attempting the door handle. Locked. Was she serious right now?

"Danielle! Uncle J!" I call out, hoping to get someone with authority's attention. An explosion from the kitchen and frantic cries has me sprinting back.

The steel refrigerator distorts my reflection from where I freeze near the doorway. I appear like a sacrifice in a dragon's den. My bronzy hair, now russet in the orange glow of the growing fire around us. My petrified features look ominous and sharpened from the shadows casted on my pallid, oval face.

A detached wooden beam nearly crushes Janie from above before Tim pulls her back just in time. My friends back away from the flames as they fan through the kitchen.

"Fuck!" Oliver and Janie reach our only emergency exit, only to discover the door won't budge.

Danielle, suddenly aware of what is going on, screams as she pulls the fire alarm. She makes a beeline to the front door, tapping 911 frantically on her phone. She unlocks the doors with her keys and explains to the operator once safely outside.

I beckon everyone over. "Guys, come on! Let's get out of here".

Everyone immediately follows me toward the exit. Everyone that is, except for Tim. He simply watches from his spot as the inferno grows more intense.

Oliver shouts for his attention. "Dude, hurry up!" But he doesn't move.

I know about people freezing up in fight or flight situations, but there was no time for this. We try to drag him outside with us, but he flinches away from our touch.

"There's no use. We can't leave".

Oliver spins Tim around aggressively, staring him down in disbelief. "You think you're fucking funny, man? Let's go or we're all going to die!"

He breaks out of Oliver's grip, tears streaming down his pointed face. "No! Don't you guys get it? We've already died".

Oliver is fuming, Janie is in tears and I want to smack Tim for his sick joke at the worst possible time. Before I can reason with him, he sticks his exposed arm into an open flame and holds it there. My breath catches in my throat in shock.

"See? No burns, no pain, nothing! It can't hurt you guys either." He brings his arm, unharmed, in front of our faces. Not even a cinched hair.

Heavy smoke was everywhere, but I don't struggle to breath. And from Tim's panting amidst his outburst, neither was he.

"Think, you guys. Can you even remember anything from before you clocked in today? Do you remember your birthdays? What your families look like?"

Janie is sobbing now. "Stop it, Tim!"

"The hottest day of the year in 1997, just like today! Uncle J insisted we take the day off, so we decided to drive down to the beach. But we never made it". He chuckles like it was the funniest thing he ever heard.

His words feel like a wrecking ball that smashed into me.

I see myself in the passenger seat of a convertible now. I hear laughter and a group singing along to Sugar Ray's 'Fly'. They sounded like our voices. Suddenly, a loud crash and excruciating pain strikes through my whole body. Then, nothing but black. A choked sob leaves my lips as I'm pulled out of the vision in winded gasps. I was back in the burning shack.

Tim noticed. "Yup. He blamed himself for it until his death".

"Man, fuck this!" Oliver goes to leave the restaurant. But even with the full force of his brawny, athletic build against the unlocked door, it refuses to budge. He pounds on the surface to alert Danielle, but she pays him no attention.

"She can't see you. Or any of us".

Oliver picks up a stool. "Then I'll break this glass!"

Tim steps forward in defiance, but doesn't try to stop him. "You already tried that and the day repeated! Smash that door all you want, we'll just be back at square one".

His knuckles turn white gripping the legs of the stool. He glances over at me, silently pleading with me to give him an answer I don't have. When neither me or Janie follow, he tosses the stool to the side as his chiseled features crumble in defeat.

It all sounded insane on paper. So why did it feel like Tim is telling the truth? "Fine, if this is real and you knew all along, why didn't you tell us?"

"It's how this stupid time loop works, Gabs. When I figured it out, I tried to warn you all but the day just kept starting over before I could".

The cousins are glassy eyed and silent as Tim explains. They seem far away for a brief moment. Just as quickly however, consciousness returns to them in a sharp gasp. They must have seen their own version of events. The collision on the freeway. Shards of glass and debris cutting into our skin. Contentment on our faces just before it happens; anticipation of a day filled with sunshine, waves and innocent summer love.

"Where are we exactly?" Oliver swallows.

Tim shakes his head solemnly. "I don't know. Some kind of purgatory? All I know is we've been stuck like this for 30 years and I don't know what any of you can remember".

This means any of us could have found out before Tim. We could have repeated the time loop hundreds of times before him. He was just the most recent one to keep his memories of it.

"How did the fire start?" I ask.

It takes a moment before Janie finds her voice again. "Those kids made a Molotov cocktail. His friend didn't believe it would actually work, so they tossed it and ran off when it exploded".

"I think we need to die again". My friends face me at a loss for words. It's silent around us now, except for the roaring flames once the alarm deactivates.

"What if, our spirits need to die too? If we accept the truth and stop fighting death, then maybe that's how we get out of this".

It was a long shot. One I have every right to miss. But as Janie, Oliver and Tim take my hands in theirs, I don't feel afraid. We stand in a circle like this, clutching each other's hands like our lives (or afterlives now) depend on it. The whole building is falling apart but we let it happen. The fire had spread out from the kitchen, roaring flames high above our heads. We couldn't even see out the windows anymore.

"So what happens if we don't break the time loop?" Janie asks.

I consider being stuck like this forever. Memories erased every time one of us makes a mistake and brings us back to the start. "I don't know".

I close by eyes and breath in through my nose, out the mouth. It was scorching around me, yet it began to feel like a cozy fireplace on Christmas Eve. Even the crackling would have lulled me to sleep under different circumstances.

Us; echoes of a bright future that was supposed to be. A chance in this life to do incredible things, had come to an end. Life could be cruel that way, without a soul beyond these charred walls ever knowing we once stood here. But as we hear the approaching sirens, I refuse to believe our stories ended the day we died.

"If we're wrong, then we meet again. Until we figure it out together". Something in my heart flutters; part nerves, part anticipation for the unknown.

"But if we're right, then, is this the last time we'll see each other?" Tim looks at Janie longingly when he asks this.

Her laugh is dry and brittle, no doubt exhausted from everything happening at once. "I don't think it even matters anymore. Why don't we just... figure it out later". She squeezes my hand one more time before letting go. Then pulls Tim in for the kiss of a lifetime. He reciprocates like a man dying of thirst and she was his oasis.

Oliver beams at them. "Yeah, later is good".

Voices of the firemen are distant as they bark orders at each other. I barely hear sounds at all anymore. Oliver and I, in this moment, are the only two souls in existence. His lips against mine were warmer than the air around us, and I bring him in closer. Possibly our last breath, used for years of unspoken devotion since childhood. It was the last thing I feel too. Right before everything collapses and the only thing left - was darkness.