I took a night job at a West Virginia rest stop because it was ten minutes from home, but when I arrived for my interview, there was nothing beyond the entrance except weeds.

I took a night job at a West Virginia rest stop because it was ten minutes from home, but when I arrived for my interview, there was nothing beyond the entrance except weeds. At exactly 9:00 p.m., the entire building appeared in front of me, and my manager handed me a red uniform and six rules. I understood the first one only after our vending machines ran empty and a hungry customer turned toward an elderly man…

My name is Curtis Roco, and I took the job because I was tired of driving forty minutes each way to a hardware store.

The rest stop was ten minutes from my house, just off the West Virginia Turnpike. I had stopped there for gas before—six pumps, a little store, hot food behind the counter, coffee, bathrooms, nothing memorable.

One evening I noticed a HELP WANTED sign taped to the door.

The manager, Wesley, called me back the next afternoon. He wanted someone dependable for nights who could run a register and show up on time.

I had done both.

We agreed to meet at nine that evening.

I arrived ten minutes early.

I recognized the turn from the highway. I recognized the two white posts marking the entrance.

What I did not see was the rest stop.

Beyond the posts was bare ground.

No building.

No pumps.

No parking lot.

I sat in my car wondering whether I had somehow taken the wrong exit until I noticed Wesley parked on a gravel strip beside the entrance.

He got out and waved.

“You’re early,” he said.

“I thought this was the place.”

“It is.”

I looked past him at the empty field.

Wesley checked his watch.

“Give it a minute.”

At exactly nine, the rest stop appeared.

There was no flash.

No sound.

One second I was looking at weeds beneath a dark hillside.

The next, a brick building stood there with its windows glowing. Pumps sat beneath a white canopy. Painted parking spaces stretched across pavement that had not existed a heartbeat earlier.

I remember walking forward several steps just to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me.

Wesley let me.

Then he took a folded red work shirt from his car.

“The advertisement left out a few things,” he said.

That was an understatement.

The property opened every night at nine.

At sunrise, everything beyond the two white posts disappeared again.

Employees parked on the gravel outside the boundary and had to be completely off the property before daylight.

I should have gotten back into my car.

Wesley even gave me the chance.

Instead, I asked what else the advertisement had forgotten.

He gave me six rules.

He also told me something about the red shirt that sounded even more ridiculous than the disappearing building.

“Keep it on while you’re here,” he said. “It keeps the dangerous customers from hurting you.”

“Dangerous how?”

“You’ll see.”

Wesley stayed with me that first shift.

By morning, we had helped one frightened family make it safely back to their car, and I understood enough to come back the following night.

Eight months later, I was still there.

Most of the work really was ordinary.

I made coffee.

I served hot food.

I cleaned tables.

I rang up tired families and truckers who wanted a sandwich before getting back on the turnpike.

The difference was that not every customer was human.

Some had horns.

Some had skin that did not look like skin.

Most behaved themselves.

Wesley told me the six rules existed because somewhere in the station’s history, somebody had learned each one the hard way.

Rule one was simple.

Always keep the vending machines stocked.

We had three of them beside the bathroom hallway: red, blue, and white.

The stockroom contained enough candy to make a dentist retire early.

Snickers and Skittles were especially important.

“Certain customers like them,” Wesley said.

I learned just how much one busy night.

The store was crowded enough that I kept bouncing between the register and the vending machines.

A large customer in a yellow raincoat arrived first.

Its hood stayed low enough to hide most of its face, though I occasionally caught a glimpse of teeth.

It stood at the red machine and bought six Snickers.

“One. Two. Three.”

It counted every bar.

Then three customers in dark coats started emptying the Skittles from the blue machine.

I kept refilling everything as fast as they ate.

Then the card reader froze while an ordinary woman was trying to pay for gas.

Wesley came out to help.

I turned toward the vending machines and realized something was wrong.

They had gone quiet.

All three were empty.

The customers in dark coats were already leaving.

The yellow raincoat remained.

One swollen-looking hand was still inside the empty tray.

Slowly, it pulled its arm free.

Then it turned toward the tables.

An older man in a red cap had finished his pie and was taking a tablet from his bag.

He had no idea what was walking toward him.

The raincoat stopped beside his table.

“Nice weather we’re having,” the man said cheerfully.

The thing leaned over him.

One hand spread across the tabletop.

Its fingers pressed dents into the hard surface as if the table were bread dough.

The old man’s smile disappeared.

I grabbed a box of Snickers from the stockroom.

“Hey.”

The raincoat ignored me.

I tore open the box, pulled out a candy bar, and held it up.

“I’ve got more.”

Its head turned.

I placed the Snickers on top of the vending machine.

For another second, it remained beside the man.

Then it straightened and came toward me.

I opened the box wider so it could see everything inside.

The customer took the loose candy bar while I started filling the machine.

Behind me, Wesley calmly approached the elderly man and told him we needed to clean his table.

The man didn’t argue.

The raincoat inserted a coin and bought another Snickers as though nothing unusual had happened.

A quarter slipped from its hand and rolled underneath the vending machine.

It waited.

So I got down, found the coin, and handed it back.

That might sound absurd.

But keeping the customer happy was my job.

And I had just gotten my first clear look at what happened when one of those customers became hungry enough to start considering alternatives.

After the raincoat left, I went back to the table.

The dents from its fingers were still there.

The elderly man had been sitting against the wall.

If the candy hadn’t distracted that thing, he would have had nowhere to run.

Wesley looked at the empty wrapper in my hand.

“Now you understand rule one.”

I did.

And there were five rules left.

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Rule two was never remove your uniform.

The red shirt was not company branding.

It was protection.

Mine had CURTIS stitched above the pocket. Wesley’s had his name. Whatever came through those doors could threaten ordinary travelers, but while we wore those shirts, it could not physically touch us.

A man in a long black coat proved it one quiet Monday.

He wore dark glasses indoors and carried a leather case filled with little cloth bundles.

One contained a human tooth with a root much too long to belong to any normal person.

A woman drinking coffee leaned closer when he offered it to her.

I stepped between them.

The man reached for my wrist.

His fingers stopped inches from my skin.

He pushed harder.

His hand trembled with the effort, but some invisible boundary kept him from touching me.

Then a thin line beside his mouth opened.

There were teeth inside it.

Not in his mouth.

Down the side of his jaw.

The woman finally understood that something was wrong and moved behind Wesley.

I told the man to put his things away.

Eventually, he did.

That was when I stopped thinking of the uniform as optional.

Rule three concerned pump six.

Pump six was for vampires.

It didn’t hold gasoline.

It held blood.

A quarter bought thirty seconds.

Most of the vampires who used it were old, weak, or unable to hunt anymore.

One winter evening, an elderly vampire arrived in a white car wearing a brown suit and carrying a cane.

He moved so slowly that a woman in the parking lot assumed he needed help.

Before I could stop her, she picked up his cane.

He smiled at her.

Then his eyes dropped to her wrist.

A thin string of saliva hung from his mouth.

I hurried between them.

“I’ve got him.”

The woman resisted at first because, from her point of view, I was being rude to a frail old man.

Finally, she walked away.

The vampire watched her until she was safely out of reach.

Then he put a quarter into pump six, raised the nozzle, and pushed it directly between his teeth.

Blood ran down his chin.

Thirty seconds later, the machine stopped.

He inserted another quarter.

By the third serving, he was standing straighter.

The hollow places in his face had filled.

Color had returned around his ears.

By the time he finished, he carried the cane instead of leaning on it.

I remember watching him look toward the place where that woman had been standing.

The blood from pump six had made him stronger.

If she had stayed beside him another minute, I don’t know whether my shirt would have been enough to protect both of us.

Rule four was no sleeping in the parking lot.

That sounded ordinary until Wesley explained why.

The dead came down from the hills after midnight.

I called them zombies because I didn’t have a better word.

They wandered through the parking lot looking for cars with sleeping people inside.

One night, I spotted a man in a tan jacket standing beside a blue pickup.

His reading glasses still hung from a cord around his neck.

He kept lifting the passenger-side door handle.

On the driver’s side, a dead woman in a stained blue dress was crouched beneath a partly open window.

Her fingers were already inside.

The driver was asleep.

I walked around the truck and shined my flashlight into the cab.

“Sir. Wake up.”

He barely moved.

The dead woman’s face rose toward the opening.

Most of one cheek was missing.

I knocked harder.

The driver finally opened his eyes.

“Man, I’m just taking a nap.”

Then he saw the fingers hooked over his window.

He reached for his door.

I stopped him.

“Start the truck.”

The engine turned over.

“Window.”

He raised it.

The dead woman held on until the glass forced her fingers free.

On the other side, the man with the reading glasses continued trying the handle.

Click.

Click.

Click.

The driver put the truck in gear and left so quickly I watched his taillights until they reached the highway.

The zombies stood in the empty parking space afterward as if confused about where their meal had gone.

Rule five was the one Wesley never joked about.

Never get into Henry’s car.

Henry Lace had been a serial killer when he was alive.

He had been dead for decades.

He still visited several nights a week.

The disturbing thing about Henry was how normal he looked.

Well dressed.

Polite.

Charming.

He opened doors for people and picked up things they dropped.

Women trusted him almost immediately.

One night he sat beside a traveler wearing a red wool coat.

Within minutes, she had moved her chair closer to his.

I showed her the old newspaper photograph we kept beneath the register.

I explained who Henry was.

She looked at the picture.

Then she looked back at him.

Henry winked.

She smiled and returned to his table.

A few minutes later, he was helping her into her coat.

I followed them outside.

Henry opened the passenger door of his pale green sedan.

She started climbing inside.

I grabbed her arm.

“Leave me alone, creep,” she snapped.

“Lady, he is going to kill you.”

Henry smiled.

Then, to my amazement, he agreed.

“Curtis is right, baby. I am going to kill you.”

She still wanted to get in.

That was when I noticed the inside of his car.

There were no door handles.

No window crank.

Only scratched metal where trapped passengers had apparently tried to find a way out.

I stepped between Henry and the woman.

He reached for her.

His hand stopped against the invisible protection of my red shirt.

I pulled her back toward her own car.

The farther we got from Henry, the quieter she became.

By the time she found her keys, whatever hold he had on her seemed weaker.

She drove away staring straight ahead.

Henry watched her leave.

I was willing to accept the bad customer review.

Rule six mattered more than all the others.

Get every human off the property before sunrise.

Near the end of December, sunrise was 7:38.

By seven, we were already checking bathrooms, storage areas, and tables.

At 7:15, everybody should have been gone.

That morning, one gray station wagon remained.

The driver had his hood open.

His car would not start.

He had called for a tow, but the truck wouldn’t arrive until eight.

“I’ll just wait here,” he said.

“You can’t.”

He thought we were worried about theft.

So I told him the truth.

“At sunrise, this building, your car, and anybody left here will disappear.”

He stared at me.

Wesley tried jumping the battery.

Nothing.

The gearshift would not come out of park, so we couldn’t even push the car beyond the white posts.

The sky was brightening.

We had twenty minutes.

“Take whatever you need,” I told him. “Your bag. Your coffee. Anything important.”

He kept looking at the station wagon.

It was difficult to blame him.

His car looked real.

The building looked real.

Why would either suddenly disappear?

But eventually he listened.

He took a bag from the back seat, checked his glove box, locked the doors, and followed us past the white posts onto the gravel.

Wesley chained off the entrance.

The man called his tow company again.

Then we waited.

At exactly 7:38, sunlight reached the clearing.

The station vanished.

The pumps vanished.

The gray station wagon vanished.

One moment they were there.

The next, only bare ground remained.

The man stood beside me holding his travel mug.

He walked into the empty clearing and slowly turned around.

I couldn’t explain where his car had gone.

I could only tell him something worse.

In all the time Wesley had worked there, no customer’s vehicle had ever returned after disappearing with the rest stop.

I still work there.

Most nights, I park beside Wesley on the gravel, pull my coat over the red shirt, and wait for nine o’clock.

The building appears.

We unlock the doors.

We make coffee.

And we help travelers who have no idea what kind of place they have stopped at.

Some nights are almost peaceful.

Those are my favorites.

A tired father buys hot sandwiches for his family.

A truck driver sits quietly over coffee.

Someone asks for directions.

For a little while, the place feels like exactly what it looks like—a warm rest stop in the middle of dark Appalachian hills.

Then I look at the six rules beside the register and remember why Wesley hired me.

Near the end of December, the company sent us a notice praising our safety record.

Only 103 people had gone missing that year.

Apparently previous years had been much worse.

The number was printed in green with a smiling face beside it.

They even sent us a voucher for donuts.

Wesley pinned the notice in the staff room because he was genuinely proud of it.

At first, I thought that was insane.

Then I remembered the man with the tablet who almost became dinner because the Snickers ran out.

The tired driver who woke up seconds before the dead woman reached through his window.

The woman in the red coat who would have willingly climbed into Henry Lace’s car.

And the traveler who stood safely beside me at sunrise while his station wagon disappeared forever.

One hundred and three people missing sounds horrific anywhere else.

At our rest stop, it means we saved more than we lost.

That is not the kind of achievement anybody puts in a normal job advertisement.

But it is why I keep showing up.

Every night, the lights appear beyond those white posts.

Somebody out on the turnpike sees them and decides to stop.

And if that traveler happens to arrive on the wrong night, I want Wesley and me behind the counter when they do.

THE END.
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