I Work at a Gas Station that shouldn’t exist. We have 5 STRANGE Rules.

My name is Harvey Fields and for the last 3 years I’ve worked a night shift at a little gas station off Highway 41 outside Black Creek, Kentucky. If you drove past during the day, probably wouldn’t think twice about it. Six pumps, a small convenience store, a faded red sign that still advertised fountain drinks for 99 even though they hadn’t cost that much in years.
A coffee station tucked against the back wall beside the drink coolers. one employee working NASA looked like every other independent gas station scattered across rural America. And that’s exactly why I took the job. I wasn’t trying to chase some dream career. I wasn’t trying to find myself. I just wanted a steady paycheck and a routine that didn’t change every other week.
For almost a decade, I’d bounce from job to job. Clock in, do the work, go home. There was something satisfying about the same thing every day. This job offered that. At least it was supposed to. The station sat almost 30 mi from the nearest town. Whoever built it picked about the loneliest stretch of highway they could find.
There weren’t any neighborhoods nearby or restaurants or truck stops. No fast food chains glowing across the street. Just the station. Behind it sat a small dumpster enclosure, a propane cage, and a wall of hardwood forest that stretched farther than I could see. Across the highway, there were more trees. If you stepped outside after midnight and turned the store lights off, it was dark enough that you couldn’t even make out the tree line. I like that.
Maybe that sounds strange, but after spending years around traffic and crowded loading docks, the quiet was a nice change. The overnight shift was usually peaceful. After a couple weeks, I knew almost everyone’s routine. Some nights I’d only have 10 or 12 customers before sunrise. The hours passed faster than most people would think.
The owner was a woman named Denise Crawford. She’d own the place longer than anyone in town could remember. Some said 20 years, others said 35. One customer swore she’d been behind that register since the 70s. Denise never bothered correcting anyone. She wasn’t unfriendly. She just wasn’t the type to waste words. When I interviewed, she looked over my application for maybe 5 minutes before asking two questions.
You mind working by yourself? No. You mind working holidays? Not really. She nodded. When can you start? That was the entire interview. No personality test or corporate videos. No handbook the size of a phone book, just a handshake and a start date. My first two weeks went exactly the way I’d hoped they would.
Nothing exciting happened. I learned which cooler door stuck if you open it too far. I figured out the lottery machine jammed whenever someone fed it wrinkled bills. Pump three occasionally stopped pumping after four or five gallons if customers squeeze the handle too hard. The coffee machine made a loud clicking noise every time it finished brewing.
little things, the kind of details you only notice after spending long nights in the same building. I settled into the routine faster than any job I’d ever had. And honestly, I thought I’d keep working there for years. And then Denise asked me to come into the office before my first shift alone. She walked past the shelves of cigarettes, disappeared into the tiny office behind the register, and unlocked the bottom drawer of an old metal filing cabinet.
Instead of pulling out payroll forms or tax paperwork, she laid a single laminated sheet of paper on the desk between us. It had five rules on it. I remember smiling after I read the first one. I looked up at Denise and she didn’t say anything. She simply waited for me to finish reading the rest of the page. When I finally looked back up, she slid the paper toward me one last time. Fold it up.
Keep it in your pocket. I laughed a little. She didn’t. Rule one. If the lights go out, hide under the register until they come back on. I spent the first couple hours of my first solo shift, convincing myself Denise had been messing with me. Every time I reached into my pocket and felt the laminated rule sheet, I smiled.
If the lights go out, hide under the register until they come back on. It sounded like something you tell a kid at summer camp. The station was quiet. I sold gas to a family heading south, rang up a couple bags of chips for two teenagers, and made a fresh pot of coffee around 11:00. Deputy Brett Snider stopped in for his usual black coffee and nodded toward the folded paper sticking out of my shirt pocket. She gave it to you.
Yeah, good. That was all he said. I thought about asking him what the rules meant, but he was already walking back to his cruiser. By 1:00 in the morning, I hadn’t seen another customer in almost 40 minutes. I swept the floor, stocked the coolers, and counted cigarette cartons behind the register. Outside, the highway was empty, not a single pair of headlights in either direction.
The silence was actually nice. And then the lights went out. Every single one. the ceiling lights, the coolers, the register, even the lights over the gas pumps outside. The building went completely black. I sighed. Seriously? I reached under the counter for the flashlight and then I remembered the first rule.
For a second, I just stood there. Power outages happen. You don’t crawl under a register because the electricity goes out, do you? I took a step toward the office to check the breaker. The bell over the front door rang. I turned toward the entrance. The door hadn’t opened. I know it hadn’t because I was looking straight at it.
The bell rang again. Still no movement. And then I heard footsteps. They came from the front of the store. Slow and heavy. I didn’t wait for another explanation. I dropped behind the register and squeezed underneath the counter. It was cramped beneath there. Boxes of cigarettes, receipt paper, and a small safe left just enough room for me to curl into a ball.
The footsteps kept coming. Another set entered, then another, and within less than a minute. The store sounded busy. Cooler doors opened, candy wrappers crinkled, something bumped into the chip display. Nobody spoke and that was the strangest part. Every customer I’d ever had said something. Pump four bathroom. Can I get a pack of Marros? These things didn’t say a word.
I watched through the narrow gap beneath the counter. The first pair of feet walked past. Gray skin. Four long toes. Black nails that scraped softly across the tile. Another passed. This one looked almost human until I noticed its feet bent backward. A third stopped right in front of the register. It stood there without moving and then it slowly crouched.
A gray hand slid beneath the counter and the fingers were far too long. They searched across the floor, rushing against receipt boxes and cleaning supplies until they stopped less than a foot from my face. I held my breath. The hand stayed there and then it tapped the floor once, twice, like it knew I was hiding.
I was certain it was about to grab me, but instead the bell over the door rang again. The hand disappeared. The thing stood up and walked away. I stayed frozen. More footsteps wandered through the store. A cooler door opened, closed. Someone knocked over a bottle. Glass rolled across the floor. And then everything went quiet.
A second later, the lights came back. The refrigerators hummed. The register beeped as it restarted. I didn’t move. Not right away. I waited another minute before crawling out. The store looked perfect. Nothing had been stolen or broken. The chip display was standing exactly where I’d left it. And for one stupid moment, [clears throat] I wondered if I’d imagine the whole thing. And then I looked down.
Three wet footprints crossed the tile in front of the register. gray fourtoed, each one ending in long claw marks. They stopped halfway across the aisle like whatever made them had simply vanished. I didn’t touch them. I stood behind the counter until sunrise, just staring at those prints.
Denise arrived a little after 6, carrying her usual coffee. She saw the footprints before she looked at me. The lights went out, she said. I nodded. And you stayed under the register. Yeah. She smiled. It was the first time I’d ever seen her smile. Good. And then she grabbed the mop from the closet and cleaned the footprints herself.
When she finished, I asked the only question I could think of. What were those things? She dumped the dirty mop water into the utility sink and rinsed the bucket. And then she looked back at me and said, “Don’t ask.” Rule two, never sell gasoline to anyone wearing a raincoat when it isn’t raining. After what happened during the blackout, I stopped laughing at the rules. I didn’t understand them.
I wasn’t even sure I believed what I’d seen, but I wasn’t about to ignore him either. For the next week, nothing unusual happened. I worked my shifts, sold gas, stock shelves, cleaned coffee pots. Denise never brought up the footprints again, and I eventually stopped asking questions she clearly wasn’t interested in answering.
And then one Thursday night, I finally understood why rule two existed. It was just after 1:00 in the morning. The weather was clear enough that I could see stars over the treeine. There wasn’t a cloud anywhere. No wind either. The parking lot looked almost unnaturally still. A pair of headlights turned into the station.
Then an old green pickup rolled slowly toward pump 4. The truck had to be 40 years old. Rust covered the doors. One headlight was cracked. And the tailgate looked like it was being held shut with wire. The driver climbed out. He was wearing a bright yellow raincoat. Not one of those thin plastic ponchos. It was a heavy rubber raincoat that reached almost to his knees.
The hood covered most of his face. I immediately looked outside. Dry pavement, clear sky, not a single drop of rain. Without thinking, I reached into my pocket and unfolded the rule sheet. The bell above the door rang. The man walked inside. Water dripped from his coat. Not little, enough to leave a trail across the floor. He stopped at the counter.
Pump four. I glanced toward the window. His truck was the only vehicle in the lot. Uh, I’m sorry. The pumps are down. He didn’t answer. He just stood there. After a few seconds, he tilted his head. They were working yesterday. I I know that they are uh broken tonight. Another long silence, then. I don’t need much.
I’m sorry. Half a tank. I I I can’t. He stared at me for several more seconds and then I noticed something. The water dripping from his coat wasn’t clear. It was black. Each drop left a dark stain on the white tile. Finally, he smiled. It wasn’t wide, just enough for me to see teeth that looked far too long. I understand.
He turned around and walked back outside. Held out of breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Then he stopped beside pump 4. He didn’t get back into his truck. He simply stood there facing the store, not moving. 5 minutes passed, then 10. He never shifted his weight, never looked around, never scratched his face, nothing.
He stood perfectly still. I called Denise and she answered on the second ring. >> Hello. >> Yeah, the guy from rule two is here. >> Raincoat. >> Yellow. >> Did you sell him gas? >> No. No. >> Good. >> He’s just standing there. >> I know. >> Well, what do I do? >> Nothing. >> He’s been there 10 minutes. >> I know. When’s he leaving? There was a pause.
>> When he feels like it. >> The line went dead. That wasn’t very helpful, I thought. 20 more minutes rolled by. The man never moved. I tried watching TV on the little security monitor in the office, but I couldn’t focus. Every few minutes, I’d look out the window. He was still there, exactly where he’d been before.
Around 2:00, another car pulled into the station. A young woman got out and walked toward the pumps. Before she reached him, the man in the raincoat slowly turned his head. She froze. Even from inside the store, I could see the confusion on her face. She looked at him, looked at me through the window, and then climbed back into her car and drove away without buying anything.
The man turned back toward the building. Another 30 minutes passed and I finally started wondering if he’d stay until sunrise. Then something moved at the edge of the woods behind him. At first, I thought it was a deer. It wasn’t. Whatever stepped out of those trees had to duck beneath the lowest branches. It was enormous, at least 9 ft tall.
Its arms hung almost to its knees. I couldn’t make out many details in the darkness, only a broad shape. The raincoat man never turned around. It walked silently across the grass until it stopped directly behind him. The two of them stood there for several seconds, and then the larger figure gently rested one hand on the man’s shoulder like they knew each other.
Together, they walked back into the woods. Neither of them looked toward the station again. By sunrise, there wasn’t a single footprint in the parking lot. Not from the truck or the giant thing or even tire tracks. It was like neither of them had ever been there. Rule three, every night at 217, pump 4 will activate by itself. Don’t touch it.
By the time my third week rolled around, I’d stopped looking for logical explanations. The lights had gone out. I’d hidden under the register while things walked through the store. A man in a raincoat had stood outside for almost an hour before disappearing into the woods with something twice his size. I still couldn’t explain any of it, but I had learned one important lesson.
The rules worked. After that, I stopped asking why they existed and started worrying more about following them. Rule three came on a Tuesday morning. Business had been unusually slow. I’d only have three customers since midnight. And by 2:00, I was wiping down the coffee station for the second time just to stay busy.
I glanced at the clock. 216. I walked over to the front windows. Pump four sat empty beneath the canopy. No cars or people, nothing. The digital clock behind the counter changed. 217. A loud click echoed outside. Pump 4 came to life. The screen lit up. The nozzle unlocked itself and then gasoline started pouring out of the concrete.
There wasn’t a car connected to it. The nozzle still rested in its holder. Gasoline simply spilled from the end of it, splashing across the pavement beneath the pump. Now, my first instinct was to run outside. The emergency shut off switch sat right beside the front door. One slap would stop every pump on the property.
I actually reached for the handle and then I remembered the rule. Don’t touch it. I stood there watching. The gasoline kept flowing. The smell reached the front door almost immediately. The puddle spread beneath the pump, reflecting the bright canopy lights. It kept growing. 30 seconds, 40, a full minute. Finally, the pump clicked. The display froze. Exactly 10 gallons.
Not a drop more. The nozzle locked itself again. Everything went silent. And I waited. Nothing happened. That’s it. I spent the next several minutes staring through the window. The puddle just sat there. Nobody arrived or climbed out of the woods. Nobody came from the highway. I started wondering if Denise had simply been wasting 10 gallons of gas every night for some bizarre reason.
And then I noticed movement beyond the edge of the parking lot. Someone was walking toward the station from the trees. He wore dirty blue overalls and heavy work boots. At first, he looked completely normal. And then he stepped beneath a canopy. His skin wasn’t skin. It looked like tree bark. Dark brown cracks ran across his face, neck, and hands.
Small patches of green moss covered one side of his jaw, and there were tiny leaves coming from his left shoulder. He never looked toward the store. He walked directly to the puddle beneath pump 4. knelt and drank a big slurp of the gasoline. Then he stood up and walked away straight back into the woods. I was still trying to process what I had seen when another figure appeared.
This one was a woman. She wore an old white dress stained with mud from the knees down. Her black hair hung past her waist. She crossed the parking lot without making a sound. And when she reached the puddle, she didn’t kneel. She simply stared into it. For nearly a minute, she stood completely still, looking at her own reflection in the gasoline.
Then she smiled, turned, walked back into the darkness. The puddle remained untouched. 5 minutes later, another visitor arrived. This one ducked beneath the canopy because it was too tall to fit comfortably underneath. It had the body of a man, but its head belonged to a deer. The antlers twisted in impossible directions, and one eye glowed a faint yellow, while the other looked completely white.
It carried an old metal lunchbox. The thing stopped beside pump four, opened the lunchbox, scooped a small amount of gasoline into it with one enormous hand, closed the lid, then continued walking without ever acknowledging the station. I watched until it disappeared behind the treeine. And over the next hour, they kept coming, not in groups, always alone.
A woman with skin so pale it almost reflected the lights. a man whose shadow walked half a step behind him. Something shaped roughly like a person, but wrapped entirely in thick gray fur despite the warm night. An old man whose eyes looked completely black. Each of them approached the puddle. Each of them paused for a few seconds.
Some simply looked at it. Some touched it. Some drank from it. None entered the store. None spoke. None even glanced through the windows. Just before 4:00, the last visitor arrived. It looked like a little girl. Couldn’t have been older than, I don’t know, seven. She wore a yellow dress and carried a small teddy bear missing one button eye.
For the first time all night, I felt sorry for one of them. She walked slowly toward pump 4, stopped beside the gasoline, then carefully dipped one finger into the puddle. She smiled, skipped happily toward the woods, and halfway there, she stopped, turned, looked directly at me through the front window. Her eyes were completely black.
She raised one hand, pointing toward the forest behind the station. I followed her finger without thinking. There were hundreds of figures standing silently among the trees. I hadn’t seen them arrive. They weren’t moving. They simply stood between the trunks, watching the gas station, watching me. The little girl turned and joined them.
And within seconds, every figure disappeared into the darkness. The woods became empty again. I didn’t leave the building until sunrise. When Denise arrived, the puddle beneath pump 4 was gone. The concrete was completely dry. There wasn’t even a stain. I checked the pump records after counting the register, and pump 4 had dispensed exactly 10 gallons.
No customer had been charged. No money was missing. Everything balanced perfectly. I never asked Denise about the visitors. I already knew what she’d say. Some questions were safer left unanswered. But from then on, every night at exactly 217, I watched 10 gallons of gasoline spill onto the pavement. And every night those things came for it.
Rule four. If the coffee machine starts brewing by itself after midnight, don’t touch it. After 3 weeks at the station, I stopped thinking of the rules as warnings. They were schedules. The blackout happened when the lights went out. The man in the raincoat always arrived on clear nights. Every night at 217, pump 4 gave away exactly 10 gallons of gas to things that didn’t belong anywhere I’d ever heard of. Nothing happened early.
Nothing happened late. The station followed a routine. Eventually, I realized something else. The rules weren’t there to stop the strange things from happening. They were there to stop me from interrupting them. And rule 4 proved that. It happened just after 1:00 in the morning. The station had been empty for almost an hour.
I’d finished stocking the coolers, counted the register, and was halfway through sweeping the coffee area when I heard the familiar click behind me. The coffee maker had turned itself on. I hadn’t touched it. There wasn’t a timer on the machine either. Denise hated programmable brewers because she’d had too many breaks over the years.
Every pot had to be started by hand. This one wasn’t. Water began dripping through the filter. The empty pot slowly filled with fresh coffee. I watched it for a few seconds and then I remembered the rule. So, I leaned the broom against the counter and waited. The smell spread through the storm. Fresh coffee, strong, dark, the kind Denise always made.
The machine gave its final beep and almost immediately the bell over the front door rang. A customer stepped inside. He looked almost normal. Blue jeans, brown work jacket, Orioles baseball cap. If I’d passed him in a grocery store, I wouldn’t have looked twice. Then he removed his cap. There wasn’t any hair underneath. His head was smooth gray stone.
Not skin. Stone. Tiny cracks ran across it like weathered concrete. He walked straight to the coffee station, filled the large cup, [music] placed two dollars on the counter, and left without looking at me. The bell rang again. This customer had to duck beneath the doorway. His shoulders nearly brushed both sides of the frame.
He wore an old flannel shirt stretched tight across a body that looked carved from tree trunks. Branches grew from one shoulder, complete with green leaves that gently rustled despite the still air inside the store. He carefully picked up the smallest coffee cup we sold. Somehow looked ridiculous in his enormous hand. He poured coffee almost to the top, added three packets of sugar, stirred it gently with one finger, set exact change beside the register, and walked back outside.
The bell never stopped ringing for long after that. One customer left, another entered. A woman whose eyes reflected the moonlight like a cat’s. An old man whose shadow moved a full second after he did. something wrapped completely in heavy bandages except for two bright yellow eyes. A figure wearing expensive business suit whose face remained hidden beneath a cloud of drifting black smoke.
None of them acknowledged me or asked for help. Every one of them walked directly to the coffee, poured a cup, paid and left. It reminded me of watching commuters grab breakfast before work. ordinary, routine, just not human. After maybe 15 minutes, the station was busier than I had ever seen it. A line actually formed. Nobody complained.
Nobody cut in front of anybody else. They simply waited. The giant, with branches growing from his shoulders, patiently stood behind a creature no taller than 4 feet, whose skin shimmerred like fish scales. Behind them waited a woman with antlers. Behind her stood something covered in dark feathers from head to toe.
Every few minutes, one customer finished, another stepped forward. I caught myself staring, not because they were frightening anymore, because they acted so normal. [music] One customer wiped spilled coffee off the counter with a napkin before leaving. Another noticed a crooked display of potato chips and straightened it while waiting in line.
Something with six thin arms spent nearly a minute deciding between hazelnut creamer and French vanilla before settling on plain black coffee instead. A broad creature with thick gray hide held the front door open for three smaller customers behind him. They thanked him. The bell rang again. [bell] This time, a tiny old woman shuffled inside, carrying an oversized purse.
She couldn’t have been more than 4t tall. Her nose curved almost like a bird’s beak. She filled a cup, opened her purse, and spent nearly two full minutes digging for exact change. The enormous tree shouldered customer waited behind her, never rushing her. He simply stood there quietly until she finished. The station suddenly felt less like a haunted building and more like a neighborhood coffee shop I’d somehow never known existed.
That thought disappeared when another customer entered. He was so tall his back scraped the ceiling tiles. His arms hung almost to the floor. His skin looked pale enough to glow. The entire station became real quiet. Every customer stopped moving. The giant walked to the coffee station, filled the cup, then noticed the pot was almost empty.
He looked at it for several seconds, and then slowly he turned toward me. It was the first time all night one of them had looked directly at me. Every instinct I had screamed to step backward, but instead I stood perfectly still. He looked from me to the coffee maker, then back again, and then he gently placed the empty pot beneath the brewer, pressed the brew button once, then he nodded to himself.
Shortly after, he quietly walked out. The line immediately started moving again, and I finally understood another part of the rule. The coffee wasn’t for me. That wasn’t the employee. I was like the caretaker. The machine belonged to them while it was brewing. Around 2:30, something unexpected happened.
The front door opened and Deputy Brett Snider walked inside. He looked exhausted. He stopped after two steps and his eyes moved across the station, across the customers and the line. Not one of them reacted to him. He looked toward me and I shook my head just once. His eyes dropped to the coffee maker, then to the laminated rural sheet lying beside the register.
Without saying a word, Brett tipped his hat, backed slowly out the front door, and left. Apparently, he knew better. The coffee pot finally ran dry around 3. The last customer poured what remained into a paper cup, placed three silver dollars on the counter instead of cash, walked outside. The line disappeared with surprising speed after that.
Within less than a minute, every customer had gone. The parking lot stood empty again. I looked at the three silver coins. They looked ancient. Each one was worn almost smooth. I reached toward them. Don’t. [music] Denise’s voice nearly stopped my heart. I turned around and she was standing in the doorway to the office.
I hadn’t even heard her come in. She walked over, picked up the three coins with a folded shop towel and dropped them into a small steel lock box beneath the counter. Never touch the old Roman coins. I didn’t even know you were here, I said. I stay in the office on coffee nights. I stared at her. You watched all that, huh? I’ve watched it for 32 years.
What are they? She locked the box. They’re customers. They’re monsters. They pay. She looked around the spotless station. They never steal. She pointed toward the coffee maker. They wait their turn. Then she looked back at me. You know, I’ve had [music] human customers cause far more trouble. And I couldn’t argue with that.
She grabbed [music] the empty coffee pot, rinsed it in the sink, and set it back beneath the machine. The station looked completely ordinary again. If someone had walked in right then, they would have seen a clean, convenient store. Fresh floors, stock shelves, and two employees getting ready for the morning rush.
Rule five. If a child comes in alone looking for his parents, don’t help him look for him. By the time I reached the fifth rule, I’d stopped wondering whether Denise was crazy. The rules worked. I didn’t understand them. I didn’t even pretend to. I just followed them. After everything I’d already seen, surviving seemed more important than understanding.
It happened near the end of my shift. The clock behind a register a little after 5:00 in the morning. Sunrise was still almost an hour away. The coffee pots had been cleaned. The floors were mopped and I was counting cigarettes before Denise arrived for the morning shift. The highway had been empty for nearly 30 minutes.
And then the front door chimed. I looked up expecting another truck driver, but instead a little boy walked inside. He couldn’t have been older than eight. His jeans were dirty. His sneakers looked like he’d walked through miles of mud. He held a faded stuffed rabbit by one ear. The toy had once been white. Now it was mostly gray.
The boy quietly shut the door behind him and looked around the station. He seemed lost, unsure. When he reached the counter, he looked up at me with big tired eyes. Have you seen my mom? For a split second, I almost answered. I almost told him, “Hey, we look together.” I almost stepped around the counter.
And then I felt the rule sheet inside my pocket. If a child comes in alone looking for his parents, don’t help him look for him. My stomach tightened. I um I’m I’m sorry. I I haven’t. The boy nodded. He looked sad. He hugged the stuffed rabbit a little tighter. Okay. He stood there quietly, and I wasn’t sure what to do.
He looked completely normal. No glowing eyes or claws, no strange voice, just a tired little kid. Finally, I grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler. You can have this. He smiled. Thank you. He took it with both hands. And then he walked over to the freezer doors, sat there, and drank his water. Every few minutes, he quietly patted the rabbit’s head like he was making sure it was comfortable, too.
The station stayed completely quiet. No cars or headlights, no footsteps outside. I found myself watching him whenever I wasn’t pretending to straighten shelves. Something about the whole situation felt off. Several minutes passed and then the boy brushed his hair away from his forehead and that was when I noticed them. Tiny black horns.
They were barely visible beneath his hair, only a couple inches long, smooth, curved slightly backward, small enough that I probably would have missed him if he hadn’t moved. He didn’t notice me staring. He just kept sipping his water, waiting. A few minutes later, the boy stood up. He carried the empty water bottle over to the trash can, dropped it inside, then looked toward me.
I think they’re here. I hadn’t heard a car, hadn’t heard footsteps. I looked toward the parking lot and it was empty. When I looked back, the boy was already walking toward the door. He gave me one small wave. Bye. The bell chimed as he stepped outside. I should have stayed behind the counter. I know that.
But curiosity had gotten me into trouble before, and apparently, I hadn’t learned my lesson. I quietly walked to the front window, careful not to let him see me. The boy crossed the empty parking lot, and then he ran, not toward the highway, toward the grassy hill behind the station. He climbed it easily and when he reached the top he stopped.
There were two figures there. Even from hundreds of feet away, I could tell they were enormous, 15 ft tall, maybe taller. Their silhouettes stood against the brightening sky. Each had long curved horns rising from their heads. Their shoulders were wider than the station’s front doors, and their eyes glowed with a soft red light.
The boy reached them. The larger figure bent down first. The father, he gently lifted the child into his arms like he weighed nothing. The smaller figure stepped closer. The mother rested one enormous hand on top of the boy’s head, and the little rabbit disappeared against the father’s shoulder. For several seconds, the three of them simply stood together.
It looked almost ordinary in a strange way, like a family picking up a child after school. The father adjusted the boy comfortably against one shoulder and the child pointed back toward the gas station, probably talking about the water, maybe talking about me. And then all three slowly turned. The father looked directly toward the station, toward me, and even from that distance, I was terrified.
The father never blinked as his red eyes stared over at me. Neither did the mother. They watched the station for several long seconds and then a hand gently rested on my shoulder. I jumped the knees. She didn’t say a word. She simply reached past me and closed the blinds. The parking lot disappeared behind white plastic slats.
For another few seconds, neither of us spoke. Then finally she said, “That’s why we don’t help him. His parents are always hungry.” Neither of us opened the blinds again. Maybe an hour went by and curiosity won one last time. After Denise unlocked the front door for the morning deliveries, I quietly stepped outside.
The morning air felt unusually cold. I walked to the edge of the parking lot and the grass leading up to the hill was covered in footprints. One small set belonged to the boy and beside them two much larger sets stretched toward the forest. Each footprint had sunk several inches into solid ground. The earth looked compressed beneath every step, like something impossibly heavy had walked there.
I followed the trail with my eyes until it disappeared beneath the trees. And after that, there wasn’t a single sound. Just another quiet morning at the loneliest gas station on Highway 41. Well, morning finally arrived. The first rays of sunlight filtered through the trees, and for the first time all night, the station looked completely ordinary again.
A delivery truck pulled into the lot. A woman stopped in for coffee on her way to work. A man filled his pickup and bought a lottery ticket before getting back on the highway. If someone had walked in right then, they never would have guessed what had happened only an hour earlier. Denise unlocked the front door, flipped the sign to open, and started counting the register like it was any other morning.
For a while, neither of us said anything. Finally, I broke the silence. Can I ask you something? you usually do. I looked toward the woods behind the station. Why is this place here? She finished counting the bills in her drawer before answering. Because every road has travelers. I waited, hoping she’d say more. Instead, she started brewing another pot of coffee.
After another minute, I tried again. Yeah, but where do they come from? This time she actually paused, then shrugged. Oh, I stopped asking a long time ago. She looked at me for a moment before closing the register drawer. There wasn’t any frustration in her voice. No curiosity either, just acceptance like she’d learned years ago that some questions simply didn’t have answers.
A family came in to pay for gas and the conversation ended there. Denise smiled, wished him a safe trip, and went back to stocking cigarettes behind the counter as though we’d been talking about tomorrow’s weather instead of everything I’d seen over the past few weeks. I carried my coffee outside.
The morning air was cool, and a light layer of fog still drifted across the highway. Birds were singing somewhere beyond the trees. The parking lot looked exactly the way it had the day I first started working there. And then something caught my attention. I looked across the highway. For the first time since I’d taken the job, I really looked.
There wasn’t a road over there. There should have been. Customers drove in from that direction every single night. I’d watched headlights appear from those trees hundreds of times. But in the daylight, there was only forest. Dense hardwood trees stretched as far as I could see. No pavement or side road, no gravel entrance, just trees.
I stood there staring, convinced I I had to be missing something. And then another customer pulled into the station. An older man filled his truck, came inside for coffee, paid in cash, wished me good morning, and climbed back behind the wheel. A few moments later, another customer arrived. Then another. By then, nothing about the morning felt unusual anymore.
And that’s when I realized something. Before I started working here, I thought monsters only existed in stories. I was wrong. They buy coffee. They wait in line. They pick up their children after school. And every night [music] they stop for gas. [music] [music] >> [music]