Night Shift

My name is Tristran, and I work the night shift in a gas station. Have been for over a year. Sure, it’s a far cry from what my English teacher mother had envisioned for me when she named me after one of King Arthur’s knights, but really it’s not a terrible gig. It pays thirty bucks an hour and there’s plenty of time to read, at least. And my new coworker, Megan, well, she’s a sweet girl, though you wouldn’t guess it to look at her.

She’s one of those goth girls. Apparently has been ever since her mother died in a plane crash last year. Yeah, I can see how that would hit you pretty hard, and everyone deals with their grief a bit differently.

Her brother had gotten her the job. Guess he knows our manager somehow, and she wanted something where people wouldn’t be too upset that she wasn’t very cheerful. So Jerry had left her with me, so I could show her the ropes before she started working solo shifts.

You might be wondering if that’s really such a good idea, putting a sweet nineteen year old girl to work overnight in a gas station all by herself. You might be thinking about the crazies, the junkies, and the pervo-creeps that she might fall victim to. Well, worry not, friend. Our gas station has never had a problem with those.

Vampires, werewolves and the occasional spider the size of a pit bull, yes, those we occasionally deal with. But we’ve never been robbed. Normal criminals have long since learned to leave us alone. The store doesn’t like it when normal humans mess with its staff. It ends violently.

But don’t worry too much. We have a list of rules that help keep us safe. As long as we follow them, the job is no more dangerous than any other night job at a gas station, and for the ladies, probably even safer than that. Or, at least, it’s no more dangerous for them than it is for us men. You can be a five foot nothing woman or a giant of a man built like a linebacker… if you break the rules and find yourself in front of the slavering maw of an angry werewolf, you’re dog food.

What are the rules, you ask? Well, let’s dive right into them.

·        Rule 1: At the beginning of your shift on the night of the full moon, make sure all the air fresheners have fresh cartridges. If you are out of cartridges, call Jerry and tell him. He will likely tell you to go home for the night. You will be paid for your full shift.

·        Rule 2: If you open the door to the stockroom and notice spiderwebs, close the door within three seconds and hold it tight for a count of “forty two Mississippi”. Once you’ve counted that long, it is safe to open the door.

·        Rule 3: If the soda fountain begins leaking, immediately lock yourself in Jerry’s office and hide. Underneath his desk is a bag of clumping kitty litter. If you were too slow and the soda demon spotted you, it will soon start oozing in underneath his door. Dump the bag of kitty litter on the ever growing puddle. If you weren’t spotted, wait in the office for ten minutes before leaving the office. If you fail to wait long enough, someone will clean up your drowned corpse in the morning.

·        Rule 4: If someone comes in with the intention to rob you, wait for the soda fountains to begin gushing full force. This usually distracts the robber. Run to the office, lock yourself in and ready the kitty litter. It WILL come for you after it deals with the intruder. Call Jerry and he’ll send someone to clean up the body.

·        Rule 5: If a man dressed like a police officer enters the store, you must at all costs pretend he doesn’t exist. He will try to get you to acknowledge him. If you do, he will handcuff you and drag you into his car. You will never be seen again. He will leave after three minutes of being ignored.

·        Rule 6: At precisely 3AM, change the sign by the door to CLOSED. Leave it like that for exactly 15 minutes. If someone walks into the building during that time, help them as normal. If someone comes to the door and looks at the sign but stares expectantly, ignore them. They can only enter if invited. The sign serves as an invitation. If they get in, you’re the only thing on the menu they’re interested in.

·        Rule 7: Between 2AM and 4AM, if the phone rings, answer it within three rings. If the person on the other end is someone you know other than Jerry, hang up immediately. If it’s someone you don’t know, they will ask for directions to the store. Read them the directions written next to the phone. Yes, those directions will have them drive straight off a blind cliff for a fifty foot drop. If you give them any other directions, they will arrive at the store. You do not want that.

·        Rule 8: If during a Rule 7 phone call, you begin hearing circus music on the other end of the line, drop the phone but do not hang it up, and immediately run to your car. If you can make it out of the parking lot within ninety seconds, you will live. Go to the diner just off the next highway exit. They’ll know what to do and will call Jerry for you. Have a milkshake on us. You will be paid for your full shift.

·        Rule 9: Your shift is over at 7AM. After midnight comes, do not leave the store until your shift ends excepting under the circumstances of Rule 8. There are things waiting to get you, but they’ll flee as well if the Clown is coming.

I know, those are a little corny, right? But each and every one of them is important. I can’t tell you how close I’ve been to dying because I edged a little too close to breaking a rule. But it’s close. Far, far too close.

Closest was that time I was eating a chimichanga and had to go into the stockroom for something. And there were the spider webs. Well, as I said, you don’t have to be too strong to work here. I’m about six foot, and I weigh in a little under two hundred pounds – definitely not all muscle – so holding the door is usually pretty easy. Well, my fingers were greasy and the door slipped from my grasp for just a moment.

Did you know those little hairs on a tarantula’s leg are irritants? Well, I do now. Thankfully, I was able to slam the door on its leg, snapping it off and getting the door closed. But that sent those little hairs everywhere. Guess I’m allergic. Thankfully, it wasn’t so bad an allergic reaction that I needed to go to the hospital. A double dose of diphenhydramine and I was more or less okay, though it wasn’t a pleasant night.

So I take the rules seriously. Trust me, you only need to see the soda monster once before you’d do the same.

Megan had looked skeptical when I gave her the rules. “You’re pulling my leg,” she’d said, a bemused smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Did Jacob put you up to this?”

I shook my head. “I swear to you, it’s all true.”

“Right. So we have to use air fresheners on a full moon to do what exactly? Ward off werewolves?”

I nodded. “It’s apparently a mixture of wolfsbane and the urine of an alpha werewolf. It keeps them at bay.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “Right. Well, even if I believed that there were werewolves out there, I certainly don’t think we’re simultaneously hunted by and protected by a soda demon.”

I shrugged. “You don’t have to believe it. Just make sure you hide in the office if you see the fountain start spurting soda.”

“You just want to get me into the office with you,” she’d said almost flirtatiously.

“The store wouldn’t like that,” I said seriously. “If I want to make a move on you, it’ll have to be outside of work.” I winked at the last part, causing her to roll her eyes again.

Most of the night was pretty easy. We did get one of the mysterious phone calls. But those are easy. I gave him the directions as I had a thousand times before and we were good to go. So most of the night was normal night clerk work. We helped customers, restocked, mopped floors. All that good stuff.

Around 2:50, I decided I needed to take a leak. “I’ll be right back,” I told Megan. “But if I take a little long, make sure you turn the sign around at three.”

“Yes, yes,” she’d said. “I’ll be fine.”

I went into the restroom and had just started to piss when I felt a rumbling in my stomach. “Guess those nachos earlier were a bad idea,” I said to myself. I dropped trousers and had a seat to deal with my newest issue.

I got back out into the store at about five after. There was a customer browsing the chip aisle and Megan was behind the counter. I walked over to her. “See, the store survived while you were gone,” she said.

“You did good,” I said. “You even turned the…oh shit.” The sign. It hadn’t been turned around.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Slowly and deliberately make your way to the office,” I said quietly, warily eyeing the customer.

“Tristan, you’re scaring me.”

“Go now!” I whispered the order.

We made it two steps before that thing pretending to be a customer leapt over the counter at Megan. I pushed her out of the way, into the stockroom, which was a bit closer than the office, then shut the door.

I struggled against the creature, but it was so much stronger than I was. It pinned me to the floor, and I could see its bald head and pointed ears framed by the fluorescent lights overhead just before it sunk its teeth into my neck.

Now look, I’ve done this job for a while. I’ve seen grown men collapse into sobbing fits of terror as the soda demon came for them. And I’m fairly jaded. I knew I’d screwed up. And I knew it was all over. That’s just how it works. You break the rules, you die.

But sometimes things will surprise you.

Turns out, Megan has ice in her veins. While in the stockroom, she’d used leverage to snap the mop’s handle. Then she flung open the door and charged, letting out a cry that would have made TV’s Warrior Princess proud.

The makeshift wooden stake slid into the vampire’s chest with a sickening squelch. It let me go, and I opened my eyes to see our goth heroine delivering a kick to the thing’s head with her combat boots.

It slammed into a display of zesty ranch dip and collapsed to the floor, where it turned to ash. “The sign,” I breathed.

She quickly ran to the door and turned the sign around. Just in time, too, since another of those things was just outside and walking towards the door. Once that was done, she returned to me. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

I shook my head. “Unless we get the call with the circus music, we can’t. We’ll just wait until morning.”

“But you could die.”

“I’ve been bitten by a vampire. It’s only a matter of time before I turn. I’ll hang on as long as I can, but if I start to turn before sunrise, use the stake on me.”

“What happens at sunrise?”

“Once our shift’s over, I’ll walk out into the sun. That’ll take care of the problem.”

“It’s all my fault,” she said, beginning to cry. “I should have listened about the sign.”

“There, there,” I said. “There’s no time for crying. You need to keep your focus. You still have to make it through the night.”

We talked for a bit, and the only other problem that came up was when the police officer showed up. But she did an admirable job completely ignoring all the things he was saying. Even when he tried to blame her for my state.

I could see the sun peeking over the mountain, and I knew that it was almost seven. “Well, you made it through your first night,” I said.

“I don’t think I can do this anymore,” she said.

“Don’t be silly,” I replied. “There’s gonna be overtime available while they look for a replacement for me. You have any idea how big of a paycheck that’ll be?”

She laughed at my skewed priorities. “Jerk,” she said.

“Why’s that?”

“Making me fall for you and then dying.”

“Well, I’m proof that not only the good die young, then. Come on, help me to the time clock. I need to clock out before I can leave. Then we can go outside.”

We hesitated at the door. “I guess this is it,” I said. “It was nice getting to know you.”

She held back her tears. “Yeah. Thanks for saving my life.”

We opened the door and prepared to go outside, but were stopped by a voice. “Why the long face, my boy?”

“Jerry?” I asked.

“In the flesh.”

“I messed up and got bitten by one of the vampires. I’m going to let myself burn to a crisp before I become a danger to others.”

Jerry blinked, then laughed. “I don’t see how this is so funny!” Megan shouted, rage filling her voice. That only caused Jerry to laugh harder.

His laughter turned into wheezing and then into coughing. “You’re not turning into a vampire, my boy. That’s strigoi. You were bitten by a nosferatu. They can’t turn humans with a bite.”

“What?”

“Even better, their saliva is antiseptic. Aside from a bit of blood loss, you’re going to be just fine.”

“Oh.” It was all I could say. Megan began crying in relief and hugged me. I hugged her back. She felt so tiny in my arms.

“I’m gonna go check on the air freshener stocks,” Jerry said. “Tonight’s the full moon. Also, looks like you two forgot to make coffee for the morning rush. I’ll go get that ready too.”

We stood there for a moment, hugging as he left us. I was the one to finally break the silence. “Well, I guess you won’t be getting that overtime after all,” I said. She looked up at me and laughed after getting over her shock at my comment. I reached up and wiped away her tear. “Maybe I could buy you breakfast as a consolation?”

She nodded. “Breakfast sounds great. Is that diner up the road any good?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. Never had anything but their milkshakes. But today seems like a good day to try something new. Shall we?”

She took my hand and led me outside into the sun’s first rays. As they hit me, they wrapped me in the same warmth and comfort I felt inside, and I couldn’t help but smile.