What is My Restaurant Horror Novel About?

I’ve never written a single thing that details anything about my work-in-progress (WIP) called Marked, even though, plot-wise, it’s my most popular story.

Mind you, as of this writing, the novel has yet to find publication, so by “most popular story,” I just mean it gets the most reaction when I tell people about it.

We’ll go over the details of the book and its status in a minute, but here’s a brief elevator pitch in case you’re unfamiliar with the story:

“What if your job actually stole your soul in exchange for your paycheck?

Emery Skye had never considered the possibility until it came upon her at Mulland’s Steakhouse. After ignoring repeated warnings from outsiders and friends not to go there, Emery discovers there’s much more to the restaurant than meets the eye — especially down in the basement, which everyone refers to as ‘the dungeon.’

As Emery continues to search for answers, she loses more of herself along the journey as she fights to escape. Her memory continues to get altered, any attempt at help or advice always gets thwarted, and she finds the Mark of the Beast may have trapped her forever...”

With the nutshell out of the way and hopefully your attention on board, let’s dive a little deeper into what to expect from this novel.

The Dungeon

First and foremost, the dungeon is real. It is based on a real basement from a real restaurant where I worked, though I’ll keep its name out of this to avoid defamation. I also worked in a number of restaurants, so while “the dungeon” is specific to just one, much of what happens in the story applies to my overall experience in the industry.

In reality, as it is written in the book, the manager who ran this specific restaurant when I first started outright refused to let anyone go down to the dungeon. Everyone who worked there gave it its nickname, and anyone who had been down there (whether they were supposed to or not) always talked about how eerie it was. The only permission anyone ever had to go there was to either retrieve or return the Christmas decorations.

After that manager left, the man who took over transformed the dungeon into the storage room, where we kept all backups for toilet paper, receipt paper, or things of the sort. Once I started going down there, I found it just as creepy as anyone had ever described. I never went further than the base of the stairs for anything I needed, and I never lingered any longer than I had to because it freaked me out.

Here’s the thing…

I wrote the first draft of the book at the end of 2018 (and omg, we’re almost in 2025!) When I finished, I shared it with some coworkers for feedback. In the text, I wrote that Emery went down into the dungeon and explored. During her investigation, she finds a secret tunnel behind the Christmas decorations that leads under the restaurant and houses the demon.

After reading it, one of my coworkers said I did “such a good job capturing how creepy that tunnel is.”

What I did not know when I wrote it was that the tunnel actually existed.

I thought I had made it up.

Taken aback, I asked her what she meant, and she proceeded to lead me to the dungeon, follow along the tracks exactly as I had described them in the book, and led me to the tunnel under the restaurant that I had never known was there.

But there’s more…

I didn’t find the demon in the tunnel (although that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there), but I did take some photos of it to add some depth to the story.

You may notice those pictures aren’t in this article.

A few days after taking them, I hadn’t backed them up or put them on my computer. I got a new phone, only to experience the first and currently only time when my phone transfer didn’t quite go through. It only took me to the most recent backup, which did not include any pictures I’d taken of the tunnel in the dungeon.

I lost a lot of other photos besides those, but as soon as that happened, I knew I had to pursue the story. The demon may or may not exist, but I still have to share what I’ve created of him and what he does to the characters in the story.

The Demon

As for the demon, he was actually kind of fun, if not wildly chaotic, to create.

The physical manifestation of the demon is meant to be an offspring of Mammon, the demon of greed, and a Shinigami, which is a demon in Japanese culture thought to influence suicidal thoughts. This particular aspect of the demon is also a trigger warning, as topics of suicide come up often in the text. There are also a few situations where the demon kills employees and frames it as suicide.

As to the name, it’s currently known as the “Avaricia Mortem,” which translates from Latin to “Greedy Death.” That said, I’m pretty sure I’m going to change it to the “Avarice,” which means “extreme greed for wealth or material gain.”

Either way, I created an entire lore around the demon — henceforth in this post known as the Avarice — that involved aspects of the Avarice’s “parent demons” to influence how it operated. Its creation happened sometime in Paris during the 1760s, which is around the time restaurants reportedly started.

From there, the Avarice’s greed grew, particularly when it migrated to America. It is now meant to act as a representation of Corporate American greed and examines how the employees at the “bottom of the totem pole” get treated as compared to the “higher-ups.”

The Restaurant

The “higher-ups” also play a part in the story. They’re ever-watching, ever-present, and yet rarely ever actually there. Still, they make all of the decisions (including, in this case, who lives and dies) and expect everything to be carbon-copied and uniform, from word choice down to clothing.

Throughout the text, as Emery continues to piece together what’s going on, she’s introduced to various aspects of the demon as she goes. Included is a physical manifestation of “energy vampires,” which hide in the rafters and influence the negative energy of the restaurant. No one is safe from these, and even the guests within the restaurant are subject to their attacks. Those attacks are more brief and less harmful than what happens with the employees, who spend more time around the vampires without fully knowing they’re there.

Emery endures various interactions between her guests and coworkers, although not all of them lead her astray. The whole time, her roommate, Janet, continually encourages her to get out of there as soon as she can and agrees to help her put an end to whatever is going on.

The Point

As much as certain portions of the text “attack” restaurant life outright and subtly complain about American Corporations, the point isn’t actually to make either of those look bad.

The point and true examination of the novel revolves around the idea of being trapped in a job you either hate, or one you feel goes against your soul purpose. Emery is a filmmaker, which makes her a creative like me, and that’s half her battle. An enormous amount of creative people wind up working jobs they can’t stand (like restaurants) just to make ends meet until they can make the required income from their creativity — which some may never see.

Subtext throughout the novel also focuses on said fated “Dream Job,” as it acts as one of the few options to save the employee from the Mark of the Beast. Said Mark is the reason for the book title, because once that Mark comes, there are few ways the employee can make it out in one piece. Essentially, the Mark damns them to this industry and they’d only ever be able to work at other places the Avarice has infected, lest they find the “Dream Job” that can break his curse.

Want to give it a read?

I’d love to open myself up for some beta readers on this work. Additionally, it’s been through almost seven years’ worth of rewrites as it is, so on the off chance you’re reading this and identify as an editor, publisher, or literary agent who thinks this may be a good fit for you, I’m more than happy to submit a three-sample chapter with a full synopsis.

More than anything, whether you read the book or not, if you’re still here I’d like to leave you with this:

Your dreams are there for a purpose. There will be numerous obstacles that stand in the way of your success. Never stop believing in yourself, and if you ever find yourself trapped—maybe even Marked— just know there’s always a way out, even if it doesn’t seem like it.

For those interested in either reading the manuscript or requesting a submission, please e-mail me at andrew[@]andrewjstillman.com