Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
The greyhound bus wheezed to a stop in what the
driver generously called cold Water Junction, Alaska, but looked more
like the place hope goes to die. Through the cracked window,
I counted exactly eleven buildings, half of them boarded up,
scattered along a highway that stretched into darkness in both directions.
(00:26):
End of the line, pal the driver called back, not
bothering to hide his relief. I'd been the only passenger
for the last three hundred miles, and my withdrawal shakes
probably made me poor company. I shouldered my duffel bag,
everything I owned fit in one military surplus sack, and
stepped into air so cold it felt like breathing glass shards.
(00:48):
The bus pulled away before I'd even reached the sidewalk,
tail lights disappearing into the November darkness like dying embers.
My breath came in white puffs as I stood there,
counting the wrinkled bills in my wallet, eight hundred dollars,
the last of what I'd gotten for pawning everything that
mattered back in Seattle. It had to last until I
(01:08):
found work, and in a town this size, work meant begging.
The only lit building was a diner with a flickering
neon sign that read Betty's in pink cursive. Through frosted windows,
I could see a handful of locals hunched over coffee
cups like they were warming their souls. A bell chimed
as I pushed through the door, and every head turned
(01:29):
to study the stranger. In small towns, newcomers were either
running from something or towards something, and neither option inspired trust.
You look half frozen, hun, the waitress said, leading me
to a corner booth without being asked. Her name tag
read Betty, and she had the kind of weathered face
that suggested she'd been serving coffee in this exact spot
(01:52):
for decades. Coffee, please, my voice came out rougher than intended.
And maybe some food whatever's cheap. She poured coffee from
a pot that looked older than me, studying my face
with the practiced eye of some one who'd seen plenty
of people at their lowest point. You picked a hell
of a place for a fresh start, hun, Betty said,
(02:15):
refilling my coffee without being asked. Most folks are trying
to leave cold water junction, not move here. The coffee
was bitter enough to strip paint, but it was hot
and caffeinated, which made it perfect. I wrapped my hands
around the mug, letting the warmth seep into my fingers.
The withdrawal was manageable, now more like a persistent ache
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than the bone deep agony of the first few days.
But the cold made everything worse. We used to get
a lot more truckers through here. The old timer at
the corner booth muttered. He wore a hunting cap with
ear flaps and had the hollow look of some one
who'd seen too many winters. Course that was before the lean,
years before they started vanishing between here and Fairbanks. Betty
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shot him a warning look book, but he continued anyway.
State troopers say it's the weather, the isolation. Easy to
get lost out there, freeze to death before anyone finds you.
But truckers know these roads better than their own driveways,
been driving them for decades. Hush Earle, Betty said firmly,
but there was something in her tone that suggested she
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didn't entirely disagree. No need to spook the newcomer with
your stories. I stirred sugar into my coffee, grateful for
the warmth spreading through my chest. The diner smelled like bacon,
grease and decades of cigarette smoke, comforting in its familiarity.
Every truck stopped diner in America smelled exactly the same.
(03:42):
I'm looking for work, I said, anything available. Betty and
Earle exchanged a look. I couldn't read what kind of
work you done? Before? She asked, refilling my cup without
being asked. The honest answer was construction, until the pills
made my hands too shake to hold tools safely. The
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practical answer was simpler, whatever pays. Most places around here
want references, background checks, Earle said, tapping his coffee cup
with arthritic fingers. You got any of that? I shook
my head. References would lead back to Seattle, back to
questions I wasn't ready to answer. Background Checks would reveal
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a pattern of absences, missed shifts, and that final incident
with the stolen prescription pad that sent me running north.
Betty studied my face with the kind of understanding that
comes from seeing too many broken people pass through small
town diners. There might be something. Missus Patterson runs the
boarding house on Elm Street. She'd know better than anyone
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who's hiring. She keeps her ear to the ground about
these things. An hour later, I stood on Missus Patterson's
porch with my duffel bag and what remained of my pride.
She was a small woman with steel gray hair and
eyes that missed nothing, the kind of person who'd survived
Alaska winters by being smarter than the cold. You look
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like you're running from something, she said, without preamble, holding
the screen door open. But then most folks who end
up in Cold Water Junction are running from something. Question
is whether you're running towards something better or just running.
The boarding house smelled like pine cleaner and old wood,
comforting in its cleanliness. She showed me a room on
the second floor that was clean but sparse, single bed
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dresser window facing the alley behind the hardware store. The
radiator clanked when she turned it on, but heat began
flowing immediately. You can rent by the week, she said,
testing the lock on the window. Sixty dollars heats included,
but don't go crazy with it. Fuel oil's expensive up here.
I counted out three twenties, leaving me with seven hundred
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and change. About work, there's one place still hiring, missus
Patterson said, pausing at the door. Her expression grew troubled,
like she was debating whether to say more night shift
at midnight Express. It's the gas station on Route three,
about two miles out of town. She studied my face carefully.
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But honey, that job's got a reputation. They can't seem
to keep anyone. What kind of reputation. She was quiet
for a long moment, choosing her words carefully. Frank Morrison's
a good man, runs a clean business. But that place.
People go to work there and then they don't. Sometimes
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they quit without notice. Sometimes they just disappear. Last fellow
worked there, maybe three weeks before he stopped showing up.
They found his car in the parking lot, keys still
in the ignition, but no sign of him. The way
she said, it made my skin crawl, but I needed work.
Maybe he just moved on. People do that, maybe, she said,
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but didn't sound convinced. You seem like a decent enough
young man. Just U. If you do go out there,
be careful, and if something doesn't feel right, trust that feeling.
Two days of failed job searches later, I understood what
she meant about limited options. The lumber mill wanted two
years of experience and union membership. The hardware store needed
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someone who could pass a drug test. I probably could now,
but couldn't risk it. Betty's Diner was family only hiring,
and the post office required a clean driving record. I
definitely didn't have that. Left midnight Express. The gas station
sat alone where Route three bent toward the mountains, an
island of fluorescent light in an ocean of darkness, two pumps,
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a convenience store, and what looked like a garage bay
that hadn't been used in years, the kind of place
truckers stopped at three a m. When they needed coffee
and didn't care if it tasted like motor oil. A
bell chimed as I pushed through the door, and immediately
I was hit by the smell of stale coffee and
something else, something organic and unpleasant that I couldn't identify.
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The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everything in harsh white
light that made the shadows seem deeper. By contrast, Frank
Morrison was waiting behind the counter like he'd been expecting me.
He had the build of someone who'd done hard physical
labor for decades, shoulders broad as a door frame, and
hands scarred from working with tools. His gray beard was
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neatly trimmed, but his eyes held the wariness of a
man who'd seen too much. You the one Missus Patterson
called about, he asked, looking me up and down with
the practiced eye of someone who'd hired a lot of
desperate people. Sam right, Yes, sir, ever work nights before
some I'd worked plenty of night shifts in Seattle, usually
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because I was too high to function during the day.
But that wasn't something to me in a job interview.
Frank nodded toward the back office. Let's talk. The office
was cramped and cluttered, papers stacked on every surface, and
a calendar on the wall showing a mountain landscape that
probably looked nothing like the view outside. Frank settled behind
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his desk and gestured for me to sit in a
chair that had seen better decades. Night shift here is different,
he said, pulling out a folder thick with paperwork. Lot
of responsibility. You're alone most of the time. Got to
handle whatever comes through that door between ten pm and
six am. Some of it's normal, truckers, travelers, locals buying cigarettes.
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Some of it, he paused, choosing his words carefully. Some
of it requires following specific procedures. Procedures rules, he said,
seven of them non negotiable. Marcus will explain them to
you if you take the job. But I need to
know right now. Are you the kind of person who
(10:01):
follows rules even when they don't make sense. I thought
about the twelve steps about sponsors and meetings, and all
the rules I'd broken on my way to rock bottom.
I've learned the hard way that rules usually exist for
good reasons. Frank studied me for a long moment, drumming
his fingers on the desk. Rules aren't suggestions, son their
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survival instructions written in other people's blood. Something in his
tone made my skin crawl. But I needed this job.
The few hundred dollars in my wallet wouldn't last long,
especially with winter coming, I understand. Before I could ask
more questions, the office door opened and two men walked in.
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The first was all sharp edges and nervous energy, mid thirties,
with dark hair and eyes that held the kind of
hypervigilance I recognized from looking in mirrors during my worst days.
The second was younger, maybe early twenties, with the kind
of cocky confidence that usually meant trouble this the new guy,
the older one asked, not bothering with pleasantries, sam I said,
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standing to shake his hand. His grip was firm but cold.
Marcus Hendrix, I've been working nights here longer than anyone
stupid enough to stick around. He studied my face with
unsettling intensity. You look like you're running from something. Good
means you might actually listen when I tell you to
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follow the goddamn rules, Marcus. Frank warned, but the younger
man laughed. Don't scare him off before he even starts,
the kid said, extending his hand with a grin. That
was all teeth. Danny reeves been here about six months,
which makes me practically a veteran by this place's standards.
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Marcus turned to Danny with an expression that could have
curdled milk. Six months and you still think this is
all a joke. Rules are just old timer superstitions, Danny said, shrugging.
This place isn't haunted. It's just creepy because it's old
and isolated. All that weird stuff you and Frank worry about,
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there's rational explanations for everything. The temperature in the room
seemed to drop ten degrees Marcus stepped closer to Danny,
and I could see the younger man's confidence waver slightly.
Rational explanations, Marcus repeated slowly, Like how the last guy
who thought he knew better than the rules ended up
scattered across three counties. My mouth went dry. Scattered Marcus,
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Frank said sharply, but Marcus shook his head. No, Frank,
he deserves to know what he's signing up for. The
rules aren't suggestions or superstitions or some elaborate prank. They're
the only thing standing between you and something that sees
human beings as happy meals. Danny rolled his eyes. See
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what I mean? Forty years of isolation and ghost stories,
and now everything that goes bump in the night is
some supernatural monster. People disappear because they get tired of
this place and move on without giving notice, or they
get drunk and wander off the highway in a blizzard.
Not everything needs a paranormal explanation. Tell that to Jimmy
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Core's guard, Marcus said, quietly. Worked here three years ago,
smart kid, college graduate, full of rational explanations, just like you.
Found his remains two miles into the woods, picked clean
and arranged in patterns that don't occur in nature. The
argument was interrupted by Frank clearing his throat loudly enough
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both of you. He turned to me. The job pays
fifteen an hour cash, forty hours guaranteed, sometimes more if
you want over time. No tax is taken out, no
paperwork beyond what we're doing right now. Fifteen an hour
cash was more than I'd made legally in months. My
wallet held six hundred dollars, enough for maybe three weeks
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of rent and food if I was careful. Winter was coming,
and Missus Patterson had mentioned that the boarding house got
expensive when the heating bills started climbing. When do I
start tonight, Marcus said, I'll walk you through everything, show
you the ropes. Danny will be here too, though God
knows why he bothers showing up if he thinks it's
all nonsense. Because the pay is good and the work
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is easy, Danny said, even if I have to listen
to campfire stories all night. Marcus pulled out a laminated
index card and handed it to me. Memorize these. Your
life might depend on it. Seven rules were printed in
neat black text. Rule one, never serve customers who smell
like decay or raw meat. Rule two. If the security
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cameras stop working, lock the door and wait until dawn.
Rule three. Do not acknowledge cuss stomers who cast no
reflection in mirrors. Rule four. If a customer claims to
be from the old mining camp, deny its existence. Rule five.
Never go outside alone between two am and four am.
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Rule six. Do not eat any food offered by customers
with filed teeth. Rule seven. If asked to identify the
taste of meat, always answer beef. I read the list twice,
waiting for someone to tell me it was a joke.
When neither Marcus nor Frank smiled, I looked up. These
are serious, dead serious, Marcus said. Rule one alone has
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saved more lives than you'd believe. And before you ask why,
just know that the last guy who ignored this rule, well,
they found pieces of him scattered across three counties. Danny snorted,
you're going to give him nightmares before he even starts.
Look sam. These rules are mostly common dressed up in
spooky language. Don't serve obviously drunk or disturbed customers. Lock
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the door if you feel unsafe. Don't accept food from strangers.
Basic retail survival. Rule four mentions a mining camp, I said,
studying the card. What mining camp? The silence that followed
was so complete I could hear the fluorescent lights humming overhead.
Marcus and Frank exchanged a look that made my skin crawl.
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There is no mining camp, Frank said, Finally, that's the point.
If someone claims to be from one, you deny it exists.
But why would because Marcus interrupted, some things are better
left buried. Literally, Danny shook his head in exasperation. There
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was a mining operation up in the hills back in
the thirties. Cave in killed everybody and the place was abandoned.
Sometimes local kids claim they're going up there to explore.
Try to sound tough. Frank doesn't want liability issues if
they get hurt trespassing on dangerous property. The explanation sounded reasonable,
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but something in Marcus's expression suggested it wasn't the whole truth.
I studied the rules again, looking for some rational pattern.
Gas stations attracted strange people, especially at night. Maybe these
rules were just Frank's way of giving employees permission to
refuse service to dangerous customers, but the specificity bothered me.
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Filed teeth no reflection in mirrors. What kind of customers
were they expecting? Look, Marcus continued, his voice softer. Now,
I know it sounds crazy, but I've worked here eight years,
and I've seen things that would make you quit on
the spot and take the first bus back to wherever
you came from. Follow the rules exactly, no exceptions, no interpretations,
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no flexibility, and you'll go home every morning in one piece.
What happens if I don't, I asked. Marcus and Frank
exchanged another look. Danny jumped in before they could answer.
Then you'll have a completely normal night working at a
gas station in the middle of nowhere, because that's what
this place actually is, a gas station, not a portal
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to Hell or a feeding ground for monsters or whatever
these two have convinced themselves, Danny Marcus said quietly. You've
been lucky so far, but luck runs out, so does patience.
Danny shot back, I'm tired of tiptoeing around ghost stories
and pretending that perfectly normal customers are demons just because
they smell funny or act weird. This is Alaska in November.
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Everyone smells funny and acts weird. As I signed the
employment paperwork, my pen skipped on the last letter of
my name, leaving a small red dot on the white paper.
Cheap pen. Frank muttered, but in the dim light of
the back office, that dot looked disturbingly like blood. I
told myself it was just my imagination running wild after
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hearing about rules and scattered pieces and mining camps that
didn't exist. But as I walked back to missus Patterson's
boarding house through the November darkness, I couldn't shake the
feeling that I just signed something more binding than an
employment contract. The addiction recovery meetings always talked about higher
powers and surrendering control. Maybe this was what surrender looked like,
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not to something divine, but to something hungry that lived
in the spaces between civilization and wilderness. I'd traded one
kind of hunger for another, pills for isolation, needles for
frozen wilderness. But hunger was hunger, and it always demanded feeding.
The question was whether I'd be the one doing the
feeding or becoming the meal. My first week at Midnight
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Express passed like a fever dream, if fever dreams included
truckers who whispered about things that follow the highway and
customers who paid for gas with bills that felt too
cold to the touch. Marcus had me shadow him for
the first three nights, teaching me the routine through a
combination of practical demonstration and paranoid commentary that made my
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skin crawl. Danny worked the same shifts, and the contrast
between their approaches was like watching two different people work
in completely different realities. See that trucker, Marcus said during
my second night, nodding toward a bearded man in a
Peterbilt cap who was pumping diesel at the far pump.
Watch his breath when he talks. No fog means he's
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been driving too long in places that ain't on any map.
I squinted through the fluorescent lit darkness, trying to see
what Marcus was seeing. The temperature was well below freezing,
and my own breath came out in white puffs every
time I exhaled. But when the trucker came inside to pay,
I realized Marcus was right. No visible breath at all. Evening,
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the trucker said, his voice carrying a strange echo, like
he was talking from the bottom of a well. Forty
on pump two. His bill were crisp and new but
when I took them, they felt like they'd been stored
in a freezer. The serial numbers were faded to the
point of being illegible, and the paper itself had an
odd texture that made my fingers tingle. After he left,
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I turned to Marcus, What was that about? Some drivers
take roots that don't exist on official maps, Marcus said,
wiping down the counter with methodical precision places the state
doesn't maintain private roads through mining claims and logging operations
that were abandoned decades ago. They drive those routes long enough,
they start to change. Body temperature drops, circulation gets weird.
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Eventually they stop being entirely human. Danny, who'd been restocking
the cigarette display, snorted in derision. Or he had hypothermia
and was running the heat in his cab so high
he didn't need to breathe through his mouth. You guys
are paranoid. I've been working here six months, and nothing
weird has happened that a rational person couldn't explain. Marcus
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turned to look at Danny with the expression of someone
watching a child play with a loaded gun. Six months, kid,
I've been here eight years, and you know what I've learned?
The longer you work here, the more you realize how
much you don't want to understand. Understanding is what separates
us from superstition, Danny said, closing the cigarette case with
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more force than necessary. Every single supernatural event has a
logical explanation, if you're willing to look for it instead
of jumping straight to ghost stories. The training continued like
that for three nights, Marcus pointing out anomalies and warning
signs while Danny provided rational counter arguments for everything. By
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my fourth night, I was working solo for the first time,
armed with Marcus's paranoid wisdom and Danny's skeptical confidence, trying
to find some middle ground between terror and denial. That's
when I had my first real rule encounter. It was
just past midnight when she walked in, a woman in
her fifties wearing clothes that looked like they hadn't been
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washed in weeks. She moved with the deliberate slowness of
someone trying very hard to appear normal. But something about
her posture was wrong, like she was fighting against her
own body's instincts. Excuse me, she said, approaching the counter
with a smile that was too wide and showed too
many teeth. I'm looking for directions to the old mining
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camp up in the hills, the one that burned down
back in eighty five. My hand instinctively went to the
laminated rule card in my pocket, Rule four. If a
customer claims to be from the old mining camp, deny
its existence. I'm sorry, I said, keeping my voice steady.
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But there's no mining camp up there, never has been.
Her smile widened even further, stretching her face in ways
that human faces weren't meant to stretch. That mining camp,
you boys keep denying exists, she said, her voice dropping
to a whisper that somehow carried clearly across the store.
I can smell the smoke from here, thirty eight years
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and it's still burning. The temperature in the store seemed
to drop ten degrees. I could feel goose bumps rising
on my arms, and the fluorescent lights above us began
to flicker erratically. There's no mining camp, I repeated, gripping
the edge of the counter to keep my hands from shaking.
She stared at me for what felt like an eternity,
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her smile never wavering. Then, without another word, she turned
and walked out the door. The bell didn't chime. When
she left. I immediately called Marcus on the phone behind
the counter. He answered on the first ring, like he'd
been waiting for it. What happened, he asked, without preamble.
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I described the encounter, trying to keep my voice steady.
When I finished, there was a long silence on the
other end of the line. You did, good, kid, Marcus said. Finally,
some customers test the rules. See if you know what
you're dealing with, pass the test, they move on fail.
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I could hear him gesture at something on his end
of the line. Well, you've seen the missing person flyers
posted by the door. For the first time, I really
looked at those flyers. There were dozens of them, dating
back years, truckers, travelers, even a few locals. All of
them had disappeared somewhere along Route three between Cold Water
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Junction and Fairbanks. Marcus, I said, what exactly are we
dealing with here? Things that used to be people, he
said quietly, Things that remember being human but forgot how
to act like it. Things that get hungry for more
than food. The rest of that shift passed without incident,
but I found myself jumping at every sound, checking and
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rechecking the security cameras and watching every customer who came
through the door with new suspicion. Danny arrived for his
shift the next evening with his usual casual confidence, but
I noticed he kept glancing at the security monitor. Heard
you had an interesting night, he said, leaning against the counter.
Marcus told me about your mining camp. Lady, you think
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it was real, Danny shrugged. I think it was a
local crazy person trying to mess with the new guy.
We get those sometimes board teenagers, drunk hunters, people who've
heard the stories about this place and want to see
if they can scare the employees. But even as he
said it, I could see doubt creeping into his expression.
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Over the next few nights, I watched Danny's skepticism battle
against accumulating evidence that something genuinely wrong was happening at
midnight Express. It was during our third week working together
that we had the incident with the security cameras. A
customer came in around one am, average height, average build,
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wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his face. Nothing
unusual about him except for the smell that followed him in,
something organic and rotten that made my stomach turn rule
one never serve customers who smell like decay or raw meat. Sorry,
I said. When he approached the counter or closed for cleaning.
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He stared at me for a moment, his face hidden
in the shadow of his cap. Then he turned and
walked out without saying a word. Danny, who'd been watching
from the stock room, came over to the counter. What
was that about, We're not closed smell, I said, simply,
what smell? I turned to look at him, confused. You
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didn't smell that, like something dyed and rotted. Danny shook
his head. I didn't smell anything unusual. That's when I
noticed the security monitor. The time stamp sed one three am,
and I could see myself standing at the counter talking
to nobody. The customer didn't appear on the footage at all.
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The camera wasn't working, I said, pointing at the screen.
Danny leaned over to look, and I watched his face
go pale. That's impossible. The system was fine five minutes ago.
The next day, Marcus reviewed the footage and shook his
head grimly. Camera was working fine. That thing just doesn't
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cast the right kind of shadow to show up on digital.
Danny spent the next hour running diagnostics on the security system,
trying to find some technical explanation for the glitch. He
found nothing wrong with the equipment. Cameras sometimes malfunction, he said,
but his voice lacked its usual confidence. Digital systems aren't perfect.
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The breaking point came during our fourth week, on a
Tuesday night, when the temperature dropped to minus twenty and
something started scratching on the roof. It began just after
two as a rhythmic scraping, sound like fingernails on metal.
Danny was the first to notice it, looking up from
the inventory clipboard with a puzzled expression. You hear that,
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I nodded, feeling the familiar chill that had become my
body's early warning system for supernatural bullshit. Yeah. The scratching continued,
moving across the roof from east to west in a
deliberate pattern. Scrape, scrape, scrape, pawse, scrape, scrape, scrape, pause.
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It's just the wind, Danny said, but he was staring
at the ceiling with the kind of intensity that suggested
he didn't believe his own words. The scratching stopped for
a moment, then resumed with a different pattern. Three short scrapes,
three long ones, three short ones. Again. I'd learned Morse
code in boy scouts, back when I still thought scouting
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would teach me useful life skills. The pattern was unmistakable.
That's SOS, I said quietly. Danny looked at me like
I'd grown a second head. What the scratching? It's Morse
code SOS three short, three long, three short. When doesn't
scratch in Morse code? Kid? Came Marcus's voice from behind us.
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He'd derived for his shift early and had been listening
from the doorway. What's it saying, I asked. Marcus walked
over to stand beneath the scratching, tilting his head to listen.
His expression was grim, let me in same thing it's
been saying for eight years. Danny's clipboard clattered to the floor.
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That's impossible. You're telling me something is up there on
our roof, scratching messages, something that used to be human.
Marcus said, something that remembers enough to ask for help,
but not enough to understand that it can't be helped.
The scratching continued for another twenty minutes before finally stopping.
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Danny spent the rest of the shift pacing the store,
checking and rechecking the locks, peering out the windows into
the darkness beyond the fluorescent lights. There has to be
an explanation, he kept saying, animals, settling, metal, thermal expansion, something.
But I could see the doubt eating at him the
same way it had eaten at me during my first week.
(31:24):
The night shift was like being in recovery. You counted
hours instead of days, followed rules instead of steps, and
tried not to think about what happened if you slipped.
Marcus started opening up more during our shared shifts, revealing
glimpses of a past that explained his protective paranoia. My
boy used to work here summers, he told me one
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night while we were restocking the coolers. Real smart kid,
full scholarship to UAF studying engineering. Wanted to build bridges.
His voice grew quiet, started asking too many questions about
the rules. Wanted to understand the logic behind them, document
the incidents, maybe even write a paper about local folklore.
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What happened to him? Marcus was quiet for so long
I thought he wasn't going to answer. When he finally spoke,
his voice was barely above a whisper. He decided the
rules were just superstition. Started breaking them deliberately, trying to
prove they were meaningless. Marcus closed the cooler door with
deliberate care. They found his backpack two miles into the woods,
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empty except for his notebook. Last entry said he was
going to spend the night outside during the two am
to four am window see what all the fuss was about.
And never found the rest of him, just the backpack
and some torn clothing scattered around, like something had dragged
him through the underbrush. But the weird thing was his
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notebook was full of observations about things that shouldn't exist.
Detailed descriptions of customers who don't show up on security cameras,
measurements of temperature drops that don't correspond to weather patterns,
documentation of sounds that human vocal cords can't make. I
thought about my own experiences over the past month. The
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trucker with no visible breath, the woman who knew about
a mining camp that didn't exist, the customer who didn't
appear on camera, the thing on the roof scratching Morse
code messages. Maybe he was onto something, I said. Marcus
turned to look at me with an expression of horror. Kid,
don't you start down that path. The rules exist because
(33:32):
understanding these things is dangerous. The more you know about them,
the more they know about you, and once they know
about you. He trailed off, shaking his head, but it
was too late. The doubt had already taken root, not
just in me, but in Danny as well. I could
see it in the way he'd started carrying a notebook,
(33:54):
jotting down observations about unusual customers and strange incidents, the
way he'd begun questioning everything, looking for patterns and explanations.
It was Danny who found the journal wedged behind a
loose panel in the supply closet, twenty years of entries
from previous employees, and every single one ended the same way.
(34:16):
It's getting hungry again, God help whoever comes next. Danny's
first major rule violation happened on a Tuesday night in November,
when the temperature dropped to minus twenty and something that
used to be human came scratching at our door. The
journal had changed everything over the past weeks since Danny
found it wedged behind that loose panel. We'd all read
(34:38):
through twenty years of entries from previous employees. Names I
didn't recognize, handwriting, that grew increasingly erratic as the entries progressed,
and always that same final line, it's getting hungry again,
God help whoever comes next. Marcus had tried to take
the journal away, claiming it was dangerous knowledge, but Danny
(34:59):
ret fuse to give it up. He'd been documenting everything now,
temperature readings during strange encounters, descriptions of unusual customers, patterns
in the supernatural incidents. The skeptical kid who'd arrived six
months ago was gone, replaced by someone obsessed with understanding
what we were dealing with. There's a logic to it,
(35:21):
Danny kept insisting during our shared shifts. Rules don't exist
in a vacuum. Their responses to specific threats. If we
can understand the threats, we can understand how to fight them.
Marcus would just shake his head. Understanding these things is
what killed my boy. Understanding is what gets you noticed
by things that should never notice you. But Danny was
(35:44):
past listening. The journal had become his bible, and he'd
started adding his own entries to the back pages, detailed
observations about customer behavior, environmental anomalies, attempts to categorize the
different types of supernatural encounters we'd experienced. The breaking point
came on that Tuesday night, when Danny decided to test
his theories. The customer walked in just after midnight, and
(36:08):
I smelled him before I saw him, the thick, cloying
stench of meat left too long in the sun. My
hand instinctively reached for the laminated rule card in my pocket,
but Danny was already moving toward the counter with his
notebook in hand. Evening, the man said, his voice carrying
the wet, thick quality of someone speaking through a mouthful
(36:29):
of blood. He was tall and gaunt, wearing clothes that
looked like they'd been buried in dirt for weeks. But
it was his smile that made my stomach turn too wide,
showing teeth that had been filed to points. Rule one,
never serve customers who smell like decay or raw meat, Danny,
(36:50):
I said, quietly, trying to catch his attention. Don't. But
Danny was staring at the customer with the fascination of
a scientist observing a rare specimen, already scribbling observations. What
can I help you with, he asked, moving behind the register.
The customer's smile widened and I could see his filed
(37:11):
teeth clearly now, each one sharpened to a needle point
that gleamed under the fluorescent lights. Fresh meat is so
hard to find in winter, he said, his eyes never
leaving Danny's face. But there's always fresh meat somewhere, isn't there,
Young meat, tender meat that fights back. The temperature in
(37:32):
the store dropped so fast I could see my breath.
The fluorescent lights above us began to flicker, and I
heard Marcus's truck pulling into the parking lot. The aftermath
was immediate and horrible. The smell didn't leave for three days.
It clung to everything, the walls, our clothes, our skin,
like death marking its territory. Marcus walked in to find
(37:55):
Danny behind the counter, still taking notes, still engaging with
something that should never have been served. His face went
white when he saw the scene. Danny, Marcus said quietly,
step away from the counter now. The customer turned to
look at Marcus, and I saw recognition pass between them.
Marcus Hendricks, I remember you. I remember your boy too.
(38:20):
Two nights later, another one came, a woman with the
same filed teeth, the same predatory smile. She approached Danny
directly pulling something from her coat pocket. Don't you dare
put that in your mouth, Marcus warned, as she offered
Danny what looked like jerky that ain't beef jerky. The
woman's smile widened. It's a delicacy where I come from.
(38:43):
Man meat, sweet and gamey, especially when they've been running.
Danny reached for the jerky before either Marcus or I
could stop him. The expression that crossed his face when
he bit into it was revulsion and horror and something else,
something that looked almost like hunger. Now you understand, the
woman said, Now you know how good it tastes. After
(39:08):
she left, I watched Danny change, not physically, not yet,
but something fundamental shifted in his eyes. He kept licking
his lips, staring at Marcus and me with a new
kind of attention. That's when the third customer arrived and
everything went to hell. The bell chimed at exactly three
a m. But when I looked up from the register,
(39:29):
nobody was there. The door stood open, letting an air
so cold it burned my lungs. The fluorescent lights began
to flicker more rapidly, and the temperature dropped so fast
that frost formed on the windows in seconds. Then I
heard the breathing. It came from everywhere and nowhere, deep
and labored, like something huge struggling to fit into too
(39:49):
small a space. The smell hit us next, not just
decay this time, but something far worse, the smell of
a charnel house, of things that had been dead too
long and left to rod in places where the sun
never shines. Oh Jesus, Marcus whispered, his hand, moving to
the gun under his jacket. It's here. The thing that
(40:13):
walked through our door had once been human. You could
see it in the basic structure, two arms, two legs,
a torso and head arranged in roughly the right configuration,
but everything else was wrong. It stood nine feet tall,
its antlered heads scraping the ceiling tiles. What had once
been human stretched and twisted into something that belonged in nightmares.
(40:37):
Its breath came in clouds of steam that smelled like
Charnel houses, and when it moved I could hear the
sound of bones creaking under skin that had been pulled
too tight over a frame too large. Its eyes were
the worst part. They held intelligence, memory, the remnants of
something that had once been capable of human thought, but
(40:58):
behind that intelligence was a hunger so vast and consuming
that it made my own addiction look like a miner craving.
I remember every face, it said, its voice like wind
through dead trees, every scream, every drop of blood that's
fed me over the decades, and now I remember yours.
(41:20):
Danny stepped forward, his notebook clutched in trembling hands. What
are you The Wendigo's head tilted, studying Danny with the
interest of a predator, evaluating prey. I am what you
become when the hunger takes everything else away, What you
become when you taste the forbidden meat and find that
(41:41):
nothing else will ever satisfy you. Again, the mining camp,
I said, pieces clicking together in my mind. You're from
the mining camp. I am the mining camp, the Wendigo said.
Thirty eight miners trapped by a cave in during the
winter of nineteen fifty two. Thirty eight men who ran
(42:02):
out of food and started eating each other to survive.
Thirty eight souls who discovered that human flesh tastes better
than anything else in this world. Marcus had his gun
out now, but his hands were shaking. Stay back. All
of you, stay back. The wendigo laughed, and the sound
was like breaking glass mixed with the screams of dying animals.
(42:26):
Bullets won't help you, Marcus, Not when the boy has
already tasted the meat, Not when he's already started changing.
Danny was staring at the wendigo with sick fascination, his
note book forgotten. I can feel it, he whispered. The
hunger it's getting stronger. You can run, kid, Marcus said,
(42:47):
his voice thick with the same desperation I'd heard when
he talked about his son. But if you do, you
take part of it with you. The hunger spreads. That's
how it works. Danny's face was pale, covered in a
sheen of sweat despite the freezing temperature. I can't I
(43:08):
can feel it in my head, whispering, telling me how
good warm flesh tastes, telling me how much better you
two would taste than that jerky. The wendigo moved closer,
its massive frame, casting shadows that seemed to move independently
of its body. The compact is broken, it said, directing
(43:28):
its words at Marcus. Three rules violated in one week.
The protections are void. The feeding ground is open again.
What compact, I asked, But even as I said it,
I was starting to understand. Your people built their gas
station on our hunting ground, the Wendigo explained, its antlered
head swinging toward me. We agreed to limit our feeding
(43:51):
to follow certain restrictions. In exchange, we were guaranteed a
steady supply of food. Travelers who broke the rule, employees
who couldn't follow simple instructions. Marcus's gun was trained on
the Wendigo, but I could see the hopelessness in his eyes.
Twenty years of peace, twenty years of the rules keeping
(44:13):
people safe, and now it's over. The Wendigo said, thanks
to your curious young friend. Here. Danny was making small
sounds of distress, pressing his hands against his head, like
he was trying to keep something out. It's so loud,
he whispered, the voice in my head, it's so hungry.
(44:34):
The Wendigo turned its attention back to Danny, and I
saw something that might have been affection in its ancient eyes.
Come with us, child, Let us teach you the old ways.
Let us show you how good the hunt can be
when you stop pretending to be human. Danny no Marcus said,
but his voice lacked conviction. We all knew it was
(44:58):
too late. Danny looked at up at us, and his
eyes were no longer entirely human. I'm sorry, he said,
I'm so sorry, but it hurts to fight it, and
I'm so very hungry. He walked toward the wendigo, each
step more confident than the last. By the time he
reached the creature's side, he was moving with the same
(45:19):
predatory grace we'd seen in the customers who detested our rules.
The wendigo placed one massive clawed hand on Danny's shoulder.
Good boy, the hunger will make you strong. The hunger
will make you whole. They turned toward the door, but
before leaving, the wendigo looked back at Marcus and me. Run,
it said, almost conversationally. Run far and fast, because when
(45:44):
the sun sets tomorrow, we'll be hunting again, and this
time there are no rules to protect you. Then they
were gone, vanishing into the darkness beyond our fluorescent bubble
of safety. The temperature began to return to normal, and
the light stopped flickers ring, but the smell lingered, the
smell of death and hunger and things that should never
(46:05):
have existed. Marcus holstered his gun with hands that shook
like leaves. It's over, he said, quietly. Whatever protection this
place had, it's gone now. As dawn broke over the
Alaska Range, painting the snow covered peak's blood red, I
realized the wendigo hadn't left. It had simply retreated, like
(46:27):
a tide, pulling back before the real wave hits, and
somewhere out there in the wilderness, Danny was learning how
to be something other than human. The hunger was spreading,
and I was starting to understand that the real horror
wasn't what might happen to us, it was what we
might become. Frank Morrison returned three days later, with new
(46:48):
employment contracts and the kind of expression you see on undertakers,
professional sympathy mixed with grim inevitability. I'd spent those three
days in a haze of sleepless terror, jumping at over
every shadow, checking the locks obsessively, and waiting for something
with filed teeth to come scratching at our door. Marcus
had barely spoken since Danny's transformation, moving through his shifts
(47:11):
like a man walking through his own funeral. The gas
station felt different now, smaller, more vulnerable, like the fluorescent
lights were just a thin bubble of safety surrounded by
an ocean of hungry darkness. When Frank walked through the
door that Thursday morning, I could see immediately that he
knew everything. His weathered face carried the weight of too
(47:32):
many conversations like this one, too many explanations that started
with I'm sorry for your loss and ended with but
someone still has to work the night shift. How bad
is it, he asked Marcus without preamble. Marcus looked up
from the coffee pot he'd been staring at for the
past hour. Gone, the boy's gone, and the compact. He
(47:55):
trailed off, shaking his head. I figured as much when
I saw the reports, Frank said, settling into a chair
that groaned under his weight. State troopers found what was
left of a hiking party about fifteen miles north of here,
three college kids from Anchorage. The scene dot dot dot,
he paused, choosing his words carefully. Let's just say it
(48:20):
looked like something had been teaching a new student how
to hunt. My stomach turned. Danny had been out there
for three days, learning to be something other than human,
learning to enjoy the taste of flesh and the sound
of screams. There's something else, Frank continued, pulling out a
Manila folder thick with papers. The tribal council wants to meet.
(48:43):
They've been watching this place for seventy years and they're
not happy about recent developments. Tribal council, I asked. Frank
looked at me with eyes that held decades of secrets. Son,
It's time you learn the truth about this place, about
why it exists, and why some one always has to
(49:03):
work the night shift. He opened the folder and pulled
out a yellowed photograph from the nineteen fifties. It showed
a group of men in work clothes standing in front
of what looked like a mining operation, but the landscape
behind them was wrong, too twisted, too dark, like the
camera had captured something that shouldn't exist. My grandfather built
(49:25):
this place in nineteen fifty two, Frank said, pointing to
a younger version of himself in the photograph, right on
top of what the natives called the hungry ground. Thought
he could contain it control it. Turns out all he
did was give it a steady food supply. The photograph
showed more than just miners in the background, barely visible.
(49:47):
In the shadows, I could make out shapes that might
have been human, but moved wrong, stood wrong, existed wrong.
The mining camp, I said, pieces clicking together. It was real,
real as anything else in this god forsaken place. Frank confirmed.
Thirty eight miners went into those hills in the winter
(50:07):
of nineteen fifty two. Only one came back out, and
he wasn't human any more. The things that came after him, well,
they were hungry, always hungry. Marcus poured himself another cup
of coffee with hands that shook slightly. Your grandfather made
a deal, a compact, Frank nodded, the when to go
(50:29):
the thing that used to be Those thirty eight miners
agreed to limit their hunting, follow certain rules. In exchange,
we'd provide them with a steady supply of food. People
who broke the rules, people who couldn't follow simple instructions.
I stared at the photograph, trying to process what I
was hearing. This station isn't a gas stop, Son, it's
a feeding ground with rules. Break the rules, you become
(50:53):
the meal. Follow them, you become the shepherd. All those
missing person flyers by the door, I said, all those
people who disappeared rule breakers, Frank said, simply, people who
smelled like decay and got served anyway. People who claimed
to be from mining camps that didn't exist. People who
ate the wrong kind of meat or went outside during
(51:14):
the wrong hours. He looked directly at me. The rules
weren't there to protect the customers, sam, They were there
to select which customers got fed to the wend to go.
The coffee tasted like ash in my mouth, and now
the compact is broken. Danny broke three rules in one week.
Marcus said quietly. That voids the agreement, which means they're
(51:38):
not bound by the restrictions anymore. They can hunt whenever
they want, however they want, which brings us to the
immediate problem, Frank said, pulling out fresh employment contracts. Danny
lasted two more days before the Wendigo's influence consumed what
was left of his humanity. He came at us with
teeth filed to points and Marcus's missing hunting knife. My
(52:01):
blood ran cold. Danny's coming back came back, Marcus corrected grimly.
Yesterday afternoon, while you were sleeping. I was alone in
the store when he walked through that door. But he
wasn't Danny anymore? Not really still had his face, still
sounded like him when he talked, but his eyes, Marcus shuddered.
(52:23):
His eyes were all hunger. What happened? Marcus was quiet
for a long moment, staring at his hands. When he
finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. I'm sorry, kid,
Marcus whispered, and put three rounds of Blessed Silver into
Danny's chest. The silence that followed was deafening. I could
(52:47):
hear the fluorescent lights humming overhead, the distant sound of
traffic on Route three, the whisper of wind through the
gaps around the door. But underneath it all I could
swear I heard something else. Ah, rhythmic scratching, like claws
on metal. Blessed silver, I asked old tribal wisdom. Frank explained,
(53:10):
some things that used to be human can still remember
what silver means, pain, purification. Sometimes it's enough to set
their souls free, and sometimes it just makes them angry.
Marcus added, we'll find out which one Danny was when
the sun goes down. Frank spread the contracts across the counter,
(53:32):
which brings us to your decision. Sam, You can walk away,
take your pay, and get on the next bus south.
But someone has to work the night shift. I looked
at the contracts, then at Marcus, then at the missing
person flyers that had been accumulating by the door for decades,
all those people who thought they could ignore the rules,
who'd believed they were smarter than small town superstitions. What
(53:56):
happens if nobody works the night shift, The hungry ground spreads,
Frank said. Without someone to maintain the rules, to select
the proper offerings, the whnd to go start hunting indiscriminately.
First its truckers on Route three, Then it's people in
Cold Water Junction, Then it's anyone who comes within fifty
miles of this place. I understood then that my addiction
(54:19):
had prepared me for this job. Some hungers could never
be satisfied, only managed one day at a time, one
rule at a time. I'll stay, I said, Someone has
to watch the night shift. Frank nodded like he'd expected
as much. Marcus will train you in the deeper protocols,
(54:40):
the real rules that keep this place functioning. It's not
just about following the seven rules anymore. It's about enforcing
them over the next week. Marcus taught me things that
weren't written on any laminated card. How to recognize when
the WHND to go we're testing new employees. How to
tell the difference between customers who were genuinely dangerous and
(55:01):
customers who were genuinely dangerous in supernatural ways. How to
prepare the blessed silver bullets that could put down someone
who used to be human but wasn't any more. Most importantly,
he taught me how to live with the knowledge that
I was part of something larger and more terrible than
I'd ever imagined. The guilt eats at you, he told
(55:21):
me one night while we were cleaning the register, knowing
that every person who breaks the rules is going to
feed something that should never have existed. But the alternative
is worse without the rules, without the compact, they hunt everyone.
How do you sleep at night? Marcus smiled, but there
was no humor in it. I don't haven't slept well
(55:42):
in eight years, but I'm still human, which is more
than I can say for the alternatives. The new compact
was negotiated through intermediaries tribal elders who remembered the old
agreements and understood the cost of keeping ancient hungers satisfied.
The rules would remain the same, but the horsement would
be stricter. No more warnings, no more second chances. Break
(56:05):
a rule become a meal. Three weeks later, a kid
named Tyler stepped off the afternoon bus, all desperate eyes
and empty pockets, just like I had. He was maybe nineteen,
with the kind of hollow look that came from running
out of options. His clothes were wrinkled from sleeping rough,
and he carried everything he owned in a backpack that
(56:26):
had seen better years. Heard you might be hiring, he said,
when he walked into the station. I looked at him
and saw myself from a month ago, desperate running from something,
willing to take any job that would keep him fed
and housed through the winter, the cycle beginning again. There
are seven rules, I told him, handing over the laminated card.
(56:47):
Follow them exactly, and you might live through your first month.
Tyler read the list, his eyebrows rising with each rule.
These seem kind of paranoid, kid, I said, remembering Marcus's
words from my first day. Paranoid is what keeps you
breathing in a place like this. That night, after Tyler
(57:09):
had gone to Missus Patterson's boarding house, with the same
mixture of hope and desperation i'd carried. The wendigo appeared
one last time. It stood at the edge of the
light cast by our fluorescent signs, barely visible in the
darkness beyond the parking lot. Another guardian, it said, in
a voice like breaking ice good. I was getting hungry again.
(57:33):
I nodded to the creature that had claimed so many
before me. We had an understanding. Now it would feed,
but only according to the rules, and I would insure
those rules were followed. Marcus retired the following week, taking
his pension and his blessed silver bullets, and disappearing south
to somewhere with more sunlight and fewer nightmares. Before he left,
(57:57):
he pressed a worn journal into my hands. Your turn
to keep the records, he said. Someone needs to document
what really happens here for the next guy. The journal
was full of entries dating back decades, different handwriting, different names,
but always the same story. Someone desperate takes the night shift,
(58:18):
someone learns the rules, someone becomes the guardian. Someone eventually
passes the responsibility to the next desperate soul, who steps
off the bus with empty pockets. And nowhere else to go.
I added my own entry to the back pages. The
hunger is patient, the rules are absolute, and someone always
needs to work the night shift. Tyler's training began that
(58:41):
same week. I watched him go through the same stages.
I had skepticism, gradual acceptance, growing horror, and finally understanding.
He was a quick learner, maybe because he'd already seen
enough of the world's cruelty to accept that supernatural cruelty
wasn't much different. Why do you stay, he asked during
(59:03):
his second week. I thought about the question while I
counted the register. Because someone has to, because the alternative
is letting hungry things hunt freely, Because sometimes doing the
right thing means accepting that you'll never be able to
live with yourself. Afterward, Tyler nodded like he understood. Maybe
(59:24):
he did. Maybe desperation teaches the same lessons, regardless of
what brings you to it. As I write this, the
night Shift continues Tyler's learning the rules just like I did,
just like the next person will when Tyler finally understands
what this place really is. The Wendigo is patient, the
hungry ground is eternal, and someone always needs to work
(59:47):
the night shift. The bus to Cold Water Junction still
runs every Tuesday, bringing new desperate souls looking for work
and shelter. Most of them find other options, other jobs,
other places to run to, but eventually someone always walks
through our door with empty pockets and nowhere else to go.
If you're reading this, and if you've been thinking about
(01:00:09):
that job posting for a night shift attendant in Alaska,
well you've been warned. But desperation makes fools of us all,
and the bust to Cold Water Junction runs every Tuesday,
The greyhound bus wheezed to a stop in what the
driver generously called cold Water Junction, Alaska, but looked more
like the place hope goes to die. Through the cracked window,
I counted exactly eleven buildings, half of them boarded up,
scattered along a highway that stretched into darkness in both directions.
(00:26):
End of the line, pal the driver called back, not
bothering to hide his relief. I'd been the only passenger
for the last three hundred miles, and my withdrawal shakes
probably made me poor company. I shouldered my duffel bag,
everything I owned fit in one military surplus sack, and
stepped into air so cold it felt like breathing glass shards.
(00:48):
The bus pulled away before I'd even reached the sidewalk,
tail lights disappearing into the November darkness like dying embers.
My breath came in white puffs as I stood there,
counting the wrinkled bills in my wallet, eight hundred dollars,
the last of what I'd gotten for pawning everything that
mattered back in Seattle. It had to last until I
(01:08):
found work, and in a town this size, work meant begging.
The only lit building was a diner with a flickering
neon sign that read Betty's in pink cursive. Through frosted windows,
I could see a handful of locals hunched over coffee
cups like they were warming their souls. A bell chimed
as I pushed through the door, and every head turned
(01:29):
to study the stranger. In small towns, newcomers were either
running from something or towards something, and neither option inspired trust.
You look half frozen, hun, the waitress said, leading me
to a corner booth without being asked. Her name tag
read Betty, and she had the kind of weathered face
that suggested she'd been serving coffee in this exact spot
(01:52):
for decades. Coffee, please, my voice came out rougher than intended.
And maybe some food whatever's cheap. She poured coffee from
a pot that looked older than me, studying my face
with the practiced eye of some one who'd seen plenty
of people at their lowest point. You picked a hell
of a place for a fresh start, hun, Betty said,
(02:15):
refilling my coffee without being asked. Most folks are trying
to leave cold water junction, not move here. The coffee
was bitter enough to strip paint, but it was hot
and caffeinated, which made it perfect. I wrapped my hands
around the mug, letting the warmth seep into my fingers.
The withdrawal was manageable, now more like a persistent ache
(02:35):
than the bone deep agony of the first few days.
But the cold made everything worse. We used to get
a lot more truckers through here. The old timer at
the corner booth muttered. He wore a hunting cap with
ear flaps and had the hollow look of some one
who'd seen too many winters. Course that was before the lean,
years before they started vanishing between here and Fairbanks. Betty
(02:59):
shot him a warning look book, but he continued anyway.
State troopers say it's the weather, the isolation. Easy to
get lost out there, freeze to death before anyone finds you.
But truckers know these roads better than their own driveways,
been driving them for decades. Hush Earle, Betty said firmly,
but there was something in her tone that suggested she
(03:21):
didn't entirely disagree. No need to spook the newcomer with
your stories. I stirred sugar into my coffee, grateful for
the warmth spreading through my chest. The diner smelled like bacon,
grease and decades of cigarette smoke, comforting in its familiarity.
Every truck stopped diner in America smelled exactly the same.
(03:42):
I'm looking for work, I said, anything available. Betty and
Earle exchanged a look. I couldn't read what kind of
work you done? Before? She asked, refilling my cup without
being asked. The honest answer was construction, until the pills
made my hands too shake to hold tools safely. The
(04:02):
practical answer was simpler, whatever pays. Most places around here
want references, background checks, Earle said, tapping his coffee cup
with arthritic fingers. You got any of that? I shook
my head. References would lead back to Seattle, back to
questions I wasn't ready to answer. Background Checks would reveal
(04:25):
a pattern of absences, missed shifts, and that final incident
with the stolen prescription pad that sent me running north.
Betty studied my face with the kind of understanding that
comes from seeing too many broken people pass through small
town diners. There might be something. Missus Patterson runs the
boarding house on Elm Street. She'd know better than anyone
(04:48):
who's hiring. She keeps her ear to the ground about
these things. An hour later, I stood on Missus Patterson's
porch with my duffel bag and what remained of my pride.
She was a small woman with steel gray hair and
eyes that missed nothing, the kind of person who'd survived
Alaska winters by being smarter than the cold. You look
(05:10):
like you're running from something, she said, without preamble, holding
the screen door open. But then most folks who end
up in Cold Water Junction are running from something. Question
is whether you're running towards something better or just running.
The boarding house smelled like pine cleaner and old wood,
comforting in its cleanliness. She showed me a room on
the second floor that was clean but sparse, single bed
(05:33):
dresser window facing the alley behind the hardware store. The
radiator clanked when she turned it on, but heat began
flowing immediately. You can rent by the week, she said,
testing the lock on the window. Sixty dollars heats included,
but don't go crazy with it. Fuel oil's expensive up here.
I counted out three twenties, leaving me with seven hundred
(05:55):
and change. About work, there's one place still hiring, missus
Patterson said, pausing at the door. Her expression grew troubled,
like she was debating whether to say more night shift
at midnight Express. It's the gas station on Route three,
about two miles out of town. She studied my face carefully.
(06:18):
But honey, that job's got a reputation. They can't seem
to keep anyone. What kind of reputation. She was quiet
for a long moment, choosing her words carefully. Frank Morrison's
a good man, runs a clean business. But that place.
People go to work there and then they don't. Sometimes
(06:38):
they quit without notice. Sometimes they just disappear. Last fellow
worked there, maybe three weeks before he stopped showing up.
They found his car in the parking lot, keys still
in the ignition, but no sign of him. The way
she said, it made my skin crawl, but I needed work.
Maybe he just moved on. People do that, maybe, she said,
(07:02):
but didn't sound convinced. You seem like a decent enough
young man. Just U. If you do go out there,
be careful, and if something doesn't feel right, trust that feeling.
Two days of failed job searches later, I understood what
she meant about limited options. The lumber mill wanted two
years of experience and union membership. The hardware store needed
(07:24):
someone who could pass a drug test. I probably could now,
but couldn't risk it. Betty's Diner was family only hiring,
and the post office required a clean driving record. I
definitely didn't have that. Left midnight Express. The gas station
sat alone where Route three bent toward the mountains, an
island of fluorescent light in an ocean of darkness, two pumps,
(07:47):
a convenience store, and what looked like a garage bay
that hadn't been used in years, the kind of place
truckers stopped at three a m. When they needed coffee
and didn't care if it tasted like motor oil. A
bell chimed as I pushed through the door, and immediately
I was hit by the smell of stale coffee and
something else, something organic and unpleasant that I couldn't identify.
(08:10):
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everything in harsh white
light that made the shadows seem deeper. By contrast, Frank
Morrison was waiting behind the counter like he'd been expecting me.
He had the build of someone who'd done hard physical
labor for decades, shoulders broad as a door frame, and
hands scarred from working with tools. His gray beard was
(08:32):
neatly trimmed, but his eyes held the wariness of a
man who'd seen too much. You the one Missus Patterson
called about, he asked, looking me up and down with
the practiced eye of someone who'd hired a lot of
desperate people. Sam right, Yes, sir, ever work nights before
some I'd worked plenty of night shifts in Seattle, usually
(08:56):
because I was too high to function during the day.
But that wasn't something to me in a job interview.
Frank nodded toward the back office. Let's talk. The office
was cramped and cluttered, papers stacked on every surface, and
a calendar on the wall showing a mountain landscape that
probably looked nothing like the view outside. Frank settled behind
(09:18):
his desk and gestured for me to sit in a
chair that had seen better decades. Night shift here is different,
he said, pulling out a folder thick with paperwork. Lot
of responsibility. You're alone most of the time. Got to
handle whatever comes through that door between ten pm and
six am. Some of it's normal, truckers, travelers, locals buying cigarettes.
(09:41):
Some of it, he paused, choosing his words carefully. Some
of it requires following specific procedures. Procedures rules, he said,
seven of them non negotiable. Marcus will explain them to
you if you take the job. But I need to
know right now. Are you the kind of person who
(10:01):
follows rules even when they don't make sense. I thought
about the twelve steps about sponsors and meetings, and all
the rules I'd broken on my way to rock bottom.
I've learned the hard way that rules usually exist for
good reasons. Frank studied me for a long moment, drumming
his fingers on the desk. Rules aren't suggestions, son their
(10:23):
survival instructions written in other people's blood. Something in his
tone made my skin crawl. But I needed this job.
The few hundred dollars in my wallet wouldn't last long,
especially with winter coming, I understand. Before I could ask
more questions, the office door opened and two men walked in.
(10:43):
The first was all sharp edges and nervous energy, mid thirties,
with dark hair and eyes that held the kind of
hypervigilance I recognized from looking in mirrors during my worst days.
The second was younger, maybe early twenties, with the kind
of cocky confidence that usually meant trouble this the new guy,
the older one asked, not bothering with pleasantries, sam I said,
(11:09):
standing to shake his hand. His grip was firm but cold.
Marcus Hendrix, I've been working nights here longer than anyone
stupid enough to stick around. He studied my face with
unsettling intensity. You look like you're running from something. Good
means you might actually listen when I tell you to
(11:29):
follow the goddamn rules, Marcus. Frank warned, but the younger
man laughed. Don't scare him off before he even starts,
the kid said, extending his hand with a grin. That
was all teeth. Danny reeves been here about six months,
which makes me practically a veteran by this place's standards.
(11:51):
Marcus turned to Danny with an expression that could have
curdled milk. Six months and you still think this is
all a joke. Rules are just old timer superstitions, Danny said, shrugging.
This place isn't haunted. It's just creepy because it's old
and isolated. All that weird stuff you and Frank worry about,
(12:12):
there's rational explanations for everything. The temperature in the room
seemed to drop ten degrees Marcus stepped closer to Danny,
and I could see the younger man's confidence waver slightly.
Rational explanations, Marcus repeated slowly, Like how the last guy
who thought he knew better than the rules ended up
scattered across three counties. My mouth went dry. Scattered Marcus,
(12:39):
Frank said sharply, but Marcus shook his head. No, Frank,
he deserves to know what he's signing up for. The
rules aren't suggestions or superstitions or some elaborate prank. They're
the only thing standing between you and something that sees
human beings as happy meals. Danny rolled his eyes. See
(13:01):
what I mean? Forty years of isolation and ghost stories,
and now everything that goes bump in the night is
some supernatural monster. People disappear because they get tired of
this place and move on without giving notice, or they
get drunk and wander off the highway in a blizzard.
Not everything needs a paranormal explanation. Tell that to Jimmy
(13:23):
Core's guard, Marcus said, quietly. Worked here three years ago,
smart kid, college graduate, full of rational explanations, just like you.
Found his remains two miles into the woods, picked clean
and arranged in patterns that don't occur in nature. The
argument was interrupted by Frank clearing his throat loudly enough
(13:43):
both of you. He turned to me. The job pays
fifteen an hour cash, forty hours guaranteed, sometimes more if
you want over time. No tax is taken out, no
paperwork beyond what we're doing right now. Fifteen an hour
cash was more than I'd made legally in months. My
wallet held six hundred dollars, enough for maybe three weeks
(14:06):
of rent and food if I was careful. Winter was coming,
and Missus Patterson had mentioned that the boarding house got
expensive when the heating bills started climbing. When do I
start tonight, Marcus said, I'll walk you through everything, show
you the ropes. Danny will be here too, though God
knows why he bothers showing up if he thinks it's
all nonsense. Because the pay is good and the work
(14:29):
is easy, Danny said, even if I have to listen
to campfire stories all night. Marcus pulled out a laminated
index card and handed it to me. Memorize these. Your
life might depend on it. Seven rules were printed in
neat black text. Rule one, never serve customers who smell
like decay or raw meat. Rule two. If the security
(14:53):
cameras stop working, lock the door and wait until dawn.
Rule three. Do not acknowledge cuss stomers who cast no
reflection in mirrors. Rule four. If a customer claims to
be from the old mining camp, deny its existence. Rule five.
Never go outside alone between two am and four am.
(15:15):
Rule six. Do not eat any food offered by customers
with filed teeth. Rule seven. If asked to identify the
taste of meat, always answer beef. I read the list twice,
waiting for someone to tell me it was a joke.
When neither Marcus nor Frank smiled, I looked up. These
are serious, dead serious, Marcus said. Rule one alone has
(15:41):
saved more lives than you'd believe. And before you ask why,
just know that the last guy who ignored this rule, well,
they found pieces of him scattered across three counties. Danny snorted,
you're going to give him nightmares before he even starts.
Look sam. These rules are mostly common dressed up in
spooky language. Don't serve obviously drunk or disturbed customers. Lock
(16:05):
the door if you feel unsafe. Don't accept food from strangers.
Basic retail survival. Rule four mentions a mining camp, I said,
studying the card. What mining camp? The silence that followed
was so complete I could hear the fluorescent lights humming overhead.
Marcus and Frank exchanged a look that made my skin crawl.
(16:28):
There is no mining camp, Frank said, Finally, that's the point.
If someone claims to be from one, you deny it exists.
But why would because Marcus interrupted, some things are better
left buried. Literally, Danny shook his head in exasperation. There
(16:49):
was a mining operation up in the hills back in
the thirties. Cave in killed everybody and the place was abandoned.
Sometimes local kids claim they're going up there to explore.
Try to sound tough. Frank doesn't want liability issues if
they get hurt trespassing on dangerous property. The explanation sounded reasonable,
(17:09):
but something in Marcus's expression suggested it wasn't the whole truth.
I studied the rules again, looking for some rational pattern.
Gas stations attracted strange people, especially at night. Maybe these
rules were just Frank's way of giving employees permission to
refuse service to dangerous customers, but the specificity bothered me.
(17:30):
Filed teeth no reflection in mirrors. What kind of customers
were they expecting? Look, Marcus continued, his voice softer. Now,
I know it sounds crazy, but I've worked here eight years,
and I've seen things that would make you quit on
the spot and take the first bus back to wherever
you came from. Follow the rules exactly, no exceptions, no interpretations,
(17:55):
no flexibility, and you'll go home every morning in one piece.
What happens if I don't, I asked. Marcus and Frank
exchanged another look. Danny jumped in before they could answer.
Then you'll have a completely normal night working at a
gas station in the middle of nowhere, because that's what
this place actually is, a gas station, not a portal
(18:16):
to Hell or a feeding ground for monsters or whatever
these two have convinced themselves, Danny Marcus said quietly. You've
been lucky so far, but luck runs out, so does patience.
Danny shot back, I'm tired of tiptoeing around ghost stories
and pretending that perfectly normal customers are demons just because
they smell funny or act weird. This is Alaska in November.
(18:39):
Everyone smells funny and acts weird. As I signed the
employment paperwork, my pen skipped on the last letter of
my name, leaving a small red dot on the white paper.
Cheap pen. Frank muttered, but in the dim light of
the back office, that dot looked disturbingly like blood. I
told myself it was just my imagination running wild after
(19:02):
hearing about rules and scattered pieces and mining camps that
didn't exist. But as I walked back to missus Patterson's
boarding house through the November darkness, I couldn't shake the
feeling that I just signed something more binding than an
employment contract. The addiction recovery meetings always talked about higher
powers and surrendering control. Maybe this was what surrender looked like,
(19:24):
not to something divine, but to something hungry that lived
in the spaces between civilization and wilderness. I'd traded one
kind of hunger for another, pills for isolation, needles for
frozen wilderness. But hunger was hunger, and it always demanded feeding.
The question was whether I'd be the one doing the
feeding or becoming the meal. My first week at Midnight
(19:47):
Express passed like a fever dream, if fever dreams included
truckers who whispered about things that follow the highway and
customers who paid for gas with bills that felt too
cold to the touch. Marcus had me shadow him for
the first three nights, teaching me the routine through a
combination of practical demonstration and paranoid commentary that made my
(20:08):
skin crawl. Danny worked the same shifts, and the contrast
between their approaches was like watching two different people work
in completely different realities. See that trucker, Marcus said during
my second night, nodding toward a bearded man in a
Peterbilt cap who was pumping diesel at the far pump.
Watch his breath when he talks. No fog means he's
(20:29):
been driving too long in places that ain't on any map.
I squinted through the fluorescent lit darkness, trying to see
what Marcus was seeing. The temperature was well below freezing,
and my own breath came out in white puffs every
time I exhaled. But when the trucker came inside to pay,
I realized Marcus was right. No visible breath at all. Evening,
(20:52):
the trucker said, his voice carrying a strange echo, like
he was talking from the bottom of a well. Forty
on pump two. His bill were crisp and new but
when I took them, they felt like they'd been stored
in a freezer. The serial numbers were faded to the
point of being illegible, and the paper itself had an
odd texture that made my fingers tingle. After he left,
(21:14):
I turned to Marcus, What was that about? Some drivers
take roots that don't exist on official maps, Marcus said,
wiping down the counter with methodical precision places the state
doesn't maintain private roads through mining claims and logging operations
that were abandoned decades ago. They drive those routes long enough,
they start to change. Body temperature drops, circulation gets weird.
(21:39):
Eventually they stop being entirely human. Danny, who'd been restocking
the cigarette display, snorted in derision. Or he had hypothermia
and was running the heat in his cab so high
he didn't need to breathe through his mouth. You guys
are paranoid. I've been working here six months, and nothing
weird has happened that a rational person couldn't explain. Marcus
(22:00):
turned to look at Danny with the expression of someone
watching a child play with a loaded gun. Six months, kid,
I've been here eight years, and you know what I've learned?
The longer you work here, the more you realize how
much you don't want to understand. Understanding is what separates
us from superstition, Danny said, closing the cigarette case with
(22:21):
more force than necessary. Every single supernatural event has a
logical explanation, if you're willing to look for it instead
of jumping straight to ghost stories. The training continued like
that for three nights, Marcus pointing out anomalies and warning
signs while Danny provided rational counter arguments for everything. By
(22:42):
my fourth night, I was working solo for the first time,
armed with Marcus's paranoid wisdom and Danny's skeptical confidence, trying
to find some middle ground between terror and denial. That's
when I had my first real rule encounter. It was
just past midnight when she walked in, a woman in
her fifties wearing clothes that looked like they hadn't been
(23:03):
washed in weeks. She moved with the deliberate slowness of
someone trying very hard to appear normal. But something about
her posture was wrong, like she was fighting against her
own body's instincts. Excuse me, she said, approaching the counter
with a smile that was too wide and showed too
many teeth. I'm looking for directions to the old mining
(23:25):
camp up in the hills, the one that burned down
back in eighty five. My hand instinctively went to the
laminated rule card in my pocket, Rule four. If a
customer claims to be from the old mining camp, deny
its existence. I'm sorry, I said, keeping my voice steady.
(23:46):
But there's no mining camp up there, never has been.
Her smile widened even further, stretching her face in ways
that human faces weren't meant to stretch. That mining camp,
you boys keep denying exists, she said, her voice dropping
to a whisper that somehow carried clearly across the store.
I can smell the smoke from here, thirty eight years
(24:08):
and it's still burning. The temperature in the store seemed
to drop ten degrees. I could feel goose bumps rising
on my arms, and the fluorescent lights above us began
to flicker erratically. There's no mining camp, I repeated, gripping
the edge of the counter to keep my hands from shaking.
She stared at me for what felt like an eternity,
(24:29):
her smile never wavering. Then, without another word, she turned
and walked out the door. The bell didn't chime. When
she left. I immediately called Marcus on the phone behind
the counter. He answered on the first ring, like he'd
been waiting for it. What happened, he asked, without preamble.
(24:51):
I described the encounter, trying to keep my voice steady.
When I finished, there was a long silence on the
other end of the line. You did, good, kid, Marcus said. Finally,
some customers test the rules. See if you know what
you're dealing with, pass the test, they move on fail.
(25:12):
I could hear him gesture at something on his end
of the line. Well, you've seen the missing person flyers
posted by the door. For the first time, I really
looked at those flyers. There were dozens of them, dating
back years, truckers, travelers, even a few locals. All of
them had disappeared somewhere along Route three between Cold Water
(25:34):
Junction and Fairbanks. Marcus, I said, what exactly are we
dealing with here? Things that used to be people, he
said quietly, Things that remember being human but forgot how
to act like it. Things that get hungry for more
than food. The rest of that shift passed without incident,
but I found myself jumping at every sound, checking and
(25:57):
rechecking the security cameras and watching every customer who came
through the door with new suspicion. Danny arrived for his
shift the next evening with his usual casual confidence, but
I noticed he kept glancing at the security monitor. Heard
you had an interesting night, he said, leaning against the counter.
Marcus told me about your mining camp. Lady, you think
(26:19):
it was real, Danny shrugged. I think it was a
local crazy person trying to mess with the new guy.
We get those sometimes board teenagers, drunk hunters, people who've
heard the stories about this place and want to see
if they can scare the employees. But even as he
said it, I could see doubt creeping into his expression.
(26:40):
Over the next few nights, I watched Danny's skepticism battle
against accumulating evidence that something genuinely wrong was happening at
midnight Express. It was during our third week working together
that we had the incident with the security cameras. A
customer came in around one am, average height, average build,
(27:00):
wearing a baseball cap pulled low over his face. Nothing
unusual about him except for the smell that followed him in,
something organic and rotten that made my stomach turn rule
one never serve customers who smell like decay or raw meat. Sorry,
I said. When he approached the counter or closed for cleaning.
(27:23):
He stared at me for a moment, his face hidden
in the shadow of his cap. Then he turned and
walked out without saying a word. Danny, who'd been watching
from the stock room, came over to the counter. What
was that about, We're not closed smell, I said, simply,
what smell? I turned to look at him, confused. You
(27:48):
didn't smell that, like something dyed and rotted. Danny shook
his head. I didn't smell anything unusual. That's when I
noticed the security monitor. The time stamp sed one three am,
and I could see myself standing at the counter talking
to nobody. The customer didn't appear on the footage at all.
(28:09):
The camera wasn't working, I said, pointing at the screen.
Danny leaned over to look, and I watched his face
go pale. That's impossible. The system was fine five minutes ago.
The next day, Marcus reviewed the footage and shook his
head grimly. Camera was working fine. That thing just doesn't
(28:29):
cast the right kind of shadow to show up on digital.
Danny spent the next hour running diagnostics on the security system,
trying to find some technical explanation for the glitch. He
found nothing wrong with the equipment. Cameras sometimes malfunction, he said,
but his voice lacked its usual confidence. Digital systems aren't perfect.
(28:50):
The breaking point came during our fourth week, on a
Tuesday night, when the temperature dropped to minus twenty and
something started scratching on the roof. It began just after
two as a rhythmic scraping, sound like fingernails on metal.
Danny was the first to notice it, looking up from
the inventory clipboard with a puzzled expression. You hear that,
(29:12):
I nodded, feeling the familiar chill that had become my
body's early warning system for supernatural bullshit. Yeah. The scratching continued,
moving across the roof from east to west in a
deliberate pattern. Scrape, scrape, scrape, pawse, scrape, scrape, scrape, pause.
(29:32):
It's just the wind, Danny said, but he was staring
at the ceiling with the kind of intensity that suggested
he didn't believe his own words. The scratching stopped for
a moment, then resumed with a different pattern. Three short scrapes,
three long ones, three short ones. Again. I'd learned Morse
code in boy scouts, back when I still thought scouting
(29:54):
would teach me useful life skills. The pattern was unmistakable.
That's SOS, I said quietly. Danny looked at me like
I'd grown a second head. What the scratching? It's Morse
code SOS three short, three long, three short. When doesn't
scratch in Morse code? Kid? Came Marcus's voice from behind us.
(30:18):
He'd derived for his shift early and had been listening
from the doorway. What's it saying, I asked. Marcus walked
over to stand beneath the scratching, tilting his head to listen.
His expression was grim, let me in same thing it's
been saying for eight years. Danny's clipboard clattered to the floor.
(30:39):
That's impossible. You're telling me something is up there on
our roof, scratching messages, something that used to be human.
Marcus said, something that remembers enough to ask for help,
but not enough to understand that it can't be helped.
The scratching continued for another twenty minutes before finally stopping.
(31:02):
Danny spent the rest of the shift pacing the store,
checking and rechecking the locks, peering out the windows into
the darkness beyond the fluorescent lights. There has to be
an explanation, he kept saying, animals, settling, metal, thermal expansion, something.
But I could see the doubt eating at him the
same way it had eaten at me during my first week.
(31:24):
The night shift was like being in recovery. You counted
hours instead of days, followed rules instead of steps, and
tried not to think about what happened if you slipped.
Marcus started opening up more during our shared shifts, revealing
glimpses of a past that explained his protective paranoia. My
boy used to work here summers, he told me one
(31:46):
night while we were restocking the coolers. Real smart kid,
full scholarship to UAF studying engineering. Wanted to build bridges.
His voice grew quiet, started asking too many questions about
the rules. Wanted to understand the logic behind them, document
the incidents, maybe even write a paper about local folklore.
(32:07):
What happened to him? Marcus was quiet for so long
I thought he wasn't going to answer. When he finally spoke,
his voice was barely above a whisper. He decided the
rules were just superstition. Started breaking them deliberately, trying to
prove they were meaningless. Marcus closed the cooler door with
deliberate care. They found his backpack two miles into the woods,
(32:30):
empty except for his notebook. Last entry said he was
going to spend the night outside during the two am
to four am window see what all the fuss was about.
And never found the rest of him, just the backpack
and some torn clothing scattered around, like something had dragged
him through the underbrush. But the weird thing was his
(32:51):
notebook was full of observations about things that shouldn't exist.
Detailed descriptions of customers who don't show up on security cameras,
measurements of temperature drops that don't correspond to weather patterns,
documentation of sounds that human vocal cords can't make. I
thought about my own experiences over the past month. The
(33:12):
trucker with no visible breath, the woman who knew about
a mining camp that didn't exist, the customer who didn't
appear on camera, the thing on the roof scratching Morse
code messages. Maybe he was onto something, I said. Marcus
turned to look at me with an expression of horror. Kid,
don't you start down that path. The rules exist because
(33:32):
understanding these things is dangerous. The more you know about them,
the more they know about you, and once they know
about you. He trailed off, shaking his head, but it
was too late. The doubt had already taken root, not
just in me, but in Danny as well. I could
see it in the way he'd started carrying a notebook,
(33:54):
jotting down observations about unusual customers and strange incidents, the
way he'd begun questioning everything, looking for patterns and explanations.
It was Danny who found the journal wedged behind a
loose panel in the supply closet, twenty years of entries
from previous employees, and every single one ended the same way.
(34:16):
It's getting hungry again, God help whoever comes next. Danny's
first major rule violation happened on a Tuesday night in November,
when the temperature dropped to minus twenty and something that
used to be human came scratching at our door. The
journal had changed everything over the past weeks since Danny
found it wedged behind that loose panel. We'd all read
(34:38):
through twenty years of entries from previous employees. Names I
didn't recognize, handwriting, that grew increasingly erratic as the entries progressed,
and always that same final line, it's getting hungry again,
God help whoever comes next. Marcus had tried to take
the journal away, claiming it was dangerous knowledge, but Danny
(34:59):
ret fuse to give it up. He'd been documenting everything now,
temperature readings during strange encounters, descriptions of unusual customers, patterns
in the supernatural incidents. The skeptical kid who'd arrived six
months ago was gone, replaced by someone obsessed with understanding
what we were dealing with. There's a logic to it,
(35:21):
Danny kept insisting during our shared shifts. Rules don't exist
in a vacuum. Their responses to specific threats. If we
can understand the threats, we can understand how to fight them.
Marcus would just shake his head. Understanding these things is
what killed my boy. Understanding is what gets you noticed
by things that should never notice you. But Danny was
(35:44):
past listening. The journal had become his bible, and he'd
started adding his own entries to the back pages, detailed
observations about customer behavior, environmental anomalies, attempts to categorize the
different types of supernatural encounters we'd experienced. The breaking point
came on that Tuesday night, when Danny decided to test
his theories. The customer walked in just after midnight, and
(36:08):
I smelled him before I saw him, the thick, cloying
stench of meat left too long in the sun. My
hand instinctively reached for the laminated rule card in my pocket,
but Danny was already moving toward the counter with his
notebook in hand. Evening, the man said, his voice carrying
the wet, thick quality of someone speaking through a mouthful
(36:29):
of blood. He was tall and gaunt, wearing clothes that
looked like they'd been buried in dirt for weeks. But
it was his smile that made my stomach turn too wide,
showing teeth that had been filed to points. Rule one,
never serve customers who smell like decay or raw meat, Danny,
(36:50):
I said, quietly, trying to catch his attention. Don't. But
Danny was staring at the customer with the fascination of
a scientist observing a rare specimen, already scribbling observations. What
can I help you with, he asked, moving behind the register.
The customer's smile widened and I could see his filed
(37:11):
teeth clearly now, each one sharpened to a needle point
that gleamed under the fluorescent lights. Fresh meat is so
hard to find in winter, he said, his eyes never
leaving Danny's face. But there's always fresh meat somewhere, isn't there,
Young meat, tender meat that fights back. The temperature in
(37:32):
the store dropped so fast I could see my breath.
The fluorescent lights above us began to flicker, and I
heard Marcus's truck pulling into the parking lot. The aftermath
was immediate and horrible. The smell didn't leave for three days.
It clung to everything, the walls, our clothes, our skin,
like death marking its territory. Marcus walked in to find
(37:55):
Danny behind the counter, still taking notes, still engaging with
something that should never have been served. His face went
white when he saw the scene. Danny, Marcus said quietly,
step away from the counter now. The customer turned to
look at Marcus, and I saw recognition pass between them.
Marcus Hendricks, I remember you. I remember your boy too.
(38:20):
Two nights later, another one came, a woman with the
same filed teeth, the same predatory smile. She approached Danny
directly pulling something from her coat pocket. Don't you dare
put that in your mouth, Marcus warned, as she offered
Danny what looked like jerky that ain't beef jerky. The
woman's smile widened. It's a delicacy where I come from.
(38:43):
Man meat, sweet and gamey, especially when they've been running.
Danny reached for the jerky before either Marcus or I
could stop him. The expression that crossed his face when
he bit into it was revulsion and horror and something else,
something that looked almost like hunger. Now you understand, the
woman said, Now you know how good it tastes. After
(39:08):
she left, I watched Danny change, not physically, not yet,
but something fundamental shifted in his eyes. He kept licking
his lips, staring at Marcus and me with a new
kind of attention. That's when the third customer arrived and
everything went to hell. The bell chimed at exactly three
a m. But when I looked up from the register,
(39:29):
nobody was there. The door stood open, letting an air
so cold it burned my lungs. The fluorescent lights began
to flicker more rapidly, and the temperature dropped so fast
that frost formed on the windows in seconds. Then I
heard the breathing. It came from everywhere and nowhere, deep
and labored, like something huge struggling to fit into too
(39:49):
small a space. The smell hit us next, not just
decay this time, but something far worse, the smell of
a charnel house, of things that had been dead too
long and left to rod in places where the sun
never shines. Oh Jesus, Marcus whispered, his hand, moving to
the gun under his jacket. It's here. The thing that
(40:13):
walked through our door had once been human. You could
see it in the basic structure, two arms, two legs,
a torso and head arranged in roughly the right configuration,
but everything else was wrong. It stood nine feet tall,
its antlered heads scraping the ceiling tiles. What had once
been human stretched and twisted into something that belonged in nightmares.
(40:37):
Its breath came in clouds of steam that smelled like
Charnel houses, and when it moved I could hear the
sound of bones creaking under skin that had been pulled
too tight over a frame too large. Its eyes were
the worst part. They held intelligence, memory, the remnants of
something that had once been capable of human thought, but
(40:58):
behind that intelligence was a hunger so vast and consuming
that it made my own addiction look like a miner craving.
I remember every face, it said, its voice like wind
through dead trees, every scream, every drop of blood that's
fed me over the decades, and now I remember yours.
(41:20):
Danny stepped forward, his notebook clutched in trembling hands. What
are you The Wendigo's head tilted, studying Danny with the
interest of a predator, evaluating prey. I am what you
become when the hunger takes everything else away, What you
become when you taste the forbidden meat and find that
(41:41):
nothing else will ever satisfy you. Again, the mining camp,
I said, pieces clicking together in my mind. You're from
the mining camp. I am the mining camp, the Wendigo said.
Thirty eight miners trapped by a cave in during the
winter of nineteen fifty two. Thirty eight men who ran
(42:02):
out of food and started eating each other to survive.
Thirty eight souls who discovered that human flesh tastes better
than anything else in this world. Marcus had his gun
out now, but his hands were shaking. Stay back. All
of you, stay back. The wendigo laughed, and the sound
was like breaking glass mixed with the screams of dying animals.
(42:26):
Bullets won't help you, Marcus, Not when the boy has
already tasted the meat, Not when he's already started changing.
Danny was staring at the wendigo with sick fascination, his
note book forgotten. I can feel it, he whispered. The
hunger it's getting stronger. You can run, kid, Marcus said,
(42:47):
his voice thick with the same desperation I'd heard when
he talked about his son. But if you do, you
take part of it with you. The hunger spreads. That's
how it works. Danny's face was pale, covered in a
sheen of sweat despite the freezing temperature. I can't I
(43:08):
can feel it in my head, whispering, telling me how
good warm flesh tastes, telling me how much better you
two would taste than that jerky. The wendigo moved closer,
its massive frame, casting shadows that seemed to move independently
of its body. The compact is broken, it said, directing
(43:28):
its words at Marcus. Three rules violated in one week.
The protections are void. The feeding ground is open again.
What compact, I asked, But even as I said it,
I was starting to understand. Your people built their gas
station on our hunting ground, the Wendigo explained, its antlered
head swinging toward me. We agreed to limit our feeding
(43:51):
to follow certain restrictions. In exchange, we were guaranteed a
steady supply of food. Travelers who broke the rule, employees
who couldn't follow simple instructions. Marcus's gun was trained on
the Wendigo, but I could see the hopelessness in his eyes.
Twenty years of peace, twenty years of the rules keeping
(44:13):
people safe, and now it's over. The Wendigo said, thanks
to your curious young friend. Here. Danny was making small
sounds of distress, pressing his hands against his head, like
he was trying to keep something out. It's so loud,
he whispered, the voice in my head, it's so hungry.
(44:34):
The Wendigo turned its attention back to Danny, and I
saw something that might have been affection in its ancient eyes.
Come with us, child, Let us teach you the old ways.
Let us show you how good the hunt can be
when you stop pretending to be human. Danny no Marcus said,
but his voice lacked conviction. We all knew it was
(44:58):
too late. Danny looked at up at us, and his
eyes were no longer entirely human. I'm sorry, he said,
I'm so sorry, but it hurts to fight it, and
I'm so very hungry. He walked toward the wendigo, each
step more confident than the last. By the time he
reached the creature's side, he was moving with the same
(45:19):
predatory grace we'd seen in the customers who detested our rules.
The wendigo placed one massive clawed hand on Danny's shoulder.
Good boy, the hunger will make you strong. The hunger
will make you whole. They turned toward the door, but
before leaving, the wendigo looked back at Marcus and me. Run,
it said, almost conversationally. Run far and fast, because when
(45:44):
the sun sets tomorrow, we'll be hunting again, and this
time there are no rules to protect you. Then they
were gone, vanishing into the darkness beyond our fluorescent bubble
of safety. The temperature began to return to normal, and
the light stopped flickers ring, but the smell lingered, the
smell of death and hunger and things that should never
(46:05):
have existed. Marcus holstered his gun with hands that shook
like leaves. It's over, he said, quietly. Whatever protection this
place had, it's gone now. As dawn broke over the
Alaska Range, painting the snow covered peak's blood red, I
realized the wendigo hadn't left. It had simply retreated, like
(46:27):
a tide, pulling back before the real wave hits, and
somewhere out there in the wilderness, Danny was learning how
to be something other than human. The hunger was spreading,
and I was starting to understand that the real horror
wasn't what might happen to us, it was what we
might become. Frank Morrison returned three days later, with new
(46:48):
employment contracts and the kind of expression you see on undertakers,
professional sympathy mixed with grim inevitability. I'd spent those three
days in a haze of sleepless terror, jumping at over
every shadow, checking the locks obsessively, and waiting for something
with filed teeth to come scratching at our door. Marcus
had barely spoken since Danny's transformation, moving through his shifts
(47:11):
like a man walking through his own funeral. The gas
station felt different now, smaller, more vulnerable, like the fluorescent
lights were just a thin bubble of safety surrounded by
an ocean of hungry darkness. When Frank walked through the
door that Thursday morning, I could see immediately that he
knew everything. His weathered face carried the weight of too
(47:32):
many conversations like this one, too many explanations that started
with I'm sorry for your loss and ended with but
someone still has to work the night shift. How bad
is it, he asked Marcus without preamble. Marcus looked up
from the coffee pot he'd been staring at for the
past hour. Gone, the boy's gone, and the compact. He
(47:55):
trailed off, shaking his head. I figured as much when
I saw the reports, Frank said, settling into a chair
that groaned under his weight. State troopers found what was
left of a hiking party about fifteen miles north of here,
three college kids from Anchorage. The scene dot dot dot,
he paused, choosing his words carefully. Let's just say it
(48:20):
looked like something had been teaching a new student how
to hunt. My stomach turned. Danny had been out there
for three days, learning to be something other than human,
learning to enjoy the taste of flesh and the sound
of screams. There's something else, Frank continued, pulling out a
Manila folder thick with papers. The tribal council wants to meet.
(48:43):
They've been watching this place for seventy years and they're
not happy about recent developments. Tribal council, I asked. Frank
looked at me with eyes that held decades of secrets. Son,
It's time you learn the truth about this place, about
why it exists, and why some one always has to
(49:03):
work the night shift. He opened the folder and pulled
out a yellowed photograph from the nineteen fifties. It showed
a group of men in work clothes standing in front
of what looked like a mining operation, but the landscape
behind them was wrong, too twisted, too dark, like the
camera had captured something that shouldn't exist. My grandfather built
(49:25):
this place in nineteen fifty two, Frank said, pointing to
a younger version of himself in the photograph, right on
top of what the natives called the hungry ground. Thought
he could contain it control it. Turns out all he
did was give it a steady food supply. The photograph
showed more than just miners in the background, barely visible.
(49:47):
In the shadows, I could make out shapes that might
have been human, but moved wrong, stood wrong, existed wrong.
The mining camp, I said, pieces clicking together. It was real,
real as anything else in this god forsaken place. Frank confirmed.
Thirty eight miners went into those hills in the winter
(50:07):
of nineteen fifty two. Only one came back out, and
he wasn't human any more. The things that came after him, well,
they were hungry, always hungry. Marcus poured himself another cup
of coffee with hands that shook slightly. Your grandfather made
a deal, a compact, Frank nodded, the when to go
(50:29):
the thing that used to be Those thirty eight miners
agreed to limit their hunting, follow certain rules. In exchange,
we'd provide them with a steady supply of food. People
who broke the rules, people who couldn't follow simple instructions.
I stared at the photograph, trying to process what I
was hearing. This station isn't a gas stop, Son, it's
a feeding ground with rules. Break the rules, you become
(50:53):
the meal. Follow them, you become the shepherd. All those
missing person flyers by the door, I said, all those
people who disappeared rule breakers, Frank said, simply, people who
smelled like decay and got served anyway. People who claimed
to be from mining camps that didn't exist. People who
ate the wrong kind of meat or went outside during
(51:14):
the wrong hours. He looked directly at me. The rules
weren't there to protect the customers, sam, They were there
to select which customers got fed to the wend to go.
The coffee tasted like ash in my mouth, and now
the compact is broken. Danny broke three rules in one week.
Marcus said quietly. That voids the agreement, which means they're
(51:38):
not bound by the restrictions anymore. They can hunt whenever
they want, however they want, which brings us to the
immediate problem, Frank said, pulling out fresh employment contracts. Danny
lasted two more days before the Wendigo's influence consumed what
was left of his humanity. He came at us with
teeth filed to points and Marcus's missing hunting knife. My
(52:01):
blood ran cold. Danny's coming back came back, Marcus corrected grimly.
Yesterday afternoon, while you were sleeping. I was alone in
the store when he walked through that door. But he
wasn't Danny anymore? Not really still had his face, still
sounded like him when he talked, but his eyes, Marcus shuddered.
(52:23):
His eyes were all hunger. What happened? Marcus was quiet
for a long moment, staring at his hands. When he
finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. I'm sorry, kid,
Marcus whispered, and put three rounds of Blessed Silver into
Danny's chest. The silence that followed was deafening. I could
(52:47):
hear the fluorescent lights humming overhead, the distant sound of
traffic on Route three, the whisper of wind through the
gaps around the door. But underneath it all I could
swear I heard something else. Ah, rhythmic scratching, like claws
on metal. Blessed silver, I asked old tribal wisdom. Frank explained,
(53:10):
some things that used to be human can still remember
what silver means, pain, purification. Sometimes it's enough to set
their souls free, and sometimes it just makes them angry.
Marcus added, we'll find out which one Danny was when
the sun goes down. Frank spread the contracts across the counter,
(53:32):
which brings us to your decision. Sam, You can walk away,
take your pay, and get on the next bus south.
But someone has to work the night shift. I looked
at the contracts, then at Marcus, then at the missing
person flyers that had been accumulating by the door for decades,
all those people who thought they could ignore the rules,
who'd believed they were smarter than small town superstitions. What
(53:56):
happens if nobody works the night shift, The hungry ground spreads,
Frank said. Without someone to maintain the rules, to select
the proper offerings, the whnd to go start hunting indiscriminately.
First its truckers on Route three, Then it's people in
Cold Water Junction, Then it's anyone who comes within fifty
miles of this place. I understood then that my addiction
(54:19):
had prepared me for this job. Some hungers could never
be satisfied, only managed one day at a time, one
rule at a time. I'll stay, I said, Someone has
to watch the night shift. Frank nodded like he'd expected
as much. Marcus will train you in the deeper protocols,
(54:40):
the real rules that keep this place functioning. It's not
just about following the seven rules anymore. It's about enforcing
them over the next week. Marcus taught me things that
weren't written on any laminated card. How to recognize when
the WHND to go we're testing new employees. How to
tell the difference between customers who were genuinely dangerous and
(55:01):
customers who were genuinely dangerous in supernatural ways. How to
prepare the blessed silver bullets that could put down someone
who used to be human but wasn't any more. Most importantly,
he taught me how to live with the knowledge that
I was part of something larger and more terrible than
I'd ever imagined. The guilt eats at you, he told
(55:21):
me one night while we were cleaning the register, knowing
that every person who breaks the rules is going to
feed something that should never have existed. But the alternative
is worse without the rules, without the compact, they hunt everyone.
How do you sleep at night? Marcus smiled, but there
was no humor in it. I don't haven't slept well
(55:42):
in eight years, but I'm still human, which is more
than I can say for the alternatives. The new compact
was negotiated through intermediaries tribal elders who remembered the old
agreements and understood the cost of keeping ancient hungers satisfied.
The rules would remain the same, but the horsement would
be stricter. No more warnings, no more second chances. Break
(56:05):
a rule become a meal. Three weeks later, a kid
named Tyler stepped off the afternoon bus, all desperate eyes
and empty pockets, just like I had. He was maybe nineteen,
with the kind of hollow look that came from running
out of options. His clothes were wrinkled from sleeping rough,
and he carried everything he owned in a backpack that
(56:26):
had seen better years. Heard you might be hiring, he said,
when he walked into the station. I looked at him
and saw myself from a month ago, desperate running from something,
willing to take any job that would keep him fed
and housed through the winter, the cycle beginning again. There
are seven rules, I told him, handing over the laminated card.
(56:47):
Follow them exactly, and you might live through your first month.
Tyler read the list, his eyebrows rising with each rule.
These seem kind of paranoid, kid, I said, remembering Marcus's
words from my first day. Paranoid is what keeps you
breathing in a place like this. That night, after Tyler
(57:09):
had gone to Missus Patterson's boarding house, with the same
mixture of hope and desperation i'd carried. The wendigo appeared
one last time. It stood at the edge of the
light cast by our fluorescent signs, barely visible in the
darkness beyond the parking lot. Another guardian, it said, in
a voice like breaking ice good. I was getting hungry again.
(57:33):
I nodded to the creature that had claimed so many
before me. We had an understanding. Now it would feed,
but only according to the rules, and I would insure
those rules were followed. Marcus retired the following week, taking
his pension and his blessed silver bullets, and disappearing south
to somewhere with more sunlight and fewer nightmares. Before he left,
(57:57):
he pressed a worn journal into my hands. Your turn
to keep the records, he said. Someone needs to document
what really happens here for the next guy. The journal
was full of entries dating back decades, different handwriting, different names,
but always the same story. Someone desperate takes the night shift,
(58:18):
someone learns the rules, someone becomes the guardian. Someone eventually
passes the responsibility to the next desperate soul, who steps
off the bus with empty pockets. And nowhere else to go.
I added my own entry to the back pages. The
hunger is patient, the rules are absolute, and someone always
needs to work the night shift. Tyler's training began that
(58:41):
same week. I watched him go through the same stages.
I had skepticism, gradual acceptance, growing horror, and finally understanding.
He was a quick learner, maybe because he'd already seen
enough of the world's cruelty to accept that supernatural cruelty
wasn't much different. Why do you stay, he asked during
(59:03):
his second week. I thought about the question while I
counted the register. Because someone has to, because the alternative
is letting hungry things hunt freely, Because sometimes doing the
right thing means accepting that you'll never be able to
live with yourself. Afterward, Tyler nodded like he understood. Maybe
(59:24):
he did. Maybe desperation teaches the same lessons, regardless of
what brings you to it. As I write this, the
night Shift continues Tyler's learning the rules just like I did,
just like the next person will when Tyler finally understands
what this place really is. The Wendigo is patient, the
hungry ground is eternal, and someone always needs to work
(59:47):
the night shift. The bus to Cold Water Junction still
runs every Tuesday, bringing new desperate souls looking for work
and shelter. Most of them find other options, other jobs,
other places to run to, but eventually someone always walks
through our door with empty pockets and nowhere else to go.
If you're reading this, and if you've been thinking about
(01:00:09):
that job posting for a night shift attendant in Alaska,
well you've been warned. But desperation makes fools of us all,
and the bust to Cold Water Junction runs every Tuesday,
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