Sneaver's Texaco

(Content Warning: Language)

Sneaver's Texaco

Benny Appington shifted nervously on the battered stool behind the counter at Sneaver’s Texaco, just off Exit 17 on Highway 68. Outside, a good, summer thunderboomer raged. Inside, Benny’s gut felt like a twisted ball of lead rope. He could feel the sweat forming in each of his armpits. He could also—as his butt adjusted position ever so slightly—feel the duct taped seat grabbing at the ass of his dirty Levi 501s. He looked down at his uniform shirt and picked at a piece of lint and a few stray cat hairs adorning the black fabric as his boss’s voice echoed in his head.

           “First night shift alone, bub. Don’t fuck it up.”

           No one, Benny thought, could ever accuse Ed Sneaver of being an eloquent man.

           Don’t fuck it up, bub. Don’t fuck it up.

           “And keep folks out of the men’s room, hear?”

           So far, so good, Benny thought. He hadn’t fucked it up yet and no one had gone anywhere near the men’s room.

           Of course, he was only fifteen minutes into an eight-hour shift…

           Don’t fuck it up, Benny.

           Don’t…

           On the counter, to Benny’s front, the lottery placemats were clean and squared to each other, the only blemish on either was a short streak of blue ballpoint ink on the one reminding patrons that the Mega-Millions jackpot was now set at just over three-hundred-million smackeroos.

           To Benny’s rear, the tobacco shelves were all in order. Neat rows of Skoal in every flavor were topped by even neater rows of Marlboros, Camels, Virginia Slims, Kools, Lucky Strikes, and Newports. Everything but American Spirit. Sneaver’s was sold out on that score and Benny had been careful to note the fact on the clipboard to his left.

           To his right, just in front of the register, rows of cardboard displays held every flavor of Five-Hour Energy imaginable. Grape and Mixed Berry and Pink Lemonade. Even Peach Mango in a little orange and yellow bottle.

           Across from Benny, the shelves of snacks and drink cabinets were all fully stocked and perfectly arranged. Doritos in line with Doritos. Lays right there with Lays. Cheetos with Cheetos. And Little Debbie cakes hanging out with everything else Little Debbie cooked up in her massive industrial ovens.

           The trash bins outside were empty. The fuel tanks were full. The lights were all working and the little black buckets of window washing fluid had been topped off.

           Benny was satisfied.

           Benny was confident.

           He was not going to fuck this up.

           Because he needed the damned job.

           Working graveyard shift for old Ed Sneaver at his Texaco wasn’t exactly what Benny would call a dream job. Wasn’t even on the radar when he’d been in high school.

           It was, simply, all he could get.

           Life comes at you fast, he thought. One minute, you’re the starting point guard on a state championship team and the next thing you know, you’ve got a record, a wife, and a baby on the way.

           Fuckin’ Bobby Nichols and his goddamned meth, Benny thought.

           A pound of the shit. A whole goddamned Ziploc bag full. Hadn’t even known it was in the car. At first, anyway.

           They’d just been out cruising Broad one Friday night, graduation a month away and Benny had missed a stop sign. The same stop sign he’d seen maybe a thousand times in his life. The one outside the little toy shop that sold all the weird, handmade shit. Tellier’s.

           Missed the stop sign.

           The cop had flashed his lights and blooped his little siren.

           Benny had started to pull over.

           And then Bobby Fuckin’ Nichols had happened.

           The stupid bastard had popped the door and tried to run.

           He’d made it exactly eleven feet.

           That’s how far it had been from Benny’s car to the light pole Bobby had clipped with his head at full speed.

           It could have been worse, Benny thought. Much worse.

           He’d only gotten a year for that incident. Because he’d had alcohol on his breath and because his prints were on the goddamned gallon bag of little purple rocks. Bobby had pulled a hefty fifteen-year sentence, but only after he’d finally slipped up and admitted to being the cook.

           Life comes at you fast.

           He’d knocked up some girl at a house party the same night he’d gotten out of prison. They’d both been drunk. She’d been high. And he’d bought the line about birth control.

           Shoulda wrapped that shit up, you dumbass.

           Well, he thought, at least the kid was kinda cute.

           The electronic bell at the door chimed and Benny snapped out of his daze.

           His first customer on his first lone night shift.

           Don’t fuck this up.

           “Evening, sir, how can…”

           The man was soaked. He was also shuffling from foot to foot in a dance Benny knew well.

           “Got a head?”

           Benny pointed to the rear of the store. The gesture was automatic. He did it without thinking. The man took off, racing for the toilets. Benny went back to scanning the store, visually checking to make certain everything was neat and orderly and…

           He spotted a pack of Twinkies on the floor and headed that way to pick them up. Along the way, he passed the tall, rotating rack of road maps no one ever bought in this age of Google and Apple and Waze and saw, to his horror, that the maps were all mixed up. Delaware was in with Maryland. Pennsylvania was everywhere, and the maps for Ohio were tucked in with the maps for Virginia.

           Benny took care of the Twinkies first and went to work rearranging the stacks of eight-dollar maps, wondering how he could have missed that detail. He was still working on the maps—he’d found three for North Dakota tucked away behind the Pennsylvania booklets—when the door chimed again. Benny turned, looked, and saw a small family enter, shake some rainwater off onto the doormats, and head straight for the coffee and soda bar near the back of the store. Benny greeted the man, his wife, and the two kids. The man waved back. Benny went back to rearranging the maps, stopping only to ring up two large coffees and two small Sprites for the family and wish them on their way.

           On his way back to the maps, Benny peeked down the aisle at the soda and coffee bar and saw just a bit of a mess there. Some soda cup lids on the floor and straw wrappers with them. Plus, something that looked like a spill.

           Better take care of that first, Benny thought. Don’t fuck this up.

           Benny abandoned the maps for the moment and headed for the soda bar.

           “Shit.”

           There was a puddle. Cola of some sort. Half on the Cintas-marked, rubber-backed brown mat and half on the tiled floor. Benny headed for the cleaning gear closet and paused when the door chimed again. He looked back to the front of the store, saw two men at the counter, and went that way.

           “How can I help you, tonight?”

           The bedraggled men looked over Benny’s head for a moment, pointed.

           The smaller of the two men spoke. The larger of the two men asked about the men’s room and headed for the back of the store, following Benny’s extended arm.

           “Two packs of Camels. Blue. A pack of Marlboro Reds.” A pause. “And a tin of wintergreen Skoal.”

           Benny looked at the man, decided that the white hair in the grizzled beard made him much older than twenty-five, but asked for ID anyway.

           Don’t fuck this up.

           Better safe than sorry.

           “You kidding?” the man chuckled and reached for his wallet. “I ain’t been carded in thirty years.”

           Benny smiled sheepishly, looked at the ID, and worked hard to do the math.

           “I’m sixty-seven, son.”

           “Yes, sir,” Benny said. “Sorry, sir. It’s my first night on shift alone and…”

           The man took his ID back and shook his head, smiling. “Don’t wanna fuck it up?”

           Benny shook his head. “No, sir. I need this job.” He rang up the cigarettes and the dip.

           “Don’t we all?” the man laughed good-naturedly. “Don’t we all.”

           Benny grinned, offered the total, and the man paid with a well-loved Visa. He headed back outside and Benny watched him. Then, Benny remembered the spilled soda and headed back to clean the mess up. He’d just hauled out the mop bucket and a pair of those tall, yellow signs warning customers that the floor was wet when the door chime went off again. Benny looked, saw a couple standing near the front of the store who looked like they might still be in high school. They were, he was dismayed to see, eyeing the vape products.

           Uh oh, Benny thought. He headed back to the counter. On his way there, the door chimed again and a wet man in a wrinkled suit and tie entered the store. The new arrival asked if there was a restroom. Benny gestured to the back of the store, and took his place behind the counter. He looked at the two individuals in front of him and decided that it was possible neither one had a license yet. Maybe not even permits.

           “Can I help you?” he asked.

           “Need a Mango and a Fruit Medley Juul,” the boy said, his longish hair hanging wet and lank along the sides of his thin face.

           “Sorry, sir,” Benny said, “Can I see your ID?”

           The girl, Benny saw, looked nervous. The boy didn’t even blink. He reached into his pocket and whipped out his wallet. And he did produce an ID. A Maryland learner’s permit, Benny saw. With the black and white photo and the weird, Maryland flag background.

           And—Benny had to stop himself from smiling—a birthdate that had been fixed with what looked like White Out and a Sharpie. Gotta give the kid points for trying, Benny thought. He handed the ID back.

           “Sorry, sir, can’t sell you a Juul,” Benny said, adding, “or any other tobacco products.”

           Before the kid could respond, the door chimed again and three men entered, all in rain-spattered suits and ties. They split up. One asked about a restroom. Benny pointed absentmindedly, heard Ed Sneaver’s voice in his head telling him to keep folks out of the men’s room, and started to say something about that. The teenage kid interrupted him.

           “Garbage, dude. Fuckin’ skibidi.”

           Fucking what? Benny thought. He shrugged. “Sorry, sir. You’re under twenty-one.”

           The girl, Benny saw, was turning red under her dripping locks. The boy, however…

           “Fake news, bruh. Fake fuckin’ news. ID says I’m twenty-two.”

           Benny smiled as the door chime went off, saw a group of teens enter and two of the suited men leave. “Your doctored ID says you’re nineteen, sir. Says you were born in 2006. It’s 2025. You’d need to have changed it to 2004 to be twenty-one.”

           The girl jabbed an elbow into the boy’s ribs. “Told you.”

           The boy flapped a hand at Benny. “Fuck you, Einstein. Fuckin’ sus bitch.” He turned to the girl. “Let’s dip.”

           “Bet,” she said.

           They moved to the door. Benny watched them leave, and saw four more people enter the store.

           He looked around, saw people in nearly every aisle. And at the soda and coffee bar.

Shit, he thought. Gotta get that spill cleaned up. And there are probably puddles by the door.

He started to move, and was stopped by a pair of boys approaching the counter with armfuls of chips and candy. Benny rang up the twenty bucks’ worth of snacks, processed the payment, and watched them leave. While he was at it, two more people came in, both men, and asked where the restroom was. Benny pointed to the back, Ed Sneaver’s admonition completely forgotten.

Benny spent most of his first three hours that night racing back and forth from mess to register. Cleaning this. Adding that. Restocking the other thing. Mopping and marking. It wasn’t until nearly two in the morning when business finally slowed to a trickle and, by three, business had stopped. Benny spent a good, uninterrupted hour cleaning the store and had just taken his seat when a man came in the door, said something about it raining cats and dogs, and asked if there was a restroom he could use.

Benny pointed him to the rear of the store and, finally remembering Ed Sneaver’s instructions, asked the man to use the one normally reserved for the ladies.

The man thanked Benny, moved off, and Benny went back to his work. He picked up the clipboard of instructions and ran a finger down the list. Item number nine caught his eye.

“Spend some time reviewing security footage,” he read aloud.

Benny shrugged, put the clipboard back in place, and turned his attention to the little television under the counter. He reviewed the controls, found the rewind button, and held it down until the clock neared ten the previous evening.

Benny hit the play button.

The man who’d just used the ladies’ room approached the counter, thanked him, and left the store. Outside, lightning flashed and thunder boomed and Benny briefly thought about Mark Wahlberg and Ted and the Thunderbuddy song.

He giggled to himself, hummed the tune, and looked around. The store was empty. Benny turned his eyes back to the television screen.

He watched as people started coming in, their bodies depicted in grainy color and moving in jerky, awkward movements because the video was advancing at three times speed. Benny saw the first customer enter the store, watched as the exaggerated pee-pee dance played out on the ten-inch screen, and saw the man head to the rear of the store. He continued watching. Saw people come in and saw people leave.

And…

“That can’t be right,” Benny muttered.

He rewound the tape again and pressed play. He watched the pee-pee dance man enter, ask for directions, and head…

To the men’s room.

Benny started to swear, to curse himself for having, after every admonition otherwise, fucked this up.

But the swear word didn’t come.

Because his eyes saw something incredible on the screen.

He watched as the sixty-seven-year-old man and his buddy entered the store. Saw the larger of the two men ask about the bathroom and head back and enter the men’s room.

“The pee-pee dance man never left,” Benny breathed.

He rewound the tape and pressed play again.

The pee-pee dance man went into the men’s room. Then the large man went in.

Benny kept watching.

The man in the wrinkled suit and tie entered the store, gestured, passed behind the teens with the doctored ID, and disappeared into the men’s room.

“But…” Benny protested to the screen.

The three suited men entered. Two browsed, didn’t find anything, and left. The third…

“Right into the men’s room,” Benny said.

But no one left the men’s room, his mind began raging. People are going in, but…

Another group entered the grainy view of the camera and Benny saw himself gesture toward the men’s room. He saw a man knock on the door, open it, and enter.

But he never left, Benny’s mind said.

He rewound the tape again and began keeping count, trying not to blink because he didn’t want to miss anything.

Nine.

Nine men.

Nine guys had entered the men’s room and hadn’t left.

Weird. Benny thought.

Kinda wild.

What the hell were nine dudes doing in that little bathroom?

Benny rose from behind the counter and walked to the restroom door. He paused, listening, could hear nothing at all.

He lifted his hand to knock and, right before his knuckles made contact, something deep inside him screamed that this was a bad idea. A horrible idea.

Run, Benny. Fuckin’ run, you stupid sonofabitch.

But Benny didn’t run.

He couldn’t.

He needed this job.

And he’d fucked it up.

So, he needed to do some serious unfucking.

Benny knocked.

No answer.

He knocked again.

No answer.

He grabbed the doorknob, twisted, and pulled the door open.

Inside, he found…

Nothing.

Benny giggled at himself and stepped into the bathroom. Saw the toilet and the trash can, both fresh and clean and in good order. He smelled the heavy dose of Pine-Sol Mr. Sneaver usually used for cleaning.

Thunder crashed outside.

The door shut gently behind Benny.

The lights clicked off. Benny spun, grabbed at the door, tried to pull, remembered that the door opened out and gave it a shove.

It didn’t move. He shoved again. He kicked. He screamed.

He froze.

Laughter, his mind reported. Deep, hideous laughter. Booming and slow and cruel.

Don’t turn around, Benny. Don’t fucking turn.

He couldn’t help it.

He turned.

He raised his eyes from the floor, to the sink, to the mirror.

The creature in the mirror smiled. It lunged, it’s huge, scaled arms reaching. It’s razor-sharp claws groping.

Benny screeched.