A Jukebox at The Diner Special Presentation: "Good For Your Soul" Part One
Our very first Holiday Special
Previously on The Jukebox at The Diner…
October 30th. 11:45 PM
The Diner.
Sheriff Presley, no relation, is taking a head count.
“Charlie Jones, Isabella Flannagan, Amanda Adams, Samantha Smith… Oh come on, Alias Smith and Jones? Also our newcomer, welcome, Clara MacLeod. Deputy, do you have pictures of their IDs?”
Deputy Joey Strongbull nodded.
“Okay. From Midnight until Midnight, Deputy Joey will be at the West end of The Veil and I’ll be at the East end. Thanks for the supplies, Ed.”
“No problem, Sheriff. Charlie, here’s the keys. I’m just taking the Barracuda to your camp. I’ll come with Deputy at Midnight on the 1st and wake you all up with breakfast.”
Charlie nodded and rose from the booth.
Ed, the Sheriff, and Deputy Joey left, and Charlie locked the front door behind them.
“Alright, Clara, it’s time.”
Clara held out her hand, and Charlie placed a dime in it. She walked over to the jukebox and dropped it in. The five of them gathered around the jukebox.
The speaker crackled and Clara counted out loud in Scots Gaelic.
“a chiad, an dàrna, an treas, an ceathramh, an còigeamh, an siathamh, an seachdamh, an t-ochdamh, an naoitheamh, agus seo sinn!”
That’s when the diner began to shake.
Earlier that day
3 PM
“Ok Clara, seriously, last chance. This is our first Halloween at the diner too. We’re all sort of trusting in Charlie here.” -Mouse slowed down and put on the turn signal.
“Really? You’re using your turn signal out here?” -Amanda knew there was a reason.
“Well, you can never be too careful. It’s Midnight in Paris you know.”
“Joyeuse Halloween, Paris.” -Clara
Seeing that the road was clear, Mouse pulled into Charlie’s camp and noticed the Shelby and the truck were parked near the road. Mouse saw why as she passed the Shelby.
“Larry!”
“Woah. He’s HUGE!” -Amanda
Larry looked up from his nap on the concrete pad where Charlie normally parked at the sound of the Impala’s engine. Mouse stopped and turned off the engine.
“Charlie said just say “Hi Larry!” like you’ve always known him and walk by and it’ll be fine.” -Mouse, trying to convince herself that all of this feels perfectly normal.
“Um. Okay? Do we go together?” -Amanda
That’s when Charlie came out of the trailer with a bag of marshmallows, singing, to Samantha’s dismay, who was right behind him.
“Loooook for the…” Larry’s head rose hearing Charlie’s voice. He knew that song. Charlie shook the marshmallow bag and then opened it. “Bear necessities…”
That got Larry up with a grunt, and he turned and headed towards Charlie and Samantha, who reached into the bag and grabbed 2 marshmallows. She ate one and then tossed the other to Larry, who caught it in his mouth. Charlie walked down to the creek, dumped the marshmallows in a frying pan that still had some bacon grease on it, and set it down at the edge of the creek. Larry came over and scarfed up the marshmallows then got busy licking the pan.
“Hi Clara, welcome to my camp. Samantha and I are set up in the tent, you three can have the trailer.”
“A wolf, A bear, it’s like a Disney movie!” Clara looked around.
“Wait till tonight. Campfire Charlie?” -Mouse
“Just about to get it started. Ed’s bringing our last meal as requested, then we’ll gather at the diner at 11:30. We’ll walk, and cross the veil together.”
“The Veil?” -Clara
Later that evening, with the fire blazing and Charlie’s Pyrotechnic Underwood lit, everyone was gathered, plates empty, stomachs full.
6 PM
“There goes the last sliver of sun behind the mountain. Is it time yet Charlie?”
Mouse was excited for her first Halloween at the Diner. Her Dad never went, and Charlie had always said no before. She was thinking about what Charlie had said to her every time she asked.
“I’m not ready to watch you die, Mouse. I’ll never be ready, but maybe one day you’ll be ready enough to help me face it.”
She got a shiver, and it wasn’t from the breeze.
She turned to Charlie and smiled. Evil was approaching.
“We’re all going to die, aren’t we!”
That’s when Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees came walking down the entrance to Charlie’s camp.
Mouse had spotted Deputy Joey and Sheriff Presley. They were still in uniform but wearing masks and carrying a machete and a butcher knife respectively.
Since neither of their characters speaks, Charlie narrates their arrival.
“After years of bringing hell on earth to the beautiful youth of several generations, two enemies unite to protect the innocent from the evil of The Hell Underneath The Jukebox at The Diner”
“Campfire!” -Mouse and Samantha, excitedly.
“Ok, if that truck and car transform and roll out I’m not even going to be surprised.” -Clara.
Charlie laughed. “Thank you for recognizing my attempt at Peter Cullen!”
Charlie walked over to the Underwood and explained how it worked to Clara as he rolled in the parchment paper.
“The parchment paper won’t burn until the keystroke breaks the thin paraffin seal with the pyrotechnic ink.”
Charlie typed 4 letters, each one slowly forming above the Underwood and growing a few inches before burning out and crumbling to the ground in ash.
“HELL” slowly rose from the Underwood.
Charlie began telling the story of his first Halloween at the diner. Ed had closed up and left, but not without warning Charlie that no one had ever spent Halloween in the diner alone. Since Red left, the only person to experience Halloween at the Diner was Charlie. Maggie never showed any interest. Charlie never missed it.
“So you have to understand, that there’s no way to comprehend it. We don’t think multi-dimensional in the way the Veil works. Just know this. It’s, well it’s got a sense of humor. It finds fear funny, so if you think a good prank is getting stuck in a horror movie for 24 hours, you’re in the right place. I won’t joke, we’ll all die, in some form or another, and yes, you’ll experience it, but then you’ll wake up and realize everything is…”
“Perfectly fine.” -Mouse, as Margaret Apple.
“I can’t promise you anything. I’ve been dropped into a warzone, fought a dragon for half a second before it ate me, got stuck on a deserted island with a bad tooth and an ice skate, faced a firing squad, got hung, twice, got stuck in a bathroom stall next to a cokehead for 24 hours until I drowned myself in the toilet, and got processed like a cow through a meat packing plant. That was weird. I’ve been intestines. Drove off a cliff like Harold too. Gotta say I was pretty vivacious for that. I liked that one. So if you think I can give you any advice on how to prepare, well, I can’t.”
Charlie opened the campfire for questions, but no one had any, and Charlie wouldn’t have had any answers. For his part, Ed had gotten into the spirit a little this year and asked everyone what their last meal would be.
Charlie’s order surprised him the most. You’d think after a decade you’d know someone, but that’s not always the case, is it? Mouse had Ed make “Winchester Surprise” which didn’t surprise him at all. 3 lbs pork, 3 lbs beef, 3 lbs American cheese. Fritos to garnish. Amanda played along and ordered a chicken salad ala Sam Winchester. For Clara who was a last-minute addition Ed put together a sampling of blood pudding, cranachan, and Charlie brought out something from his “Cellar”. Under the rug in the canvas tent across the creek was a board covering a 4-foot square and deep hole where Charlie stored his whiskey and wine. It was a “Winchester” collection 50 year old Glenlivet.
They poured the last of it into shot glasses at 11 PM, toasting to love, life, and surviving hell on Halloween.
Charlie’s last meal was the desert of the evening. Fluffernutters, with Cool Whip instead of marshmallow creme.
11:30 PM “The Veil”
Standing between Deputy Joey Strongbull’s cruiser and The Veil, Charlie, Samantha, Mouse Amanda, and Clara joined hands and took a few steps forward.
Charlie reached his hand out and the tips of his fingers disappeared.
“Ready?” Charlie slowly stepped forward and slowly vanished until just his forearm and hand, which was holding Samantha’s, was all that remained visible, but his voice came through. “Come to the dark side.”
Samantha followed suit, then Mouse and Amanda. Clara looked at Amanda’s floating arm and hand that was holding hers.
She turned to Deputy Joey Strongbull and got into character. She could feel she’d already been typecast, might as well lean into it. Thankfully, she had prepared for the role.
“Fine. This isn't how you wanted things to work out, but yes, Rowena, thanks to you, Sam and Dean'll be trapped in some sort of nightmare universe with the Devil himself. And you're the only person who might be able to devise a way to keep the door back home open for them. But... Sorry, boys. Au revoir, bon voyage, not my problem. (She starts to leave but stops)
That’s when Amanda pulled Clara into the Veil.
“Bollocks! Bums bollocks.” -Clara, vanishing into the Veil.
Midnight. October 31st. Halloween.
As the diner began to tremble, the lights went out. That’s when the floor beneath the diner vanished out from the feet of everyone, and they fell into darkness.
Clara slowly opened her eyes and saw the red dress she was wearing.
"Bollocks!”
That’s when it hit her. The realization was quite sublime. She reached up to her head to feel what was up there, half expecting horns. It was a crown.
Rowena Macleod smiled. She was the Queen of Hell.
She could feel the power coursing through her.
She stared at the bodies of Charlie, Mouse, Samantha, and Amanda lying on the ground before her.
“Rise my sweet little demons, rise!”
Mouse’s limp body rose from the floor of the throne room. Head hanging down, arms limp, her Chuck Taylors a foot off the ground.
The bodies of Charlie, Amanda, and Samantha followed suit.
Rowena raised both her arms high in the air and started to hum the song from the Marionette scene in “Escape to Witch Mountain”.
She turned Charlie into the pink elephant, Mouse into Mother Goose, Amanda into the flying bee and Samantha turned into a Raggedy Ann.
Rowena hummed for a minute while they danced and then clapped her hands together and they fell back to the ground.
“Ashes Ashes they all fall down. Wakey Wakey everyone.”
Everyone began to stir and get up, taking in their surroundings. One by one they all began to realize where they were.
Rowena stood up and walked over to them. They were in the Throne room of Hell.
“Good For Your Soul” Part Two…