A few of years ago I worked at a small Italian restaurant as a bus boy. It was busy, thankless, and paid like shit, but it was work. I wasn’t going to take that for granted, I had gotten laid off during the recession so I took what I could get. Anyway, I spent my breaks in the alley way back behind the restaurant so I could smoke in peace. Normally the only company I kept out there were some bugs flying around the light just off to the right of the door and maybe a rat or two. If I was lucky an alley cat would slink by and I could kick an empty can or discarded bottle at it. The little things amuse you when your life consists of washing dishes and clearing tables.
This one night, I’m out there smoking a cigarette and this wino comes staggering my direction from the far end of the alley. The guy reeked so bad I could smell him thirty feet away. He got within yelling distance and mumbled something incoherent. I dropped my cigarette and stomped it out and told the guy I didn’t have any money to give him and turned to open the door. Just before I went back to work I looked at him and sternly warned him to stay the hell out of dumpster. I wasn’t nice about it and maybe I should have been, you know? But, I wasn’t.
Finally, my shift comes to an end and I’m going to take the couple bags of garbage out. I open the back door, set the two bags down, light up another cigarette and head over to the dumpster. I had just managed to open the lid when I heard a moan. I leaned over to my left and I could see a pair of crusty looking shoes. I shook my head and tossed both bags in before slamming the lid down. I went around the front to see the homeless guy was sitting there propped up against the wall of the restaurant. I looked him over and asked if he was getting into our garbage. The guy muttered and mumbled while dismissively waving his hand. I think he was telling me ‘no’ but for all I know this guy could have been trying to explain how those guys back in ancient Egypt made the pyramids. I was ready to leave when I decided to ask if the guy wanted a smoke. He looked up at me and I could tell he wanted one. I pulled out a cigarette and gave it to him. He put it in his mouth and gestured his hands for me to come in and light it for him. I took out my lighter and, holding my breath, leaned in and lit it up. He took a drag and mumbled his way through a thank you and then I told him he shouldn’t sleep in this alley. There was a shelter a few blocks away and I told him he needed to go there because they’d have a bed for him. He said something I didn’t understand and I waved him a goodnight and turned to go around to the street where my car was.
As I was walking past the steps to the door, I heard something back down the alley fall over. I stopped and turned around thinking it was another homeless guy or a cat or raccoon or something had knocked over a garbage can. It was poorly lit so I didn’t really see anything. I waited a second before flicking my cigarette and going about my business. I was almost out of sight when I swore I heard a growl or something. I glanced over my shoulder but by now I was far too tired to really care.
I went home, took a shower, had a beer and watched some TV and then went to bed. I arrived at work to start my shift and my boss, Angelo, started yelling at me about how when he showed up there was trash all over the alley by the dumpster. I cursed under my breath. Of course the homeless guy was going to go rummaging through the dumpster when I was gone. Why wouldn’t he? I told him there’d been a homeless guy the night before and that I’d told him to go to the shelter after explicitly telling him to stay away from our trash. Angelo went off on some tirade about the homeless and I just sort of tuned him out and got ready for the dinner crowd. When break time came, I went back to my usual spot near the door to have a cigarette. There was still a bunch of garbage all over and I could only shake my head. I was just about done with break when I heard a shuffling noise just around the corner near where the dumpster was.
Maybe my friend was back for more? I started walking that way and when I got in front of the dumpster I could see the alley was empty save the tiny silhouette of a rat darting across the open space near the far end. I looked around at the mess the homeless guy left when I saw something out of place. About ten feet or so from the dumpster was a crusty looking shoe. After a long, thoughtful drag on my cig I decided to investigate a little. I walked over to the shoe and prodded it with my foot. It had been on its side but I managed to nudge it enough that it flopped over onto the sole. The thing was absolutely rancid and covered in caked on filth. I looked around again to see if maybe the guy was curled up in a dark corner somewhere but he was nowhere to be found. I began walking back and wondering if the guy was so messed up he just lost a shoe and didn’t notice when I saw something else. Just off to the side of the dumpster was a half-used cigarette. Looking at it drew my eyes to the side of the dumpster. I couldn’t see well as it was dark green and the lighting was shit back there. But there was something darker smattered on the side. I moved in for a closer look. I didn’t dare touch it; God only knows what nasty diseases I could contract from the mystery substance to say nothing of the dumpster in general. While I was looking this over, I heard the door fly open and Angelo call out to me. I stood up and asked him to come take a look at whatever it was.
He came over angrily and when I pointed the dark splatter out he just shrugged it off and told me to get back inside and clear tables. I didn’t think a whole lot about it during the rest of my shift. That kind of busy work tends to just push all complex thought out of your mind while you’re doing it. At last closing time was upon us and I was doing the last bit of nightly clean up. Like usual, Angelo told me to take out the last bit of garbage before I went home and this time he told me to make sure there weren’t any dumpster diving homeless people waiting to rifle through it when we were gone.
That night it was one bag so I grabbed it and made my way to the back door like I normally did. I opened the door, set the bag down, lit up a cigarette, and away I went. As I closed the lid, having deposited my bag into the dark abyss of the dumpster’s insides, I mindlessly flicked the ash off my cigarette and let out a sigh. I happened to look to my right and noticed something. The shoe was gone. Had Drunky come back for his shoe? Putting my cigarette back into my mouth, I went over to where it was. Just like before there wasn’t any sign of this guy anywhere in the alley so I shrugged and decided I’d done enough for the night. I was just starting to pivot on my heel to leave when I heard a shuffling from behind me.
I glanced back but I didn’t see anything. But there had definitely been something there. I called out a ‘hello’ but got no answer. There’s a little loading dock back there where we get supplies dropped off. It sounded like it came from over that way. There wasn’t a lot of light there because the dock lights were mostly burnt out and the one that was working had a covering so encrusted with dirt and grime it wasn’t much more powerful than an old lantern. I slowly made my way over to the docking area and squinted to see if I could make anything out. I really couldn’t, though. I decided to take out my phone and use the flashlight on it. I slowly shone the light over the dark spaces of the loading dock. Nothing—not a single sign of anyone or anything. Whatever, I didn’t want to waste anymore time. I had just moved my thumb to close the app when I heard a low growl. My thumb froze and I slowly brought the phone up. I scanned the area once again and once again I saw nothing. Against my better judgment, I started moving further down the alley.
Finally, I came to a spot where there was a storm drain. I immediately noticed two things: the grating was ajar and the homeless guy’s shoe was sticking out of it. I looked around quickly to see if anyone was around and then I walked toward it. At first I just shined my light down the drain to see if I could catch a glimpse of anything. Was the homeless guy sleeping in the sewer? That would explain why he smelled so bad. But, I couldn’t see crap. I don’t know why but I reached down to pull the shoe out. Just as my fingers reached it, there was a weird hiss and something shot out from the drain and grabbed my arm.
I screamed and dropped my phone; my cigarette fell out of my mouth and bounced down my shirt as I pulled against whatever this was. When I looked to see what was clamped onto me, I saw what appeared be an arm. The arm was pale and kind of scaly. The grip was so strong it felt like my arm was going to be crushed. In desperation I clawed at it but no avail. Finally, I got up and stomped on the drain grating several times until the thing let out a yelp and loosed its hold on me a bit. It was enough for me to rip free but the thing’s claws cut my arm pretty bad. I ran for my life back into the restaurant yelling and screaming out of my mind. My boss and his wife were still there as well as one of the waitresses.
Angelo saw me and started yelling about how I was bleeding on is floor. There was a lot of confused shouting as they were trying to figure out what was going on. His wife ushered me to the sink to start tending to my injuries while Angelo continued to badger me about why I was bleeding all over his kitchen. I told him something grabbed me from the storm drain. I wheezed out about the homeless guy and his shoe and how I found it over there after I heard some noises. Angelo looked at me like I had grown a second head. The waitress didn’t say or do anything, she just watched in silence. I know what I was telling them didn’t make any sense. At least Angelo’s wife was kind enough to pretend to hear what I was saying.
After things had calmed slightly, Angelo grabbed a flashlight and went to investigate the storm drain himself. He came back a few minutes later with my phone. He handed it to me and said the drain was covered and no scaly arm lunged out at him. He laughed a bit at the thought and then told me I probably had run afoul of a cat or something. This ignored the fact that the cuts on my arm were too big to be a cat. His wife bandaged me up the best she could and then they sent me home. I had the next day off and went in to get my arm looked at and got some stitches. Upon my return to work, I discovered my late night encounter had become something of a joke among the staff. People would make wisecracks about unknown creatures or ask me to tell the story to them with huge shit-eating grins. Occasionally, someone would wait around the corner and lunge out at me or try to grab me. That stopped when I freaked out and hit one of the other bus boys with a tray in the face which fortunately Angelo never found out about.
The fact that I wouldn’t go near the back alley also seemed to amuse my coworkers to no end. I’d been ribbed and endlessly ridiculed about it for three or four months. All the while, I was having legit issues stemming from what happened. I started having trouble sleeping and began to drink more. I got really jumpy and sudden loud noises sent me into panic mode. I got more irritable with people, which at a job with a short-tempered, middle-aged, Italian man running the show could get…interesting.
I know the changes weren’t unnoticed but no one at work bothered to say anything about it. Even after the jokes had largely ceased, I wasn’t any better. I flatly refused to out back even a full year later. It didn’t matter that other employees had gone back there and not had anything strange happen to them. It didn’t matter that Angelo put up a camera back there after we got broken into and it never captured any footage of something crawling out of the drain. I just wouldn’t do it. Angelo thought I was being a baby but he eventually gave up trying to get me to go out there. I think deep down he knew something had to have happened. Even if he didn’t believe in sewer monsters, something messed me up and he knew it.
In late 2019, Angelo had a massive heart attack and died. His son, Jackie, tried to run the place but he wasn’t any good at it. The restaurant limped into 2020 just in time for the pandemic to deal it the death blow. We had been barely hanging on as it was since Angelo died and the lockdowns ended the whole thing. I wasn’t sad to have to find work elsewhere, truth-be-told. I got a different job and tried to move on with my life the best I could. I didn’t bring up what happened that night to anyone but my sister. I know she didn’t believe me, either. But she at least tried to pretend to be supportive because clearly I was dealing with some big problems.
I had a nightmare about it a few months ago and she suggested I go back and face my fear. I was…colorful in describing what I thought of that idea but the over the course of a couple of weeks I decided maybe I should do it. I went during the day. The restaurant was still closed up, no one had bought it yet and likely no one will. I walked down the asphalt toward that drain. I’d be lying if I said didn’t need some liquid encouragement before going through with it. When my feet finally came to rest at the edge of the grating I just stopped and stared into the darkness. There wasn’t any noise; there was no homeless guy’s shoe. There was just me and the drain.
I stomped on the grating a few times. Nothing…just nothing…I started to feel stupid about the whole thing. I lit up a cigarette and looked over the alleyway. When I was done with it; I looked down at the drain and scoffed and flipped the darkness off. I dropped the cigarette down between the space in the grating and I watched the cherry bounce off something half way down–something that hissed. My nuts flew up into my throat and my ass cheeks clinched together so tight that they could have crushed a lump of coal into a diamond.
I bolted back toward my car and never looked back. Later I called my sister and I told her I’d gone the alley and that there wasn’t anything there. She sounded so relieved that I had been able to conquer my fear. I put on a pretty good show, I guess. After that I purposely started talking to her less so she wouldn’t see that I’m still messed up—functioning but still messed up. I know she’s suspicious that I’m still dealing with this and has brought up therapy a couple of times since I went back to the alley. But I don’t want to see a therapist. All they’re gonna do is tell me I’m obsessing about some childhood BS and give me a prescription for pills to make me all funny in the head. I can get the same results from a bottle of whiskey for helluva a lot less fuss and money.
I don’t know what the hell that thing was in the drain. I don’t want to know. It’s real, that much I do know and I have good reason to believe it killed that homeless guy and it attacked me. I have the scars on my arm to prove it. That tells me all I need to know about it. I’m still skittish around storm drains even when I’m out of town. Sometimes I catch myself being paranoid to a ridiculous degree. Like the shower drain or the toilet; absurd stuff like that. It had a hold of me for maybe fifteen to twenty seconds but it’s lived rent free in my mind ever since and it’s ruined me mentally and emotionally. So if you’re ever passing by a storm drain and you hear growling or hissing or something goes bump in the night, do yourself a favor and keep walking and don’t stop to investigate. It’s not worth it.