Neulbom Garden

The car stopped a little after eleven at night.

It was raining pretty hard.
Even with the wipers on their fastest setting, the road ahead was blurry.

The friend who was driving tried starting the engine a few more times.

Screech.
Screech.

It wouldn’t start.

“Seriously, why here of all places?”

There was a mountain beside the road.
On the other side, there was an old restaurant.

The sign was off.
But one window inside was lit.

The kid in the back seat spoke first.

“Do you think someone’s in there?”

No one answered right away.

Our phones had no signal.
The insurance app froze while loading.
The rain kept getting heavier.

In the end, the three of us got out of the car.

There was only one umbrella.
It was too small for all three of us to share.

We crossed the road and went to the front of the restaurant.

The closer we got, the stranger it felt.

There wasn’t a single car in the parking lot.
Wet fallen leaves were clumped together in front of the entrance.
Inside the glass door, it was dark, and old dust covered the floor.

My friend grabbed the handle.

The door opened.

When we stepped inside, there was an old smell of meat.

The smell of grease burned onto a grill plate.
The smell of wet wood.
The smell of a shop that had been closed for a long time.

There was no one in the dining area.

The tables were still there.
The chairs were neatly arranged too.
A menu board was hanging on the wall.

But strangely, it looked like someone had been running the place until just moments ago.

On one table, a pair of tongs had been left out.
About three water cups were turned upside down.
There was an old telephone beside the counter.

The friend who was driving said,

“See if that phone works.”

Then a sound came from inside.

Clatter.

It was from the kitchen.

All three of us froze.

Then again.

Clatter.

It was the sound of metal bowls hitting each other.

“Is anyone here?”

The friend who was driving called out.

There was no answer.

Instead, the sliding door to the kitchen opened a little.

And a woman came out.

She was wearing an apron.
Her hair was tied back, and she was holding a basket of wet towels.

The woman didn’t seem surprised to see us.

She simply said,

“Table for three?”

My friend nodded without thinking.

The woman pointed to a table by the window.

“Please sit over here.”

We didn’t sit down.

The friend who was driving said,

“Sorry, but our car broke down. Could we use your phone?”

The woman moved as if she hadn’t heard him.

She went to the table by the window and set down the wet towels.

One.
Two.
Three.

Exactly three.

That was when the kid from the back seat grabbed my arm.

At first, I didn’t know why.

He pointed with his chin toward the kitchen.

The door the woman had come out of.

There was a padlock on that door.

Not on the inside, but on the outside.

It was a rusty padlock.
A chain was wrapped around it too.
The dust on it was undisturbed.

It didn’t look like a door that had just opened.

Even after seeing it, I didn’t understand right away.

No.

I didn’t want to understand.

The woman set down the wet towels and turned back toward us.

“What would you like?”

No one answered.

Another sound came from the kitchen.

Clatter.

This time, it wasn’t dishes.

It was the sound of scraping a grill plate.

The sound of someone scraping burnt marks with metal chopsticks.

Scraping.
Stopping.
Then scraping again.

The friend who was driving said quietly,

“Let’s get out.”

As soon as he said it, the woman raised her head.

“Would you like some meat?”

Her voice was close.

She was clearly standing by the table, but it sounded like she was speaking right beside us.

We all turned around at the same time.

No one ran as we walked toward the door.

It felt like we shouldn’t run.

The moment I grabbed the glass door handle, the woman spoke from behind us.

“You need to pay before you leave.”

That was when we ran.

We got outside and crossed the road.
The rain hit our faces.
As soon as we opened the car doors and got in, we locked them.

The friend who was driving tried starting the car again.

Screech.

It wouldn’t start.

The kid in the back seat started crying.

“Hey, look over there.”

The woman was standing in front of the restaurant door.

She didn’t have an umbrella.
Even though it was raining that hard, her apron wasn’t wet.

The woman didn’t come toward us.

She was just holding up her hand.

Holding a single wet towel.

A long while later, the tow truck arrived.

The driver glanced toward the restaurant, and his face hardened.

“You went in there?”

The friend who was driving answered,

“There was someone inside.”

The driver didn’t say anything right away.

Only after hooking the car to the truck did he speak.

“That place hasn’t been open for a long time.”

None of us could say anything.

The next day, during the day, the friend who had been driving said he went back.

He said the door was locked.

He said he looked through the glass door, and every table was covered in dust.
He said there was a padlock on the kitchen door.

Exactly as we had seen it the night before.

Except for one table by the window.

Three chairs had been pulled out.

And in front of them, three wet towels had been placed.