Bridge Street.

Meet The Others - Part Two.

The front of house staff wear black jeans or trousers with a black company t-shirt, also a green server's apron, and they put their white ordering pads also pens inside the pouch at the front like a kangaroo which keeps her young.

The same style of music is playing; it is halfway through a busy service, and the restaurant is nearly at total capacity. On the pass is a seafood risotto alongside a lamb burger with a pepperoni pizza beside; an Italian waiter Anthony, a muscle head pretty boy with slicked black hair, is taking the food from the kitchen to the customers. George puts a basket of fries into the scolding hot oil of the fryer. After he turns a burger with a spatula, with yellow tongs, he takes a butterflied breasted chicken from the grill placing it on a black tray; after brushing oil mixed with salt, pepper and chopped parsley over the chicken, he puts the tray into the bottom pizza oven.

Jackson orders, “Carlo, Two minutes for table six!”

Carlo puts his thumb up from across the kitchen.

George asks, “Bro, five for table seven alongside fourteen!?”

Jackson thunders, “Yes, bratr!”

George is preparing plates for the upcoming tickets, he has a line of orders, and the ticket machine sounds while it prints another one. George puts a pot of relish down on a paper-lined tray. He takes the ticket, eyes scanning it, and passes it to the kitchen porter because it’s a dessert ticket. Jackson has his back to George, who is alongside Carlo, putting a teaspoon of garlic, in a oiled pasta pan starting to sizzle, after adding the same amount of diced red chillis in oil to the pan, while the flames are flickering up the sides of the pan. Jackson is filling a calzone with some Cajun spiced chicken. The calzone was my favourite pizza to make. I perfected them, but being in the pizza section is f*****g hard, mate, I went on it a couple of times on Saturdays, and I can happily say I failed more than a couple of times. There is an art to it, although I can make a pizza, under that pressure is mad because you are basically in charge of everything in the kitchen while maintaining the quality of food, which I can do until I start running out of s**t; it’s never a quick thing to prep then quickly get back into the flow of service, then run out of another item, oh man. That’s why Jackson also his brother usually work in the pizza section; also, that’s why they're so skinny, a lot of running about.

The end of the night is on for the restaurant staff, not much of a busy day. The head chef, along with Andrej joined them for the evening shift. It is ten o’clock at night. The manager Chris went home an hour ago, but the assistant manager is still here in the office; Amelia, along with Anthony are cleaning the restaurant's tables also the bar; every so often, they bring dirty things to go into the dishwasher. Also, the Hungarian barman is cleaning the glasses, He is a big lad with hair that's short and light brown eyes.

An hour has passed, and the kitchen, along with the restaurant, is clean. The kitchen staff, along with the others, are having a drink at the bar before they go home. George is drinking Jackie D whiskey mixed with coke, and the ladies are drinking white wine while the others are drinking beer from bottles. Everyone is in their everyday clothes. Anthony flexes in the mirrors in rustic frames all over the restaurant wall.

He asks, “Who is up for going out to nightclubs?”

Before anyone can respond, a figure at the restaurant's doors catches their attention, his face against the glass.

George says, “If this guy falls there, going to sleep because he is too pissed, I will break his legs to get out.”

Amelia says, “Looks like he has been in a fight.”

Carlo says, “Looks like he lost.”

He is leaving blood on the window in the shape of his face and hand prints, smearing downwards.

The guy eventually comes in, dressed in a white blood-covered shirt and black trousers with his blood-soaked dark blue tie wrapped around his right hand, he is squeezing tightly which is causing droplets of blood to splash in a puddle below. He doesn’t have whites in his eyes; they are dark red. He groans while his jaw begins snapping together like a vicious dog, his arms are extended with his hands grabbing at the moment thin air, his left cheek starts to peel away from his face, splattering on the wooden floor beneath, and teeth alongside gum start falling out from the hollowed cheek.

Everyone starts to panic while asking, “What the f**k!?”

George grabs both of the women, putting them behind the men while they back away, throwing anything in sight at the rotting man that is slowly staggering forward.

Slow motion. Aida throws a wine glass that smashes off his head, stunning the Z for a few seconds; Antonio throws a wooden handle steak knife at the dead-looking man; it goes through the hole in his cheek but doesn’t stay in his mouth for too long, because the other-side peels away from his face, the knife clattering alongside the bloody bit of cheek that is splattering to the wooden ground, like the ocean water splashing onto ships decking. Amelia throws a couple of menus at him; they don’t even give him a paper cut.

Jackson cracks a joke. “We just sold out of our human brains, sir.”

George laughs out loud, after saying, “I have an idea; I will return and keep him at bay.”

George runs into the kitchen.

He returns with a red-handled knife, walking up to the guy who grabs George’s jacket, bringing him closer.

George uppercut stabs the guy while saying, “Bruh, brush your teeth once in a while; ever heard of a mint, Christ almighty.”

The guy letting go of George, which swipes the knife backwards from Z’s head, and his eyes go black like a laptop shutting down as he crumbles to the ground on top of the scattered menus.

Jackson tells Aida, “You have keys in your bag so that you can lock the f*****g door, so we can figure out what this s**t is.”

She starts rummaging through her black handbag. George puts a chair under the door handle, digging it into the square rug.

George tells whoever will listen, “Can you dim the lights? So we can see better outside; there could be more.”

Amelia dims the lights, everyone staying low while looking outside, a bus stops on the other side of the road opposite the restaurant, and to their right, you can see the beginning of the bridge over the river Cam.

Whispering, the head chef says, “We need weapons.”

George pulls out his cigarettes, lighting one up.

Aida pulled out the restaurant key while asking, “What are you doing? You can’t smoke in here.”

George says, “Well, you don’t think I am going out there to smoke.”

Cezar says, “It is not that bad.”

Andrej responds, “It might be, look.”

He points into the dark of the night, a figure kneeling on the floor munching the contents of someone else’s stomach. George watches Aida’s face wince in terror while she is slowly turning the key to lock the door; after he offers her a cigarette, in which she takes him up on the offer.

George says, “Well, At least there won’t be no vomit on the streets tomorrow; the crows will have to find another meal.”

Jackson responds, “Just some humans flesh to peck at.”

George says, “Well when one door shuts, another opens.”

Aida lights up the cigarette while shaking a little, while trying to ring someone on her phone but they don’t answer.

George says, “It would be wise for us to put something over the smoke alarm or take the batteries out, I’m just throwing it out there.”

Aida says, “My housemate isn’t picking up her phone, I wonder if she is one of them.”

Adam grabs a chair and walks to the beginning of the corridor, stepping on the chair and fiddling around with the smoke alarm.