The tragic story of Louise "Big Lou" Clements.

Last known picture of louise clements aka big lou

The Diner, The Waitress, The Movie Star

By W.L. Peterson

Heavy rain blankets the small coastal town of Stone’s Throw, South Carolina. It’s hurricane season, and the town’s catching the tail end of hurricane Wilma.

Big Lou’s Diner is open. It’s the last place to stop, eat, and gas up for the next hundred miles, according to the faded billboard out front.

Big Lou, weighing a hefty three-hundred pounds, runs the diner herself. It’s almost closing time and Lou just wants to close shop and go home.

She grabs a metal spatula and scrapes the black build-up off the grill, when the bell above the door dings and someone walks in.

“I’ll be closing in 20 minutes,” Lou says as she continues to clean the grill with her back turned. “The only thing I can offer you is a cup of coffee.”

The sound of shoes sloshing slowly across the floor echo in the empty diner as the person walks to the far end of the counter and takes a seat. “Okay, that’s fine,” the person replies. “I’ll have a black coffee.”

Lou drops the spatula and freezes. That voice.

Lou turns around and sitting there at the end of her counter, soaking wet from the rain, is David Steele.

David’s been the number one box office draw for the past ten years. He’s a handsome man in his mid-forties, tall, chiseled, and with a smile to die for.

Lou says, “Oh my god. You’re—”

“Yes, David Steele,” David replies. “I’m in town shooting a movie and had car trouble down the road. I figured I’d walk here and wait for my wife to come get me. I didn’t want to be stuck out in that storm.”

“Yes, it is terrible out there,” Lou says. “It’s as if god unzipped it, whipped it, and pissed it down on Stone’s Throw.”

David laughs, “That’s one way to put it,” he reaches out and touches Lou’s hand, “How about that coffee?”

Lou drew her hand back instantly.

David’s hand was frigid and wet. “I’m sorry. My hands are normally warm,” David says.

Lou blushes and says, “Let me get your coffee.”

“Thank you,” David replies.

Lou brews David a fresh cup of coffee. Steam emanates from the cup as she hands it to David.

“This’ll warm you up,” Lou says and rushes to the back of the diner through the double doors to call her husband Kenny, a local deputy sheriff.

“Hello, Kenny? You’ll never guess who is sitting in my diner,” Lou says smiling.

The lights in the diner flicker.

“Sorry Lou,” Kenny barks. “I don’t have time for this. That movie star, David Steele and his wife, had an accident. Their car was swept off the road in the flood and they drowned. The coroner said they died yesterday. So, sad.”

Lou’s heart sinks to the bottom of her stomach.

“That’s impossible, Kenny,” Lou says as her voice trembles. “David Steele is sitting here at my counter.”

The bell dings above the diner door. David’s wife walks in and quietly takes a seat next to him.

At that moment, the phone line goes dead. The lights in the diner start flickering off and on as if keeping pace with Lou’s accelerated heartbeat.

Lou hangs up the phone and slowly walks through the double doors to return to the front of the diner. She looks toward the end of the counter where David’s sitting. Except now, she sees David and his wife.

When the lights go off, David and his wife look bloated and disfigured. Their skin is a slimy blueish grey, with lumps all over. Their eyes are bulging out of their sockets, and they smile from ear to ear, with no teeth. Only darkness in their mouths.

When lights come back on, the couple is gone.

But when the lights go out again, the couple stands merely inches from Lou’s face. This time, they have no eyes. The sockets of their eyes are as dark as the hole that filled their mouths.

Lou slumps down in the corner, like a kid trying to hide from the scary monsters in the closet, and trembles.

Lou cries out, “I just want to go home, I just want to go home, I just want to….”

Her heart beats faster and faster, louder and louder, and…just stops.

David and his wife slowly fade away.

The death of David Steele and his wife made national news. Fans around the world mourned. However, in Stone’s Throw, South Carolina, Kenny mourned for his beloved Lou.