One in Four New Restaurants Fail in Their First Year

“Oh, crap,” said Freddy. “The soufflé collapsed.”

There was a thump from behind him. Jason leaned on the counter with both arms, head hanging down. The chicken he’d speared flopped limply on the cutting board.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” said Freddy hurriedly. “We can do this. People change careers all the time. We just need more eggs.”

Something shrieked and a chitinous form skittered in, dripping green slime from its teeth. It hissed.

“Look,” said Freddy. “Either we’re all in this together or we might as well head back for five more remakes of remakes of sequels. It’s just practice.”

A New Plague

“It’s a recurrent theme in horror movies,” Shannon pointed out. “’The Birds’ is the most famous one, but they’ve done frogs, worms, cats…”

“Cats?”

“That Stephen King one. I mean, the cats were there to kill the monsters, but it still kind of counts, I think.”

“Okay, fine,” said Dan. “So a bunch of scary movies had plots about animals gathering and staring at people. They’re right. It’s really creepy.”

“I think they’re cute,” said Shannon, picking up the nearest one. It turned its lambent eyes slowly back to Dan.

“But koala bears? We’re not even in the same hemisphere!”