Hello. My name is Leonard and I work in a strange store on the outskirts of my town where weird things happen.
For reasons that do not need to be explained, I will not give you the name of the store, or the of the town, or anything like that. I just don’t want to get into trouble.
I’m twenty years old and I’ve worked here since I was eighteen.
I’ll give you a little context: the owner of this store is Mrs. “B” (we’ll call her that to respect her privacy) but she basically has four employees working in this store: Kyle and Lily (they work from eight in the morning until eight at night) and Emily and I (from eight at night until eight in the morning) since Mrs. B is too old and tired to attend and take care of the store. By the way, yes, the store is open 24/7.
In case you’re wondering what the store is like, it’s like any other store you’ve seen, although a little bigger: Refrigerators with drinks, dairy products and meats, drawers with vegetables and fruits, shelves with all kinds of preserves. food, sweets, junk food, bags of bread, cigarettes and many more things. That is, we have everything… Almost always.
The store is on a road, on the outskirts of, apparently, a small, quiet town in the south of my country. Many travelers also visit us, who come to buy things for their trips. So, if you were traveling in the south of a European country in an area of large forests and you came across a town and its store and bought something there, possibly we met.
The night shifts are usually quiet and boring, so I bring my laptop or just my cell phone, and I start watching stupid things on the internet, I read a book, I talk to Emily about anything, or else, we take care of maintaining the store, yes there is something to do.
Within the town do we have a good and bad reputation? Or something like that. Good because we are the only reliable store in this disgusting and bad town, because of everything screwed up that happens here.
I’ll tell you a story:
One night a month ago, I was alone in the store because Emily missed work because she was sick.
Around eleven, a boy came to the store. He was dressed in a black suit and a hat of the same color, he looked about forty years old, his skin was incredibly white, long brown hair, light eyes, and a strange scar on his forehead, like a short line with two points. at each end. Additionally, he had a silver watch with Roman numerals on his left wrist. I don’t know, but the guy looked like he was from another era, like the sixties or something.
“Good night, good man.” He told me very politely.
“Offer you something, sir?” I asked the same way.
“Um, yeah. What year is it?”
“Well, 2024, right?” I responded, confused.
Then the boy turned even whiter and looked very surprised and scared.
“R-really?” He asked, stuttering.
“Yes because?”.
He then proceeded to tell me his story:
He (who, by the way, is called Robert) had gone out for a walk in the woods in the afternoon, got lost (something he explains is very strange since he knows the woods very well) until he came to a clearing and found a small old house. single-story brick building that appeared to be abandoned.
He also approached and knocked on the door to see if there was anyone who could help him return to the town but there was no response.
Curious, he tried to open the door and succeeded, entered and toured the house.
Robert says the house was abandoned, very dirty, with faded paint and some blood stains. He had no furniture, but he found a note on a piece of paper that said “I WAS HERE” in large letters and appeared to be written in blood.
Robert, confused and restless, decided to leave. I had a bad feeling.
It was then that he went out into the forest and noticed that, out of nowhere, it was night when he had left around two in the afternoon and he had only walked for an hour and his stay in that strange house had been less than ten. minutes.
Luckily, he had a large, powerful flashlight in his backpack.
He walked for half an hour along what he believes was the road to town while he had the feeling that someone was chasing him.
He constantly looked back to see if someone was really chasing him until, on one of those occasions, he saw something terrifying.
It was a giant skeleton, about four meters tall, with a large rusty machete in its right hand. Additionally, the figure was is covered in fire.
Robert began to scream and run but the skeleton was very fast and caught up to him and stabbed him violently with the machete while the creature laughed.
Robert… He woke up safe and sound, he remembered all that as a dream but realized that it wasn’t really like that. There was a bloody and rusty machete next to him.
Confused, he stood up and continued walking. He had a terrible pain in his head and that’s how he got to the town and the store. He asked me what year it was because everything felt very different, the town didn’t look like it did back then, and our store didn’t even exist. He says that all this happened to him in 1964, that is, sixty years ago…
The story is weird and I almost didn’t believe it, but it had a very convincing tone so meh, I believed it.
He wanted me to help him in some way, but how does he want me to help him? With a time machine to return to his time or something? As if that existed.
Then, Robert, resigned but thanking me, left the store. I gave him a bottle of water and some crackers.
And it is these types of stories that happen and are told around here.
I will continue with my posts, but I tell you that that same night at two in the morning, a skeleton visited the atore…