Phil mation's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Phil pushed through the crowd near the gate. The food trucks sat dark and empty. A woman held a crying child and pointed at a bare counter. Behind her, a dozen travelers were already turning back toward their cars. Phil heard the word he feared most. Hungry. He had drawn the whole realm to his gate, and now the realm wanted to leave on an empty stomach. He ran to the two restaurants he kept shuttered on quiet nights. One had a thatched roof and a grinning carved face above the door. The other leaned and glowed orange, bats hung from its eaves. Both could seat a crowd. But Phil had no staff inside, no plan, and a mob at his back. He needed someone who could run a packed room right now. He found Frankie Fangsworth straightening his bow tie by the haunted restaurant's doors. Frankie had seated monsters for thirty years. Phil had hired him once and rarely dared disturb him. The maitre d' ran his dining room like a king runs a court, and he knew it. "Frankie, I need both rooms open. Now. Every seat. Can you do it?" Frankie did not blink. "Of course. No one else could. Zese people are starving, oui? Leave zem to me." He clapped twice and the park performers nearest him snapped to attention. Frankie pointed one at the thatched kitchen, another at the orange one. He barked numbers and tables and orders. He did not ask Phil a single question. "But ze menu," Frankie said. "Two rooms is not enough for forty cars. We need more." Phil looked past the restaurants and saw the dark food trucks again. An idea landed. "Open the trucks too. Pull them into a court. One from every country." Frankie grinned, showing fangs. "A food court. International. Zat, I can run." Phil dragged a tall sign on a skeletal pole into the open space between the trucks. Bold letters read international food court. He fired up the first truck himself. Frankie set performers behind each window. Within minutes grills hissed and steam rose. Tacos, crepes, raclette, miso. The smell reached the gate and stopped the leaving travelers cold. The crowd turned around. They filled the two restaurants. They lined up at the trucks. Frankie moved between it all, seating, directing, boasting to anyone who listened that only he could manage such a night. The grumbling died. Children ate candied apples. Phil watched the crying child chew a crepe and go quiet. Phil had fed the crowd. The park held. But Frankie caught his sleeve near the orange doors, no longer smiling. "Phil. Ze trucks will empty by morning. We cooked everything we had. Tomorrow zese people wake up hungry, and we have nozzing left to cook." Phil looked at the full tables and the empty storerooms behind them. He had bought one evening. He had not bought the next.