I'm a college student, who's working a part-time job at an office supply store. Yeah, living the American dream, working myself to death at a dumb job to pay for my stupid education that I probably don't need.
But I digress.
I've got a really average life; I go to classes Tuesdays and Thursdays, I work Friday through Sunday, and I fit everything else somewhere in between. The days start to blur together, honestly. There's something so mind-numbingly routine about having the same schedule every week and sometimes I wonder if I'm completely "there" mentally anymore. I started to wonder this moreso after my shift on a Friday night a few weeks ago.
The day didn't feel much different to start- I woke up early as per usual, and used as much free time as possible to laze in bed before I left for work at 1:00pm. Even arriving to the store, things played out like normal, although it was weirdly busy. Normally, Fridays were notably dead, Saturdays were a coin toss, and Sundays were busy. It certainly felt like Sunday traffic, but I chocked it up to being the holidays.
The afternoon rush only made closing all the more creepy. It was early December, so the sun started to set around 4:00pm and the outside world was completely submerged in darkness by 5.
I worked the front, and I stood at the register parallel to a very large window on my left. The parking lot outside was incredibly dim, and thanks to the fast food place across the way being under construction, there was next to no light outside besides five double-bulb street lamps.
On that night, I stood hunched over the counter in the empty store scrolling through my phone. Since the sun set we had basically no customers, and it was the easy going manager on shift today, so I didn't have to worry too much about slacking off.
I was bored out of my mind- but I couldn't quite shake a creeping feeling of dread. I set down my phone, glancing around the store for any activity. Besides the gentle machinery and chatting back and forth between my two colleagues in print and the third shuffling around in tech- there was nothing.
My brows furrowed. I'm an anxious person, but I never quite felt dread this heavy before.
Was it my upcoming finals next week? Or the thought of working 9 hours tomorrow? I shook my head, merely writing it off as my general anxiety being overblown due to the stress of life at the moment.
I stared out the window, eyes flicking between the only notable landmarks outside- the five sets of street lights. They were warm and bright, pulsating ever so slightly. It was weird- I noted- that I could've sworn the parking lot only had three visible lights from my window.
It was strange, but nothing terribly weird. I probably just remembered wrong. An hour later, I completely forgot about it.
Around 7, I found myself staring out the window again. We still barely had any customers and the time was just scraping by at a crawl. I looked at the lights again, only to find there were now 6 sets of lights. I wasn't sure if I was seeing things correctly, or if I remembered it wrong. By this point I had been awake for 12 hours and barely ate or sat down since I started work, and I figured I'm probably just tired. But I couldn't shake that weird uneasy feeling that plagued me when I thought about it too much.
I always thought in my brain, gotta make it to 8pm. We close at 9- so at 8, I start doing closing duties, and the last hour flies by. So I choose not to include it when counting down the hours. As I was watching the clock, close to 8pm, I kept repeating in my head that I was almost done, almost ready to go home. But of course, those last 10 minutes always last hours.
I found my eyes being drawn to the window again- and this time, it was unmistakable. The street lights- no, whatever these lights were, there were ten of them now. I knew, deep in my gut, that this was wrong. There was no way I was seeing things, or remembering things correctly, something was out there. Many things.
I started to grow anxious. The lights were unmoving, and at various sizes, meaning some of them were possibly closer than others. But I couldn't really tell. Everything else was pitch black. Everything else that possibly could've been distinguished was blocked by the reflection of the inside of the store and the many lights inside. 8pm couldn't come soon enough.
As soon as the clock hit 7:59:59 I was booking it towards the back with the garbage bags in hand, calling out over the radio that I needed one of my coworkers to cover the front while I did some closing stuff.
I dawdled, as long as I could, in the back or around the store- I refusing to look at the windows. Before I knew it, my adrenaline filled frenzy carried me all the way to 9pm where we officially closed. Usually I sat behind the counter and waited for my manager to finish up what he needed to, but tonight I huddled by the tech counter facing away from the outside. I didn't dare look.
Minutes passed, which felt like hours, when my manager finally finished up and announced we were all going home. I braced myself to turn around and face the horror outside for the first time in an hour. What would I see? The lights even closer? Or perhaps even more added to their numbers?
Unfortunately, it was even worse than that.
They were gone.
I couldn't explain it, but my stomach dropped. Seeing them all disappear was more horrifying than anything else I could've imagined. The group of warm pulsing lights was replaced by the usual three cold, sterile lights of the street lamps.
My manager must've noticed my horror, as he turned to me and arched a brow. "Uh.. you okay? You look really fucking spooked." I shook my head and laughed it off as just remembering an assignment I forgot to turn in. It didn't explain my hesitation when everyone stepped out into the night, the cold winter air blasting our faces as the red doors slid open to the night.
The moon was barely there, mostly shrouded by a thick overhead of clouds, explaining the intense darkness. We all said our goodbyes and piled into our cars, and I fiddled with my phone to plug it into the aux. I figured a bit of music will calm my nerves, but my phone just refused to connect. I grunted and huffed in annoyance, un-plugging, re-plugging and restarting my phone furiously. Nothing worked, and I decided to flick on a random radio station. It was all talk shows or very crappy music, and frankly the shitty music just put me more on edge, so I sighed and flicked the radio off completely.
I was so caught up in the music troubles that I didn't even notice all my coworkers had already drove off out of the parking lot.
I was now alone.
Shakily, I gripped the steering wheel with one hand, and used the other to put the car into reverse.
I looked into my rear view, and my blood went cold and my arms locked up.
The same warm, pulsing lights from before were now clustered behind my car, reflecting in the mirror, each one swaying and bobbing slightly as they grew closer into view. They were everywhere, in all my mirrors, encroaching on the rear and sides of my car. Within an instant, I slammed my foot on the gas and I saw the lights scatter as my car flew backwards. Tires screeching I threw it into drive and sped into the night and joined traffic back on the main road.
Because I lived in a dorm, I parked in a parking garage approximately 5 minutes from my building.
It took every bit of courage I had to run out into the night and sprint all the way back to my building- and I didn't stop until my feet were planted firmly inside in the light.
The lobby to my dorm building had three large windows facing out towards the pitch black street.
I didn't dare look.
Next morning I called my general manager, and I don't work closing anymore.
