Incident 1: Definitely Not Paid Enough for This
“Sir, or ma’am, or nonbinary person, I must insist you get off the ceiling.”
The…whatever it was…stopped mid-crawl along the ceiling and turned its oddly-shaped head to look down at him, stringy hair dangling a good three feet.It looked humanoid-ish.At least, it had two arms, two legs, and a head connected to the torso, so Ross was going with humanoid on this one.He had no idea how it was sticking to the ceiling, though, as it didn’t have any webbing ability he could discern.Magic?
Ross had been a cashier at the Aunt May’s Gas Station for going on eight months.And while that wasn’t a long stretch of time, it had been sufficient to immune his flight or fight instincts to things.Mostly things that weren’t human.Or animal.Or anything else in a zoology chart.Not that his heart didn’t still shoot up into his throat sometimes, but he’d learned anything that politely entered through the front door didn’t have the desire to snack on him or suck out his immortal soul.Or whatever it was things of the night did.
When he’d first taken the job as night shift cashier, he’d more or less expected the weirdos.After all, no one saw you look worse than the gas station closest to your house.And Aunt May’s sat smack on the edge of town, sandwiched vbetween apartments and industrial warehouses.Odds were he’d get the night shift workers, the insomniacs—that kind of crowd.
In retrospect, the cagey way the owner of the gas station had asked if he had a heart condition should have been his first clue.
The above minimum wage pay should have been his second.
And really, he had no one to blame but himself that he’d proven to be unshockable.It wasn’t that he didn’t startle, it was just that he didn’t flinch in an obvious way.His first nonhuman customer hadn’t been scary, per se, just odd.It hadn’t even registered she wasn’t human, at first.
Ross hadn’t believed in the supernatural until his first night on this job.It had been a whirlwind since, no kidding.His brain sometimes entered this la-la land where he could pretend everything was normal.He’d lose it otherwise.Still, that first customer should have been his cue to run.But who could take a hungover vampire seriously?
And a hungover vampire who drank Gatorade and whimpered for aspirin?He couldn’t find that scary.Besides, where else was he going to find a job that paid this well?That, you know, didn’t resort to prostitution or drug running.
So, he’d stuck it out.And kept sticking it out.And now word had gotten around that he didn’t spook, that it was safe to come, or something.Because now he had these creatures in the storeevery night.
This one, though.He wasn’t even sure what this one was.
Harsh fluorescent lighting along the ceiling flickered in warning as the zombie-spectral thing got too close to one of them, giving the creature an eerie appearance.Well, eerie-er.The whole setup with the narrow aisles and the quiet, midnight hour already gave the small store a haunted house vibe.All they were missing was the spooky music and dry ice.
Ross loved all mythical creatures: vampires, werewolves, unicorns, customers who listened.
Too much sarcasm?
The creature pointed an innocent finger toward itself, head canted as if to say,Who, me?
“Yes, you,” Ross replied patiently.(He’d learned not to shout; all it did was scare them and make matters worse.Much, much worse.He never had completely patched up that hole in the wall.) “Get down.You’ll disturb other customers by crawling around like that.What are you looking for?Maybe I can find it for you.”
Almost sheepishly, the thing crawled back down the wall on all fours, rather like a spider.A rather large, child-sized spider, although with fortunately less legs.Its grey, mottled skin looked even worse close-up.Once on the worn-out tiled floor, it tentatively pointed toward the nearest cooler with a claw-like finger.
Ross surmised it wanted one of the drinks and wasn’t sure how to get to it.The oldest creatures—the ones from long-past eras—were confused by modern conveniences.Some of them couldn’t touch anything with iron in it at all.The handles and casing of the fridge units were all stainless steel, meaning they had iron mixed in.(Ross had also learned about that the hard way.)
He stepped forward with an eagle eye on his less-than-normal patron and opened the door.“Which?”
The creature pointed hopefully to the nearest energy drink, the one with lethal amounts of caffeine and alcohol.Ross didn’t even want to question what kind of buzz caffeine and alcohol would give this thing.
Ross fetched it out, letting the door close.He’d learned (still the hard way) to ask the obvious question next.“You have a way to pay for this?And by pay, I mean actual currency.Company policy forbids me from exchanging my blood, my soul, or my firstborn child with customers.”
The creature bopped its head and from somewhere within its ratty dress-smock thing fished out a single, crumpled dollar bill.It wouldn’t quite be enough to cover the cost—it was eight cents short—but Ross let that slide.He had a penny jar on the counter for a reason.
“Okay, I’ll ring you up.Thanks for stopping in.”
It grinned—and wow, no—before scuttling out of the store, the door chime signaling its exit.
“Was that a goblin?”
Ross didn’t visibly jump at the sudden voice behind him.He was used to thinking he was alone in the store, only to have something or someone appear out of thin air.His heart leapt, and no doubt the vampire standing nearby heard it, but Ross didn’t let on she’d scared the crap out of him.Turning, he greeted one of his more regular customers.“Annabella.I have no idea what that was, actually.”
“You have no idea what it was, but you dared to order it to get down and then fetched an energy drink for it.”She brushed back her immaculate blonde hair, brown eyes narrowed in amusement.“You are something.”
“I’m more confused why a creature of the night wanted a Monster energy drink to begin with,” he answered honestly.Gatorade, in his experience, was for two types of people: the night-owls and the hung-over-dying.“You here for the usual?”
“Sure am.Ring me up.”
