Alright, im not even sure how I should start this but here we go. I work at a twenty-four hour gas station, honestly im not even sure why we’re open all the time, the gas station sits right off a hardly busy road. The only average visitors are truckers, locals in need of milk at midnight for some fucking reason, and people visiting that lose their way or have car troubles. I know, I know, I shouldn’t be the one complaining about some poor bastard who has to ask for help in a creepy gas station - but after a while it just becomes troublesome. Somehow everyone loses their way on that road, and somehow they always seem to run out of gas just in time to darken my doorstep.
If you haven’t guessed by now, I work the night shift. Which means I get to deal with all of the creatures that go bump in the night. When I first started working, strange things only happened every now and then. Someone would walk in completely drenched from head to toe, but talking and acting like nothing was wrong. The first few times I pointed it out, even asked them if they needed help or a place to warm up, but that was a mistake. They would just stare blankly at me, almost like a character on a TV show when the camera leaves the room. After making eye contact with me, they would continue as if nothing happened - like I never said anything. Eventually I realized that its pointless to try and address any strangeness that occurs at night in the small building, it became more of an inconvenience then anything. I’d ask them what was going on, they’d stare at me lifelessly, then we’d continue on.
After a few weeks I got really good at not caring what the fuck came into the station, honestly it was more shocking when someone acting perfectly normal came in. The longer I spent working there, the less said people occurred. Suddenly my nights were filled with stranger and stranger people.. Someone doused in kerosene coming in to buy a pack of marlboro lites, a person missing half their arm whose blood miraculously disappeared upon their leaving. Hell, sometimes the things that entered didn’t even seem human, they look perfectly normal, but with small imperfections. Almost as though they were piecing together how to look human but couldn’t get it quite right; thumbs facing the wrong way, the whites of their eyes a greenish hue instead of white, too many or far too few teeth (same thing with fingers). Despite their unnerving and uncanny appearance, they behaved just like the others, acting as though everything was the most average thing in the world.
It was just longer after that when things started to take a toll on me.. Suddenly the things or people if you could call them that, seemed violent. Not towards me of course, weirdly enough it seemed like nothing that entered ever even disliked me, they actually seemed to be friendly. It was when the more human-ish ones started coming covered in blood, buying only a pack of gum and leaving, that I became nervous. At some points I couldn’t even recognise if they were a human or something else, and that scared me more than anything. Recently the things visiting the shop have hardly even been human looking. Creatures with no faces will enter and just stare at the drinks, then leave without a word. Shadows void of any features will stop by and wait for another customer to enter before following them out. Sometimes I could swear I saw honest to god ghosts - or ghouls - or whatever the hell you want to call them. Disfigured and thin monsters would scamper in on all fours, just patiently sitting at the register until I offered them something even as small as a stick of gum.
The worst of it was last night, and its shaken me so much that im considering calling in sick for the rest of the week. After my usual cycle of various creatures making their rounds, something changed. Everything seemed dimmer, colder, the air was thick with the smell of rain and wind. Then, It, entered. So tall it almost had to crouch inside the building, shadowy and ashen, it spoke to me unlike all the others. It was real. It wasn’t pretending everything is normal, it knew me, and it knew I knew it. I was considering fleeing, this presence wasn’t as common to me and I felt completely out of control of whatever was happening.
It must have noticed because it opened its mouth, inky black tar in the shape of teeth dripping down, “There is lots to come, but you will be safe. Worry not about what happens outside. We care for you.” As it started to leave, crouching down to fit through the door, its raspy voice echoed back, “Count the crows, open your doors to us, but do not follow us out of them.”
What the fuck do I do? Ever since that night I’ve been having such vivid nightmares, when I fall asleep im suddenly back at work, yet I wake up in my bed. Everywhere I go I see crows, am I just noticing them more now? Are they hurting people? Do I have a moral obligation to step in? Could I just sit back while these creatures terrorize others, while I just sit in the safety of the gas station? Do I go back to work? I’ve never even met the owners.. I have no one to ask or talk to about this