Hey all,
This is the second part to my previous post. If you wanna see the first part, check here: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/w2kxej/i_clocked_in_four_years_ago_and_i_havent_left/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
I received a lot of questions about what happened in-between and I think that would make for some time-killers while I’m not preoccupied with customers and the like. Firstly, some people suggested some stuff and I think I’ll put those into effect in the coming days. I’ll keep you all posted on if they work or not. I’ve tried quitting the job an astounding amount of times. Each time, it nets me the response: “Oh okay, just wait for someone else to come before you clock out” And then it repeats with the second person. It’s never done anything with the time. It’s always just been a huge headache. And with the other thing, as far as I’m concerned the car outside is not able to be broken into. Whether it’s bricks, stones or bullets I don’t think anything can even remotely damage that thing. Even the windows are made of some type of material that just has anything that impacts it bounce off.
I’ve only shot the pistol a few times and from recent events, I’d rather not shoot it again to alert anyone. Suffice to say, I don’t think I’m entirely alone here- despite the fact there seems to still be customers coming in here. I’ve heard sounds and seen figures moving in the trees for weeks now and I’m scared to let them know I exist if they don’t already know. Anyways, now’s not the time for that venture.
This story takes place about a year back.
At this point I got a pretty good routine going to help me from going insane. I got up, scratched off the day and got to work. The pungent smell coming from my now hole-filled uniform never seemed to bother any of the customers or either of my coworkers. I try my best to keep my hygiene, going from washing with water bottles to taking sink baths in the public bathroom when I can. There’s nothing that can replace a washer and dryer though. My work clothes have since gotten torn up just from wear and tear over the years. At this point I was running pretty low on food. I think I got to the point where if a customer came in looking for food, I just bullshit them and said “Sorry, we’re fresh out” like I haven’t been solely relying on non-perishable food for the last few years.
I went ahead and set up some makeshift traps out behind the store for any possible wildlife. Taking the liberty of the slow drizzle of customers has its perks. It gives me time to really assess possible ways to get out of this hellhole or just poke around and see what boundaries I can push in this new weird reality I’ve found myself in. There’s days where Josh and Rose come in and on those days I keep snooping to a minimum. I’m fairly certain they’re more than just the NPC-type customers that come in, want a couple things and leave. They seem to be at least somewhat aware of the predicament I’m in but are either willfully ignorant or maliciously compliant with whatever entity is controlling this state that everything seems to have been put in.
I used some spare milk crates and string from the supplies closet we keep in the back room. There’s actually quite a lot of useful stuff in there, plus the lock on that door in particular seems to be the best one in the store if worse comes to worst.
Basically how I had it setup is if a potential animal were to swoop by or even run into the trap, it would have a chance to take the bait and drop the crate onto it with some weight. Using rocks to act as weights, I’d just basically check the traps to see if I caught anything and promptly do the thing where I try my best to humanely dispatch it, clean it and cook it. Mind you, this was the biggest hypothetical. At this point, I’ve only been outside a handful of times; either to throw stuff out or check the surrounding area for signs of life. I never dared to touch the surrounding forests though. I felt like whenever I got close to the tree line, I’d feel watched or worse. Like I was a prey in a box trying to buy time before whatever was in that forest came to consume me.
Paying mind to all of those feelings, I never really got a good idea of the surrounding wildlife. Of course, I interacted with people a bunch but never really creatures of the wild. I didn’t know whether it was because of the time issue or if the surrounding area really was not as teeming with life as I thought it was.
It was a few days after I set up the initial traps. I thought “how bad could this turn out?” After all, I was only alone in the middle of nowhere with no real place to go so catching some foreign creature would be a welcomed change of pace. I left the traps for a few hours and while I had down time, I went to check them. 2 of them were just completely gone. No trace of an animal was in sight, in fact I think that there was never any evidence that the traps were there to begin with. The string, the rocks, the milk crate. Everything was just completely gone. Now’s when I really wanted to see the security cameras because then at least I’d have some sort of way to track when these things go. But no, Josh had to go ahead and lose the password to it, never to be seen again. I swear, even before this spiral of events happened, he was working against me.
I got a little frustrated to see my resources getting eaten up by god knows what, so I did what any sane person would do.
I waited there. I think I ended up sitting, standing, laying down, staring at that box with string and rocks for a full eight hours. I ignored every single bell that came from the door and just kept my gaze fixated on that one space in my vision. I think I spent so long staring at it that I started to hallucinate some creature lumbering from the woods and quickly sprinting back. It was just out of my peripheral but I managed to get some sort of look before my vision caught up with me. I thought that I was gonna go crazy looking at this thing, waiting for something to show up and steal it away like a vermin.
I fell asleep.
When I woke up on the cracked asphalt just inches away from the dumpster, I knew that I’d be disappointed. The fucking trap was gone. The sun was still up, I was still alone and no wilderness as far as I knew existed in these woods. I marked that as a complete and utter failure and took the walk of shame back inside the store. A customer greeting me from the now empty freezers. Serving him, I thought how long I’d last with such a small amount of food. I wondered about potentially killing the next person to come in and stuffing them in the walk-in fridge in the back. I wondered about a lot of things.
Hunger does a lot of things to you, it can make you more anxious, it can make you irritated but most of all, it clouds your judgment.
One day, I started not even marking on the calendars anymore. Just completely giving into the lunacy of the situation. I think that day, Josh was supposed to come in at one point. I didn’t know when, I didn’t care. I just wanted something to eat. I thought about the forest and how much it taunted me before. Now, I took it as a dare.
I stepped out into the sunlight and faced across the street. My broken car as a grave-mark. A sign not to take this way lightly. It was like on Everest, where climbers use dead bodies of previous explorers, no- daring souls as a way to navigate the peak. I walked right up, toeing the treeline. A breeze sweeping by my face, not in any way of comfort but more as a final warning: ‘Do not dare step past that line’. I crossed the threshold and bore sight to the woods.
It was just regular wood. There were trees as far as the eye could see. A lot of brush out in the distance, some leaves and sticks on the ground. I looked around trying to see if there was any immediate sign of someone stopping me or some demonic entity ready to make itself known but there was nothing. It was just barren. Hearing the whistle of the air through the pines above sent a shiver down my spine as I started walking. I knew for a fact I wasn’t welcomed here. Yet, here I am anyway. Ready to bear the brunt of whatever consequence came with it. As I walked, the brush seemed to grow thicker, almost immovable. Like there was no way to go through it other than to chop it down with a knife. Something that in my stupidity I didn’t bring.
I huffed, not wanting to navigate the woods anymore and turned back. Trees. Just as far as I could see. I could swear I just walked forward, but clearly turning around and seeing trees again, I was wrong. I tried looking around for the way to exit this place but I couldn’t see any landmarks or anything to go off of. I knew I just entered out of desperation but with my flight instinct elevating to such a high amount, I just picked a direction and ran.
My body didn’t care about how low on fuel it was, it just booked it. My brain was barely even functioning. I navigated my way through trees, branches, patches of grass that seemed to get taller and taller trying to snag me into its maw. I kept running and getting nowhere. The forest seemed to have trapped me so, without warning I stopped. I sat down and I waited for death to come and finish me off. I barely remember what happened next. I think I remember getting so tired I fell to my side and fainted but before I did, I heard a human voice. Somewhere out in the distance there was someone yelling my name. “Chris” Echoed in my mind before I remembered waking up back in my wrecked car. No injuries to speak of, just waking up and getting out, facing back yet again at my place of work.
This place haunted me, but at the same time it was the only place that served to be of any restitution. I felt responsible for it somehow, even though it encapsulates everything wrong with my current situation. Between the clocks and the customers that keep behaving more and more like aimless NPCs in a video game, I think I’d rather the comfort of a building over the cold, unwelcoming ferocity of the forest.
A few days after that event, I heard the door ring and for the first time, I heard no footsteps following them. I was in the back room at the moment so I didn’t see who or what was at the door so I got up and took a look. The milk crates I had so carefully set up were sitting right there at the foot of the door. They were carrying an abundant amount of food. It was everything between fresh produce to shit like instant ramen and water. They were stacked so neatly on top of each other that I half expected Josh of all people to be driving off in his silverado waving with a creepy smile but not a single soul was outside the window. Edging towards the crates, wondering if this was a trick or another trap set by whatever took control of this place, I took my time looking for any wires or doo-hickeys that may or may not be attached to these crates. I picked one up and moved it anxiously around for maybe twenty minutes. Not a single indication of tom-foolery was at play. I didn’t know whether to burst into tears or laugh. I had been starving for months and yet, after I set out and tried to feed myself, I’m somehow rewarded. I murmured out a “thank you” to the powers that be and hunkered down in the backroom, having myself a small meal.
It’s been a year now and I can reliably get some food delivered every five or so months. I can only really seem to receive anything with the milk crates that I have so I’ve kept to placing them in the same places I’ve always placed them. Now, I’ve never noticed it but after writing this experience, I’ve noticed a handful of the crates have come back with writing on them. I’ll see what I can do with drawing them on the paint program I have here. I cannot for the life of me figure out what they intend to mean so if any of you code-breaker people know if this is a language or what. I’m not going to lie, I’m kind of scared to find out. But I need to figure at least some of this out.
https://i.imgur.com/tSSxZUE.png
I wonder if throwing out some more milk crates will net me some more responses with writing on them. We’ll see.
Chris out
