The Last Night Shift

CW: Violence

It didn’t pay much, but it was the perfect job for a night owl. And Larry was a night owl. Before he became a security officer, Larry used to work as a cashier. He never liked that title because it suggested that he stood behind a register all day. Besides that, he organized the shelves, returned items to their rightful aisles, helped customers develop photos, worked truck nights and sometimes acted as an unofficial loss prevention personnel. When Larry got a job offer for a position that paid slightly more for fewer tasks, he took it in a heartbeat. He submitted the two-week’s notice so quick, the paper was still warm and crisp when he handed it to his manager. He didn’t even bother finishing the two weeks. You can’t terminate someone who is resigning.

The first thing Larry didn’t like about his new job was his company’s franchise operations manager, Sid. Sid had jet black hair with a jet black mustache— both of which looked like they were applied with shoe polish. He looked like Mario— if Sid was taller and skinny, he’d have been Luigi— but he sounded like early 90’s high-pitched Jay Leno.

“Remember,” Sid said to the new officers during orientation. “Think COPS: Communication, opportunity, professionalism, and servitude, uh I mean service.”

A co-worker told Larry that at one time, servitude was part of the company’s slogan, but it was changed to service once someone defined the word servitude to the bosses.

“Remember COPS and you’ll remember our core values.”

It wasn’t Sid’s physical appearance that bothered Larry. At least not as much as the way he did his job. His first day on the job Sid had assigned Larry to be the night watchman at an apartment building in Fenway. Larry liked the Fenway neighborhood despite the rats. When he brought his papers to the receptionist, she took one look at them and bolted to Sid’s office. Apparently, the position was already filled. So, Sid brought Larry back in and found him another position. An overnight shift in an office building at the Seaport. It wasn’t like Larry had his heart set on the apartment building in Fenway. But the fact that the operations manager almost assigned him to a position that had been filled might make most employees reconsider employment. Larry would tell his co-workers that he found it ironic that communication was the first part of the company’s slogan and yet no one knew how to communicate.

It was something Larry was willing to overlook. One week with the company and he could honestly say that he enjoyed his new job more than his last one. The only other things he didn’t like were the roaming supervisors constantly asking him to cover shifts at other sites. That and some of his colleagues proved to be just as or more incompetent than Sid. One officer on the afternoon shift didn’t keep a log of his activities, another didn’t use military time in his logs, and one didn’t even bother waiting for Larry to show up before leaving. All this was better than being yelled at by a customer for not using an expired coupon while simultaneously being yelled at by a supervisor for using said expired coupon.

The best part was that Larry only needed four hours of sleep. He gets home by 8:30 to 9 AM, he puts on his sleep mask and earplugs and goes straight to sleep. Another thing that he liked about his new job was that he had a fixed schedule— not including requests from roaming supes. At his old job, Larry had to work crazy hours. One week’s schedule could consist of three morning shifts, and two truck night shifts. Another week, only one or two evening shits.

Larry began his shift the same way he always did. He checked the previous officer’s log— or lack thereof— he drank some French Vanilla coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts and powered up his personal laptop. Another thing Larry found likeable about his new job was that he could bring his laptop to work and work on his writing during his downtime, which he had plenty of. The fact that it was a night shift made it all the better. There was little to no foot traffic or phone calls, except for the roaming supes. But they only call to check in on the officers and not every supervisor calls.

The lobby, to Larry, seemed to be almost entirely made of dark rough marble except for the parts where there was mahogany wood panels and plants. Then there was the entrance with the glass wall rising sixteen feet above it. Looking out, you could see some of the high risers across from the parking lot between Northern Ave and Seaport Blvd. The big empty lobby was quiet for the time being and Larry relished every minute of it.

Larry was working on a short story about monsters. He liked the set-up he had so far. His protagonist, a cashier gets off work and has to make his way home. The assistant manager who works with him got a ride from his girlfriend, leaving the cashier to walk through the city at night. The idea was that the cashier would come across scary street people like junkies but then eventually he’d notice that they start to take abnormal shapes when a fog set in. The trick was that the thicker the fog got, the scarier the abnormalities would get.

Something caught Larry’s eye when he took a cursory glance at the computer monitor at the front desk. The screen was open to a series of CCTV camera feeds and the one inside the loading dock showed the gate going up. This was strange because he knew there was no reason for that gate to be opening this late. The construction crew that works on the 5^th floor does not come in until 7 AM. Larry quickly searched for the feed from the camera fixed outside the loading dock. Once he found it, he brought the cursor of the mouse over the feed to make sure he was looking at the right footage. A white box popped up and for the location it said: NORTH Loading Dock— which was funny, considering that there wasn’t a south loading dock.

At first, Larry thought that the feed was delayed. But the time stamp on the exterior feed was the same on the interior feed. It didn’t make sense. Maybe it was a bug in the system or an error in the program. None the less, Larry had to check it out. Larry sighed, saved his word document, picked up a walkie-talkie and made his way to the loading dock. The walkie-talkie was for show. They were meant for the morning and afternoon shifts which assigned two officers per shift. For overnight, they only had Larry.

Once he got to the loading dock, Larry was confused by what he was looking at. There were three men in the loading dock and a truck. Larry’s newfound confusion wasn’t because of their presence at an odd hour. It was the way they were dressed. One man was in a black suit with grey pinstripes, a white shirt with a red silk tie with a gold tie-pin. His shoes shined with a sheen almost identical to Sid’s hair. He was also wearing a black fedora with a red band around it. Another man was wearing a brown cardigan sweater with a white shirt, chino pants and brown shoes. The third man was stepping out of the truck. He wore black cowboy boots, blue jeans and a black biker’s jacket. His hat was a black flat cap. He also wore black sunglasses, despite the lack of sunlight.

To Larry they looked like 1950’s comic book criminals. Even the truck looked as outdated as the clothing.

“Hey,” said Fedora. “What you want?”

Larry cleared his throat and said, “I’m the night watchman. And you guys are trespassing.”

The three men exchanged glances with one another before looking back to Larry.

“So, what’re you going to do about it, Larry?”

“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

The three men exchanged glances with each other again.

“Or else what?” asked Cardigan.

“Or else I’m going to call the cops.”

“Wait,” said Sunglasses. “You mean to tell us, you ain’t going to shoot us?”

Larry was sweating now.

“No,” he managed to get out in a dry rasp.

“No?” asked Fedora.

“No,” Larry repeated.

“Do you even have a gun?”

Larry didn’t know what to do. Eventually he shook his head.

“You’re a night watchman and you don’t have a gun?”

“They didn’t give me one.”

The three men exchanged glances again. This time when they looked back at Larry, they had sinister grins on their faces.

Sunglasses said, “Then they must want you dead.”

When the three men reached inside their jackets, Larry did a one-eighty and ran back down the hallway. Maybe he was hasty or maybe he was distracted by the echoing laughter of the odd men, but Larry took a wrong turn and ended up running in the direction opposite the lobby. Though, he quickly remembered that there was a stairwell not far from the loading dock. It was one of two stairwells in the building.

Larry was used to doing vertical tours in both stairwells. Sometimes he would zigzag through the floors just so he could walk through the empty offices and check out the views of the harbor and the downtown skyline. Larry got out of the stairwell at the fifth floor. It was about that same time the laughter stopped. Larry noticed that there had been no gunshots fired and that the men did not give chase. All they did was laugh and that laughter followed him until he reached the 5^th floor.

Larry looked around his surroundings and remembered that the 5^th floor was unfinished and unoccupied by the two companies who presently served as the only clients on the property— a consulting firm and an equity management firm. Some of the panels from the ceilings were taken down and ladders were placed under the openings. There were dirty extension cords, either orange or yellow that ran throughout the floor. Larry looked out the big floor-to-ceiling windows and noticed that it was pitch black outside.

It wasn’t a power outage— the lights inside the building were still on— and it wasn’t fog— no matter how thick it was, the lights from the building across the street would be glowing through it. Larry couldn’t tell what kind of substance the darkness was made of. Then he thought that the windows could have been covered, but he just as soon as dismissed the thought. It wouldn’t make sense to cover all the windows. He also would’ve noticed it on the building on his way over.

Larry then remembered he had a radio in his hand. It was a long shot, but he was out of options. He pressed the button on the radio and spoke into it.

“Mayday, mayday,” he said. “This is security officer Randal requesting assistance at 100 Water Lane. Please respond.”

Larry waited before repeating the distress call again. Then he waited before switching to another channel and repeating the distress call to anyone listening. When he switched over to channel 7 a voice came on.

“Hello?” it said.

“Hello?” Larry said, his voice filled with desperation and relief.

“We’re gonna get you Larry,” the voice said, as a chill ran down Larry’s spine. “We’re gonna get you.”

“Why,” Larry said into the radio, his voice filled with distraught.

“Because Larry. If we don’t get you, then you’ll get us.”

“Look, I didn’t see anything. I didn’t see no truck, or no three guys. Okay? The cameras aren’t even working right. I’ll leave all of this out of my report.”

“Nice try Larry,” he chuckled.

The floor Larry was on was littered with tools belonging to the construction crew that came in during the day. Larry took off his jacket and placed it behind a folding chair. He picked up a hammer off a worktable. The yellow and black nail gun sitting next to it caught his eye. Larry carefully put the hammer through one of the belt loops on his pants. Then he picked up the nail gun, which was lighter than he thought it would be.

Larry ran over to the elevator bay. He wasn’t sure where to go when he pressed the down button. The coils, gears and wires whirred behind the closed doors as Larry thought about how the three men got their hands on a radio. The charging station was in a room marked “Security” that could only be accessed with a key. The only key Larry had on him was the access card that allowed him access to parts of the building. All the slate keys were kept in a secured box and labeled for their functions. The lock could be accessed by a separate key and Larry had left that key at the front desk. The box could also be easily tampered with.

When the elevator doors opened Larry was caught off guard by the man in the Fedora. He quickly raised the nail gun. But when he tried to squeeze the trigger, nothing happened. Larry realized that the safety was still on. Fedora grinned and chuckled as Larry switched the safety off. Then he squeezed the trigger until Fedora stopped moving. When Larry stopped shooting, he noticed that he shot Fedora’s hat off and a grouping of nails were sticking out of his face— he managed to get one of his eyes as well.

The grin returned and the man chucked and said, “Is that the best you got?”

Larry slid the hammer out of his belt loop and swung it at the man’s face— if he was even a man. Larry was starting to think otherwise. He swung it again and again, the face becoming a bloody pulp. The body took a backstep before collapsing under its weight in the corner of the elevator car. Larry looked at the deformed face one more time before sending the elevator to the garage level. The thing was still chuckling on the way down. But this time it sounded outlandish, almost like an animal not of this earth.

The elevator door behind Larry dinged as he quickly turned to see Cardigan. Without thinking, he swung the claw end of the hammer. It connected with Cardigan’s neck. Cardigan fell in his elevator car and let out a guttural, rasping chuckling that sounded worse than Fedora’s. The hammer remained in Cardigan’s neck. Larry didn’t even bother sending the elevator down. He just ran.

Larry took another set of stairs up a few more floors. This time he was on a finished floor belonging to the consulting firm. Unlike the 5^th floor, there was less light on the 11^th, but enough for him to see. Larry thought about tripping the alarm in the accounting firm’s offices. He remembered the site supervisor telling him about the alarm system and how if he didn’t enter the code in under a minute that the alarm company would notify the police.

Larry heard the elevator doors ding down the hall and a voice say, “We’re gonna get you Larry!”

Larry ran in the opposite direction and turned a corner. He found a fire extinguisher and an axe mounted on the wall. The lock on the glass covering the axe wasn’t secure. Larry easily removed it.

“Give it up, Larry,” a voice said. “The alarm’s been disabled.”

Larry leaned against the wall and waited. His heartbeat was so loud behind his chest, he thought he could hear it. He held the fire axe in a two-handed grip and waited as the footsteps approached him. When they were just around corner, Larry came out of cover and swung the axe. He managed to chop off Sunglasses’ arm which happened to be holding a gun.

But Sunglasses didn’t scream or panic or even cry. He looked at the stump left on his arm in a manner not unlike the T-1000 from Terminator 2 and said, “Now look what you did?” As if losing an arm was as inconvenient as losing his key.

Larry swung the axe at him again and managed to bring it down on the bridge of his nose, splitting his head and the sunglasses. Sunglasses fell to his knees and chuckled like an idiot. This man’s head was split in two, the axe seemingly keeping it in one piece. And yet, the chuckling continued as blood trickled down his face.

Larry ran up the stairs to the roof. It was a mistake to do so. There, he was met by the three men who shouldn’t be breathing let alone walking. Fedora spat out nails and held them between his fingers. Sunglasses pulled the axe out of his head, exposing the wound. Cardigan pulled the hammer out of his throat as blood spurt from his neck.

Larry had to make a choice. Perish at the hands of the monsters before him or take a 14-story drop to his doom. He chose the latter. Larry felt the endless blackness consume his body and mind.

Then he woke up at his desk. He checked the time on his computer. It was 6 AM and he had an hour left on his shift. He noticed that he fell asleep on the true crime book he was reading when he wasn’t writing or working. The chapter he was reading was about three would-be hoods who tried to rob a warehouse in the 1950’s but were gunned down by an observant night watchman. Coincidently, the place where the shootout happened was called Warf Drive. They later changed the name to Water Lane when they wanted to make it touristy.

“That’s it,” said Larry. “I quit.”