My Food Truck Hunts Monsters, Not Customers
The sound that pulled Thalia from her end-of-night ritual was wet and wretched.
A desperate, retching cough that cut through the steady drumming of rain on her food truck’s metal roof.
She paused, cloth in hand, the scent of bleach and grilled onions momentarily forgotten.
The Haven Food Truck Park was a ghost town after midnight, a collection of steel shells sleeping under the sickly orange glow of the city sky.
Only her truck, The Gilded Spoon, remained open, a lone beacon for the city’s insomniacs and lost souls.
The sound came again, closer this time, from the alleyway that separated the park from the brick behemoth of a derelict warehouse.
Thalia placed the cleaning cloth on the stainless-steel counter, her movements unhurried.
She stepped out into the rain, the drizzle doing little to disturb her.
The alley stank of damp garbage and urban decay.
And there, kneeling on the slick asphalt, was the kid.
Felix.
The one who, just an hour ago, had devoured a bowl of her mac and cheese with the reverence of a starving man finding salvation.
His shoulders heaved, another wave of sickness wracking his thin frame.
His gaze was fixed on a split-open garbage bag beside him.
From the tear in the black plastic, something pale and horribly human protruded.
A woman’s lower leg, slender and lifeless.
The toes were tipped with chipped, crimson polish, still attached to a cheap sandal.
Felix let out a choked sob and vomited again.
Thalia watched, her expression unreadable.
The shadows around her feet seemed to deepen, twisting into shapes that didn't belong in the world of light and rain.
She took a step forward.
"You should have gone home, Felix," she said, her voice calm amidst the squall.
The young man flinched, scrambling backward until his back hit the cold, wet brick of the warehouse wall.
He looked up, his eyes wide with terror, not at the severed limb, but at her.
At the woman standing in the rain, perfectly still.
At the faint, predatory, green-teal light that was beginning to glow in her eyes.
§02
The sterile, coffee-stained air of the precinct faded behind her, replaced by the damp morning chill that promised more rain.
Thalia’s mind wasn't on the police report she'd just signed, but on the faint, unnatural energy she'd felt clinging to the young man, Felix.
The police had been surprisingly efficient.
A Detective Miller, a man whose weary face seemed carved from old leather, had asked the questions.
"You found him here?"
"I heard him being sick. Came to check."
"Know the kid?"
"He's a customer. Comes in sometimes."
"And you didn't see anything else? Anyone dumping a bag?"
"I was inside my truck, cleaning up for the night."
Miller had grunted, his eyes scanning her, trying to find a crack in her composure.
He found none.
They had taken her statement, along with a week’s worth of security footage from the camera mounted on her truck.
She knew they wouldn't find anything.
Her truck’s memory card had a habit of conveniently corrupting footage when necessary.
Back in her small apartment above a closed-down bookstore, the shadows in the room coalesced.
Two figures emerged from the gloom.
One was a handsome man in archaic, flowing robes, a pair of small, curved horns nestled in his dark hair.
This was Malachi.
"So? Fresh meat?" he asked, his voice a low rumble. "You didn't even save me a bite."
The other figure was a tall, aloof woman with hair like spun silver and horns that resembled polished antlers.
Astrid.
"Cease your incessant prattling, you overgrown stomach," she said, her tone as crisp as winter ice. "It was human remains. Off-limits."
Malachi scoffed, throwing himself onto her sofa. "You’re no fun. First, you tell me the city is a buffet. Then you put up a ‘No Eating the Locals’ sign. It’s false advertising."
Thalia ignored them, moving to her small kitchen. "He saw my eyes."
The bickering stopped.
Astrid glided over, her silver eyes filled with concern. "You were careless."
"He was terrified," Thalia corrected, pulling a carton of eggs from the fridge. "And he was wearing a ward. Faint, but there."
Malachi sat up, sniffing the air as if he could still catch the scent. "A ward? What kind?"
"I don't know yet," Thalia said, cracking eggs into a hot pan. "But it was enough to hold a sliver of the memory. He asked me if I saw a monster with green eyes."
"So you wiped him again?" Astrid asked.
"I told him it was a hallucination," Thalia replied. "The shock, the body part. It was a plausible lie. But it won't hold forever if he keeps stumbling into my business."
She slid the scrambled eggs onto a plate and placed it on the coffee table.
Malachi eyed it. "That’s it? After a night of smelling fresh terror? I need protein!"
A massive, spectral paw, belonging to Astrid’s true form, slammed down on the table next to the plate, making him jump.
"You will eat what you are given," Astrid stated flatly.
Thalia looked at them both, a flicker of something ancient and weary in her glowing eyes.
"Find out about the boy," she commanded. "Find out about his ward. I don't like coincidences."
§03
The next few days were a study in forced normalcy.
The Haven Food Truck Park buzzed with morbid gossip.
The police had officially linked the severed leg to a string of recent disappearances, and the words "serial killer" were whispered over steaming cups of coffee and greasy burgers.
Business at The Gilded Spoon, however, remained steady.
Thalia’s regulars were a loyal bunch, more interested in her Gumbo than in local crime.
"Some people have all the luck, drawing in customers without even trying," Brenda, the owner of the barbecue truck next door, muttered as Thalia handed a takeaway box to a customer.
Her husband, Gus, shushed her, offering Thalia an apologetic smile.
Thalia simply nodded, her face betraying no emotion.
She was used to Brenda's passive-aggressive envy.
It was a common human failing.
Usually, it was harmless.
Lately, though, something felt different.
The ambient spiritual noise of the city had changed.
There was a new current in the air, a faint, sickly sweet scent of decay and obsession that clung to certain people.
Late that evening, a woman slumped onto one of the stools in front of Thalia’s truck.
Adela.
She was a semi-regular, an office worker from one of the nearby towers.
Tonight, she looked like a ghost.
The woman—Adela—slumped onto the stool, her face a pale mask under the harsh fluorescent lights.
Her knuckles were white where she gripped her purse, and she smelled of stale office air and a faint, sharp tang of anxiety.
"Pulled pork sandwich," she mumbled, not looking up.
As Thalia turned to prepare the order, Malachi’s voice echoed in her mind.
*Jackpot. She’s drenched in it.*
Thalia focused, her senses extending beyond the physical.
She could see it now.
A shimmering, greasy, dark red aura clinging to Adela like a shroud.
It pulsed with a miserable, resentful energy.
The Aura of Envy.
This was the source of the city's new spiritual pollution.
One of the strays from The Bestiary was loose.
And it was feeding.
§04
"The new special is a Gumbo," Thalia said, her voice even as she placed a napkin and a bottle of water in front of Adela. "Complimentary tasting sample tonight."
Adela looked up, her eyes bloodshot. "No, thank you. I just—"
"I'll take one!" a cheerful voice piped up from a few stools down.
It was Poppy, another office worker, here with a few of her colleagues.
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