I took a quiet night job at a lonely Kentucky gas station because I wanted routine, but before my first solo shift the owner handed me five laminated rules, including, “If the lights go out, hide under the register.”

I took a quiet night job at a lonely Kentucky gas station because I wanted routine, but before my first solo shift the owner handed me five laminated rules, including, “If the lights go out, hide under the register.” I thought she was joking until the entire station went black at 1:00 a.m., the locked front-door bell rang by itself, and something with gray feet and four long toes walked past my hiding place…

My name is Harvey Fields, and for three years I worked nights at a little gas station off Highway 41 outside Black Creek, Kentucky.

If you passed it during the day, you probably wouldn’t remember it. Six pumps, a faded red sign, a small convenience store, coffee against the back wall, and one employee working alone after dark.

That was exactly why I took the job.

I had spent nearly a decade bouncing between warehouses, loading docks, and whatever work paid the bills. I wasn’t chasing a career anymore. I wanted a paycheck and a routine that stayed the same from one week to the next.

The station sat almost thirty miles from the nearest town.

No houses.

No restaurants.

No glowing fast-food signs.

Just the highway, the store, and woods on both sides.

The owner, Denise Crawford, had been there longer than anybody seemed able to agree on. Some people said twenty years. Others said thirty-five. One regular claimed she had been working that register since the 1970s.

Denise never corrected anybody.

My first two weeks were exactly what I wanted.

I learned which cooler door stuck, which lottery bills jammed the machine, and how pump three sometimes stopped if a customer squeezed the handle too hard.

Then, before my first night completely alone, Denise called me into the tiny office.

She unlocked the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet and placed one laminated sheet on the desk.

Five rules.

I smiled after reading the first one.

Denise didn’t.

“Fold it up,” she said. “Keep it in your pocket.”

Rule one read:

If the lights go out, hide under the register until they come back on.

I almost laughed.

It sounded like something meant to scare a teenager at summer camp.

That first solo shift started normally.

I sold gas to a family traveling south. Two teenagers bought chips. Around eleven, I brewed fresh coffee.

Deputy Brett Snyder stopped for his usual black coffee and noticed the laminated paper sticking out of my shirt pocket.

“She gave it to you?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

That was all he said.

Around one in the morning, the highway went completely quiet.

I was counting cigarette cartons when every light in the building went out at once.

Ceiling lights.

Coolers.

Register.

Gas pumps.

Everything.

I reached for the flashlight.

Then I remembered the rule.

For a few seconds, I stood there arguing with myself.

Power failures happened.

Normal people checked breakers.

They did not crawl under cash registers.

I took one step toward the office.

The bell above the front door rang.

I turned.

The door had not moved.

The bell rang again.

Still closed.

Then I heard footsteps.

Slow.

Heavy.

Coming from the front of the store.

I stopped trying to explain anything.

I dropped behind the counter and squeezed beneath the register beside boxes of receipt paper, cigarette cartons, and the little floor safe.

The footsteps kept coming.

Then another set joined them.

Then another.

Within less than a minute, the store sounded busy.

Cooler doors opened.

Plastic wrappers crinkled.

Something bumped the chip display.

But nobody spoke.

That was what frightened me most.

Every real customer said something.

“Pump four.”

“Bathroom?”

“Pack of Marlboros.”

These things said nothing.

Through the narrow space beneath the counter, I saw the first pair of feet pass.

Gray skin.

Four long toes.

Black nails scraping softly across the tile.

Another walked by.

Its feet looked almost human until I realized they bent backward.

Then a third stopped directly in front of me.

It stood there.

Not moving.

Slowly, it crouched.

A gray hand slid beneath the counter.

The fingers were much too long.

They moved across the floor, brushing boxes and cleaning supplies until they stopped less than a foot from my face.

I held my breath.

The hand tapped the floor once.

Then twice.

Like it knew exactly where I was.

I was certain it was about to reach forward and grab me.

Instead, the front bell rang again.

The hand disappeared.

The footsteps eventually faded.

A few seconds later, every light in the station came back on.

I waited before crawling out.

The store looked completely normal.

Nothing missing.

Nothing broken.

For one ridiculous moment, I almost convinced myself fear had made me imagine it.

Then I looked at the floor.

Three wet footprints crossed the tile.

Gray.

Four-toed.

Each ending in long claw marks.

When Denise arrived after sunrise, she looked at the prints before she looked at me.

“The lights went out.”

I nodded.

“And you stayed under the register.”

“Yeah.”

She smiled for the first time since I’d met her.

“Good.”

Then she picked up the mop and cleaned the footprints herself.

I finally asked, “What were those things?”

Denise rinsed the bucket and looked back at me.

“Don’t ask.”

That was when I stopped laughing at the other four rules.

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Rule two said never sell gasoline to anyone wearing a raincoat when it isn’t raining.

About a week later, on a perfectly clear night, an old green pickup rolled up to pump four.

The driver stepped out wearing a heavy yellow rubber raincoat.

The pavement was dry.

The sky was full of stars.

Yet water dripped steadily from his coat as he entered the store.

“Pump four.”

I told him the pumps were down.

He stared at me.

“Half a tank.”

“I can’t.”

Then I noticed the water hitting the floor was black.

He smiled just enough for me to see teeth that looked far too long.

“I understand.”

He went back outside and stood beside pump four without moving.

Ten minutes.

Twenty.

Denise told me over the phone to do nothing.

Eventually, something enormous stepped from the woods behind him.

Nine feet tall, maybe more.

Its arms hung nearly to its knees.

The thing placed one hand gently on the raincoat man’s shoulder.

Together, they walked into the forest.

By sunrise, there were no footprints.

No tire tracks.

Nothing.

Rule three was even stranger.

Every night at exactly 2:17, pump four would activate by itself.

I was not supposed to touch it.

The first time I watched it happen, gasoline poured onto the concrete even though the nozzle remained locked in place.

Exactly ten gallons.

Then it stopped.

A man came out of the woods wearing dirty overalls.

His skin looked like tree bark, with moss growing along one side of his face.

He knelt and drank from the puddle.

After him came a woman in a muddy white dress.

Then something with the body of a man and the head of a deer.

Then more.

Some drank.

Some touched the gasoline.

Some simply stared into it.

Just before four, a little girl in a yellow dress approached carrying a stuffed bear.

She dipped one finger into the puddle and smiled.

Then she pointed toward the trees.

Hundreds of figures stood there watching the station.

Watching me.

By sunrise, they were gone.

The concrete beneath pump four was dry.

The records showed ten gallons dispensed.

No sale.

No missing money.

Everything balanced.

That was when I finally understood something.

The rules were not preventing strange things from happening.

They were stopping me from interfering.

Rule four made that even clearer.

If the coffee machine started brewing by itself after midnight, I was not supposed to touch it.

One night, it clicked on by itself.

A full pot brewed.

Then customers started arriving.

The first looked like an ordinary man until he removed his baseball cap and revealed a head made of smooth gray stone.

He poured coffee, placed two dollars on the counter, and left.

The next customer had branches growing from one shoulder.

Then came a woman whose eyes reflected light like a cat’s.

An old man whose shadow moved a second after he did.

Something covered in bandages.

Something in a business suit with black smoke hiding its face.

They waited in line.

They paid.

One cleaned up spilled coffee with a napkin.

Another straightened a crooked chip display.

One creature with six arms spent forever choosing between creamers.

It was less like a nightmare than a neighborhood coffee shop whose customers happened not to be human.

Then a towering figure entered.

Every other customer became completely still.

He poured the last of the coffee and looked directly at me.

I did not move.

He pressed the brew button himself.

Then he nodded and walked away.

Around 2:30, Deputy Brett Snyder entered.

He saw the line.

Saw me.

Saw the laminated rules beside the register.

I shook my head once.

He quietly backed out and left.

Apparently, Brett knew more than I did.

The last customer left three worn silver coins on the counter.

I reached for them.

“Don’t.”

Denise’s voice came from behind me.

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

She picked up the coins with a towel and placed them into a steel box.

“Never touch the old Roman coins.”

I stared at her.

“You’ve seen all this?”

“For thirty-two years.”

“What are they?”

“Customers.”

“They’re monsters.”

Denise shrugged.

“They pay. They don’t steal. I’ve had human customers cause more trouble.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

Then came rule five.

If a child entered alone looking for his parents, do not help him look for them.

Near the end of one shift, a little boy walked in carrying a dirty stuffed rabbit.

He looked about eight.

“Have you seen my mom?”

Everything in me wanted to help him.

Then I remembered the rule.

“I’m sorry. I haven’t.”

He looked disappointed.

I gave him a bottle of water.

He thanked me politely and sat beside the freezer.

Eventually, he pushed his hair aside.

That was when I saw the tiny black horns.

A few minutes later, he stood.

“I think they’re here.”

The parking lot was empty.

He walked outside and ran toward the hill behind the station.

Two enormous figures waited at the top.

Fifteen feet tall.

Long horns.

Soft red eyes.

One lifted the boy into its arms.

The other rested a giant hand on his head.

For a few seconds, they looked almost like any family reuniting after school.

Then the boy pointed toward the gas station.

All three turned toward me.

Their eyes locked onto the window.

A hand touched my shoulder.

Denise.

She calmly closed the blinds.

“That’s why we don’t help him,” she said.

“His parents are always hungry.”

We left the blinds closed.

After sunrise, I finally asked Denise the question I had been avoiding.

“Why is this place here?”

She counted the register.

“Because every road has travelers.”

“Where do they come from?”

She shrugged.

“I stopped asking a long time ago.”

Later, I carried my coffee outside.

The fog was lifting over the highway.

Birds were singing.

Everything looked ordinary.

Then I looked across the road.

There was no road there.

Only dense forest.

That made no sense.

Every night, I had watched headlights come from that direction.

Customers arrived from there constantly.

But in daylight there was nothing.

No pavement.

No gravel lane.

Not even a break between the trees.

I stood there for a long time trying to understand what I was seeing.

Eventually, another normal customer pulled in.

Then another.

The morning routine resumed.

And I realized I no longer needed an explanation.

Before working at that station, I thought monsters belonged in stories.

I was wrong.

They buy coffee.

They wait in line.

They collect their children.

And every night, somewhere beyond a road that disappears in daylight, they stop for gas.

THE END.
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