Sheila¶
Sheila is the chatty waitress at the Lonely Mountain Diner in Radford, Virginia, who feeds the task force across both Radford cases and eventually supplies the camera footage of the gray van raid.
| Type | NPC |
| Aliases | Diner waitress; the waitress |
| Affiliation | Lonely Mountain Diner |
| Status | Alive (as of Radford Horrors 04) |
| First appearance | Radford Horror 01 |
| Played by | Andre |
Description¶
Sheila is a friendly, talkative local with a dry sense of humor, opinionated about Forest Service funding. She works the 1950s-style vinyl diner, where the menu runs to a "heart attack special," All-Americans and a superb blackcurrant pie (Radford Horror 01). By The Radford Horrors she calls Kurt "secret agent man" and Huell "sweetie," and serves a local root beer made with real sarsaparilla ("which is illegal") (Radford Horrors 02).
History¶
The Radford Horror¶
On the team's first morning in Radford, Sheila serves breakfast and blames the disappearances on careless hikers, the woods and bears. When Kurt quietly warns the team about the man on the post office roof, Sheila checks the window and sees him, but does not recognize him ("So this isn't like a clock tower situation?"). She does recognize the red Miata with the cut muffler that roars past and names its driver as Dean Lawson, and she calls Sheriff Frank Roosevelt a "straight shooter." (Radford Horror 01)
Four episodes later the team returns for lunch. The waitress asks whether the white van is linked to "the guy on the roof" (see Rooftop watcher) and is asked to report any unmarked white van. Huell orders a pyramid stack of pancakes taller than his head; his bedbug bites are obvious, and the waitress threatens to burn the diner down for the insurance money if bedbugs return, blaming the Pay n' Stay as "Motel Patient Zero." (Radford Horror 05)
Radford Horror 05
"If this place gets bedbugs again, I'm going to burn it to the ground for the insurance money, and you didn't hear me say that."
The Radford Horrors¶
When the task force returns, Sheila greets Kurt as "secret agent man," asks after "the one who blew up the toilet" (the Biz, Dick Baxter) and Huell's foot, and calls the team local heroes for saving "that lady." She is horrified by the state of the bathroom. Across the street the former laundromat has become the neon Douglas Pinball Emporium. (Radford Horrors 02)
In Radford Horrors 04 Kurt volunteers to face her over the bathroom. His Manipulate Someone roll succeeds: he apologizes for Huell, later offers a hundred-dollar tip and asks for her camera footage. She fixes the "on the fritz" camera and finds the raid on the emporium: a gray van at about 4 to 5 a.m., five men (one with a long brown ponytail, the rest with military haircuts, some with covered faces), a non-human shadow moving inside the window, and three men carrying out two bags before the van peels out. See Diner security tape and Gray van crew. (Radford Horrors 04)
She adds that gray vans started appearing a couple of months earlier, around the "right to roam" fuss over the woods and possibly tied to the Safe Environment Fund, and that vans also crowded around the Ferry Lodge during "the raid"; she dislikes the Lodge's new snooty owners. Kurt takes the tape, promising to return it, and gives her his number. She also tells the team that the homeless man (Billy Thornton) hangs around the Pay n' Stay, and she has been feeding him pancakes. (Radford Horrors 04)
Trivia¶
- Sheila is named aloud in Radford Horror 01 and Radford Horrors 02; in Radford Horror 05 and Radford Horrors 04 the team deals only with "the waitress."
- Kurt's Manipulate Someone roll in Radford Horrors 04 comes up 11, despite his Charm of 0.