Night Shift

Chapter 7

I'm on the highway again. This time I'm lying on the road, staring up at the sky, calm ambient music flowing through my ears.

One of the few things I love about living in a town as small as this, is the lack of traffic. I can lie here and not have to worry about any cars coming. I could sleep here if I wanted to.

It's a pointless thing to do, staring up at the sky. I find that the only reason to stare at the sky is to gaze at the stars, but the amount of light pollution that comes from the mines takes away the starlight. I enjoy what I can see, though.

Maybe I could walk further down the highway, the path out into the dark void, where I've never dared to enter during my shifts. I'd definitely be able to see a sky full of stars out there, but I know I will never venture out that far. My place is here, and that's not changing anytime soon.

I look toward the store. I can see a man standing at the register, staring absent-mindedly. He wasn't there five seconds ago, it's like he apparated into thin air. I've never seen him walk into the store, he just always seems to pop up when I have my back turned, or when I'm out back sorting out the stock.

I unplug my earphones from my phone and pocket them; the ambient music stops and is replaced by the sound of the mines again. I get up and walk back to The Myriad. He looks over at me when the bell sounds. He looks crazed, like he's not all there. He always looks like this, though. He's the talk of the town, the village nutcase.

"Good evening, sir," I smile.

"It won't be good for long!" he shouts. His face is all scrunched up, like he's constantly thinking about the next word he's going to say. Yet he never stutters or pauses. His sentences flow out of him confidently.

"Oh? And why do you say that?" I ask.

"It's 1AM, and yet there's no explosion!"

"Explosion?" I say.

"You know! The eight o'clock explosion, the one they do every night. But tonight, there was none. How has no one noticed this?"

The explosion always happens every night at around 8pm underground, as well as 8 am every morning. I believe it's to loosen large sections of rock to make it easier to extract and process. The explosion sends the city into a little rumble. Just a few shakes, nothing serious.

Newcomers always mistake it for an earthquake. It's a fun prank that the locals make, pretend to be all freaked out and duck down to the ground. For someone like me, who has never had the chance to get out of here, you never notice.

He's always done this. Always trying to induce fear into people with wild conspiracy theories. Some nights I humour him by acting freaked out with him. We have even gone as far as calling the police (at least I pretend to anyway. He never knows the difference). Other nights I just subtly usher him out the door. He doesn't know where he is half the time and just walks away in some direction.

Tonight, I don't want to deal with it. I walk by his side and gently grab him by the arm, listening closely to his mumblings and whatnot.

"No one listens... some people never die, and I'm one of them... it's my own personal hell..."

I don't offer anything to say.

I open the door and usher him out of it, wishing him a good night. He stands by the entrance for a few seconds with his back to me before he walks to the right. It looks like he's heading out of town, out into the dark void, but he takes another right down the street, and the darkness from there swallows him whole. It's saving him for tomorrow where it will spit him back out and he will bother me again.

Usually at this point, really late at night, I don't have to worry about any other customers. They won't come until about an hour before I clock off, when the morning shift mine workers need a quick bite to eat before they start their long 12-hour day.

Yet I feel like there's someone else in the store.