Drive-through dread

When she handed the bulging paper bag across the small canyon between the drive-through window and my car, I did a double take. She leaned out so far, it seemed she might fall out. A black dragon snaked along the pale papery skin of her arm, ending in scaly peeling fingernails that could have been the dragon’s claws. Her face was pale too, all the more so against the disheveled ebony hair framing her thin face and the grungy black make-up circumnavigating her big, dark eyes. Those eyes were haunting—glistening pools in her otherwise expressionless face. She said not a word, but kept her gaze focused on me. I wanted to look away, but could not. I took the bag and stepped on the gas. It was almost midnight, and hunger had the better of me after my late shift. I pulled into a parking bay still inside the restaurant car park. The flickering street light beyond the nearby tree cast an eerie pantomime of shadows and light. The loud crackle of the paper bag pierced the silence. I drew out the burger. A scrappy piece of paper emerged with it. I could just make out the naïve scrawl: HELP