Graveyard Shift

The Lighthouse Diner sat on Route 9 between a gas station and nothing, and it had never once been near a lighthouse. “Aspirational,” said Hector, the night cook, when Rosa asked about the name on her first shift. “Like me.”

He was sixty, built like a refrigerator, and wore a hairnet over a hairnet. He told her three things in her first hour: the coffee was better after two, the jukebox only played if you were nice to it, and the supply closet was haunted.

“Haunted by what?” Rosa asked. Hector flipped an egg without looking. “Mops,” he said.