I was working overnight at a certain retail story and pharmacy. You can probably guess which one. I was exhausted. If you have never worked overnights, then you are quite the lucky individual. Even if you consider yourself a night person, you still are asleep before the sun wakes up. The fact that even days disturb your sleep cycle is even worse. You get off in the morning and while you do have your two days off, your circadian rhythm still tries to reset. Meaning, come your next shift, your back to trying to keep yourself awake for over twenty four hours. Especially since the rest of the world doesn’t care that you are on a different schedule then them. You get the point.
That night, I had finally finished taking care of the last large group of customers. I don’t know how or why they come in waves, but it normally ends after midnight or so. Afterthat you only get a couple of people once in a while. Those who work late, drunks, addicts of other varieties, other overnight workers who keep their sleeping schedule on their nights off, insomniacs, cultists, you get the idea. My manager had their normal “managerial” work to do. Meaning that they were probably going to go doze off in the office until like five in the morning when everything had to be done. There was no truck or major product to put away, so for me it was keeping my sanity and straightening things around the store. Since my manager also screwed around, I took time to just listen to some music and chill. No one said anything. I don’t think he really cared as long as those late night strays where taken care of and whatever odd tasks were completed, and the other managers were just happy to not do overnights themselves.
In regards to myself, just a few minor things of note. I deal with, sometimes quite severe, mental illness. Besides the psychological effects of working overnights, it seems a lot more people deal with those kinds of issues then most even realize. For me though? Voices in my head, occasional hallucinations, panic attacks, those kinds of things. Fortunately, I have learnt how to hide the worst of it. No, the cause wasn’t from the overnights. Had those issues long before I started this stupid job. I wasn’t on any medications either. The short of it is, I don’t trust doctors. When healthcare is privatized, the doctors might say they care, but try and beg a doctor to be seen when your having insurance issues and your medications (which are dangerous to stop suddenly) runs out. They don’t seem to have that empathy they advertise despite knowing what could happen. So after the last time I ran out of meds and had a doctor shrug me off (not to mention the ever so judgmental pharmacists) I decided to just deal with the repercussions. That was a difficult month, I’ll say that much. Alas, bills had to be paid and my girlfriend (now wife) and I needed food. She was in school and I volunteered to bare the brunt of having to work so she could focus and get through as quickly as she could.
Despite being in a fairly well developed (and upper middle class) area, the back of the store did have some trees. Almost a full forest. That’s where the trash bins were. Technically, not allowed to go back there at night. Security concerns they say. I just think they don’t want anyone taking a smoke break off camera, especially while on the clock. That’s fine, the front of the store worked just as well. No one cared, I was the only person dumb enough do overnight shifts. They kept trying to find additional help, but rarely do people actually want to commit to something like this even for a couple months. Thanks to that, I had slightly more freedom then my first and second shift counterparts. As long as my work was done and I didn’t ignore customers, they really didn’t seem to care. They didn’t even seem to notice, or want to notice, the couple times I came in stoned. There was the one time I really wanted to see how far I could push it and came in tripping. It’s surprising what you can get away with when corporate is desperate to steal one’s labor value.
Now given what you could probably already surmise about my tale and the evening in question, I could try to lure you in with reports of creepy stuff in those woods, blood on trees, doll heads, weird sightings, and the like. Yet, up to this point, nothing so interesting to help with how mundane things tended to be. I do have more than a slight passing interest in the paranormal, I’ve been on a handful of investigations and even thought I saw a ghost or something once. Disappeared when I ran towards it. Funny how nothing strange and beyond the veil of our reality happens to someone like me actively looking for it and not having enough self-preservation to not run at the unexplained phenomena. I suppose it doesn’t help that given my mental issues, I know how easily the brain is tricked. Meaning, the majority of cases are explained simply enough. Alas, it was nothing more than a passive interest especially with working full time. Even with all that, behind my store there were no haunted woods, UFOs, weird cult gatherings. Just normal trees, animal sounds, and occasional chanting. There’s a high school close enough where a couple of kids think it would be fun to scare themselves by conducting some ritual they found online. Like I said, nothing interesting.
One of the cool parts of working overnights is the once in a while decent conversations you have with some of the people that come in. Especially people who work at the bars. Usually they’ll have some interesting stories to share and even more importantly, new music for me to check out. So that night I had a play list of some recent recommendations. Hit and miss type of stuff. That’s how that normally goes. As I’m jamming out to whatever new thing caught my ear, I heard the door chime. A 4 AM customer. Great. I was hoping it was merely an insomniac and not a drunk or other kind of addict. I mean, sometimes if your nice they might share, but you really don’t want to get involved in the street stuff. Trust me on that.
This customer was bizarre though. Now I know what your thinking, I’m about to describe someone dressed oddly or a robe or bloodied up. Nope. It was a white woman looking in her 40’s. A normal specimen of the town. That’s what was so odd though, someone like her doesn’t come in at 4 in the morning. Maybe two or three in the morning drunk, but not sober and chipper. When you’ve done a good deal of substances, you can tell when someone else is on something. She wasn’t though. A sick family member would explain it, but no, those people are normally super quick and tend to keep to themselves in a hurry to treat their ailing loved ones. It wasn’t one of the weird morning people either, they didn’t start trickling in for another hour. It was like she was a normal morning or afternoon shopper. She gave a pleasant hello, which did catch me off guard. I quickly turned off my music and gave a slow to respond greeting. Not bitter, not upset, more of a tired automatic response. She came right up to the register without even looking for anything.
“I would recommend you not listen to the voices tonight.” She said to me with no change of tone or expression.
“EXCUSE ME?” I said quite loudly.
“Those voices in your head, and the ones you hear. They aren’t always hallucinations.”
“WOULD YOU CARE TO EXPLAIN YOURSELF?”
“Just my little group. We get together on full moons. Not a lot of woods in the area you know. Just thought I would pass along the warning. Have a good night.” And she left without saying another word.
Well, that caught me completely off guard. At least that explained the chanting in the woods, sometimes? I have no idea; this was definitely something that had startled me enough to wake me right up. Worst part is, I don’t think I would be able to pick her out in a crowd. She looked just like every other woman her age around here. I’m bad with faces and names, but throw in a demographic of the same types of people and you are hard pressed to recognize someone. Especially when it’s barely a thirty second encounter.
My manager came out of hiding to see what was up. He saw I looked stunned. Unusual for me given some of the people we’ve had in the store. I told him just a woman in the wrong place, I guess. He, to no shock of my own, absolutely did not care and went back to whatever it was he did. It had been roughly twenty minutes when I started hearing “woods”. I shook it off. Mental illness and all that. “Go to the woods” the voices said again. I just sighed and continued to listen to music. “WOODS” I heard yelled. I merely responded, much to myself, no I’m good. That’s when I heard my manager yelled “What did you say?”
I stopped. Maybe I was responding to my hallucinations too loudly. I yelled back it was nothing and that was that. I went back to listening to music, ignoring the demands of whatever voices I was hearing and doing whatever it was I did. I heard the door chime. Wonderful, another customer. I go up. Nothing. I looked around the store. I just assumed it was a malfunction. Happens time to time. However, the voices in my head were getting louder. It was quite irritating. It had become a cacophony. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before, but this was getting annoying. That’s when the manager came out of his office.
“Did you hear that?” He said with some annoyance, but there was a little bit of anxiety hidden there.
“Hear what?” I responded nonchalantly.
“Those voices, and the loud bang in back.”
“Voices?”
“It sounds like there’s a crowd in here. And there was definitely nothing on the security cameras in back.”
“So, there are security cameras in the back.”
“Didn’t you hear what I just said?” Ignoring my question completely.
“Who knows, maybe an animal, or you’re just hearing things.” I said as neutral as I could even with the chills running up my spine.
“Maybe you’re right…” He said as we heard a loud rumble coming from behind the store. “YOU HEARD THAT RIGHT?”
At least this time I didn’t have to make excuses for the various results of my mental illness. “Yea I did, that was… weird… Maybe someone should check it out?”
“Against company policy. No, we stay in the store.”
“I’m going out for a smoke break since you’re here.”
“Did you not hear that noise?”
“Yea, it’s woods. There are animals. So, what.”
“Fine, whatever. Five minutes, just watch for customers.”
I went outside to have that smoke. The voices kept demanding I go in the back to the woods. I looked around and when I saw I was by myself I said out loud “Look, unfortunately I’m at work and I don’t feel like getting a write up or losing my job over either hallucinations or some strange entity that for some reason decided to start heckling me. Go bother someone else.” The voices did not like that response. Suddenly I heard cursing and them screaming at me all my worst fears and thoughts. I laughed “Yea, I deal with this all the time. You’ll have to do better.” That’s when the manager came running out.
“I’m calling the cops.” He said shaken.
“Why?”
“The back door… It’s heavily dented. Like… something tried to break in. But it’s a steel door… I don’t know. What the hell is happening.”
This was getting weird. “Screw it, I’m checking out the back. You said you saw nothing on the security camera, right?”
“Yea… but…” The manager stumbled.
“Then I’m sure it’s something stupid.” I said in response. Between that woman, the voices, I was getting more irritated than anything at this point. A little scared? I would be lying if I said no, but honestly, not getting to just relax and waste time was really getting on my nerves.
The manager half heartedly tried to stop me. As I walked around the back, the air grew cold with a strong wind. It was an otherwise hot, still, summer night. “Hang a hat on it why don’t you?” I said mockingly. I try to write in my down time and have spent enough time learning about tropes to not bring up how dumb the cliché was.
As I circled around the building to where the garbage was, I did see something. A bunch of trees that looked like they had massive claw marks in them. Almost shredded to pieces. I opened the fence to the dumpster, and it had looked like something massive had tried to get in. The voices kept trying to call to me. When I turned around, I swore I saw something in the woods. “Yea, even if you are real, you’ve never dealt with someone who is legitimately insane before, have you? I’ve dealt with far more horrifying hallucinations. This is just… pathetic.” With that, I turned around and walked back to the front.
I went back inside the store as I saw the manager run out. I tried to stop him and ask what was up. He didn’t respond. He just looked pail and literally scared to death. This was a development. I heard his car screech out of the parking lot. I just wondered if he just quit or lost his job. That’s when I heard the footsteps. Deep, earth-shaking footsteps. I saw items get thrown from shelves. I stood there. Half in horror, half in curiosity. That’s when I finally saw it. Seven feet tall, grey, massive talons for hands, it’s head was like a weird combination of a goat and an owl with a mouth full of sharp teeth, it’s body was lanky and naked with blisters and puss popping. It’s feet where almost cat like. It was an abomination. I stared at it, and it looked at me. Like it was peering in my soul.
“Look, dude, your obviously the one giving me all the problems tonight. Even worse, you really just messed up my store. Do you know how long this is going to take to clean?” I said sternly. I waited for a response. The thing lumbered toward me. I continued “Given how my manager ran, I’m going to assume that all this tonight wasn’t a hallucination. You really need to get out of here.” I said half firmly and half scared beyond all reason.
It’s body contorted as it moved. It looked, hungry. IT looked like it wanted me. It blurted out in a gurgled voice “Consume… you…”
“Dude, I’m a wage slave working overnights. This place has already consumed by soul and my energy.”
“Feed” It gurgled.
“Go ahead. Won’t get much from my malnourished body. Besides, I’ve failed pretty hard at the whole suicide thing. In fact, had at least one person who did even a worse job at trying to kill me. This place is doing that well enough anyway.” I had no idea how or why I was able to keep my form or posture. I felt like my mind should have been breaking at the sight of this thing. I suppose when you’ve dealt with mental illness for so long, and the realities of the banal day to day life of a wage slave, you are far more prone to not being effected by whatever was happening.
It continued to stagger towards me, in it’s weird, contorted way. “Buy something or get out.” I said to it firmly. It reached the counter and took a swing with it’s massive claw. I simply ducked down and ran to the other side. It followed me, moving quick for how it’s posture was. It was just fortunate I worked in an all-night store that sold plenty of, useful, items. I lured it around as I grabbed a lighter and some hairspray. I launched a stream of fire that seemed to make it scream. It leaked more of its puss and the blisters on it exploded. I thought I had done at least something. Nope, just made it angry and faster. I thought quick and ran to the battery aisle. I had to act fast; I could barely outrun it. Adrenaline made sure I was at least a step ahead. Grabbed some batteries, alcohol, and oil. As I ran I poured a mixture of oil and alcohol on the slick floor. To be fair, I did get a chuckle as it slipped. Despite my brief amusement, the adrenaline was still kicking, and I ran into the storeroom and set down the batteries and covered them in oil and alcohol. The thing barged in, as expected. I let it chase me for a second as I figured out how to keep it in there. I shot more of my little flamethrower buying me enough time to run, knock over some pallets to trap it in there and set the fuse. I ran the hell out of the store as I heard the explosion.
That’s when the police arrived. They stared at me; I was definitely bloody. Didn’t realize the thing had gotten a swipe on my arm. Soon the firefighters where there to put out the flames. Then they started questioning me. I heard one of the cops over the radio go “WHAT THE HELL?” and run inside. Out came a pail faced cop. They had certainly seen at least the remains of the thing. That’s when the featureless black sedan pulled up. Know those Men in Black sightings? Exactly like that. I kept my mouth shut, said I had no idea what they were talking about. I just saw a small fire and got out. When they asked about my manager and why he called, I responded that I had no idea why he called. He just ran out of the store shortly before they arrived. One of the men in the black suits asked about a woman that came in that night. I told them I didn’t remember any specifics. They left it at that.
“It was an animal that got in there.” Was the report. It had somehow managed to start a small electrical fire that caused a small explosion. The store was shut down for a while. No charges where pressed against me. It was obviously something someone didn’t want the knowledge of getting out. I would say it bothered me deeply, but there were so many element that didn’t add up. Especially the interaction between the police and what I could only assume where Men in Black. Yet, that event somehow just gave me… life. Like there is more to this universe and reality then we know. It might be dangerous, but not stoppable. Perhaps there’s useful information that could benefit humans and help with this late stage capitalist nightmare. Or there are real things out there haunting or even hunting people that can be understood, and if need be, stopped. My own musings aside, I decided after the store was re-opened to take my vacation time. I figured if there was any sign for a change for me, that was it. I would get back into studying the paranormal while I searched for a new job while on vacation, which was also my last two weeks there. Perhaps I could find out what it was. I’m not sure those Men in Black guys would appreciate my snooping and maybe I would be forced into another encounter, but only time will tell. In the meantime, I’m thinking of what to do next. Thought about serving again, perhaps a chance to try to move my way into bartending in the right place. Would have to start off somewhere else. Maybe do retail a little longer. I don’t know.
I just thought I would share this story. Just know, if you do face off against what seems to be an eldritch horror, chances are, you can find a way to destroy it. Besides, there’s enough of us whose sanity has been destroyed already where whatever people who have wrote about these things think, that mental illness can certainly account for something. Even if it’s helping you save the last fragments of your sanity against that which would break the minds of others.