The Midnight Ledger

To keep building momentum, here is a Supernatural Noir story centered on a detective who tracks things that shouldn't exist.

The Midnight Ledger

Leo Spade didn’t work for the police; he worked for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety—or at least, that was the card he showed people when he didn’t want to explain that he hunted "Glitch Claims."

A Glitch Claim happened when a car crashed into a tree that had been cut down twenty years ago, or when a man was hit by a bus that didn't exist on any city schedule. This time, the claim came from a diner on the edge of the Mojave. A trucker claimed he’d been served coffee by a waitress who had died in 1954.

Leo sat at the counter of the Dusty Spoke at 2:00 AM. The air was thick with the scent of burnt beans and old vinyl. The waitress, a woman named Clara with a beehive hairdo and eyes like cracked marble, refilled his cup.

"You’re a long way from the city, honey," she said. Her voice sounded like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together.

Leo checked his "Chronometer," a device he’d modified using specs found on OpenSource Ecology. The needle was pinned in the red. Clara wasn't a ghost; she was a "Temporal Anchor." She was a moment in time so stubborn it refused to move forward.

Clara stopped wiping the counter. The lights flickered, and for a second, Leo saw the diner as it really was—a rusted skeleton of rebar and sand. Then the illusion snapped back. "I’m waiting for my husband," she whispered. "He’s driving a 1952 Peterbilt. He’ll be here by sunrise."

Leo looked at the National Archivesa dust storm seventy years ago. If Leo didn't break the loop, the demolition crews would be crushed by a building that technically wasn't

"The diner is scheduled for demolition, Clara," Leo said softly. "The state is building a bypass. You can't stay here."